I hadn’t thought about that morning in the kitchen at my Dad’s house, for years.
A Colonial Penn commercial came on TV, and the minute agent Jonathan Lawson’s spiel was over, and Alex Trebek began speaking, Dad was furious.
“Wait a minute! What happened to Sam?”
(“Sam” was Dad’s default name for any random Black man.)
“Who?”, I asked.
“SAM! He was doing fine! I understood everything he said! Why do they need THIS guy? Sam could have done this by himself!”
My explanation of propaganda, and how companies customarily employ celebrity testimonials, was useless. Dad felt like “Sam” had been robbed.
It took me a minute, but I realized why the whole thing upset him so much. To him, it smacked of racism. It was unfair. When, in your lifetime, there’s been so little, positive representation, it triggers the notion that someone who looks like you, is not enough. It implies that incompetence, discrimination, disrespect, lack of confidence, and mistrust, are still alive and well.
“I still say, Sam didn’t need no help”, Dad grumbled.
Dad would have been so proud of “Sam”, today, representing Colonial Penn on The Sherri Shepherd Show.
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