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BLACK PEOPLE AS VILLAINS ON THE REAL WORLD

EARLY '90s:
On the first season of MTV's The Real World in 1992, Kevin Powell single-handedly spawned what is now a reality TV archetype: the black person you're supposed to hate. While Powell later became a successful writer focusing on the African-American experience, his angry on-screen persona had already triggered a domino effect of black cast members evicted from the house in later seasons, echoing national trends of urban gentrification and the televisual ghettoization of minority sitcoms to the since-renamed UPN network, which ultimately led to ...

NOW:
The Supreme Court's recent decision to virtually overturn Brown vs. the Board of Education. After witnessing 18 seasons of racial disharmony, the court ruled that, ultimately, we can't all just get along.