Black History Month Heroes - Sharon Stone in "The Flintstones"

Throughout most of the history of the United States, Black people have been viewed as a regrettable nuisance, easily confined to ghettos and living quarters on “the other side of the tracks”. History books found it difficult to chronicle a list of exploits or inventions ascribed to Black people, a most unfortunate side-effect of the institutional and self-segregating ways employed by Black people.

Black people were largely ignored and history seemed to relegate their shockingly minor contributions - save for the inclusion of a tale of Harriet Tubman here or Fredrick Douglas there – to a mere footnote in the chronological accounts of America.

That ignorance of Black people’s truly colossal significance to the United States has been replaced with a month long celebration of their history and a marketing campaign generated by a large Fortune 50 – McDonald’s – that works to celebrate an authentic 365 Black atmosphere.

The success of the Civil Rights movement in America, of course, distilled United States history to one long train of abuses and usurpations toward Black people by the white majority and helped codify Black Run America (BRA), thereby creating a nearly infinite army of Disingenuous White Liberals to monitor and Crusading White Pedagogues to enforce the official policies of this benevolent regime at war with Pre-Obama America’s racist past.

Nothing could be more shockingly racist then the 1960s cartoons drawn by the artists at Hanna-Barbera. There, the future – as depicted in The Jetsons – was all-white, devoid of Black people completely. Worse, the past – as depicted in The Flintstones – was awash in a mesh of whiteness and hilarious un- PC, BC jokes.

Remember, the population of the United States in 1960 was roughly 9-10ths white, with the other 10 percent being Black people. Rare was the sight of the Mexican or Oriental. The reflection of the 90 percent white population was commonly replicated on popular television shows at the time.

Thus, The Jetsons and The Flintstones storylines reveal the cartoon predilections of Pre-Obama America and showcase a past filled with only white people (and their love for bowling) and a future filled with only white people (who find joy in the benefit of machines performing the mundane tasks of life).

Fred Flintstone and George Jetson were merely the products of furtive minds rooted in the racist past of America (consider, the Flintstones lived in Bedrock… thus creating the impression that white people form the Bedrock of any competent society).

Thankfully, the insipid white world of The Flintstones is giving a colorful make-over in the 1994 live-action movie adaptation. Halle Berry, the Black actress (who has the peculiar racial heritage of being the byproduct of a white-Black fornication session), breaks the color-barrier of The Flintstones monochromatically white world:

"The Flintstones" cartoon, which was a major prime time hit back in the 1960s, did not feature any Black characters. And Ms. Berry said it was time for that to change. "This is the '90s and we're a whole lot different today and that was one of the reasons I went to my agent when I heard they were having a hard time casting this role. Sharon (Stone) had turned it down and they saw a lot of White actresses and nobody got the role. And I said to my agent, |This is a comedy. Can they take a joke? Will they see me?' And he said he would try. The director agreed to see me. When I met with him, I told him I thought it should be integrated. This character wasn't established in the cartoon. And they could make it whatever they wanted. And if not me, it should be somebody of color."

Director Brian Levant agreed with her. When asked about the casting, he told Jet: "We wanted to create a more racially-balanced world. I minored in Black History in college and learned where life began. I thought it was ridiculous in 1960 that it was a totally White world and here we have all these different culture existing today and I wanted to see it in the film."

Ms. Berry said it is extremely important for her to go after all kinds of roles--those written specifically for Black women as well as those that could be played by either Black or White women.

"In 1994, we're viewing Black women differently," she said. "There was a time when Black women weren't considered beautiful and sexy and the objects of man's desires. And when we were in films, we were the nanny or the prostitute or the crackhead. This role is one of those small little steps that say, |Hey, the way we're being perceived is different today.'"…

"I'd just like to have good work that I can be proud of and hope that I've crossed the color line and opened doors for others who come behind me," she said.

As Sharon Stone, the sexually amped secretary in The Flintstones, Berry knocked down an ostensibly impenetrable white wall of intolerance, removing one more hindrance in overcoming the insidious nature of Pre-Obama America by integrating The Flintstones.

In the rubble of The Flintstones once uniformly white world, you could almost hear Barney laugh.

The Hanna-Barbera cartoon franchise is a sad reminder of the sordid days of Pre-Obama America, when the nation was building to a Jetson-like future, until the Civil Rights movement thankfully got in the way and created a new path for the American experiment to tread down.

That path is paved with subprime mortgages instead of the bucolic Flintstone’s past and the futuristic white world of the Jetsons.

Stuff Black People Don’t Like welcomes color-barrier busting Halle Berry to the fictional Black History Month Heroes list, for she brought some much needed color to the white world of Fred, Wilma and Dino. This achievement shouldn’t be overlooked, for pop culture is a vital source of creating Black heroes to look up to.

Without these characters, who would Black people have to admire?