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"Wonders and wishes": contexts and influences of Black millennials' childhood television viewership

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"Wonders and wishes": contexts and influences of Black millennials' childhood television viewership

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“WONDERS AND WISHES”:

CONTEXTS AND INFLUENCES OF BLACK MILLENNIALS’ CHILDHOOD TELEVISION
VIEWERSHIP

by

Briana Lyn Ellerbe

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(COMMUNICATION)

August 2022

Copyright 2022 Briana Lyn Ellerbe

ii
Dedication

This dissertation is dedicated to my husband, Keith, who walked lovingly with me throughout
this entire journey—and my children, Keith III, Emiko, and the baby in my belly—who have
forever changed my outlook on life;
&
My parents, Myles and Linda Pressey, who have shown that there are no bounds to a parent’s
love.

iii
Acknowledgements

Years from now, when I look back on the experience of graduate school and completing
the dissertation, I am certain that what I will remember most fondly is the love, encouragement,
and support that I received along the way. The remarkable display of community during this
journey has left an indelible mark on my life.
First and foremost, I give thanks to God, who has ordered my steps and sustained me.
There were moments when this task felt nearly impossible, yet I was reminded that “I can do all
things through Christ who strengthens me”(Philippians 4:13). My husband, Keith, demonstrated
so much patience and encouragement throughout this process. He often filled the roles of
husband, father, chef, and intellectual collaborator. Getting this Ph.D. is as much his
accomplishment as it was my own, and I think he should have those letters behind his name as
well (Phenomenal Husband and Dad). Bud, I could not have done this without you! My son,
Keith, who was born in the second year of the Ph.D. program, has always known me as a
student. As I describe in the pages of this dissertation, his birth changed my outlook and dream-
making practices drastically, and I am so thankful. Little Keith, I appreciate your patience,
encouragement, and motivation. Each time I told you that I finished a chapter, you would clap
and yell, “Yay, mommy!” This pushed me to keep going. My daughter, Emiko, was born in the
fifth year of this program—her presence lit up our household even more. Emiko, thank you for
snuggling with me during reading and writing sessions, and gracing us with your smiles and
giggles each day. Although we don’t know this third baby in my belly quite yet, I would like to
thank the baby for being a part of this journey as well. Baby, your presence is the icing on the
cake!

iv
I would also like to thank my family. To my parents, Myles and Linda Pressey, thank you
for shaping me through tons of love and intentionality. So much of this work is inspired by you,
and watching you do the best that you could to make sure that we had wonderful childhoods and
promising futures. You have sacrificed so much and have given an unconditional love that made
me believe I could do anything. Thank you for having my back throughout life even when others
didn’t believe in me, and for encouraging me to lean into my identity as a child of God. I extend
my thanks as well to my brother, Myles, who has seen me through all of life’s ups and downs,
and encouraged me to keep going. Thank you for sending me encouraging posts, videos, and
scripture in moments when I felt I could not go on. I’m so glad that I get to go through life with a
sibling. To my grandmother, Bachan, I am so thankful that you were such a huge part of my
childhood, and continue to be a part of my life at 98-years-old. To grandma Frankie and my great
grandmother, Nana, who have passed on, thank you for showing us so much love while you were
here. To my Aunt Patty, I thank you for being such a consistent encourager and supporter
throughout this journey, always reminding me to stay positive! I thank many of my other aunts
and uncles: Uncle Yosh and Aunt Millie, Uncle John and Aunt Carol, Uncle Maurice and Cheryl,
Aunt Mary and Uncle Eric, Uncle Keith and Aunt Natalie, and many more for your love and for
cheering our family on! I’d like to also thank Kelsey, my cousin and “twin,” who has been like a
sister to me through every stage of my life, from the time I was 31-days-old. To so many of my
beloved cousins such as Dan, Daven and Kenia, Raymond and Chrissy, Tara and Mike, Jaelyn
and Matthew, Dustin and Austin, Jauhara, Peaches, Jyn’aan, and many more—I love you all. To
my mother-in-love, Carole Ellerbe McDonald, you are an answered prayer. My mother always
prayed that I’d have a mother-in-law that treated me like her own daughter, and you have done
so from day one. Thank you for all of your support, encouragement, and prayers. To my

v
Stephanie, JP, Aaron, Semaj, Mekhi and Kyanna, I praise God for blessing me with such a
wonderful family-in-love.
This dissertation took shape with the invaluable guidance of my committee members. My
chair, Dr. Taj Frazier, has challenged me intellectually and has pushed me to continue to delve
deeper into my thinking and ideas. He has encouraged my love for storytelling as part of my
research, guided me in moments that I felt completely lost in a tornado of theory, ideas, and
concepts, and cheered me on in moments that I felt confident in the work. Beyond scholarship,
he has been a wonderful mentor and friend. Taj, thank you for being a wonderful model to me in
terms of moving through scholarly spaces while having a family, treating your advisees as whole
people, and offering support both within and beyond intellectual work. Thank you as well for
making efforts to include my husband and children in the process! Your mentorship and support
have brought me through and have made all the difference in my graduate school experience. Dr.
Henry Jenkins has also contributed immensely to the formation of this work. I have benefited
greatly from taking several of his classes, having many formative conversations, and receiving
thoughtful feedback. Henry, thank you for being such an encourager. You have a way of making
students feel confident in their ideas while also pushing them to think more deeply about them.
You are both brilliant and kind. To Dr. Alison Trope, I am so thankful to have worked with you
not only on this dissertation and on my qualifying exams, but also through the Critical Media
Project as your RA. I have learned so much from you and I am inspired by your dedication to
bringing critical media literacy opportunities to youth. I am grateful for your feedback on my
work as well as the many laughs and jokes we have gotten to share through working together. To
Dr. Manuel Pastor, I feel so privileged to have worked with you for both my qualifying exams
and my dissertation. Your urban sociology class was so thought provoking and shaped this

vi
project tremendously. I appreciate your encouragement not only to grow in scholarly ways, but
to do so for humanitarian purposes.
I would also like to take the time to thank the other Annenberg faculty and staff, along
with other USC faculty who have been so integral to this experience. First, I’d like to thank Dr.
Sandra Ball-Rokeach, who was not only on my qualifying exam committee, but who mentored
me through coursework and also through my involvement with her research group,
Metamorphosis. Sandra, I am so grateful to have had so many wonderful moments with you and
to have learned so much from you about life and research. Thanks to Dr. Sheila Murphy, whose
survey course greatly shaped my thinking around this dissertation. Thank you to our first-year
core course professors, Dr. Larry Gross, Dr. Patricia Riley, Dr. Peter Monge, and Dr. Josh Kun,
who were our first introductions to USC. Thanks to Dr. Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, Dr.
Christina Dunbar Hester, Dr. Safiya Noble, Dr. Barbara Osborn, whose courses and mentorship
helped me to grow in my thinking and research. A special thank you goes to Sarah Holterman,
Anne Marie Campian, Christine Lloreda, Amanda Ford, Jamie Flores, and many of the other
rock stars who make these processes so much easier. I would also like to thank the Annenberg
custodial technicians, USC housing, and especially the USC housing custodial technicians who
always made us feel like family.
I’d like to thank all of my fellow classmates and colleagues at Annenberg and USC more
broadly. First, I am so glad to have entered USC with our cohort, which we lovingly referred to
as the PhDivas + Ming. You all made this experience so much fun. To Brooklyn, Lauren, Sulafa,
Ming, Jeeyun, Hye Min, Andrea, Franny, Leah, Yiqi, Donna, Soledad, Anna, Jingyi: I have
loved learning with you and laughing with you. To our power hour writing crew, Azeb Madebo,
Jillian Kwong, and LaToya Council: this dissertation would not have been written without you.

vii
Thank you for the accountability, for the laughs, for the feedback, and for the friendship. To my
dear friends, Emily Sidnam-Mauch and Clare O’Connor, Marina Litvinsky, and Deborah Neffa
Creech, I am so thankful to have gone through this program with you as we walked through
similar seasons of life as student parents. To my first-year buddies and friends, Matt Bui and
Courtney Cox, thank you for your friendship and guiding me through each step of this journey.
Thank you to my dear fellow student, neighbor, and friend, Sierra Bray: your light shines
brightly in this world! I am thankful for so many others, such as Allie, Caitlin, Becky, Essence,
Olivia, Xin, Maddie, Sarah, Paulina, Jessica, Karina, and Ignacio. I could go on forever listing
the wonderful people that I had the privilege to learn with.
Furthermore, I want to extend my gratitude to the people within the children’s media
industry as well as long time mentors who inspired me and encouraged me to be here. First and
foremost, I’d like to thank Dr. Lori Takeuchi, my supervisor while working at the Joan Ganz
Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. Lori, thank you for encouraging me, showing me all the
ropes of research, and demonstrating the type of mentor I would like to be someday. Thank you
as well to Dr. Michael Levine, Anna Ly, Lili Toutounas, Catherine Jhee, Dr. Jason Yip, Dr.
Elisabeth McClure, Rocio Almanza Guillén, Dr. Vikki Katz, Dr. Kristen Kohm, Dr. Allison
Mishkin, Michelle Miller, Jessica Millstone, Dr. Alan Nong, Dr. Christina Hinton, Sadaf
Sajwani, Erica Rabner, Dr. Meryl Alper, and Dr. Carmen Gonzalez, Dr. Sarah Vaala, Alexia
Raynal, and Megan Henry. I would have likely never pursued a Ph.D. if it were not for each of
you. Thank you as well to so many others who have inspired me within our FAM family, such as
Dr. Amber Levinson, Dr. Brigid Barron, Dr. Ellen Wartella, Dr. Alexis Lauricella, Dr. Elisabeth
Gee, Dr. Sinem Siyahhan, and Dr. Reed Stevens. I want to express my appreciation for Dr.
Kevin Clark as he has provided invaluable feedback on this project as well as mentorship in the

viii
area of diversity in children’s media. My gratitude goes to Dr. Amy Jordan, who has been an
irreplaceable mentor in my life from the time I was 19-years-old. Thank you as well to Joseph
Blatt at HGSE whom I have learned so much from. Thank you to Dr. Rosemarie Truglio and Dr.
Jennifer Kotler for having conversations with me prior to starting a Ph.D. I thank Dr. Tanji
Gilliam, Jonathan Adair, and Alison Murawski for being such kind teachers and mentors. Thank
you to those involved in the Aprendiendo Juntos Council, KIDMAP, and Children’s Media
Association—especially Stephanie Sosa. To Jenile Brooks, thank you for your support, and I’m
looking forward to working creatively with you. I would also like to thank all of my teachers
prior to college, especially at Moorestown Friends School. Both Ms. Corsey and Ms.
Washington had indelible impacts on my learning.
Of course, I’d like to thank so many of my friends for their love, encouragement, and
support. To our friends at South LA Christian Life, thank you for being our family away from
home. We couldn’t have finished this process without your prayers, babysitting, meal trains, and
friendship. A special thanks goes to Greg and Julie, for letting me write in their AirBnb! To the
Mentzes, Gordons, Starr and her family, and so many more—thank you for walking through this
with us. Next, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Dr. Petal Samuel. Thank you,
friend, for your constant encouragement, for talking with me about this project each week in our
check-ins, and for editing several chapters of the dissertation! Our conversations truly did so
much to shape this project. Thank you to Dr. Jennielle Jobson for your support and love
throughout the process! To Rebecca Best, thank you for flying out to Los Angeles to babysit the
kids for a week. Thank you for sitting next to me at my desk at 12am and for telling me to keep
writing. To so many of our other friends: LeighEllen and Allen Zhang, Sasshua and Kevin

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Holloman, Bunmi, the Middletons, Sean and Cruz, The Ritters, the Idomotos, The Browns, Troy,
Ty-Anna, the Carters, and all of my Will-Moor girls: you have all inspired me to keep going.
Finally, I would like to thank each of my study participants, who brought their heart and
experiences to the interviews, even amidst the uncertainty and stresses of the beginning stages of
the COVID-19 pandemic. I am humbled that you would be so willing to share so many stories
about your childhood as well as your experiences in parenting. In addition, a special thanks goes
to Annenberg School for Communication for making this research possible.
If I have forgotten to thank anyone here, please charge it to my head and not my heart! I
am overwhelmed by the amount of love, support, and encouragement I’ve received from so
many people throughout my life. I do not take it for granted and feel quite blessed.

x

Table of Contents

Dedication ................................................................................................................................. ii
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... iii
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. xi
Abstract ....................................................................................................................................xii
Chapter One “Take Me There”: An Introduction ........................................................................ 1
Chapter Two Methodological Approaches to Centering Black Millennial Stories ..................... 34
Chapter Three Bringing “Dreams to Life”: The Shaping of Black Millennials .......................... 83
Chapter Four “Thinkin’ ‘Bout Yesterday”: Reflections on Black Millennial Childhoods ........ 116
Chapter Five “Take My Hand”: How Black Millennial Childhoods and Viewership Influence
Parenting................................................................................................................................. 147
Chapter Six “That Great Place”: Future Directions of Scholarship and Media Creation .......... 197
References .............................................................................................................................. 208
APPENDIX A......................................................................................................................... 218
Recruitment Materials ......................................................................................................... 218
IRB-Approved Outreach Email to Community Centers and Institutions ............................... 219
APPENDIX B ......................................................................................................................... 220
INFORMATION SHEET FOR EXEMPT RESEARCH ...................................................... 220
APPENDIX C ......................................................................................................................... 222
Black Millennial Parent Interview Instrument ...................................................................... 222

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List of Tables

Table 2.1: Basic Participant Information

xii
Abstract

Black millennials (born 1981-1996) grew up during a historical conjuncture marked by
economic, political, and cultural transformation. Coming of age in the United States during a
boom in children’s cable programming, increased production of television shows designed for
Black youth audiences, and a political climate characterized by neoliberalism, meritocracy, and
multiculturalism, Black millenials offer insights on the interplay of race, media, and parenting.
Drawing on historiography, in-depth interviews, and the fields of Communication, Children’s
Media, and Black Cultural Studies, this interdisciplinary project 1) interrogates and presents
Black millennials’ reflections on late 20th and early 21st developments in race, class, and
television and 2) illustrates the ways in which these experiences shaped their childhoods and
dream-making practices, and 3) considers how these developments influence their perceptions of
Blackness in contemporary media and the approaches they take to their own parenting. Overall,
this dissertation argues that the historical legacies of anti-Black racism and the socioeconomic
conditions that shaped Black millenials’ childhood experiences with media, race, and class shape
their sense of citizenship, media, and the parenting choices they adopt to influence their
children’s future outcomes. For scholars, I assert the importance of capturing the “present-ness”
of childhood experiences with media. I argue for the importance of enshrining childhood
experience and meaning-making through storytelling, and to approach its exploration through the
lens of the social and historical complexities that surrounded them. For media practitioners
dedicated to creating thoughtful representations, I encourage non-essentializing efforts to look at
Black people as multidimensional, multigenerational, and multi-experiential.

