The new HBO series that aired last week was touted as brilliant, but the brilliant episodes we await still. What this new series shows is that everything Black ain't always beautiful or interesting. This series has to have a better story line, better dialogue, and enhanced acting to capture a significant Black movie market.

At some point in our TV and movie lives, we must prohibit others, even Black others, from characterizing us as drug dealers and users. You would be surprise at the number of people who actually believe what they see on TV about Black people--have you talked to someone who has just arrived on these shores? The notion of drug users and dealers is what they perceive of Black people. Of course, that is their ignorance, but we must control our image-making better than we have. The Corner is a case in point where image control should be exercised.

This new series does no more than add to the already unsophisticated view of Black people. It is a case where the minority sector of our society is controlling the image for the majority. That paradigm has to stop.  The negative stereotype repertoire of the uneducated and the bigoted will find its own enhancement, we need do nothing to help it.

What The Corner shows  is that the series is Black, but it ain't beautiful, and it ain't brilliant, only exploitive of America's receptivity to degraded depictions and stereotypes of Black Americans. But that breaks no new ground; we already know that will sell.[]