FULL ARTICLE HERE by Hasna El Maroudi

“But if trying to address these issues head-on only sparks more hatred and racism, instead of leading to an exchange of thoughts, after which we all go home as BFF’s and braid each others hair, what else is there left to do? If demanding equal pay for equal work or demanding equal treatment only leads to a greater gap, and more inequality, how can we close the gap?

I’d like to believe in what I call the Shonda Rhimes method .

As a screenwriter Shonda Rhimes is changing — or rather: correcting — our perception of blacks and people of color, by giving them another voice. For years they have been portrayed as the help or the thug. Rhimes is correcting our perception by having Olivia Pope — a black woman — lecture the president of the United States on his use of the word ‘bitch’. Rhimes is correcting our perspective by showing diversity among hospital-staff in Grey’s Anatomy and by using recent events — such as the shooting of the black man in Ferguson — to demonstrate how racial profiling is tearing up our communities.

I use the term ‘correcting’ because basically all Rhimes is doing is holding up a mirror and making us look into it. For far too many years have we been told that all doctors are white, that calling women our bitches is okay, that black people are essentially violent.”

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“Living in a society where we spend most of our time staring at a screen, be it smartphone, iPad, laptop or television, having a show that reflects on modern society, like Scandal, is especially important. It may all be fiction, but slowly and surely, Rhimes is changing our views, by correcting our perspectives.

It’s a little paradoxical that we need fiction to learn to see the truth, but hell, if this is what it takes to change the worlds’ perspective on racism, discrimination and sexism, I’ll watch a dozen more episodes of Scandal.”