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Chapter One

“Take Me There”: An Introduction

Take me there, I want to go there
Take me there, let’s go there
Take me to that great place with wonders and wishes

—Mya and Blackstreet, “Take Me There,” 1998

In November of 1998, on the weekend after my 10th birthday, Nickelodeon Movies and
Paramount Pictures released The Rugrats Movie: a feature-length film based on Rugrats, one of
Nickelodeon’s most successful animated shows at the time. Like the show, the film chronicles
the adventures of talking babies and toddlers led by their diaper-adorned ringleader, Tommy
Pickles. Just as popular as the release of the film was the release of its musical single, “Take Me
There,” performed by popular R&B artist Mya, R&B group Blackstreet, and rappers Mase and
Blinky Blink. The music video played frequently on the Nickelodeon network between television
shows and captivated children, including me, each time it aired. After hearing the song and
watching the music video constantly as a child, “Take Me There” became deeply embedded into
my memory and a staple of my nostalgia. “Take Me There’s” lyrics are now a serendipitous
framework for this dissertation about Black Millennials and the role that media played in their
lives within the historical contexts of their youth as well as how those experiences and contexts
have in turn influenced the parenting of their own children.
The music video opens with a clip of Tommy Pickles struggling to pull a wagon uphill as
he yells, “forward march!” Fellow babies and friends Chucky, Phil, and Lil struggle behind him
as they work together to push the wagon to their desired destination at the top of the steep dirt

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hill. The video cuts to Mya dancing and hopping up and down on a jumbo xylophone along with
the melody of “Take Me There.” Blackstreet performs choreographed steps in all white clothing
with giant furniture as their backdrop, invoking the perspective of small babies navigating their
domestic spaces.
The cheerful lyrics take its listeners to a place filled with imagination and hope. Mya
opens with the chorus, in which she sings, “Take me to that great place with wonders and
wishes,” and later refers to that same “place” as one in which “smiles come to life and dreams
come true.” The song’s performers never indicate where or what that place is, leaving its
listeners to insert their own interpretation. Blackstreet delves more deeply into the idea of dream
chasing as they sing: “Make a wish, close your eyes and count to five. ‘Cause you know that
everything will be alright. I see the magic in your eyes. Strong enough you know to bring your
dreams to life.” These lyrics convey that even if one’s current situation or life circumstance is
not “alright,” all anyone must do is close their eyes, imagine, and manifest their dreams through
magic and strength. They go on to sing that they “Don’t want this dream to ever go away,”
indicating that dreams must be held onto and strived for, somewhat represented by the opening
visual of Tommy Pickles and his friends striving to make their way uphill—somewhat of a
metaphor for upward mobility. An ad-lib towards the end of the song solidifies this
determination, as they sing ‘I want to go, I gotta go.” This song might have served as an
expression of nostalgia for its writers at the time, but children like myself listening to and singing
along with this song in 1998 might have walked away with a strong sense of hope and a belief
that there is indeed a place that they can get to—through magic and strength—where all of their
dreams and joys reside; this dissertation will demonstrate that this is sometimes a metaphorical

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place (i.e., reaching general success or upward mobility), but it is also often represented by a
geographical move from the place where children grew up.
“Take Me There” serves almost as a time capsule for the reach-for-the-stars, follow-your-
dreams messaging that permeated 1990s children’s television and culture at large. Through these
media, children are encouraged to imagine that they can be anything, become anyone, go
anywhere, and bring their imagination to fruition. As demonstrated in the song, the fruition of
dreams also often depends on strength and perseverance toward that goal (i.e., “you’re strong
enough to bring your dreams to life”). As a Black and Japanese child who grew up with this
messaging and believed so wholeheartedly in it that I chose to embark on a career in which I
could hopefully study and create children’s media to continue this message, this dissertation
process has been a rather challenging journey. I set out to explore children’s television
viewership in the 1990s and early 2000s— driven by a curiosity about the long-term impact of
the children’s media and Black media booms of this era, one which significantly shaped my life
and decisions and those of my peers (i.e., Black Millennial Parents). While I was excited to talk
to fellow Black Millennials about television shows like Rugrats, Moesha, and Kenan and Kel,
what I found was that we were talking about lived experiences linked to the impacts of family,
capitalism, neoliberalism, and racism. As such, I aim to unpack the range of meanings,
sociopolitical aspirations, and pressures indexed by the concepts of “reaching for the stars” and
“going after your dreams.” This dissertation prompts us to pause and reflect on which “stars” we
prompt children to reach for, how childhood dreams are cultivated, and how media narratives
play a part in the cultivation process.
Though the characters and storylines in film and television can energize the imagination
and generate fantastical imagery, these characters, and storylines—as well as our dreams and

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aspirations—are ultimately couched in real-world contexts. Children’s media are not created nor
engaged in a vacuum, as children’s experiences impact the ways in which they make sense of the
stories they encounter. The shows they consume become a part of the narrative fabric that
stitches together children’s understandings of the world and their place in it. While children’s
content has been examined in myriad ways—including how it impacts the way children form
ideas about themselves, the world, and their futures—what requires further attention is the fact
that content is but one node in an intricate ecology of narratives, values, assumptions, and power
relations. Children’s identities and dreams are certainly influenced by the content they engage
with, but this influence is interwoven and negotiated within particular historical, geographical,
economic, and cultural conjectures. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that the media that
children consume are part of a system of ideologies, discourses, and values that function
alongside interpersonal narratives (e.g., family histories and lived familial experiences) and
historical forces (e.g., the state of the economy and conditions of systemic inequality) that aid in
shaping their ideas about what it means to be a child, a citizen, and a success.

Black Millennial Parents

This dissertation is an exploratory study about Black Millennial parents in the United
States and the role that the media they consumed, alongside historical and interpersonal
experiences, shaped their upbringing. Furthermore, this dissertation explores how they have
made sense of the media of their childhood alongside their lived experiences now that they are
parents, and whether the combination of these factors have influenced their perceptions or
parenting practices more broadly, and parenting practices specifically around media. It considers
the everyday ways in which communication—both interpersonal and mediated—bridge social,
historic, and economic forces across generations. Through interviews with 15 Black Millennial

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parents, this study gives us key insights about media consumption, family, race, and class in the
late 20th and early 21st centuries. As this dissertation aims to understand the ways in which
Black Millennials engaged with the interpersonal as well as mediated narratives in their
childhoods, it is imperative that we also understand the contexts in which their childhoods took
place.
Millennials are typically defined as those who were born between the years of 1981-
1996, though these boundaries are not always agreed upon (Pew Research Center, 2019). For
example, in their book on millennials, Neil Howe and William Strauss define millennials as
being born “in or after 1982”(Howe & Strauss, 2000, p. 4). Some have coined the term
“Xennials” to refer to those born at the border between Generation X and millennials, often
looping in those born before 1981. As of 2019, there were 72.1 million millennials in the United
States (Pew Research Center, 2020). Millennials outnumber both the Baby Boomer generation,
which was characterized by the rise of births after World War ll, and Generation X, which was
characterized by a “birth dearth”(Howe & Strauss, 2000).
While previous generations have been tied to civil rights, rock and roll, and the birth of
hip hop–all trenchant forms of sociopolitical commentary, critique, and movement building–
millennials have often been associated with entitlement, good behavior, and achievement.
According to Howe and Strauss, the millennial generation has seen a drop in crime and sex and
an increase in good grades and sports (ibid). Millennials were taught that there is much to aspire
to, and that education is the way to achieve. They were taught that the whole world is at their
fingertips, and all that they must do is reach. In this way, they have been viewed as the
beneficiaries of the strivings of previous generations and were expected to realize the good life
fantasies put forth by them. Yet, millennials have also lived through and witnessed shifts in the

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nation and both heartbreaking and sensational events, including the 1992 uprisings in response to
the Rodney King verdict, the Columbine school shooting, the Oklahoma City Bombing, the O.J.
Simpson trials, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the death of Princess Diana, and the attacks on
September 11, 2001. So, while millennials have been taught that there is much to aspire to, they
were also shown that there is much to fear in the world.
This may be particularly true for Black millennials. Events like the emergence of the
recording of Rodney King being brutally beaten by LAPD officers might have prompted
conversations with parents or family members about how one should handle themselves around
police, or to be wary of them altogether. Nixon’s “War on Drugs” policies that began before
black millennials were born and that persisted in some form or another through their childhoods
in both the Reagan and Clinton presidencies greatly increased the incarceration rates of Black
Americans. Rising fear around Black criminality, youth, and culture plastered Black youth all
over the media as dangerous (Hall, Critcher, C, Jefferson, Clarke, & Roberts, 1978). They
witnessed Black people abandoned in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.
At the same time, blackness was a commodity; it was seen as both cool and profitable.
(Banet-Weiser, 2007; hooks, 1992). While there was clear evidence for the persistence of racism
and racial tension within their childhoods, they were simultaneously thrust into an era of
multiculturalism, especially within popular culture. With a boom in cable programming, Black
millennials could potentially have access to all kinds of television programs, including those that
have families that look like them: The Cosby Show, A Different World, Martin, My Brother and
Me, Sister Sister, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, My Cousin Skeeter. Both older-leaning programs
and programs made specifically for children and tweens featured Black families and characters
and an opportunity to “see themselves” more so than other generations before them due to the

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sheer number of programs. Black millennials walked a line that bordered caution and fear as well
as the idea that they, like other millennials, could be and do anything.
Reniqua Allen argues, however, that for Black millennials the American dream—the idea
that success is attainable for anyone through hard work—is just as complicated as it was for
other generations of Black people before them (Allen, 2019). She found that while many Black
millennials have tried to play by the rules and follow their dreams in the ways they were
instructed to, they were still disappointed. Many are weighed down with student loan debt and
feel that options for upward mobility are limited; they are trying to define their own versions of
success and feel confident in doing so because of changes in technology. This is a finding that
has also arisen within this dissertation (ibid). Allen’s thoughtful and beautiful work of
storytelling is quite the exception in a dearth of research about Black millennials in particular,
and especially about their lived experiences. There is a clear need for more statistical and
qualitative research on black millennials, who have experienced the late 20th and early 21st
centuries in a unique way.
This is especially true not only because of the value in Black millennial stories and
experiences in their own right, or because they can offer us new ways of looking at a particular
era, but because Black millennials are now adults, and many are now parents. Black parenting
has been considered and studied in scholarship for decades and has often been pathologized and
blamed for the challenges that Black populations face. Many programs have also been created to
try to aid and support Black families in the face of systemic inequalities and challenges. This
dissertation makes the repeated argument that interpersonal and mediated narratives within the
contexts of youth greatly shape generations, and that this shaping impacts the next generation of
children. Therefore, it is important to understand what shaped Black millennials, how they have

8
made sense of their upbringing, and how they are in turn parenting their own children alongside
the mediated narratives that their children have access to in the context of this era. Beyond
examining Black childhood and adulthood as discrete, self-contained experiences–both as life
stages and as demographics of media consumption–this dissertation traces the long afterlives of
Black millenials’ childhood media consumption practices in order to better understand how they
made sense of and navigated a moment of simultaneous representational gains and sociopolitical
and economic crises.

A Personal Example

My great grandmother on my father’s side, Louise (Hayes) Major, was born in 1914 in
Cedar Springs, Georgia. She moved to New Jersey hoping to pursue her dream of working in
show business and landed a gig as a dancer at the famed Cotton Club in Harlem, New York,
before 1935. Like many other members of our Drinkard-descended family who moved Northeast
from the South during the Great Migration, my great-grandmother settled in Newark, a city in
northern New Jersey. My grandmother on my mother’s side, Tomiko Hashizume, was a nurse in
Japan during World War II. After Japan’s defeat, she married my grandfather, Emmanuel
Jefferson—a Black United States soldier—and settled with him at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-
Lakehurst in southern New Jersey.
While both these women had very different origins and life experiences, they each gave
similar advice to their children and grandchildren, especially as it related to their socioeconomic
status, place, and life opportunities. My father, Myles, grew up in the Otto Kretchemer Homes—
also known as the Dayton Street projects—in Newark’s South Ward in the 1960s and 1970s. He
takes great pride in being from Newark, most especially when sharing stories about the
adventures he and his brothers had running through stairwells and around the city’s train tracks.

