It seems that the message of Black Lives Matter has stretched beyond the usual cop shows and into sitcoms.
In the third season premiere of CBS’s “The Neighborhood,” the police are characterized as being enforcers of systemic racism akin to that of slavery. The moment comes when the character Malcolm tells his family how a friend of his was arrested by police without cause.
“We were playing ball down at the park when these cops showed up and just started harassing us. And Trey told them we weren’t doing anything wrong, and they, they just threw him on the ground and started beating him up,” Malcolm says in the episode, as reported by Newsbusters.
In response, Malcolm and his family organize a protest at the local police station. Later in the protest, Malcolm’s father and their neighbor Dave get into a conversation about how police are part of a system that keeps black people “undereducated, over-incarcerated, and out of the voting booth.”
Dave: I can’t believe this is happening.
Calvin: Well, what’d you expect? You arm the police like they’re going to war, that’s exactly what they’re gonna do. I mean, those guys were itching for a fight.
Dave: Look, Calvin, I know you’re upset, but… It’s not like all cops are bad.
Calvin: Tell that to the people being choked out and killed in the streets. Dave, o-of course there’s some good cops. But they’re a part of a system that was created when we weren’t even considered people. We were considered property. And yeah, yeah, I know people love to say that slaves were freed a long time ago, but it’s that same system that’s got us undereducated, over-incarcerated, and out of the voting booth.
Dave: Maybe you’re right, maybe the system is broken.
Calvin: Oh, no. No. The system is working exactly how it was designed.
Dave: I don’t know what to say.
Calvin: Hmm. Look at that. I finally found a way to shut you up.
Despite the strong rhetoric against police, the episode does condemn rioting and looting when Malcolm becomes infuriated to the point of wanting to burn down the police station.
“I’m angry every time another racist cop kills one of us out there,” Calvin tells his son. “You gotta fight with [your head]. Because your actions, they got consequences that you may not come back from. And you can’t help nobody if you dead or in jail.”
In the wake of George Floyd’s death, shows have been under pressure to push more content promoting the messaging of Black Lives Matter, especially cop shows. Last week, rapper Ice-T told TMZ that “Law & Order: SVU” will tackle police brutality and racial profiling.
“In the season finale, I killed a black man. So now you’ve got Fin, going through the mental dilemma, like can he be a police officer in these times. And the last thing he ever wanted to do was to be a cop that shot a black man and killed him in front of his family. So, you’ll see my character go through that and question whether he can continue to be a police officer,” he said.
Simultaneously, the character of Olivia Benson, played by Mariska Hargitay, will be dealing with internal questions of her own racial bias.
“You’re gonna see Mariska deal with the challenge of, ‘Is she racist?’” he said. “We have this ‘Karen’ situation where we pick up this black guy, but did we profile him? Was implicit bias involved? Why didn’t we question the white lady?”