“Black-ish” takes on Donald Trump’s election
“Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris took on yet another controversial current event with the latest episode of his award-winning sitcom, which tackled Donald Trump’s election victory.
The series won praise a year ago for deftly addressing the issue of police brutality. Wednesday’s episode, titled “Lemons,” picked up eight weeks after Election Day, opening on the stunned faces of Dre Johnson (Anthony Anderson) and his family.
“I thought it spoke to a majority of the people that I knew, in terms of their shock and utter disbelief that Donald Trump is our president-elect, based on everything leading up to the election -- the things that he said, the things that he tweeted,” Anderson told Variety, describing his reaction to the episode’s script.
“It captured not only the voice of Andre but also the voice of concerned Americans and the voice of those who are also pro-Trump. This isn’t an anti-Trump script at all. It’s just a script about our reality in terms of what this election meant to us and what it means moving forward for the next four years.”
The majority of the episode took place in Dre’s character’s office, where reactions to the election were mixed, to say the least. When a Trump supporter argued that the president-elect will run the country like he does his business, Wanda Sykes’ character countered, “He goes bankrupt like Khloe Kardashian changes black dudes.”
The episode, which received overwhelmingly positive reviews online, ended with an impassioned monologue by Anderson’s character calling for unity and understanding.
"I love this country as much if not more than you do and don't you ever forget that." #blackish pic.twitter.com/zthkKdojq9
— black-ish (@black_ishABC) January 12, 2017