9
At the same time, living and growing up in a city with high levels of corruption, crime, and
drugs, was particularly challenging. My father recounts that my great-grandmother, Louise,
whom he lovingly referred to as “Nana,” constantly told him in his youth to “get out of Newark”
because the city’s climate at that time could limit his future.
Likewise, my mother, Linda, remembers her mother’s strong urges to “go to college and
get a good job so you don’t have to have a hard life.” After my grandfather passed away, my
grandmother, Tomiko, needed to navigate the United States with English as her second language,
an education not recognized as legitimate in her new country, racial discrimination as a Japanese
woman in postwar America, and financial struggle. Higher education, as well as job stability,
were greatly emphasized in her advice to my mother.
My father and mother strived to heed the advice of their grandmother and mother,
respectively. A few years after graduating from college, getting married, and renting apartments
in Jersey City, NJ, Philadelphia, PA (an apartment inside of a funeral home), and Yardville, NJ,
my parents bought a house in Willingboro—a predominantly Black suburb of Philadelphia in
southern New Jersey—where I spent the first half of my childhood. We then moved to
Lumberton—a predominantly White suburb which had a good reputation for its public school
district. As demonstrated here, place, migration, and mobility have been quite prominent themes
in my family’s history and desire to find economic stability.
The notion that one should aim to live in a certain type of place in order to increase
different life and socioeconomic opportunities, and that education—specifically higher
education—is the best avenue for Black people in the United States to achieve this, had strong
roots in my family’s lived experiences and also heavily shaped my own upbringing. Education
and starting businesses enabled my parents to raise my brother and me in quiet south Jersey

10
towns—neighborhoods and communities which offered us very different upbringings and
surroundings than that which my father experienced. In this view, success in school and
receiving an education at a top-tier college would set us up well for life and moreover allow us to
avoid some of the place-based systemic challenges that my parents experienced and witnessed.
Through great love, my parents sacrificed endless time, money, and energy to ensure that
I received quality primary education, access to resources and mentorship, and ultimately
admission to elite universities. Their hope, as was the hope of their parents and grandparents
before them, was that these experiences and credentials would allow success in my life that
would prevent my having to live through some of the struggles that they and my grandparents
and great-grandparents did—hardships that are often present in racialized and marginalized
communities in which spatial injustices abound. Beyond avoiding hardship, my parents simply
desired that I would have a life filled with joy, peace, and chances to fulfill dreams of my own.
These hopes, alongside my interactions with television, strongly shaped my understanding of
education, fantasies about my future, and the pursuit of dreams.
With two working-parents, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, Tomiko, who lived
with us. With English as her second language, she couldn’t read books to me. Although she was
quite strong and agile for her age, she could neither constantly keep up with my high energy and
movement, nor with that of my younger brother or my cousin whom she babysat. Therefore, to
get some rest or to get other things done, to my delight she often resorted to letting us watch
television. On a typical day after getting dropped off by the school bus, I turned on my favorite
channel just for kids: Nickelodeon. A Toys “R” Us commercial might appear as I click the
remote control, with a chorus exclaiming, “I don’t want to grow up. I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us kid!” The
words would resonate deeply in my spirit, and with a child’s perspective of the 1990s, I could

11
not have found a better mantra for life; “I want to be a kid forever.”
My parents would come home right before dinner and just as Nickelodeon’s Clarissa
Explains it All came on. The show’s characters, crazily-patterned outfits, and jokes were quite
foreign to anything I had seen or heard. I’d ponder what I might look like with bone-straight
blonde hair like Clarissa’s that could be easily twisted into an obnoxiously-colored scrunchie. I’d
try to run my fingers through my curly black hair the way Clarissa did hers. “Ouch.” Instead, I’d
settle for the show’s undeniably catchy yet annoying theme song, then happily turn it off to catch
up with my parents. Halfway through dinner, my parents might talk about adult things like
“making ends meet,” and discuss the possibility of overtime for the sake of my and my brother’s
futures, our education, and giving us “the best chances in life.” They’d speak of moving to
another neighborhood with a better school district.
I might wait for these serious conversations to be over so that I could enjoy watching Hey
Arnold with my father. He was not into all of the shows I liked, but loved to watch this one with
me. He would tell me how much he loved the jazz music that played in the background and the
streetscape and street play that reminded him of the city where he grew up. He’d light up as he
told me stories of that seemingly magical place to explore, and I could see hints of longing for
the city he left behind to give me a grassy backyard in the suburbs. Since I couldn’t experience
first-hand the adventures my father talked about, I figured I could at least live vicariously
through his stories and Hey Arnold’s urban cityscape. While my father desired to give me a life
in a small suburb, I longed to connect to the types of urban geographies that shaped my father.
At an early age, I also became engrossed in the magic of Nickelodeon, the storylines of
“family television” such as Full House, The Wonder Years, and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and
most importantly, I fell in love with Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. Completely in awe of the

12
flips that Kimberly, the Pink Power Ranger could do, I begged my mother when I was 8-years-
old to sign me up for gymnastics. That was the beginning of a 15-year gymnastics career that
culminated in recruitment to the University of Pennsylvania’s gymnastics team, providing an
unshakable personal testimony that children’s shows can have an impact on one’s goals, life
trajectory, and access to institutions.
My love for Power Rangers and my desire to act out scenes with classmates on the
playground also exposed me to the importance of media representations. When expressing my
desire to be Kimberly, white classmates often told me that this was not allowed because my skin
was brown. Kimberly, the character who I admired most, was white. I consequently was always
assigned to be the Yellow Ranger, Trini (Asian-American), or Aisha, an African-American who
also played the Yellow Ranger. Alerted to this issue of representation at an early age without
being able to put words to the concept, I always paid keen attention to which characters I could
find pieces of myself in or who I could aspire to be. As I got older I dedicated both my studies
and career toward an investment in telling children—and especially Black children—that they
could be and do anything.
Now that I am blessed with two children, I have had to shift my mentality from primarily
hoping to inspire children “out there” in the world, to the realization that I am shaping the
desires, values, and hopes of two children in my own care. I have come to even more greatly
appreciate my own parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents and how they turned their own
lived experience and knowledge into strategies for child rearing. I have also come to realize how
much historical forces and systems have spanned generations and have shaped quite personal and
intimate conversations, direction, and guidance in my own upbringing—and that these forces are
also shaping my own parenting. Now that I have begun to process these reflections as a child

13
raised in the 1990s and as a parent, I embark on the challenge of making sense of them through
scholarship and research. Through this work, I offer a critical read of stories and childhoods like
mine and those of other Black millennials who are now parents—with a particular focus on race,
class, ideas of success and citizenship, and the role of the media that Black millennials
consumed.

Existing Knowledge and Need for Further Research
While this exploration of Black millennial childhoods and parenting is in conversation
with several fields of scholarship, this study about Black millennial parents is primarily situated
within the fields of communication and cultural studies, Black studies, and children’s media
studies. Through the lens of communication and cultural studies, this project delves into the ways
in which media shaped Black Millennials, and how those media were part of a larger system of
ideologies, messaging, and representation of ideal citizenship and participation in the nation.
Within Black studies and Black popular cultural studies, scholars have previously written about
the time period in which Black Millennials grew up and the importance of mediated
representations, but little is said about childhood viewership or children’s media in particular.
Finally, while children’s media studies are thoughtful about the potential impacts of media on
children, there is a gap in scholarship that contains rigorous analyses on race—particularly in the
time period of the 1990s-2000s—a very formative time period in the lives of Black millennials.
Communication + Cultural Studies
Communication and cultural studies as fields both help us to think about the relationship
between texts and viewers, how we make meaning of those texts, and—especially in cultural
studies—how those texts are created within particular cultural, social, and historical moments.

14
Communication and cultural studies lean into the ways in which culture is a battlefield, and the
ways in which struggles over power and meaning play out in culture and media. For example,
John Fiske notes that within culture, there is a constant “struggle for meaning” (Fiske, 1992, p.
215) in which the dominant classes attempt to make their own interpretations and meanings
natural and normal. He draws upon Althusser’s concept of Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA’s,
which include things like schools, the legal system, and the media) which systematically work to
promote the ideologies of the dominant classes as well as the process of hegemony, which he
states is “...engaged in a constant struggle not just to extend its power but hold on to the territory
it has already colonized”(ibid, p. 219). Stuart Hall (1981) similarly posits that the reason that
popular culture matters is because it is a site of struggle over social and political power.
Ultimately, these fields and concepts highlight popular culture, ideology, and mediated
narratives as worthy of attention, especially within the contexts in which they are created and
consumed. Meaning-making practices are especially relevant to Black populations and children.
Both blackness and childhood have symbolically been mobilized in myriad ways toward political
and ideological ends and have been conceptually shifted and molded depending on cultural and
societal needs. Therefore, Black people, children, and Black children at this intersection, must
make meaning of the ways in which they are viewed, represented, and the ways in which they
hope to exist. As Darnell Hunt writes:
Much of this meaning-making activity is wrapped up in our own ongoing efforts to
establish who we are, who we are not, and who we hope to be. As a consequence, we
each regularly affirm and police the boundaries of race, in our own little ways, as a
means of bringing necessary order to our social experiences”(Hunt, 2005, p. 3).
Communication and cultural studies allow us to examine the ways in which these battles over
power and meaning occur.

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One of the few texts that provides a critical cultural analysis on the era of children’s
television in which Black millennials were growing up (i.e., 1980s-early 2000s) is Sarah Banet-
Weiser’s 2007 work on Nickelodeon. It provides a critical look at the rise and function of one of
the giants of the children’s media industry and analyzes some of the key decision-making around
how to frame the network and market its programming. Specifically, Nickelodeon positioned
itself as a space for children to be empowered, where they have a voice, and where they can
practice a unique form of citizenship through brand loyalty and a shared kid experience—as part
of the “Nickelodeon Nation.” Banet-Weiser also provides a critical analysis of Nickelodeon’s
use of racial representations in an era of late capitalism and multiculturalism. While it may seem
quite progressive and empowering to include multicultural casts and black and brown characters
in their shows, Banet-Weiser argues that for Nickelodeon, diversity pays off: “Indeed, within the
world of children’s television, racial and ethnic identity works as a kind of currency, where it
increases the political and social clout of a network to be able to claim that it is ‘diverse’”(Banet-
Weiser, 2007, p. 146). She also posits that some of the “positive” representations of Black
characters might in fact be new variations of old tropes and stereotypes of Black characters. She
argues that the network's strategy of multiculturalism allows them to superficially display race
and empower kids without truly engaging in making change to the systems impacting children of
color.
While Banet-Weiser’s work provides an in-depth analysis and critique on the
commodification of diversity within the network, what lies beyond the scope of her work is how
children—and specifically Black millennials—experienced these programs. While it may be true
that profit underlines the network's good intentions, it is important to ask Black millennials how
they made meaning of what they saw, and how they have understood this programming within

16
their own lives. This could provide more layers to Banet-Weiser’s analysis of both consumer
citizenship and race as it was experienced through children’s programming.
Henry Jenkins’ forthcoming work, The Boy in the Striped Shirt, provides quite a personal,
thoughtful, and rigorous cultural-historical analysis of the ways in which the Baby Boom
generation (often the parents of Black millennials) were raised amidst a growing plethora of
parenting advice and literature that leaned toward permissiveness—an approach to child rearing
that grew after World War II. Permissive parenting strayed from rigid structures, over-
disciplining, and hindering play and exploration. Just as this dissertation returns to an era of
childhood that has passed, Jenkins notes that the importance of returning to Baby Boomer
childhood lies in the need to “better understand the civic project” that was meant to shape his
own generation—particularly a project rooted in democracy and creating a certain type of citizen
and America. To accomplish this exploration and examination, Jenkins engages both with
parenting literature and popular texts throughout the era to delve into the ways in which
childhood was intentionally cultivated. However, throughout the text, Jenkins has wondered how
this notion of permissiveness overall did not, and possibly could not, apply to Black baby
boomers—Black parents would likely need to consider the ways in which permissive parenting
could get their children arrested or in some other form of trouble with authorities, and asserts that
permissive parenting came alongside white privilege. He also very clearly notes in the text that
the characterization of American boyhood in culture and in the popular media texts which he
utilizes throughout his analysis was very white. As he points out, some of the very writers
invested in children’s education and the democratic imagination (e.g., Dr. Seuss) were also
known to exclude or stereotype Black children. Jenkins makes a notable effort to engage in a
conversation about race in his analysis where the era in which he is revisiting had made every

17
effort to push non-white people and children into invisibility. He brings to light the fact that only
a certain type of child was allowed to grow up in permissive environments, and that parenting
literature was written primarily with white families in mind. However, the fact remains that black
families in the post war era were heavily marginalized in society and the literature and television
that are the focus of this work—and therefore were not central to the analysis. Still, this
dissertation is very much in conversation with Jenkins’ work. First, while this dissertation project
is not about Black Baby Boomers in particular, this generation is quite valuable to the analysis of
Black millennials’ upbringing, as Baby Boomers are often the parents of Black millennials.
Black family formations and experiences of Baby Boomers would have also influenced the
parenting practices utilized for Black millennial children. Second, this dissertation, like Jenkins’
work, analyzes previous eras and explores what the shaping efforts were and toward what end,
especially in regard to citizenship and success.
Black Studies/Black pop cultural studies
Scholars within Black studies and Black popular cultural studies have made an
intentional effort to center race and conceptualizations of blackness within popular culture, as
well as the ways in which Black people make meaning of the media texts. In mediated, visual,
and narrative representations, scholars have prompted us to think about the interior lives of Black
people, their struggles over power, and the ways in which Black people wish to be seen, heard,
and represented. In other words, they ask us to question how media are important for Black
experiences, and how Black experiences are written into and often commodified for the purposes
of televisual landscapes.
A few Black popular cultural studies scholars have given a great deal of thought to
television within the era of Black millennial childhoods. This was a period when there was a

18
boom in the number of networks and programs that featured Black characters, and when
conversations around representation drew much attention, debate, and media coverage. Just as
Stuart Hall and John Fiske point to popular culture as a site of struggle over meaning and power,
Darnell Hunt in Channeling Blackness argues that even amidst the growing diversity in the
television landscape, multiculturalism, colorblind ideology and policies, race stands firmly as a
stronghold in the nation, and that television plays a “critical role in this ongoing meaning making
process”(Hunt, 2005, p. 3). Likewise, Herman Gray (2004), points to television as a “dense site
or place of struggle over the symbolic meanings (and uses) of blackness in the production of the
nation'' which therefore “gives television a central role in cultural politics”(ibid, xiv). Gray
positions television within the 1980s as a cultural site/window to the “complex play between the
sites of mass commercial media and black cultural politics”(ibid, p. 7). He posits that in the
neoconservative era of President Ronald Reagan, blackness—and specifically the portrayal of
blackness on television—served as a tool to construct the public imagination of the nation, with
Black people standing in for the challenges and ills of the country (i.e., crime, poverty, drugs) to
mobilize a unified whiteness toward a desired political end. However, according to Gray, in a
colorblind America, blackness could not be wholly demonized, and therefore upper middle-class
Black families on television stood in for a safe and accepted version of blackness. However,
Gray also asserts that Black people had agency in the struggle over the meanings and
representations of Blackness and pushed back against this utilization of race by the new right.
Both Hunt’s and Gray’s analyses are quite valuable for this dissertation as they establish the
importance of television in the meaning-making processes involved in television and Black
cultural production, as well as the push and pull over representation as representations of
blackness. However, it seems an in-depth analysis of childhood, or children’s viewership of these

