Subject to Change

We put on a kid’s video the other day for Cole. It was one of those corny educational ones, with a hyper adult figure trying to educate a brother and sister about airplanes. I tuned it out until I heard the adult address the two black children as “Katie” and “Jimmy.” I thought to myself, “please say they didn’t make those names up.”

Now I know that it’s possible for two black kids to be named Katie and Jimmy. But, in my experience it’s unusual. So, I watched the credits. “Jimmy” and “Katie” were actually Sean and Latoya. I guess I don’t feel as bad for “Jimmy,” then.

You see, there are some people who would notice what I did and immediately see a conspiracy against African-Americans. Of course they chose “white names” for those kids, because America is still the center of racism in the universe. It was thoughts of those types people which caused me to pray that the video had used the kids’ real names. We don’t need to be handing ammunition to the lunatic fringe, seriously!

I don’t see a conspiracy. I see something much more stupid. I’m betting that this was an ultra low budget production. The script was written before any actors were hired, and then somebody decided to go on an affirmative action hiring spree. With three actors in the picture, at least one of them had better be black, right? Instead of chosing the instructor (another conspiracy?) they selected the children. It probably would’ve been too awkward to pass off an African-American and a Latino as brother and sister, so the African-Americans got a two-fer. After hiring the talent somebody was too lazy or too oblivious to change the script. It wouldn’t have been hard to give these characters more likely names, in fact the child actors each came equipped with names of their own.