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‘Black.White.’ was chance for dad to be upfront, incognito
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If Brian and Bruno ever get together again, they’ll be cordial, then do what most of us do:
Not talk about race.
“That’s one subject we can’t deal with,” Brian Sparks said. “We bumped heads quite a bit.”
The Sparkses, of Lilburn, took part in “Black.White.”, the FX show in which a black family becomes white and a white family becomes black. Amazing what makeup can do.
The Sparkses are the black family that became white. The Wurgels (and boyfriend Bruno Marcotulli) of Santa Monica, Calif., are the white family that became black. The six-episode reality series airs Wednesdays.
Sparks was surfing the Internet when he came across an ad for the show. He submitted a family photo. They werecalled up for three interviews. He had to talk his wife, Renee, and their son, Nick, into doing the show.
Of the three, he says, Renee had the toughest experience. She experienced two of the rare instances of overt racism on the show.
In a focus group, while she was in white makeup, a young white man told her his parents taught him to either wipe or wash his hands after shaking a black person’s hand.
And in a scene that takes place in a bar where Brian Sparks works as a white bartender, a patron told Renee that blacks segregate themselves by not wanting to fit in, that they are proud to be dumb.
“She’d be the first one to say that she wouldn’t do this again,” said Sparks, 41.
He, on the other hand, would relish the chanceto trade races. He likens it to being a fly on the wall.
“There are plenty of situations where you wish you could see what the whites are saying in a particular situation,” the computer networks specialist said. “This was my chance.”
Sparks thinks the Wurgels had a tougher time swapping races than his family did. Blacks, he said, are used to adapting and conforming.
“We play America’s game,” he said. “When you’re white, you can go all your life and never have to live black culture, or any other culture, for that matter.”
It’s no one’s fault. Confusion, clichés and flat-out misunderstanding reign on what it means to be black (or white, for that matter) in America. It’s a situation that can lead tofaux pas.
Like the one that occurred in the second episode of “Black.White.”
The Wurgels go shopping for clothes to wear to a black church service. Carmen Wurgel gets a dashiki. Sparks tells her it isn’t proper attire. Onscreen, it’s a nice exchange. Off camera, Sparks said he was vehement to the family and the show’s producers.
“I told them I would not let them disrespect the African heritage like that,” he said. “I wouldn’t go to Japan and throw on a kimono.”
I know what you’re thinking: angry black man. Maybe so. Don’t dismiss him so quickly.
He wants the rest of us to do what he and Bruno can’t do. Talk about matters of race.
“Long as people watch the show and walk away with that, my job is done,” hesaid.
“And that’s what I want everybody to do.”
Me too.
Comments
By Leona Lint
March 23, 2006 05:33 AM | Link to this
I have been following this reality show from the beginning. I never thought a reality show could pull so many thoughts, feelings and opinions. My opinion is that they need to share eachother’s expieriences, such as, when Brian went into the shoe store as a white man and could not believe the service he recieved as a white man, instead of Bruno dismissing Brian as he did, Bruno should have went to the store as a black man and so on and so forth. I think Bruno thinks he knows it all about everything. I think Rose was the first one to open her mind. Carmen seems to be starting to get it a bit. I can fully understand why Renee has been so infuriated with Carmen, how could she think that the word b*** is a term of endearment between any two women, black or white? And that beautiful black creature thing, what the hell was that?? I was floored!! But from what I viewed most recently she does seem to be trying to understand alot better, I hope she has finally come out of fruitloop land, I thought Carmen was nuts!! But perhaps where she is from the stereotypes are so exaggerated. I at first thought she was doing those things on purpose, but it seems as if she didn’t know what she was doing was insulting.