19
formations of blackness within these texts was beyond the scope of both Hunt’s and Gray’s
works and a gap in knowledge that this dissertation aims to fill.
In Beretta Smith-Shomade’s (2012) edited work, Watching While Black, scholars work to
fill a gap in research and knowledge about the viewership of Black audiences as well as the
shows that are created specifically with Black audiences in mind. These scholars write about the
ways in which the structures of the television industry, such as typical practices around hiring
producers (Robin Means Coleman & Andre Calvacante) or casting actors (Kristen J. Warner),
impact the cultural production of blackness on television. For example, within the volume, Robin
Means Coleman and Andre Calvacante (2012) describe the stark contrast between the first
season of A Different World and subsequent seasons. The show was a spinoff of The Cosby Show
in which The Cosby Show character, Denise Huxtable, goes to college. It was initially produced
by Anne Beatts, a well-seasoned and trusted white producer. However, many audience members
disliked the first season of the show. Some critiqued the show and asserted that its narrative
lacked Black humor and failed to acknowledge Black culture traditions in dynamic ways.
However, when choreographer and director Debbie Allen, a Black woman, took over as producer
in the second season, she breathed new life into the representation of blackness on the show
stylistically, musically, narratively, and with the intention of having a form of an edutainment-
like curriculum.
Means Coleman and Calvacante’s analysis of A Different World highlights the struggle
within Black cultural production over the ways in which Blackness is created and represented.
While I have previously noted that children and children’s media are largely missing from Black
cultural studies scholarship on television, another work within Smith-Shomade’s text by
TreaAndrea Russworm (2012) actually examines Bill Cosby’s animated show for children, Fat

20
Albert and the Cosby Kids, which aired on CBS from 1972-1984. The show was meant to allow
Black children to see themselves represented in ways that countered other more pathological
representations of the time. Russworm also argues that the show was a “fresh example of
Blackness at play”(ibid, p. 94) and to demonstrated that “Cosby’s metanarrative about
psychically whole Black youthful existence, insists that his vision of Black interiority is indeed
presentable, communicative, and universal”(Russworm, 2012, p. 101). Russworm’s work
explores how the perceptions of Black childhood are produced. Russworm identifies Black
childhood, and Black children’s media as a site of struggle as well over meaning. This
dissertation aims to bring these types of analyses a few years beyond the airing of Fat Albert and
into the 1990s and early 2000s.
Children’s media studies
Childhood is a sphere in which there is also a battle over its creation and meaning in
society. Because childhood has historically been viewed as something to be protected and
preserved (Jenkins, 1998), when children act out of line, it is often assumed that it is due to some
outside influence; not necessarily because of an internal decision that a child has made. How can
powerless and pure children make poor, out-of-line decisions without the aid of a terrible
influence? Media are closely examined in the lives, perceptions, behaviors, and learning of
children. According to Lynn Spigel (1998), since television’s growing popularity in the 1940s,
“educators, citizen groups, the clergy, and other social organizations have attacked television for
its unwholesome effects on children”(Spigel, 1998, p. 110). Violence, sex, and naughtiness on
television “are continually seen as threats to youngsters, threats that need to be researched and
controlled”(ibid, p. 110). In her explanation of parental mediation theory, Lynn Schofield Clark
notes that parents’ mediation of their children’s media practices are strongly tied to their

21
emotions about being good parents: “These emotions are triggered in relation to their desires to
be ‘‘good’’ parents as they balance the family’s emotional and economic needs with digital and
mobile media technologies that can both solve and exacerbate family dilemmas”(Schofield
Clark, 2011, p. 330). Therefore, children’s media and the study of it can symbolize a historical
system of discourses regarding what it means to be a child, what hopes adults have for children
and what they believe is important for children to see and to learn, and finally, how children’s
media debates are representational models for the struggle over national identity, citizenship, and
race.
It is important to note, however, that children’s media studies take shape in a historical
and political context in which Black children, who are at the center of my study, are often denied
access to childhood as a social category. Black feminist scholars have examined this at length
and called attention to the ways childhood itself operates as a category of racialized and
gendered privilege. In Habiba Ibrahim’s Black Age: Oceanic Lifespans and the Time of Black
Life, Ibrahim posits the concept of “untimeliness” as a way to describe “black exclusion from
hegemonic measures of time” (Ibrahim, 2021, p. 3): Black children are often subject to
“adultification bias,” such that they are often viewed as older and less innocent than their white
peers, and Black adults have historically been constructed as intellectually, socially, politically,
and civilizationally childlike, backwards, and naive. In Ibrahim’s words, “It matters that black
men have been routinely referred to as ‘boys,’ that black children are viewed as adults” (ibid, p.
22). Other scholars have examined how adultification bias impacts Black girls specifically.
Georgetown Law’s Center on Poverty and Inequality’s report Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure
of Black Girls’ Childhood (Epstein, Blake, & González, 2017) found that “adults surveyed view
Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than white girls of the same ages, especially

22
between 5-14 years old,” which results in harsher treatment of Black girls in systems of
education and juvenile justice (ibid, 2017, p. 2). Viewed through the lens of these findings,
Ibrahim notes that rather than solely describing a “natural,” biological life stage, “‘childhood’
names a process for simultaneously including and alienating racialized subjects within a schema
of human time” (Ibrahim, 2021, p. 31). Thus, we might question whether the marginalization of
Black children within children’s media studies is, in part, a product of this tendency to deny that
Black children are children. My study, in alignment with scholars of Black childhood, enshrines
Black childhood as an important life stage during which participants interacted with media in
ways that craft visions of their life trajectories as children, and that they continue to strategically
interact with as adults raising their own Black children.
Studies about children and their relationship to media often harken back to media’s
psychological influence on children. In the early 1960s, Stanford psychologist, Albert Bandura,
famously conducted the “Bobo Doll” controlled laboratory experiments with children enrolled in
Stanford University Nursery School to study whether and how children’s observations of
aggressive behaviors might influence their own behavior and whether they would imitate the
behaviors of models (e.g., physically showing aggression toward a Bobo Doll). Bandura’s study
on film-mediated behavior divided children into three groups: a real-life model showing
aggressive behavior, the same models displaying aggressive behavior on film, or a cartoon
character displaying aggressive behavior (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1963). The authors state that
the findings from their experiment provided “strong evidence that exposure to filmed aggression
heightens aggressive reactions in children”(ibid, p. 9). Social Learning Theory, largely attributed
to Bandura (1977), would solidify the notion that human behavior—and especially children’s
behavior—could be learned and influenced by models and through social interaction,

23
highlighting the importance of environment in development. He points to television as a highly
influential model for behavior and attitudes, as television grasps and seizes people’s attention in
ways in which verbal versions of the same messages might not be able to (ibid).
Bandura’s experiments and theories, alongside child psychology and media effects research,
would serve as a major pillar in the legacy of children’s media studies, which has traditionally
been concerned with the ways in which media might influence—for better or for worse—the
ways in which children behave, learn, and interact.
Since then, traditional children’s media studies have often examined the tradition of
psychology and effects research. They address questions about whether television is too violent,
whether it impacts their physical or mental health, whether children are exposed to exorbitant
commercialization, whether they are watching too much sexual content, and whether content
impacts their self-esteem. This tradition of research also examines different media products and
their impact on children’s learning (particularly at the preschool age), and even the levels to
which children identify themselves with specific characters (studies on identification, parasocial
interaction, etc.) or how much they comprehend a story. These studies are all useful and
necessary for the understanding of children’s interaction with narrative content and provide
helpful implications for the creation of future content. Furthermore, these studies represent the
fears and concerns regarding the impact of children’s media, or, media and technology more
broadly, on the lives and development of children as future citizens. Will children be violent
citizens? Will they be involved in risky sexual behavior? Will they be well-educated, and well-
adjusted in a social and emotional way? Will they identify with characters who look like them,
and those who don’t? These are just a few of the important questions and subjects this research
explores.

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Children’s media research is also highly influenced by Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological
Systems Theory (1977). This multilevel theory considers child development within multi-level
contexts. Specifically, Bronfenbrenner’s model encourages consideration of the microsystem
(e.g., home, school, workplace, etc.), mesosystem (i.e., the interaction between microsystems),
exosystem (e.g., neighborhoods, government, informal social networks) macrosystem (i.e.,
societal and cultural ideologies and patterns), and chronosystem (i.e., changes that happen in the
systems over time). In the model, each of these spheres interact with one another and influence a
child’s development. From a cultural studies perspective, the macrosystem is an important
element to examine, as cultural patterns and ideologies infiltrate the narratives across all these
different spheres. Black populations in the United States are often the subjects of research within
each of these systems, whether around questions of household, family, employment,
neighborhood, or media. However, this study aims to examine the interaction between these
settings, over time, and from the perspectives of those who lived it. This framework allows the
study to consider the overarching forces in society at a given point in time, and how these forces
might be at work in individual and personal lives. It also allows an examination of mediated
communication and narratives.
Although children’s media scholarship is thoughtful in considering societal and cultural
contexts, it does tend not to focus heavily on race and racism. Amy Jordan and Kate Prendella
write that a majority of research is done with Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and
democratic ‘WEIRD’ populations”(Jordan & Prendella, 2021, p. 235). They call for more studies
that focus on underrepresented and “invisible” children (ibid, p. 236), in particular poor children,
children with disabilities, and those who do not have ready access to Internet technologies. A
few scholars have examined issues of race within children’s media. For example, AnneMarie

25
McClain and Marie-Louise Mares (2020) surveyed Black parents who had children between the
ages of three and 17 years-old to ask for their perspectives on fictional content and what they
hope to see in the media available to their children. They found that Black parents highly valued
diverse representations, and specifically wanted their children to be able to see Black characters.
Furthermore, they cared how those characters were depicted phenotypically (i.e., dark skin tones
and textured, natural hair). Parents also had preferences about showing various prosocial
behaviors, relationships, and outcomes (e.g., working hard, interracial relationships, and Black
success), as well as content that addresses race in a direct manner—this is because parents value
having conversations about race with their children, and content that addresses race can be
utilized as a conversation starter with their children (McClain & Mares, 2020).
Fashina Aladé, Alexis Lauricella, Yannik Kumar, and Ellen Wartella (2021), on the other
hand, examine, through content analysis, representation in STEM content for children. Their
character analysis revealed that in shows that claim to teach STEM content, minority characters
were underrepresented when compared with the general population. They point out that African
Americans make up only 5% of the population of professional scientists and engineers, and that
more representation in STEM content for children is important to consider (Aladé, Lauricella,
Kuma, & Wartella, 2021). Again, this study specifically aims to address representation in STEM,
but it does not necessarily include human subjects that are from underrepresented groups in
children’s media scholarship.
Some scholars have looked at the role of media in families of color. Several of the studies
within Children and Families in the Digital Age, edited by Lori Takeuchi, Ellen Wartella, and
Elisabeth Gee, examined the ways in which technology and media are used in family life and are
shaped by the ecological circumstances of these families—from the places they live, to the

26
structure of their families, to the access that they have to technology. It thoughtfully examines
family values and practices especially as they relate to technology and culture. However, the
majority of the families in these studies are Latinx; while these studies make a valuable effort to
and succeed in examining the role of media in the lives of families and children of color, we
could still benefit from knowledge like this in Black families in particular.
Ultimately, this dissertation is centered around addressing the lives and media
consumption experiences of children of color, in particular Black children—populations who are
largely invisible in children’s media research. Researchers like those described above (i.e.,
McClain & Mares, 2020; Aladé, Lauricella, Kuma, & Wartella, 2021; Takeuchi, Wartella, &
Gee, 2018) have addressed this concern in some way, and this dissertation responds to this
dilemma by centering Black children and their families in its analysis. This dissertation
especially aims to center Black millennial children, who were not centered in research at a time
when shifts in race, culture, technology, and children’s media were significant. Insights from
Black millennial childhoods help us to better understand these shifts from a standpoint not
previously examined. Furthermore, scholarship that does center parent perceptions, such as
McClain & Mares (2020), does a wonderful job in asking for parent opinions and values, but
could examine more deeply the ways in which these perceptions are rooted in parents’ own
media experiences as children. The studies in Takeuchi, Wartella, & Gee (2018) are fantastic in
terms of considering the ecological, social, and economic contexts in which these families form
their media practices and values. However, the examination of these values and practices could
also benefit from an exploration of the parents’ childhood television viewership. An additional
strength of the studies in Takeuchi, Wartella, & Gee is that it captures the experiences of families
and their children in the present time, in the current moment of the study. This dissertation aims

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to capture the practices and values of parents in this moment, but also aims to retroactively
capture some of the experiences of Black millennials when they were children.
Key Terms
It is important to take a moment to both declare and define this project’s key terms. The
first central term within this project is Black millennial. In discussions of millennials, this
project relies on Pew Research Center’s boundaries of people born between the years of 1981-
1996 (Dimock, 2019). However, in practice, this dissertation also included one participant who
was born in 1980 to account for the somewhat disagreed upon boundaries of the generation. The
“black” in Black millennial refers primarily to people of the African diaspora, but it is important
to note that “blackness” as a term and symbol that is ever changing and elusive. As we know,
race is not a natural or biological construction, but rather is an “irresistible social representation
or naturalized mental framework that works to order the way we see the world before us”(Hunt,
2005, p. 3). Blackness is an organizational tool and a cultural and political signifier—one that is
often used differently in different contexts. Blackness is not monolithic, nor can it be
essentialized (Gray, 2004; Hall, 1993). I find Herman Gray‘s description of black to be quite
useful, in which he describes it as “... specific communities, people, and agents who live and
struggle in and against (historic and contemporary) racialized discourses and oppressive social
conditions in the United States”(Gray, 2004, p. 13). In practice and in the recruitment of Black
millennials, I accepted those who self-identified as Black.
Also central to this work is the term childhood. Childhood as a changing societal concept
and construct are discussed at length in Chapter 2—but in simple terms, by “childhood” I am
referring to people who are under 13-years-old. However, when in conversation with Black
millennial parents, I understood that it was often difficult to parse out their early childhood

