Sarah Nilsen and Sarah E. Turner (Eds.), The Colorblind Screen: Television in Post-Racial America

Abstract

Sarah Nilsen and Sarah Turner’s edited volume, The Colorblind Screen: Television in Post-Racial America, considers how American politics of multiculturalism, along with colorblind racism, contribute to a unique atmosphere in television where race is briefly taken into account in celebration of diversity, but then immediately dismissed as inconsequential. This volume adds a new dimension to recent works on television that highlight the various ways the medium has evolved, transitioned, or transformed over the last three decades (see Lotz, 2007; Spigel & Olsson, 2004). These studies document the changes in television as a result of deregulation, media convergence, changes in programming, the introduction of new technologies, shifts in audiences’ viewing habits, and so on. While recognizing the valuable contributions such works make to the field of media studies, I think it is wise to examine what is meant by “change,” “transformation,” and “evolution” with respect to contemporary television. In discussions about how television has changed, there is a failure to account for the ways the medium has, when it comes to representations of racial difference, perpetuated an illusion of progress. Put simply, notions of television’s evolution are complicated by the medium’s racial paradox: At this moment in the 21st century, racial politics on television appear to be both progressive and regressive. Nilsen and Turner address this paradox in their collection of essays.