3 minutes:

I don’t watch a lot of television anymore – mostly sports and some game shows and a few PBS series. Seems like television series that has any real value has gone to the pay for streaming route leaving the old network and basic cable channels pretty much void of interesting content. And of course as far as I know most cable channels and the streaming channels are owned by the four or five major entertainment conglomerates.

I can’t remember who owns what anymore, but a company like Disney owns ABC and ESPN etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So if they have a show that has any possibility that they can somehow milk to raise the bottom line, they will do so. Make the suckers pay as it were.

So imagine my surprise Wednesday when when I saw the “1619 Project” listed as a show on ABC. My first inclination was that the listing must have somehow been misplaced from the PBS grid line, but no – PBS had their own usual programs on. 

This seemed like a gutsy move by one of the entertainment corporations to put something on commercial TV that actually might spark a little controversy. Now I do not know a lot about the “1619 Project” but I do know that it has a decidedly different perception of American history and society than the white washed dreck that most of us learned in high school.

I also know that the “”1619 Project” was one of the catalysts that spurred a major backlash by far right Republican state legislatures across the country to mandate that public schools teach the same old white washed dreck that has made high school history such a chore. In many cases legislatures also added some ‘big brother’ provisions so if a teacher steps out of line then the teacher can be in some cases fired and worse.

The last thing I know is that the woman behind the”1619 Project” is an Iowan – Nikole Hannah-Jones. So I was curious what she had put together as a product of an Iowa public school system. I believe she is a graduate of West Waterloo High School.

With all that as a background I recorded the “1619 Project” Wednesday and had a chance to watch about a half an hour of it Thursday. This is the kind of television (or movies for that matter) that I can sink my teeth into. Right out of the gate, Ms. Hannah-Jones introduces us to a different perspective and what led her to the “1619 Project.” 

She then moves on to some discussion of historical stories that you never heard. A threat by the British governor of Virginia to arm slaves in an attempt to quell the rebellious colony. President Lincoln trying to tie emancipation of slaves to a push to get them to voluntarily go to Africa – return would be the wrong word as most by then were born in the US.

Such stories as this were interweaved with the constant – and still ongoing – fight for the right to vote and full citizenship. Among the tools Ms. Hannah-Jones uses are interviews with some of the early civil rights participants. She is visibly shaken as one older man describes his experience at the infamous Parchman Prison in Mississippi during the 1960s civil rights movement.

Reality make the best stories and there is little as real as black peoples’ fight for full citizenship in this country.

Now that I look it up I see that this was a one night only event on ABC. While I am glad they put this on their broadcast channel so a wide audience could experience the reality of race in this country, once more ABC and Disney raise one of the main criticisms of media and capitalism in this country. 

It appears the Wednesday broadcast was only a teaser to get folks to sign up for their Hulu streaming service. And now back to our regularly scheduled mush. Well, thanks for a brief shining moment anyway.