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memories from those that occurred in their tweens and adolescence—approximately between the
ages of 13 and 18, when they would be considered to be adults. This is especially the case when
they reflected on their youth, childhood, and adolescence. So, while this dissertation primarily
focuses on childhood as a concept, in practice, it also considers the years after their childhood
and into their adulthood. After all, this study asked them to reflect both on their childhood and
the ways in which they are experiencing their adulthood and parenting.
Family is another term used throughout the dissertation. Family is a term with quite
complicated connotations and histories, especially for Black Americans. As described in Chapter
2, enslaved people of African descent in the Americas were considered and treated as property
and their families were not readily recognized—they were frequently separated and even coerced
through forced reproduction. Black families have also been pathologized in culture and
scholarship, especially pointing to absent Black fathers, emasculating Black mothers (imaged as
parasites of the state), and children out of wedlock. Black families do not always look like the
“traditional,” nuclear, heterosexual family structure; indeed, the ideal of the Western nuclear
family was often mobilized in order to pathologize and exclude Black people as property- and
rights-bearing citizens. As a result, Black studies scholars have devised language for a wide
range of paradigms for family–from Patricia Hill Collins’ concept of the “othermother” (which
vests mothering responsibilities in a broader community rather than exclusively in the biological
mother) to Martinican theorist Édouard Glissant’s insistence (citing Deleuze and Guattari) on
discussing relation through the paradigm of the “rhizome” (a complex, interwoven network of
roots) rather than a singular or “totalitarian root” (Collins, 1990/2000; Glissant, 1997, p. 11). For
example, some participants within this study were raised by grandparents, great grandparents,
aunts and uncles, lived across households, or had family through foster care. Therefore, this

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study both includes and extends beyond the Western family ideal and allows participants to
define “family” in accordance with their lived experiences. Most often, participants considered
and mentioned the people who raised them, and the people in their household growing up (even
if they lived across different households if their parents were not together, for example).
Finally, children’s media, and specifically, children’s television, might typically refer to
television content created with children in mind. This project does utilize the term in that way.
However, I am also expanding the term to broadly include the media that children—or Black
millennial children—consumed during their childhood. Many of the shows mentioned by my
participants did not conceive of themselves as "children's media," though their viewership was
often age diverse. Because it was not uncommon for Black millennial children to engage media
that was designed for a broad Black audience (rather than exclusively for children), we must
think in broader terms about what can constitute children's media. My work centers the
perspectives of Black millennials themselves, rather than the organizing and marketing
categories produced by the media industry; thus, I include in my analysis shows that may not
traditionally be considered within the frame of “children's media." In these cases, I refer to them
as media that children consumed, which might include both media created specifically for
children and other media. However, in cases where I refer to media created specifically with
children in mind, I refer to them as children’s media or children’s television, programming, or
content.
Significance
Thus far, this chapter has asserted that there is something to be learned from Black
millennial experiences in childhood, especially as they relate to television viewership. Research
on Black millennials’ childhood television viewing experiences, as well as their perceptions and

30
practices regarding their own parenting and mediation of their own children’s media use, are in
conversation with existing scholarship in critical cultural studies, black popular cultural studies,
and children’s media studies. This dissertation aims to examine, in a complex way, gaps in each
of these fields while also putting them in conversation with one another in a way that has not
been done previously.
Through this research, we will know more about the intersection of social and historical
context, race, and the role of television in the late 20th century. We will also have more insight
into how these experiences in these contexts can influence parenting and how, in turn, parents
shape their own children and the role of media in their children’s lives. This information will
further scholarship about children and media in that it highlights the importance of capturing the
experiences of a generation in a way that centers the present, rather than only focusing on effects
that will impact their futures. Childhood is not simply a stop on the path to adulthood. Children
are whole people now, and it is imperative that we make time to document their thoughts,
experiences, and values. While we did not do this for Black millennials, we still have the chance
to ask for their reflections on their childhood as well as their experiences in adulthood and
parenting. This research also has implications for the children’s media industry and media
practitioners who can create content that is attuned to both the current experiences of Black
Americans, but also the histories and forces that have influenced Black Americans across
generations. Media practitioners today are especially dedicated to creating thoughtful
representations for children of color and other underrepresented populations. If we want to create
multidimensional, representative Black characters, we must look at Black people as
multidimensional, multigenerational, and multi-experiential. This dissertation asserts that the

31
interior lives of Black children and their families, especially in regard to their television
viewership, is important to both scholarship and media creation.
Structure of the Dissertation
Chapter Two - Methodological Approaches to Centering Black Millennial Stories

Chapter 2 provides details on the methodological approaches to the dissertation, which is
qualitative, historiographic, and phenomenological in nature. The methodological approaches
used were meant to both contextualize and center Black millennials’ lived experiences,
storytelling, meaning-making, and parenting. Specifically, the study is built upon approaches
such as Feminist Standpoint Theory, Grounded Theory, historiography, and phenomenology.
The chapter also outlines the research questions and methodological approaches for each chapter.
Namely, the dissertation utilizes conjunctural analysis as well as semi-structured qualitative
interviews with 15 Black millennial parents. Most importantly, Chapter 2 contains participant
portraits of each of these 15 parents; these portraits are meant to introduce the participants to the
reader, but also aim to present their stories in a way that honors their storytelling. Finally,
Chapter 2 provides details on the research design, study procedures, analysis, and ethical
considerations.

Chapter Three - Bringing ‘Dreams to Life’: The Shaping of Black Millennials

Chapter 3 offers an introduction to Black millennials and aims to highlight the social,
political, economic, and historical contexts in which they grew up using conjunctural analysis.
Specifically, it argues that there are several spheres of participation in defining a citizen, and that
Black people have historically had barriers to participation in these spheres. In discussing the
social and historical forces present at different conjunctures, we are able to explore how the

32
conjunctures in which Black millennials were raised, as well as their parents’ generations and
those before them, might have impacted their upbringing. Ultimately, this chapter sets the stage
for the remaining chapters of the dissertation by calling attention to the historically significant
discursive events, culture, and ideologies that were prevalent as Black millennials began to
understand their world. Furthermore, it asserts that the historical specificity of Black millennials’
childhoods influenced the ways in which they engaged with televisual narratives and constructed
their aspirations.

Chapter Four - “Thinkin’ ‘Bout Yesterday”: Reflections on Black Millennial Childhoods

Chapter 4 can be viewed as a continuation of Chapter 3, but with Black millennial
experiences at its center. While Chapter Two utilizes a conjunctural analysis and identifies
spheres of citizenship such as childhood, family, education, and space, Chapter 3—through
interviews with 15 Black millennial parents—discusses the ways in which discourse around
these spheres of participation were present in the formation of Black millennial childhoods.
Furthermore, it examines how their raced and classed experiences, as well as their familial and
other relational experiences, were intertwined with mediated narratives and often influenced how
they interacted with those narratives. Mediated narratives also might have either reinforced or
countered the interpersonal narratives or lived experiences of Black millennials, which in turn
shaped their own aspirations in regard to the spheres of participation (i.e., where they wanted to
live, what they wanted to do for work, what kinds of family structures they wished to have).
Essentially, Chapter 4 argues that Black millennial television viewership cannot be separated
from the personal and historical contexts in which they were viewed.

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Chapter Five - Take My Hand: Black Millennials as Parents

The fifth chapter seeks to understand how media influence our present and future and
centers the ways in which Black millennials—especially now as parents—engage in a
retrospective critical media literacy of the media that they watched as children alongside the
interpersonal and societal narratives that were encouraged in their upbringing. The chapter
responds to the question of how media might influence children but does so by allowing those
children—now adults—to personally detail how the messaging and images of their childhood TV
shows interacted with their personal lives to formulate their expectations, aspirations, and
imaginations. It demonstrates, through participant data, where those expectations were met and
where they did not come to fruition. The chapter also highlights how participants felt represented
in the televisual sphere, where they felt excluded, and characters that they admired. Chapter 5
builds a case for the importance of considering retrospective critical media literacy—or the
ongoing process of critical media literacy—as people’s understandings change over time and
with lived experience. This is especially important when those adults have parenting and
caregiving roles. While parental media literacy programming typically focuses on coviewing and
mediation benefits for their children, this chapter seeks to portray additional benefits of reflecting
critically on shows that one engaged with in their childhood.

Chapter Six - “That Great Place”: Future Directions of Scholarship and Media Creation

Chapter 6 gives an overview of the dissertation and findings. It also provides a critical,
personal reflection of the challenges of the research process. Furthermore, it leaves the reader
with considerations for future research, as well as takeaways for those who create media and
children’s media more broadly.

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Chapter Two

Methodological Approaches to Centering Black Millennial Stories

As outlined in Chapter 1, this dissertation explores the ways in which the contextual
factors and interpersonal and mediated narratives in Black millennial parents’ upbringings might
have influenced their worldviews, dream-making practices, and their own parenting. Chapter 2
provides details on the methodology of this historiographic and qualitative study of Black
millennial parents. It contains information about the research philosophy and design that inspired
the study approaches, as well as details about the methods utilized to conduct the research.
Furthermore, this chapter hones in on recruitment criteria and processes, ethical considerations,
instrumentation, data collection procedures and challenges, coding, and limitations of the study
design. Most importantly, this chapter includes introductions to the participants of the study, with
brief overviews of key information about them as well as salient topics that arose in our
discussions.

Section I. Research Questions, Nature of Study, and Approaches to Research

Research Questions

This study centers the voices and stories of its participants: Black millennial parents with
at least one child between the ages of 1-13. While it necessarily converses with existing
scholarship and takes an interest in the media texts with which Black millennials engaged with in
their childhoods—including children’s programs as well as programs created for broader Black
audiences as well as general audiences—it relies on Black millennial parents as its primary
interlocutors. Therefore, the research questions throughout the dissertation point primarily to the
historical and social contexts of Black millennials’ childhood years, as well as the lived

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experiences, reflections, and meaning-making of Black millennials themselves. Each chapter that
follows explores Black millennial childhoods through a different lens.
For example, Chapter 3 contextualizes Black millennials’ lived experiences, paying
particular attention to historical, social, economic, and televisual factors that often took shape
before they were born and continued into their youth. It answers the research questions: What
were the social, historical, and economic forces that shaped Black millennial childhoods? What
was the televisual landscape at the time of Black millennial television viewership, and how was
this landscape shaped by historical, social, or cultural influences?
This allows us to examine Black millennial experiences with more depth and
understanding. Next, Chapter 4 centers Black millennial stories about their upbringing,
reflections on their childhood, and strategies of sense-making about the ways in which their
television viewership influenced and was influenced by their ecological, contextual
circumstances. Chapter 4 answers the research questions: How do Black millennial parents
narrate the key social, historical, economic, and televisual forces that shaped their upbringings?
How, if at all, did Black millennials’ ecological/contextual circumstances influence the ways in
which they engaged with television? How, if at all, did Black millennials’ television viewership
influence their understandings of themselves, their families, or their futures? Finally, Chapter 5
allows us to explore Black millennial childhoods and television viewership through participant
perspectives as parents. While this generation is not so far removed from their youth, as parents
they actively reflect on decisions made by their parents and guardians about their upbringing, the
interpersonal and mediated narratives that shaped them, and whether they would continue these
same narratives and practices in the lives of their own children. Chapter 5 answers the research
questions: How do Black millennials make sense of the interpersonal and mediated narratives

36
that shaped them as children, now that they are adults and parents? What are Black millennial
parent perspectives and practices around their own children’s media use? Finally, how does the
current moment shape parental strategies? Taken together, these research questions focus our
exploration of Black millennial childhoods in a contextualized manner and in a way that Black
millennials themselves are the primary voices and experts that offer insights into their personal
lives, the late 20th century, and parenting in the current conjuncture.

Nature of and Approaches to the Study
This study is inductive, exploratory, and qualitative in nature. Juliet Corbin and Anselm
Strauss (2008) posit that qualitative research is useful when a researcher aims to “discover rather
than to test variables” and that it is “good for meaning-making”(p. 11). Because Black millennial
childhood television viewership has not been studied in this unique way—combining history,
participant meaning-making, sociological and ecological contexts, as well as perceptions of
media texts—this study relies on Black millennial memories and storytelling alongside
scholarship. The best way to engage with those reflections and that storytelling is through
qualitative approaches. Observations in the form of conversations with Black millennials are the
primary way in which the study explores the research questions. In terms of approaches to the
research, this study is influenced by grounded theory, historiography, conjunctural analysis,
phenomenology, and methods that consider the importance of Black interiority and storytelling.

Grounded Theory
Grounded theory, introduced by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in 1967, is an
approach to research that utilizes data to develop theory and theoretical concepts (Corbin &

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Strauss, 2008; Charmaz, 2006; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Juliet Corbin and Anselm Strauss note
that it is important to understand some of the ontological assumptions of grounded theory. A few
are particularly useful to this study. First, they state that “Meanings (symbols) are aspects of
interaction and are related to others within systems of meanings (symbols). Interactions generate
new meanings ... as well as alter and maintain old ones (citing Mead, 1934)”(Corbin & Strauss,
2008, p. 6). This is useful to this study in that it centers meaning-making as an aspect of
interaction—Black millennials both generate new meanings and build upon and maintain old
ones through both interpersonal and mediated interactions, as well as interactions with the
contexts of their upbringing. They also assert that “Actions are embedded in interactions—past,
present and imagined future. Thus, actions also carry meanings and are locatable within systems
of meanings”(ibid, p. 6). This is especially useful in thinking about the parenting actions of both
Black millennial parents and those who raised them as the decision-making processes are
embedded in interactions that span past, present, and future. Furthermore, citing Mead 1959, they
discuss the assumption that early childhood is a formative period that develops “selves” that
manifest through actions throughout life (ibid). Again, this is useful in thinking about the
childhoods of Black millennials and how this influences their decision-making and actions
throughout life and especially in their parenting.
Corbin and Strauss assert, then, that because of assumptions like those above,
approaching research is quite a complex task:
Therefore, any methodology that attempts to understand experience and explain
situations will have to be complex. We believe that it is important to capture as much of
this complexity in our research as possible, at the same time knowing that capturing it all
is virtually impossible. We try to obtain multiple perspectives on events and build
variation into our analytic schemes. We realize that, to understand experience, that
experience must be located within and can't be divorced from the larger events in a
social, political, cultural, racial, gender-related, informational, and technological

38
framework and therefore these are essential aspects of our analyses (Corbin & Strauss,
2008, p. 7).

