Here's How "Black-ish" Tackled The Emotions Of Trump's America

"What happens when the winners and the losers are supposed to be on the same team?"

On Jan. 11, Black-ish took on a topic that's been on the minds of a lot of people in the US and beyond: the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.

ABC

The episode approached the issue using the same format the show's built on, with each character holding different opinions on the topic, and then discussing and debating from their points of view.

ABC

Past episodes have dealt with everything from police brutality and widespread dependence on technology, to religion and beyond.

"At the end of the day, no one wants to be on the losing side of an upset," Dre (Anthony Anderson) narrates at the beginning of the episode. "But what happens when the winners and the losers are supposed to be on the same team?"

ABC

"I'm really asking," he continues. "Seriously. What happens?"

The episode, titled "Lemons," shows tensions rising all over the place, like at Junior (Marcus Scribner) and Zoe's (Yara Shahidi) high school, where a white student starts chanting "ship her back" at a Spanish teacher.

ABC

It's a moment that blends the show's comedy with serious issues.

"To be fair, Ms. Gomez is from Spain, her visa is expiring, and she is looking forward to seeing her abuela," Junior says. "But I'm pretty sure those kids did not know that at the time."

And at Dre's workplace, he and his co-workers find themselves frequently distracted from a big pitch by discussion of the election.

ABC

Eventually, they take to blaming each other for the results.

ABC

Throughout the episode, multiple characters grapple with the election results and their place in Trump's America. At one point, one character — Lucy, played by Catherine Reitman — reluctantly admits she's one of the 53% of white women voters who voted for Trump.

ABC

And she goes on to explain her reasoning:

ABC

"I'm not some crazy right-wing nut, you guys," Lucy says. "I voted for Obama, twice — I even got my Republican parents to vote for him. He felt different; I believed he was going to change stuff. But it's eight years later, my dad's still out of work, my hometown's about to go under, and Hillary comes out saying she's basically going to keep everything the same. I'm sorry, but that doesn't work for me, or my family."

"I understand what you're saying," Josh (Jeff Meacham) replies. "But what about all the other families that are going to be affected? Gay families, Muslim families, immigrant families?"

And soon, Dre — who'd remained uncharacteristically silent on the matter up until that point — lays bare the betrayal he feels, not only from the election results, but from the conversations in its wake.

ABC

Here's his full monologue:

You don't think I care about this country? I love this country, even though at times it doesn't love me back. For my whole life, my parents, my grandparents, me — for most black people, this system has never worked for us. But we still play ball, try to do our best to live by the rules even though we knew they would never work out in our favors. Had to live in neighborhoods that you wouldn't drive through; send our kids to school with books so beat up you couldn't read them; worked jobs that you wouldn't even consider in your nightmares.

Black people wake up every day believing that our lives are going to change, even though everything around us says it's not. Truth be told, you ask most black people and they'd tell you that no matter who won this election, they didn't expect the hood to get better. But they still voted, because that's what you're supposed to do.

You don't think I'm sad that Hillary didn't win? That I'm not terrified about what Trump's about to do? I'm used to things not going my way. I'm sorry that you're not and it's blowing your mind, but excuse me if I get a little offended that I didn't see all of this outrage when everything was happening to all of my people since we were stuffed on boats in chains. I love this country as much if not more than you do, and don't you ever forget that.

"I really felt like the only way we were going to have a future is if we start a dialogue," Black-ish creator Kenya Barris told Vulture about why he wanted to do the episode. "That’s ultimately what we try to do on the show."

ABC