Norman Lear changed Black television

When I was a child, whenever someone uttered something I didn’t quite understand, I’d respond, “Whatcha talkin’ ‘bout Willis?” just like Arnold on Diff’rent Strokes.

I loved wearing my pressed hair in two curled ponytails with bangs like Tootie did on The Facts of Life.

At 5, I was banned from watching Sanford & Son after I slapped a toy out of my cousin’s hands, rolled my eyes, and called him a fish-eyed fool and a heathen in my best Aunt Esther imitation.

That was the power of Norman Lear’s situation comedies on my little pop-culture psyche back in the 1970s and 1980s, when Lear’s shows dominated the prime-time television landscape.

With shows like Maude and All in The Family, Lear, who died Wednesday morning in Los Angeles at 101, introduced taboo topics like rape, incest, and abortion to America’s living rooms in a way that educated us and made us laugh.

Lear’s impact on the Black situation comedy was groundbreaking. From The Jeffersons to Good Times, Lear introduced modern Black life to television, when before we just had Soul Train.

Black children saw ourselves in Arnold, Willis, Tootie, and Michael. Songs in these shows’ opening credits were schoolyard chants. Lear proved that Black shows starring Black people had a place on prime-time television, paving the way for a slew of 1990s comedies from Martin to Moesha.

It wasn’t all good in the hood. Lear’s shows were full of stereotypes. Sherman Hemsley’s George Jefferson moved on up to the East Side, but when he got there, he was rude, loud, obnoxious, and racist.

The Evans family on Good Times was always struggling and broke, so much so that my mother didn’t allow my sister and me to watch it because she didn’t want us to internalize that Black people never could have anything. She was also disgusted at how much of a buffoon JJ Evans (Jimmie Walker) was.

Lear’s portrayal of African Americans on television is why Black families rejoiced when The Cosby Show debuted in 1984. A Black family with a mom as a lawyer and a dad as a doctor was unheard of in Lear’s Black universe. The Huxtables were an educated breath of fresh air. Yet if it hadn’t been for Lear, would NBC executives have taken that chance?

Lear, born in 1922, started in television when the medium was in its infancy, writing comedy routines for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis before his first big hit, The Martha Wraye Show. All in the Family debuted in 1971 and was based off the BBC series, Til Death Do Us Part. Good Times first aired in 1974, The Jeffersons in 1975.

Lear was aware and proud of his impact on Black television. In 2016, he said in an MSNBC news article that through his work, white audiences learned “what a Black family was like. Without understanding it, they were growing to accept and understand differently the Black family in their lives.”

Yet the Black writers he worked with said his intentions weren’t always benevolent. Eric Monte, who along with Michael Evans worked with Lear on Good Times and went on to write the 1975 tragic romance, Cooley High, sued Lear for stealing his idea for the Jeffersons. Monte settled out of court for $1 million. He talked about it with then-Inquirer journalist Annette John-Hall in 2006 for Reelback.com.

Lear leaves behind a legacy that is problematic, groundbreaking, and memorable.

In 2019 ABC aired a reboot of The Jeffersons and All In the Family starring Jamie Foxx as George Jefferson and Woody Harrelson as Archie Bunker, drawing over 10 million viewers. In 2021 reboots of Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life aired.

I watched them both, nearly moved to tears. When the theme songs came on, I knew every word.