Like Corbin and Strauss suggest, understanding Black millennial childhoods in the context of
social, political, and cultural frameworks is quite a complicated task that spans generations, and
it is impossible to offer a totalizing account. Because of its complexity, I have drawn on multiple
approaches to research and have explored the topic from various lenses.
Conjunctural Analysis
To examine the discourses that influenced Black millennial upbringing and their interior
lives and experiences, it is necessary to contextualize those discourses by studying the major
formations at work within the generation at a macro level. In Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological
Systems Theory (1977), the macrosystem might include the economic, political, social, and
ideological forces of a given society. Chapter 3 utilizes conjunctural analysis as an approach to
studying the ways in which these different forces at the macro level were at work in the shaping
of Black millennials. Specifically, it hones in on the changing conceptualizations of childhood,
parenting, and family life—alongside cultural and political wars and the ever-present
mobilization of race, class, and spatial inequality.
Conjunctural analysis is an approach that attends to a specific historical moment while
taking note of the conflicting forces of the past that have shaped that present moment. Julie
Cupples and Kevin Glynn define conjunctural analysis as a method that “seeks to identify the
balance of conflicting forces at work within a particular social formation”(Cupples and Glynn,
2016, p. 52). It was popularized in the 1978 work of Stuart Hall, Chas Critcher, Tony Jefferson,
John Clarke, and Brian Roberts, Policing the Crisis. This text provided a dynamic contextual
analysis of social and historical forces surrounding the fear and moral panic regarding muggings
in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. The work suggested that “mugging” was mobilized in a

39
way that induced fear in the public imagination—and that within the social, historical and
economic conjuncture—it was discursively used to maintain the status quo of power and to
legitimize the policing of the nation as a whole.
Conjunctural analysis is a useful approach for this chapter in that it serves as more than
just a historical mapping of the moment in which Black millennials were raised. Conjunctural
analysis allows us to study forces—forces that, in the case of Black Americans, span several
generations and time periods, with sometimes unclear or undelineated boundaries or surprising
continuations or ruptures. Conjunctural analysis helps us understand how power, class, race, and
ideologies about citizenship and the nation at the macro level shape the lived realities of Black
millennial children.
Black Feminist Scholarship
This work draws methodologically from the approaches of feminist scholarship, and
specifically Black feminist scholarship that centers lived experience and interiority. It takes a
historiographic approach by filling gaps in historical record, archive, and scholarly research
about Black millennial childhoods, television viewership, and insights about the late 20th century
from a different perspective. Specifically, Chapters 4 and 5 aim to address historical record and
scholarship by documenting the reflections and memories of voices of Black children (now
adults and parents) with an emphasis on their lived experiences and interiority.
Within feminist scholarship, Sandra Harding describes feminist standpoint theory as an
approach to “focus on the historical and social locatedness of knowledge”(Harding, 2003, p. 10).
Harding further suggests that better formations of knowledge and better maximization of
objectivity lies with the situated experiential knowledge of women and other traditionally and
historically oppressed groups, as several key questions and challenges to dominant forms of

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experience, knowledge, and "science" may arise in the exploration of this often-contradictory
knowledge. Within Black feminist scholarship, Patricia Hill Collins (2000) highlights the
potential power of the situated knowledge of oppressed groups, in that they can “stimulate
resistance” (Collins, 2000, p. 29). This dissertation utilizes a feminist standpoint theory approach
first in that I as a researcher brought my full self, knowledge, and understandings to the research.
Furthermore, it centers Black millennial parents’ experiences as knowledge.
Christina Sharpe (2016) writes that her family moved from West Philadelphia to Wayne,
Pennsylvania for more opportunities, more space, and a better education. However, her family
quickly learned that moving did not afford them the opportunities that they had thought and slid
into the status of working poor. Sharpe notes that although her family encountered challenges,
they were not defined by them: “In other words, even as we experienced, recognized, and lived
subjection, we did not simply or only live in subjection and as the subjected”(Sharpe, 2016, p. 4).
Writing and research about Black populations can often rely heavily on the ways in which Black
populations are disproportionately affected by environmental, geographic, economic, and social
inequality. While this is very much the case and essential to study for the purpose of moving
toward both equity and equality, it is just as important to highlight the interiority of Black life so
as to not reduce the experiences of Black people only to disproportionate and systemic
oppression. Sharpe highlights that her mother “...worked at joy, and she made livable moments,
spaces, and places in the midst of all that was unlivable there…”(ibid, p. 4). In other words, it is
important to trouble any implicit or explicit presumption that Black lives are overdetermined by
the experience of, or by the struggle against, oppression. It is imperative to highlight both
inequality and humanity. Sharpe calls on academics to conduct research in different ways that do
not “reinscribe our own annihilation” and allows us to “live into the present”(ibid, p. 13). She

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calls on Black academics to become untrained and undisciplined, to stretch beyond the
boundaries of what is considered to be “legible” to other scholars (ibid). While this chapter
includes some of the narratives associated with Black doom (as they were brought up by
participants), it attempts to highlight the lived experiences of Black millennials in more holistic
ways; while certain raced, classed, and gendered forces were at play in their lives that often
shaped their thinking, they were also not wholly defined by them.
Similarly, S.R. Toliver calls on researchers to consider “new ways of representing
research, those that honor the storied traditions of Black people”(Toliver, 2022, p. xv). Toliver
turns our attention to the griots in West Africa, who serve as oral historians, storytellers, and
musicians. She notes that part of the role of a griot is to encourage “the remembrance of people’s
histories, communities, and homelands. By ensuring people’s stories were never forgotten, griots
engaged in sacred work”(ibid, p. xiv). In her own work, Toliver utilizes what she terms
Endarkened Storywork. She presents a speculative story constructed from the data that she
collected in interviews and speculative writing workshops with young people. Toliver claims that
allowing “space for storytelling” not only honors the traditions of the griots but pushes beyond
the restrictions of qualitative research traditions and methods and to approach her work in a more
connected, spiritually-led way (ibid, p. xv). Furthermore, presenting data while honoring
storytelling traditions “is one way of showing we are serious enough—dedicated enough—to
making space for other ways of thinking, knowing, interpreting, and representing our work”(ibid,
p. xviii). This chapter is inspired by the storytelling aspect of Endarkend Storywork, particularly
in regard to taking a responsibility as somewhat of a historian, keeper, and teller of participants’
stories. The stories shared about one’s childhood and one’s own experiences with parenting can
be deeply personal, and Endarkened Storywork is a helpful lens through which this study can

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convey these stories in order to honor the people who told them. The participant introductions in
this chapter, in particular, aim to present data in a way that preserves the voices and personalities
of the participants by highlighting what seemed to be very important to their upbringing.
In her essay, “Venus in Two Acts,” Saidiya Hartman (2008) addresses the implications of
the absence of story in the somber and violent context of Atlantic slavery. She asks, “what else is
there to know?” about a young girl mentioned in the archive who was one of two slave girls
brutally murdered by Captain John Kimber aboard the Recovery (Hartman, 2008, p. 2). Venus is
gone, and we know little of her other than her horrific fate: “We stumble upon her in exorbitant
circumstances that yield no picture of the everyday life, no pathway to her thoughts, no glimpse
of the vulnerability of her face or of what looking at such a face might demand”(ibid, p. 2).
Hartman explores a writing practice which aims to imagine what else there is to be known about
the interior lives of those missing from the archive, and calls this practice critical fabulation
(ibid, p. 11). Critical fabulation involves “playing with and rearranging basic elements of a
story” with the aim of “displac[ing] the received authorized account, and to imagine what might
have happened or what might have been said or might have been done” (ibid, p 11). I want to
highlight the somber and violent contexts in which Hartman utilizes Critical Fabulation, and the
seriousness with which we should consider the missing voices and lives in the archive;
particularly girls like Venus who were brutally tortured. I wish to be careful about drawing from
this method and applying it to another, distinct context (i.e., childhood and television
viewership). While the context of its use in this chapter is not somber, it is serious; scholarship
from the time of Black millennials’ childhood and about television are missing the voices and
experiences of Black children. Thankfully, unlike Venus, we still have access to these childhood
stories and experiences through the participants themselves. The spirit of critical fabulation, in

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Hartman’s words, is “straining against the limits of the archive to write a cultural history” (ibid,
p 11); by asking Black millennial parents to offer retrospective testimonies about their
childhoods, I strain against the absence of their testimonies as Black children in the archives of
our data and scholarship about this period. The historical dearth of Black testimonies in our
scholarly archives in the humanities and social sciences is itself a mark of the coloniality of
academic knowledge-production, which has long cast Black people as objects of analysis, rather
than producers of knowledge. While Hartman’s and my archives and research questions differ,
we both confront and creatively navigate the persistent ways that anti-blackness has shaped
traditional scholarly methods, archives, and analytical modes.
The historiographic approach to Black millennial lived experiences allows us to fill a gap
in the archive through memory, reflection, and dialogue not only about Black millennials, but
about the period in which they grew up—one dominated by multiculturalism, neoliberalism, and
rapid changes in television. The combination of key texts in scholarship with Black millennial
reflections of the past, their present, and their imagined futures (along with those of their
children) provide a unique marriage of scholarly texts about history and society with how people
actually experience it.
Phenomenology
The nature of this study is exploratory, and the philosophical foundation of the study’s
approach is phenomenological, or, concerned with the lived experiences of a particular
phenomena (Peoples, 2020; Wertz et. al, 2011). In this case, the phenomenon would be the
burgeoning televisual landscape within the context of the conjunctural forces at work in the
1980s-early 2000s (see Chapter 2). This chapter focuses on Black Millenials’ lived experiences
of this phenomenon, which both individually and collectively point to a certain essence of the
phenomenon itself. Research on children’s media often hones in on the potential effects of media

44
on children (i.e., violence, sexuality, consumerism, health). This chapter focuses not just on how
media potentially affected Black millennials, but on how they actually lived through this time
with television as a large aspect of their everyday experiences.
This study leans more toward a hermeneutic rather than transcendental framework;
transcendental phenomenology places a great weight on “bracketing,” or a researcher suspending
one’s one experiences, knowledge, and biases in the research process (Peoples, 2020). However,
as I described above, I am using Black feminist approaches to research in which I bring my own
experiential knowledge to the work alongside those of the participants. I did not force my own
understanding and experiences upon participants as they shared their stories, but used my
knowledge to delve more deeply into memories and concepts that arose during the interviews.
Specifically, within phenomenological methods, this study was greatly influenced by
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) which attempts to uncover the essence of the
lived experience with a focus on meaning-making. The theoretical foundations of IPA include
phenomenology, hermeneutics, and idiography (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009; Pietkiewicz &
Smith, 2014). In other words, this study does not aim to unveil a universal, “objective” truth, but
to explore what can be gleaned from careful attention to participants’ own meaning- and sense-
making frames and strategies.

Section II: Participant Introductions

Participant Introductions
For this project, a total of fifteen Black millennial parents participated in 90-minute
qualitative interviews by Zoom or telephone. A total of five pairs were interviewed (three
married couples, one divorced/co-parenting couple, and one cohabitating couple). The three

45
married couples participated in the interviews together, each answering all of the questions from
the instrument. However, the joint interviews became much more conversational, which helped
to jog each other’s memories, add depth to the responses, and add a dynamic quality to their
commentary. The remaining nine interviews were solo interviews, though only two of those nine
participants were single. The participants—all born in the United States—currently reside in
California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Missouri. However, they grew up in a range of
places, including California (Los Angeles, Bay Area), Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Norristown,
Collegeville), Texas (Houston), New Jersey (Pennsauken, Camden, Jersey City), New York
(Long Island, Yonkers), Illinois (Chicago), North Carolina (Fayetteville), and Delaware. See
Table 2.1 for more details on the participants. Additional information about the study design and
implementation can be found in Section III of this chapter.
The participant introductions below are not meant to be all-encompassing storylines of
their lives. Rather, each introduction serves as a portrait of the participant and a window into the
stories and themes that emerged in the interviews as moments, people, and shifts that were
influential or important to the participants themselves. While some of the themes are relevant to
more in-depth data analysis within this chapter (i.e., education, place narratives, dreams of
future, television influence, faith), other moments were unique to the participants (i.e., family
histories, personal memories, favorite activities). Overall, the goal of the participant
introductions is simply to introduce the participants in the wholeness of their personhood rather
than to restrict their narratives to the role of data.

46
Table 2. 1

Basic Participant Information

Name* Birth
Year
Hometown Marital Status Education
Level
Children
Ages
1 Crystal
Landon
1987 Philadelphia,
PA
Married (to Dre) Master of
Fine Arts
6, 4, 1
2 Dre Landon 1985 Yonkers,
NY
Married (to
Crystal)
Bachelor’s 6, 4, 1
3 Johari Brown 1988 Chicago, IL In a relationship/
Cohabitating
Bachelor’s 8, 8
4 Jasmine Ellis 1980 Pennsauken,
NJ
Married Master’s 14, 9, 6
5 Rosaline
Joseph-Miller
1983 Long Island,
NY
Divorced/
co-parenting
(with John
Gabriel)
Ph.D. 9, 7
6 John Gabriel
Miller
1982 Texas, New
Jersey,
California
Divorced/
co-parenting
(with Rosaline)
Ph.D. 9, 7
7 Chavonne
Smith
1989 Camden, NJ Single Bachelor’s 6
8 Preston
Adams
1988 Houston, TX Married (to
Evelyn)
Master of
Fine Arts
15
months
9 Evelyn
Adams
1986 Houston, TX Married (to
Preston)
Master’s 15
months
10 Jason Paul 1984 Norristown,
PA
In a relationship/
Cohabitating
(with Reese)
Bachelor’s 7, 5

47
11 Reese
Harrison
1988 Norristown,
PA
In a relationship/
Cohabitating
(with Jason)
Bachelor’s 7, 5
12 Tiffany
Packer
1984 Los Angeles,
CA
Widowed 11
th
Grade 16, 12,
10
13 David Kirk 1990 Fayetteville,
NC
Married
(to Diamond)
Bachelor’s 3, 5
months
14 Diamond
Kirk
1990 Philadelphia,
PA
Married (to
David)
Bachelor’s 3, 5
months
15 Tamia Patrick 1989 Jersey City,
NJ
Married Vocational
Certification
8, 4, 2, 1
*All participants were assigned pseudonyms to protect their identities

Participant 1: Crystal Landon

Crystal Landon was born in 1987 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She proudly identifies as
a Black American, a descendent of Africa, a wife, mother of four children (with three living: a
six-year-old daughter, 4-year-old daughter, and 1-year-old son), and a Philadelphian. She
currently runs a start-up media experience centered on visual meditation, wellness, and tapping
into God-given potential. She was raised by her great-grandparents, whom she proudly reports
were business owners; her great-grandfather was also a former Marine, which meant her home
environment was a loving, but tight ship. She was raised alongside cousins and other foster
children who lived in the home with her. Crystal is bold with a confident and assertive presence.
While she is joyful and playful throughout the interview, she is serious about her responses; she
considers being a Black woman, media creator, and mother as God-given roles that she
approaches with much intentionality and purpose.

