On this day, February 4, 1952, MLB great Jackie Robinson was hired as Director of Community Activities for radio station, WNBC, and the television station WNBT. Thus, he became the FIRST African-American executive of a major radio and television station.

1/2

https://www.mlb.com/amp/news/why-jackie-robinson-still-matters.html

#BlackMastodon #BlackTwitter #BlackFedi #BlackExcellence #BlackJoy #histodons #History -#Radio #Television

Here is Jackie Robinson talking on “Meet the Press” on April 14, 1957, the day before the MLB’s season opener. Robinson discussed the state of civil rights and responded to criticism of the NAACP for “moving too fast.”

Also, he briefly talks about the fallacious notion of so called “black on black crime.”

https://youtu.be/mQ0VDEfVY2A

2/3

#BlackMastodon #BlackTwitter #BlackFedi #BlackExcellence #BlackJoy #histodons #History #Radio #Television

@Deglassco

Regarding "moving too fast", here's the ending of a recent major Hollywood motion picture by Paramount, directed by Travis Knight with Steven Spielberg as EP. This film was produced 50 years after Loving v. Virginia.

And Hollywood wonders why everybody keeps saying that they are racist.

@Pat interesting. It’s difficult to get the context of the clip without looking at more of the film. What is the name of the movie?

@Deglassco

It's from the Transformer franchise; it's called Bumblebee (2018).

The woman is the main protagonist and the man is her awkward romantic suitor. They flirt throughout the film, but never actual display affection. This is a scene at the end of the film.

I've seen this many times before. Two films that come to mind are The Long Kiss Goodbye (1996), starring Samuel L. Jackson; and I, Robot (2004) starring Will Smith. Those also had white female and black male protagonists who somehow never get together.

Of course Hollywood has a very long history of shunning interracial relationships in film. I suppose you'd need to do some kind of quantitative study to demonstrate it for sure, but in my experience it's a real issue. This particular film was petty obvious about it.

@Pat Thanks for the clarification. Yes, there’s a long history of Hollywood squeamishness to show realistic interracial relationships. Eraser with Arnold and Vanessa Williams was a film like what you described. If the two actors had been the same race, pretty sure a relationship would have developed.