true friendship is. . .

Disclaimer: this is a "my life," post. feel free to avoid. haha....

Yesterday, I saw this in a book store in Claremont, on a little magnet. It said something like:

"Friendship begins when someone knows what you are really like, but still like you anyway."

Almost two months ago, I posted on my livejournal asking what the purpose of friendship was, because the people who I had considered to be my friends -- I feared they actually weren't --or were not doing what I expected of them. In college I have different sets of friends. I have my close group of friends, my activist friends, my party friends, etc. And it's funny, because it was not just one of my groups, but all each in their own ways were failing me. I then began to doubt many of friendships in my life. I started to wake up and continue to realize how many acquaintances those friendships turned out to be.

Sometimes I wish the acquaintances would become true friendships. I think that's where my problem lies...

I wish I could psycho-analyze my life because I've had a lot of difficulty with friendships, more so than the average person, I think. er. maybe? In high school, my memories are divided into the moments when my friendships fell apart. When I was in high school, I was closer to my middle school friends.

Maybe it's true that my friends aren't there for me, but maybe I'm not there for them either. I can't seem to find the balance. Even in McNair, last week I felt myself trying to push away from the other students here.

Before I got to college, I was very wary of making new friendships. Now in college, I think I take them on too readily, making myself vulnerable that has been leaving me hurt in the long run.

Seriously?!

All black people look alike. That's the first impression I get from the recasting of Merrin Dungey's role in Grey's Anatomy new spin-off, Private Practice. Or perhaps my second impression is, if a show isn't working, re-cast the black actress in it because 1) they must be the one who lacks the chemistry with all the other white actors and 2) no one in our American audience will miss her or be able to tell the difference, for that matter. I haven't read much about recasting roles in television and perhaps I'm just sad because I'm a fan of Dungey's work from Alias but I find it odd that out of all the actors they had to replace it had to be the one woman of color on the show.

Of course you could say it could be worse - they could not have any woman of color on the show. But then isn't that setting our standards low? It could always be worse!

This sadly only reveals the type-casting in Hollywood. Even in talk shows like The View. When Star Jones left the show, the guest-hosts who literally took her seat were all black women. For one, Sherri Shepherd has been on the show at least a dozen times But what about when Meredith Vieira left they hired Rosie O'Donnell. (Sidenote: Despite Rosie's racism, I am actually sad that Rosie left the view, I despise that IheartBush-pro-occupation-Elisabeth!)

Other recasting that comes to mind is Wonderfalls' recasting of Jaye Tyler's best friend, Tracie Thoms. Although no one would know because as when many recasting occurs, they reshot the pilot before any public viewers could see it. The most prevalent that comes to mind is the recasting of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's Janet Hubert-Whitten, who after her pregnancy on the show literally became a different woman. The reason she left the show was due to "creative" differences with Will Smith. hm, that's interesting...

Anyways I could totally be reading way too much into this, or generalizing and only giving three examples. A lot of people credit Shonda Rhimes and even ABC for helping to change the face of television by giving more roles to people of color. Uh yeah, not helping in representations merely in giving the actors roles. We still have a long way to go...

Why is the main actress white? Why was there only one nonwhite male to swoon over, and even then he's gone? Why does Cristina have to be the super-competitive one? Why did Izzie and Meredith first consider Dr. Callie Torres to be a freak? Why do the interracial couples (but I do applaud Rhimes for her consideration of interracial to go beyond the black/white binary) get unhappy endings - Burke left Cristina at the wedding? Why is Izzie the only one who has faced issues of class and gender? And why... why do the people of color on the show fit roles that white actors could have played? Their race/ethnicity is never mentioned - which just like television programs such as the Cosby Show says that we can't television recurring characters who are people of color on primetime and actually acknowledge that they are at the same time.