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Crystal was raised to care deeply about excellence. Growing up, Crystal was very
involved in extracurricular activities. In preschool, she started dancing. She was very active in
church, from choir to Vacation Bible School and other faith-based summer camps. Starting in
elementary school, she jumped rope professionally and competed in double dutch at the national
level. She was also involved in cheerleading, jazz band, swimming, camp counseling, the Young
Marines, and—one of her proudest accomplishments—was the citywide debate champion. While
she was often teased for “doing too much,” she claimed that she “had to be extra” in order to
avoid “becoming a statistic” (i.e., getting pregnant as a teen) or “living a less-than life.” She felt
that because of where she was from, there was “not much room for error.” She believed that any
deviation from excellence could land her in dire, life-altering situations. Her great-grandparents
pushed her to be focused, disciplined, and most of all, “excellent.” They trained her to set her
sights on college. She met her now husband (Dre Landon) while in college at St. John’s
University in Queens, New York. She is living out one of her childhood dreams of living in
California; their family currently lives in Inglewood, California, with their two daughters and
their son.
Participant 2: Dre Landon

Dre Landon was born in 1985, and was raised in Yonkers, New York. He is a husband to
Crystal, a father to four children with three living children (ages six, four, and 1), and currently
works in retail management. Dre was raised primarily by his mother, as his father was killed
when he was young. He says that even though his father was taken out of his life at an early age,
he is still one of the most influential people in his life. He remembers how his father shared
knowledge with him about spirituality, faith, and both Muslim and Five Percenter principles. He
taught him to always be aware of his surroundings, and to survey the situation in every room he

49
is a part of; this is something he feels he must remember as a father now himself. Dre’s
relationship with and loss of his father is central to his interview, as he recounts the importance
of other mentors and activities in his life being influential in his father’s tragic absence. Like his
wife, Crystal, Dre grew up going to church every Sunday and sang in the children’s choir. As he
got older, he became heavily involved in sports like football, until an injury led him to stop
sports altogether and focus on working jobs to buy his own clothes. He suggests that his
involvement in these activities “separated” him from his neighborhood and allowed him to
refrain from getting involved in activities that caused many of his friends to end up in jail or,
sadly, dead. He was told that college would be his “ticket” out of his neighborhood and on to
“infinite possibilities.” He believes he is living his childhood dream, which was to make it out of
his neighborhood, live past a certain age, and to have a happy and healthy family.
Participant 3: Johari Brown

Johari Brown was born in 1988 and grew up on the south side of Chicago. He currently
lives in Los Angeles and is a self-employed journalist who primarily interviews athletes. His
hope is to center athlete stories in a way that highlights what they do beyond sports: in business,
in the community, and the ways that they express their authentic selves. He is a guardian of two
children (not his own, both 8-years-old) that he lives with on the weekends.
Johari grew up with both his father (a pastor), his mother (an aspiring nurse prior to
having children) in the home until they divorced; he also has three sisters and one brother. He
says that all that he did growing up was “play sports and watch movies.” He struggled
emotionally and academically after witnessing infidelity and divorce in his parents’ marriage,
and had no plans of going to college. However, he went to junior college two years after
graduating from high school and played on the college’s basketball team. From there, he finished

50
out his four-year degree in Indiana and then began his journalism and entrepreneurial journey in
Los Angeles. He claims that physically moving away from the familial and relational struggles
within his household, alongside support from a mentor at his college’s Black Cultural Center,
helped him to focus and thrive academically and to boost his confidence. While he forgives his
parents, he sometimes feels that they were so focused on their divorce that they did not check in
enough with his well-being. While he loves them, he is left with many questions; he is also left
with many convictions for things that he wants to be different in his own family.
Johari is passionate about community empowerment and entrepreneurship; one of his
heroes is the late rapper, community activist, and entrepreneur, Nipsey Hussle. Like Nipsey
Hussle, Johari cares deeply about his community. He believes that Black people are “game
changers, leaders, and influencers.” He states that despite seeing violence growing up in
Chicago, he is proud of where he is from and believes it has shaped him into who he is today—
he desires to see Black communities thriving, making their own money, and physically healthy
(Johari is a vegan who follows the teachings of Dr. Sebi—a celebrity herbalist who believed
resources in nature could cure any disease, including AIDS). He has a deep distrust of the
government, institutions, and the media, whom he believes collude against people of color to
keep them from their full potential. Some might call Johari a conspiracy theorist, but he is firm in
his understanding about world systems and the ways in which they especially impact Black
populations.

Participant 4: Jasmine Ellis

Jasmine Ellis was born in 1980 in Camden, New Jersey. She is a preschool teacher, a
praise and worship leader at her church, a wife, and the mother of three boys (ages 14, nine, and
six). Crystal’s identity is strongly rooted in faith and family. She grew up in the home with her

51
mother, father, a younger sister, and a younger brother. She jokes that people in school used to
call her family the “real-life Huxtables,” referring to the loving, upper-middle class family on the
TV show, The Cosby Show. They lived in a small, close-knit neighborhood in Pennsauken, New
Jersey, which she describes as “urban” because of the neighborhood’s proximity to East
Camden. Growing up, she imagined herself staying in that neighborhood forever because of the
sense of community and trust amongst the neighbors there. She remembers essentially “living
right on top of each other” due to the row home structure, and smiles as she tells stories of
running in and out of neighbors’ houses to play. She is saddened that this trust and open access
are not feasible in the world today: “The trust was different back then.”
Jasmine’s parents were highly influential in her life. As a child, she felt her mother was
too hard on her, but she now appreciates how much her mother pushed her to be a leader and not
a follower, to have her “own opinion, own beliefs,” and to stand by them without “feeling like an
outcast.” Her father taught her to keep smiling in the face of trials, to show “genuine kindness
towards people,” and not to “let life change who you are.”
Jasmine claims she did not have many aspirations growing up, other than to go to college.
Her mother and father coached basketball at a collegiate level in New Jersey, so she grew up
around and dreamt about becoming a part of a collegiate setting. Although she struggled
academically, her success in basketball did help her to secure a position on a collegiate team in
northern New Jersey. However, she never felt that college was necessary to make an impact. Her
grandmother, who had very little education, was the principal of an elementary school and also
opened a church in Camden. Without a degree, her grandmother was able to effectively serve her
neighborhood through education, spiritual encouragement, and weekly breakfasts for those in

52
need. Jasmine hopes to serve her community and live out her God-given purpose to impact her
family and others around her.
Participant 5: Rosaline Joseph-Miller

Rosaline Joseph-Miller was born in 1983, and grew up in Long Island, New York. At the
time of the interview, Rosaline was an Assistant Professor at a university in the Midwest focused
on education and policy. Rosaline has two children: a seven-year-old daughter and a nine-year-
old son, whom she lovingly co-parents with her ex-husband and academic research partner (John
Gabriel Miller, also a participant in the study).
Rosaline was raised in the home with her mother, father, paternal grandmother, and two
younger brothers. She describes her home as “stereotypical” of “traditional immigrant
households.” Namely, she describes “a lot of family expectation” as well as double standards for
rules as they applied mostly to herself and not her brothers. She recalls her father telling her that
he “sent [her] to school to learn, not to make friends.” Her childhood, she felt, was characterized
somewhat by “control and oversight.” Therefore, growing up, she couldn’t wait to go to college
so that she could embark on her own journey. While many participants in the study set their
sights on New York, all Rosaline wanted was to “get out of New York.” She desired some
distance from her family, different experiences, and to leave the town she felt she had outgrown.
While she did not get into her dream school—Georgetown University—she ended up loving the
university she attended in Philadelphia on a full academic scholarship. This made her parents
proud, because to them, a college education for their children was not optional. Rosaline is also
a proud member of the Black Greek Letter Organization, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.,
which she was happy to mention throughout the interview.

53
Rosaline’s parents came to the United States from Haiti; her Haitian identity was highly
influential in her upbringing, as her father desired for her to have a “strong cultural sense of who
[she] was.” She fondly remembers her father giving her history books about Haiti and telling her
to write book reports on them; her family also gathered regularly around the radio in the living
room to listen to a Haitian radio station that was broadcast from Brooklyn. Her parents made the
important distinction to her that she was Haitian, and not Black American; they owned a store in
Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, and had experiences with employees that reinforced negative stereotypes of
Black Americans. She recalls comments from her parents such as, “‘They come in, and they’re
talking about their baby daddies. And they’re late all the time, and they don’t know how to talk
to customers. You know, that’s just how those people are.’” However, these experiences and
assumed distinctions between Black and Haitian piqued Rosaline’s interests in systemic racism,
education, and social change. Those interests grew deeper after struggling in college; she
wondered how she could help students in higher education—especially those who did not have
the same resources, affluence, and opportunities that she did growing up. She cares deeply about
the work that she now does in education leadership and policy. She says that she and her parents
also now have many conversations about systemic racism, identity, and blackness.
Participant 6: John Gabriel Miller

John Gabriel Miller was born in 1982. He is an Assistant Professor in education at a
university in the Midwest. He is a father to a nine-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter,
whom he co-parents with his ex-wife and research partner (Rosaline Joseph-Williams). John
Gabriel has also remarried, and is excited to bring a child into the world with his second wife. He
jokes about “hitting the reset button” and going through the newborn phase all over again after
seven years. Throughout the interview, John Gabriel sings his co-parent, Rosaline’s, praises as a

54
wonderful mother, friend, and academic colleague. He laughs when people say they do not
understand how he can continue to work and co-parent with his ex-wife. He believes theirs is an
example of a healthy co-parenting relationship. He says their friendship, work, and children are
much more important than their “little hurt feelings.” However, he is saddened that he is
“unfortunately creating another version” of his own family’s history growing up. Specifically, he
has older siblings from his parents’ previous marriages, and two younger brothers from his
mother’s marriage after his father. Sadly, his younger brother passed away at 34-years-old,
which still deeply affects him. John Gabriel comes from a military family and therefore grew up
all over the United States. He spent time in places such as Dallas/Fort Worth, northern and
southern California, Illinois, and New Jersey. Though he lived all over, he felt most shaped by
his time in the Bay Area in California and in South Jersey/Philadelphia.
Like Rosaline, John Gabriel never felt like college was an option; that is, college wasn’t
optional. His mother was very serious about his education; even if he finished all of his
homework, she would give him additional homework to do. Conversations started in his younger
years about not only going to college, but getting a terminal degree like a Ph.D. or J.D. She
always told him that a terminal degree would be a “gateway to opportunity,” and that he would
have access to solid finances; in tough times growing up, he remembers often hearing “no” to
requests to go to the movies or having birthday parties in his actual birthday month. It seems that
he believes that his mother was right in encouraging him to attend college. For example, the
relationships that he formed in the historically Black Greek Letter Organization, Alpha Phi
Alpha Fraternity, Inc., greatly influenced his interests and career trajectory. He is also proud that
between himself (a Ph.D.), his current wife (an MBA), and his co-parent (a fellow Ph.D.), his
children will “never long for anything” because of their degrees and solid salaries. In addition to

55
his mother’s prompting, the “education pipeline conversations” started early for him, as he often
attended privileged schools, was placed in Gifted and Talented programs, and always scored well
on standardized tests. Now as a professor of education, he wonders how much the “tokenism” of
being “a smart black kid” played into his educational trajectory. These experiences and questions
are ever present in his current work as a researcher.
Participant 7: Chavonne Smith

Chavonne Smith was born in 1989 and grew up in Camden, New Jersey. She was raised
by her mother alongside her older sister and brother. She hopes to secure her dream job working
for child and family services, as she is passionate about the wellbeing of children and wants to
“help family structures.” She recently bought her first home in a town about twenty minutes from
where she grew up; she is proud that she was able to buy this home for herself and her 6-year-old
son. Her hometown of Camden is a central aspect of her interview, which she describes as “a
sheltered community” and “almost like a bubble.” She claims that people in Camden have little
idea what goes on outside of the city limits, and the adults there “never got to experience life
outside of the city.” She states that Camden was her “motivation to have better, to do better.” She
attended a prestigious, private high school in Moorestown, New Jersey; a town that was ranked
the number one place to live in the country in 2005. That same year, Chavonne’s hometown of
Camden was ranked the most dangerous place to live in the country. Her middle school teacher
filled out her application to the private school without her knowledge. This teacher always told
her she was different, and that she needed to seek different opportunities than the ones available
to her. She was accepted into the high school, but says she was angry every day. She did not
want to be there, and did not want to be “different,” as her middle school teacher challenged her
to be. She was proud of her neighborhood: “It was kind of like the thing to do. You repped your

56
neighborhood.” However, she now regrets not taking full advantage of the opportunities at the
school. Even still, she felt the school prepared her for “the real world, for college, and for [her]
future.”
Like many of the other participants, she grew up in a faith-based household. However,
she describes her household as strict, religious, and somewhat cold (i.e., little physical and verbal
affection or family activities). She felt restricted by her everyday dress code (typically a long
skirt and a long-sleeve shirt) and she was hardly allowed to watch anything on television, or
what her mother called the “devil’s vision.” However, she would find ways to watch all of the
shows she wanted. While this setting caused her to distance herself somewhat from faith, she has
returned to it in her own way and on her own terms in her adulthood, finding her own
relationship with God.
Chavonne attended college in Delaware, but does not equate education with success.
Rather, she defines success as happiness, which to her does not require a degree, a job, or money.
That being said, she loves to set goals and accomplish them. She has an interest in
entrepreneurship, and is trying her hand at candle making and songwriting.
Participant 8: Preston Adams

Preston Adams was born in 1988, and grew up on the northwest side of Houston, Texas
in Acres Homes—just five minutes away from his future wife, Evelyn Adams (also a participant
in the study). Though they lived geographically close for most of their lives, they only met after
Preston “followed” Evelyn on the social media platform, Twitter, and then went to see her sing
and lead worship at her local church: “That day, I fell in love with her and never let go!” They
have a 15-month-old son together, and also run a Houston-based production company as a team.
Preston has a Master of Fine Arts degree and has a love for both film and ministry work.

