By Martha Southgate

Here’s my favorite quote from the first half of Black in America Part 2: Capital Prep school principal, whose parentage (white mom, black dad) mirrors our president’s, says ““Poverty’s character-building potential is far overrated. I hated being broke.”

That cracked me up.

It was a rare moment of humor in what was mostly a vastly earnest, heavily manufactured two-night “news” special. Last year’s inaugural series, Black in America, was accused of trying to stuff a vast and multifarious story into a tiny, tiny little space. This most recent incarnation was guilty of the same thing.

The stories of the first night were: “Poor black kids learn about giving…but is it enough?” “Tough but loving principal helps kids with nothing succeed.” “Even black people with money still get called nigger.” And (newsflash!) “There aren’t too many black folks at the top of major corporations.”

The second night? Everything from Dr. Lisa Newman, an impressive breast cancer researcher, to Nisa Muhammad, a marriage counselor (who, to my mind, appeared to offer notably simple-minded advice), to Geoffrey Canada, the director of the Harlem Children’s Zone (an organization with one of the most brilliant and comprehensive approaches to alleviating poverty I’ve ever heard of) to Tyler Perry (?! Okay, he’s made a lot of money and hired a lot of black people—but on the innovation and genuine artistry front? Not so much). It was a hodgepodge with little organizing principal beyond the color of the skin of the folks involved.

Anyone who is reading this is probably rolling their eyes at the obviousness of the conceits. And surely, the show had its share of subjects being led to conclusions by questions that really weren’t questions from Soledad O’Brien, news that wasn’t really news-like, the above-mentioned corporation info, or that there are educated black people with money (didn’t we finish this discussion when The Cosby Show was the nation’s top show on NBC in the 1980s?)

What the show was missing—what any show like this has to miss—is nuance. For example, in the first story, about Malaak Compton-Rock’s Journey to Change, a deeply admirable initiative with an unusual mission—to show kids who are so often the recipients of aid that they can give and grow as well—we see two boys and a girl grow in confidence and polish. But at the end of the journey, both boys are still flunking out of school and counting on making it into the NBA, and the girl (who seemed like one of those kids who fights her way to the top no matter what) is succeeding…but in what kind of school?

Compton-Rock says, with tears in her eyes, that the boys are “works in progress” and that she hopes they buckle down. As the parent of two adored children, one of whom has learning disabilities, all I could think was—“if either of those boys has an undiagnosed learning disability (which seems highly likely) all the buckling down in the world (especially in a crappy school—which they might well be in) won’t do ‘em a bit of good without the right interventions and continued support.”

There’s no way to get down to those kinds of brass tacks—that kind of nuance—in a show like this one, or perhaps in any “news” report. The form simply doesn’t allow it. That’s the persistent problem with this series. And is likely to be true of the upcoming Latino in America (think CNN is going to run through every major ethnicity in the United States?)

That said, I watched part of this show with my 14-year-old son, a New Yorker who is growing up privileged, educated to the best o f his parent’s abilities, biracial, in a world with an African-American president. He’s never been called nigger and the people he hears using the word most are young black men on the subway. The civil rights movement is ancient history to him—history he knows about and realizes the importance of — but utterly ancient, nonetheless. He just doesn’t see these things the way I do, as a 48-year-old, monoracial child of working-class Cleveland.

Watching this series was all fascinating to him. It led us to an interesting conversation about his heritage on my side of the family, as well as a little talk about how class functions in the African-American community. Why, at the news breaks, we even had a chat about Skip Gates’s arrest (talk about a story with some nuance! Good Lord.) I think it did him some good to see Black In America 2 and to have some stories he wouldn’t otherwise know thrown in his hopper when he thinks about race and class. And I think it might have done some other folks some good too.

So I can’t jump completely on board with all the haters as far as Black in America 2 (partly on board, but not completely). Yes, it was oversimplified, manufactured, full of obvious conclusions and overlooking the subtle. And yet, it told some of our stories respectfully in a venue where they have rarely appeared. In its very incoherence, it gave a hint of just how vast and wide-ranging our experiences and our lives are—how utterly woven into the American story black lives are.

And finally, I have to admit, I also found myself touched and impressed by the sense of how many talented, skilled African Americans are earnestly trying to alleviate the many ills of our community. It made me begin to consider how I might contribute more (now I just gotta turn that to action!) So, a talk with my son and a call to act—that’s not all bad.

Yes, I was frequently bored and slightly annoyed watching Black in America 2. But at the same time, I can’t hate it totally. I just can’t.

Martha Southgate is the author of 3 novels, most recently Third Girl from the Left. She is working on a new novel to be published by Algonquin Books