Get Down With the Get Down!

Thanks to David and Tim, I am watching The Get Down. I heard about this show before but I never thought much of it. I was excited to see that Jaden Smith was apart of the cast. This year I finally got around to watching it and the first episode does such a good job at encompassing what it means to be a person of color in New York City, specifically the Bronx. The show follows the live of Black and Latino youths in the Bronx who are living in the Projects, aka, the hood in the late 70s. The 70s going forward was a time of political and social turmoil. People of color were faced with racism, poverty, police brutality, racial profiling, and inequality. One of the major themes in this show is the lack of financial investment in Black communities, resulting in failing infrastructures. Black families are barely surviving in these impoverished neighborhoods that they did not choose to live in (Redlining). I think this show is not only entertaining but informative. The Get Down depicts a cycle that keeps the poor poor and the rich rich. The government moves people of color into communities that lack financial support, resulting in little to no funding for schools, which could lead to a lot of Black and Latino children dropping out of school. Inadequate housing which were safety hazards, unaffordable health care that kept the sick sick , and no libraries that could potentially have the power to stimulate young minds. How does the government expect black families to survive in these kinds of conditions? They don’t. Mass incarceration, gang violence, death by police brutality, and drugs are all things used to slowly kill these communities. And any movements or groups made by Black people to combat racism in America were labelled extremist groups are domestic terrorist, just look at the Black Panther Party. And what followed these groups were sabotage, the intent to tear down to build up white supremacy. I don’t want to just focus on the bad in this show, although I have not said much about the show. You not only see the violence and social injustice Blacks faced in the 70s but also the rise of a vibrant culture. You see the rise of underground rap, graffiti, the art of b-boying, and Dj-ing. I got all this from just one episode so imagine how fruitful the rest of the episodes will be.