"I brought you into this world and I'll take you out of it"? As a sitcom tagline it belongs with "One of these days, Alice... Pow! Right to the moon!" A father insinuating that he'll kill his son if the son fails to live up to his father's expections is funny?

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One of my favorites, beyond this one, is the one where they bought that painting at auction. It hung over their fireplace for the rest of the series. I've never seen it in reruns.

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I'm white. I grew up in an Irish middle-class family outside Boston. The n-word was used frequently; n-jokes were told. I was taught black people were different and dangerous.

And the bad thoughts sometimes pop into my head. I don't agree with them, but they're ingrained.

And I feel like an asshole.

I have tried all my life to get those thoughts out. As well as thoughts about Latinos, and Jews, and...I don't know, anyone who is not Irish.

I sound like a jerk, don't I?

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Actually Anna N., this is not too far off. I'm not sure why you are so incredulous.

Dr. Mae Jemison, the first black woman to go into space has mentioned the influence of seeing actress Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura on Star Trek) on television as a little girl. She has mentioned her as an inspiration time and time again. Oprah Winfrey has mentioned how seeing Diana Ross and the Supremes on Ed Sullivan inspired her as a child.

You have to remember that there was a time (as late as the 1960s) when some black artists were not even pictured on their own record albums because the powers that be assumed that white people would not buy the records. An example is the Isley Brothers.

Also, I would recommend Veronica Chamber's book "Having It All: Black Women and Success" where Claire Huxtable is specifically mentioned as an inspiration for many real professional black women:

Twenty-first century black women draw their inspiration from a wide range of sources: Claire Huxtable to Audrey Hepburn, snowboarding to basketball, Gloria Steinem to bell hooks. They choose what they like. Yet they are misunderstood by mainstream America and lack an accurate portrayal in the media of their lives.

[www.veronicachambers.com]

I don't find Robin Givhan's take "troubling" at all and I think that you are too quick to dismiss something that you are clearly not getting...

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Not that you can always blame people or be surprised...there are plenty of things I was "vague" about until I was exposed to information about it time and time again.

That said...yeah, it makes me kind of sad and I find it embarrassing that (as the media has it) the public is shocked by the Obamas.

I wonder how many observers shocked by the "eloquence" and social/educational mobility of the Obamas have gone to college, or gone to college with some racial diversity.

If nothing else...there are plenty of nonwhite authors and scientists I can think of that are on cable news, the Colbert Report or the Daily Show (younger audience, I guess), and the astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson has been on everything from Colbert to Conan...for such an obscure field, he's a fun guest wherever he goes.

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After all, Mrs. Huxtable, FLOTUS, Oprah, and Queen Latifah are the only functional black women ever.

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