In the Age of Obama: CNN Rolls Out 'Black in America' Part 2

When it was given its premiere in July 2008, even those I knew who were largely oblivious of the 24-hour cable news cycle tuned in to CNN's "Black in America" series, hosted by Soledad O'Brien.

O'Brien's own mixed heritage (a mother from Cuba and father from Ireland and a complexion that reflects the mosaic of the black diaspora) was a clear marker that defining "black" would be a task in and of itself.

In the weeks following airing of the first installment, I heard broad complaints: The approach was too anecdotal, i.e., the segment producers focused on too few families.

Or the subjects fell under two stark extremes of the economic spectrum, either hand-to-mouth, or upper-middle class, as with the family of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who ironically finds himself in the news just as the series' second package has its debut.

There were those who were angered at a percieved lack of focus on the black success stories. After all, how many of us watched the program on TV or streamed it online with our "Obama" buttons pinned to lapels and shoulder bags?

But for many of the first-generation black Americans, whose parents immigrated to the states from the West Indies or regions such as Ghana and Nigeria across the African continent, there was a sense that our story was overlooked.

There's a unique brand of double consciousness that you learn to navigate when you're carrying the culture, customs, food, language of your parents alongside that which you've been born into.

In many ways, I represent my parents' immigrant mindset, including an emphasis on education, back-breaking hard work, and fiscal responsibility; in other respects, I've embraced the legacy of all the everyday black American heroes who made it possible for us to be here in the first place. But I think it's a story worth exploring.

On the suburban block on which I was raised, the percentage of families from the American South and from the Carribean was nearly equal. And as much as we were neighborly, there were moments that divided us... . The poet Sonia Sanchez calls that being "wounded in the house of a friend."

I don't have high expectations that part two of CNN's much-debated series will offer groundbreaking coverage tonight, but I'm sure I'll catch it. It seems the conversation is a start. Will you watch?