57
Preston was raised by two parents and has a younger sister in a very close-knit family. He
describes his sister as “really, really smart,” and himself as “Mister Personality, Mister
Socialite.” His mother was a stay-at-home mom who was heavily involved in his schooling (as a
volunteer and chaperone). Because his friends, teachers, and principals all knew his mother, he
says “the world started to feel very small.” Because their family was so well-known, he felt he
was given leeway to not be “as involved academically.” He struggled with grades throughout
college, causing him to transfer to several colleges and universities. After six years of college, he
graduated from the HBCU, Texas Southern University, with his bachelor’s degree.
Preston describes Acres Homes as “80% Black” with some “sprinkles” of non-Black
residents. He liked his neighborhood, in which they “knew [their] neighbors’ names, knew what
they drove, and knew when to call the cops.” However, Preston knew at a young age that he
wanted to make movies, so always had his sights set on Los Angeles. He had also dreamt of
becoming a marine biologist after watching the 1993 film, Free Willy, about a plan to release an
orca whale from an adventure park back into the ocean. Though he still is obsessed with whales
and marine life, he decided against marine biology when he realized he “had to do a lot of
science.” In addition to film and marine biology, Preston had an interest in becoming a pastor: “I
felt from a very young age that I was called to ministry. I felt the hand of God on my life at three
or four years old.” Of these dreams, he pursued his love for film and received his Master of Fine
Arts in Los Angeles. He also participates in ministry work. His faith is central to his interview
and to his outlook on life: “That’s what I’ve been after…just understanding who sacrificed for
me to get where I am and the faith that it took. And there is an equation that I am the sum of, that
is combined with faith and the pursuit of freedom.” He hopes to pass on a “legacy of faith and
freedom” to his son.

58
Participant 9: Evelyn Adams

Evelyn Adams was born in 1986 and was raised on the northwest side of Houston, Texas
in Acres Homes. She comes from a “large, close-knit family” that is “very much faith based.”
Though she grew up living five minutes away from her future husband, Preston Adams (also a
participant in the study), she did not meet him until she was 26-years-old—through Twitter, no
less. Evelyn and her husband have a 15-month old son, and also run a Houston-based production
company together. She has previously worked as a high school teacher, and is a singer and
YouTuber focusing on beauty tutorials and lifestyle videos.
Evelyn describes the Acres Homes neighborhood as “quiet, but community-oriented.”
She says it had “that kind of movie family vibe where you can depend on your neighbors to pick
up your kids if they’re locked out of the house, or, your kids come home and you’re not there,
they can go to a neighbor’s house.” She says that being from the south has served her well by
shaping her demeanor and character: “I’m not this flustered person…I keep my head down, I do
my job, I’m nice, I’m kind to people, and that’s noted.” Evelyn also grew up in a variety of
school contexts in terms of racial and cultural backgrounds, and feels that because of that, “it’s
very easy for [her] to make relationships with people who don’t look like [her].”
Evelyn describes herself as a “good kid” who “never got in trouble a lot,” and who loved
to read Encyclopedias in her free time. She also participated in theater all throughout high
school—she even did high school theater competitions through the University Interscholastic
League (UIL)-Texas. She “desperately” dreamt of attending New York University’s Tisch
School of the Arts for acting. Watching shows like Martin and The Jamie Foxx Show—shows
about Black young adults living life and falling in love in big cities—always made her want to
live in an apartment in the city, which seemed quite different from her house in Texas. However,

59
she and her high school theater teacher “had a falling out” when he would not allow her to miss
Sunday practices so that she could sing at church. Because of this tension, she quit theater her
last semester of high school, and also ended up not getting into Tisch. She attended a university
in Beaumont, Texas, but had a scary situation with a stalker which led her to transfer to another
university in Texas. Unfortunately, they would not give her financial aid. After some community
college classes and more transferring, she graduated from the University of Houston.
In addition to adjusting to being a new mother, Evelyn has really focused her recent
attention on learning more about her family heritage. She is proud of her family’s southern roots,
with members hailing from Picayune, Mississippi as well as Louisiana and Texas. In
conversations with aunts, uncles, grandmothers, and great aunts, she enjoys finding out new
surprises about her family. One that she is quite proud of is that her great aunt was the first Black
woman to get her master’s degree in chemistry at what was once called the Texas School for
Negroes (now Texas Southern University).
Participant 10: Jason Paul

Jason Paul was born in 1984 He grew up in Norristown, Pennsylvania, which he
describes as a small, rural/suburban town on the outskirts of Philadelphia. Throughout his life, he
played football and other sports. His love for fitness led him to become a strength and
conditioning coach and certified trainer. Although he left his hometown to attend college at an
HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) in Delaware, he eventually returned to
Norristown where he resides with his 7-year-old daughter, his girlfriend, Reese Harrison (also a
participant in the study), and her five-year-old daughter.
In addition to sports, Jason was very involved in enrichment and cultural programs such
as the African American Awareness Club and DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America).

60
While his mom always wanted him to go to college, he struggled academically and told her that
he wanted to serve in the Army. However, this thought visibly bothered his mother; to her relief,
sports eventually led him to an interest in college. He was also part of Kappa League, a service
initiative of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.—a historical Black Greek Letter Organization—
that did outreach for boys from 6th-12th grade. Being a part of Kappa League inspired him to go
to an HBCU and to eventually pledge Kappa Alpha Psi.
Jason is adamant about being a “productive citizen.” He believes that productive citizens
“bring something to the table” and are able to truly have “self-fulfillment.” He desires this
specifically for Black people: “We as people, we need to be able to do things to give ourselves
self-fulfillment so that we can be more—what’s the word? — productive and they can be better
people to get along with and deal with.” His desire to be a productive citizen himself is one of his
main guideposts in parenting his daughter.
Participant 11: Reese Harrison

Reese Harrison was born in 1988, and was raised in Norristown, Pennsylvania—a suburb
of Philadelphia—as well as Collegeville, Pennsylvania. She currently works in Child Protective
Services, which she feels is somewhat a fulfillment of her childhood dream of working in
psychology. Reese has a five-year-old daughter, and lives with her boyfriend, Jason Paul (also a
participant in the study) and his seven-year-old daughter.
A prominent theme in Reese’s interview was her admiration of “strong Black women.”
Reese was raised by a single mother, and was also greatly influenced by her aunt, who was
consistently there for her growing up. She speaks highly of her mother, who “did the best she
could” while raising her. Because her mother was very busy and did not drive, Reese says that
was not able to participate in many activities at her charter high school. However, she did have a

61
teacher who became quite involved in her life—she consistently drove her home after drill team
practice and picked her up to do extra testing practice to prepare for college. Seeing strong Black
women support her and each other growing up greatly impacted her
Like many of the other participants, Reese’s mother encouraged her to go to college—
primarily because she did not attend college, and “wanted [her] to have more.” Reese attended an
HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) in Pennsylvania, which was a major
change for her as she grew up in predominantly White neighborhoods and schools. Outside of
“everyday life, family, friends, [and] environment,” Reese feels that college was the first time
she really learned about Black culture and history.
Reese has always desired to have a large family, especially after growing up watching
large families on television. With her own family, she desires to teach her daughter the value of
hard work, to instill in her that she is beautiful despite what others might say about her because
of the color of her skin, and to raise her to be capable of going after her goals.
Participant 12: Tiffany Packer

Tiffany Packer was born in 1984 and raised in South Central Los Angeles near Slauson
Avenue. She has three children: a 16-year old son, a 12-year-old daughter, and a 10-year old son.
She is currently raising them as a single parent, as her husband was sadly killed a few years ago.
Tiffany works as a custodial technician, and still lives in South LA.
When asked to describe her upbringing in South Central LA, she described it as “Kind of
poor. Not too far from where the late rapper Nipsey Hussle grew up at. Really family
orientated.” She feels that the neighborhood now is not as good as it was when she was growing
up: “...Kids played a lot more outside…we did tree house things and it was a whole lot better.
The times were better, more authentic. We weren’t the richest people, but things were better back

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then.” Tiffany’s father—whose family originates in Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Ypsilanti,
Michigan—met Tiffany’s mother—whose family is from Evanston, Indiana—while he was
attending plumbing school in Los Angeles and she was looking for a new start in Los Angeles.
During junior high school, Tiffany decided to spend two years in Michigan with her father’s
family to “get a change of pace” and to “be exposed to some different things.” After getting
homesick, she moved home to Los Angeles.
Tiffany feels she had great influences in her life, including “really good parents.”.
Though Tiffany’s parents are both now deceased, she says they had a major impact on her life.
Her dad taught her “survival skills,” “humility,” and how to treat “all people with the same
respect no matter if they’re homeless or what their situation is.” Her mother, who was a
Jehovah’s Witness, instilled in her a strong faith and the importance of reading scripture. Her
grandmother, whom she lived with in Michigan, was “a strong Black woman” who taught her
how to “cook a lot of stuff, how to handle business, and how to not back down and stand up for
[herself] and what [she] believe[s] in.”
Tiffany grew up wanting to become a criminal justice lawyer. Her interest in this career
was piqued as a child after she watched the 1992 Los Angeles uprisings. The uprisings broke out
at Florence and Normandie—an intersection just several blocks from Tiffany’s childhood
home—when four police officers who ruthlessly beat Rodney King after he had led them on a
high-speed chase were acquitted of charges. She was also captivated by the OJ Simpson trial—
particularly watching his defense lawyer, Johnnie Cochran. She believes it is important for
people to get second chances: “I’m always pushing for justice…Even though people didn’t have
the best upbringing—sometimes they did bad stuff—it doesn’t mean it should come with a
sentence of your life is over, you can’t change, or you can’t rehabilitate.” However, she feels

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that she was not able to follow this path because she did not complete the education she would
have wanted. Her father struggled with addiction which caused them to move a lot, and made
focusing on school very difficult. Tiffany hopes to someday further her education, including
college or some type of business class. She tells her children to work hard to attend college: “I
always tell them, I should have a better job. I could be doing other things had I been more
focused, and circumstances weren’t how they were, but I still push them.” While she is not
happy in her current job and hopes for an opportunity to further her own education, she greatly
looks forward to her children going to college. She has also begun a side business that she is
proud of.
Participant 13: David Kirk

David Kirk was born in 1990, and is originally from Fayetteville, North Carolina. He
married his wife, Diamond Kirk (also a participant in the study) in 2016—shortly after a major
motorcycle accident. He made a promise to his wife that he would walk down the aisle with her,
which he was able to do by the time they got married. They have two children: a three-year-old
daughter and a five-month-old son. He is an HR professional and lives in the San Francisco Bay
Area with his family.
David was raised as an only child by a single mother, whom he admires for “not trying to
be both a mom and a father” and who instead simply “raised [him] like a mom.” He also reflects
on the importance of his uncle in his life, who supported and guided him and was “that male
figure in [his] life. He shares that the mentorship program, Big Brothers Big Sisters, was
impactful in his life, which provided him with “that brother from another mother.” Growing up,
he also participated in track, wrestling, debate club, and Future Farmers of America. Track

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helped him to develop “discipline, working towards a team” and working toward “something
bigger than [him]self.”
He describes Fayetteville as a “slow-paced,” “nice military town” that is “surprisingly
pretty diverse.” He believes that growing up in North Carolina greatly shaped his demeanor,
which he describes as “cool, calm, and collected, pretty laid back, gentleman-like and
southernly.” Though he enjoyed Fayetteville, he “always wanted to move” because he “knew
there was a lot of world to be seen.” He says that his open-mindedness has allowed him the
flexibility to go where life leads him—including college at North Carolina Agricultural &
Technical State University (an HBCU), Maryland, and now California. He had always dreamt of
moving to California to “see if it was really like it was on TV.”
David feels that he has achieved the first pillar of his idea of success, which is that they
“have [their] family built and completed the way that [they] wanted…no baby mamas, no
drama.” A second pillar, which they are still moving toward, is financial success; they would like
to be debt free. His third pillar of success involves the raising of his children and “breaking
generational curses”; he would like to start new trends that break from old patterns in his family
and pass those down through his children.

Participant 14: Diamond Kirk

Diamond Kirk was born in 1990 and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is
married to David Kirk (also a participant in the study) and is a stay-at-home mom raising two
children: a three-year-old daughter and a five-month-old son.
Though her mother was present, Diamond states that she was essentially raised by her
grandmother and grandfather alongside her little sister. She learned nearly everything from her
grandmother: “I get everything from her. Like my cooking habits, my working habits, my side

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hustle habits, my organizational habits; everything I get from my grandma.” She says that
“without [her] grandma, [she] doesn’t know where [she] would be.” Her stepmother also helped
to raise her, and Diamond felt safe to “confide in her with [her] growing pains.”
In Philadelphia, Diamond started out in neighborhood schools. However, she claims that
she was “too smart for that” and was enrolled into a prestigious “school choice program” which
exposed her to several enrichment activities (i.e., field trips, soap operas, and summer projects).
When her neighborhood in Philadelphia became too dangerous, her family moved to a
Philadelphia suburb in Delaware and she returned to neighborhood schools. She missed her
hometown. According to Diamond, “Philly is always poppin’ and has stuff to do, shows and
events and concerts—and then you go to Delaware and it’s like ‘womp, womp.’ Old people,
retirement state, everybody old, it’s not a lot going on.” She was able to explore beyond
Delaware when she enrolled at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (an
HBCU), but had to transfer to Delaware State University (also an HBCU) to be closer to home
due to a medical issue. Though she dreamt of becoming a doctor or nurse, she struggled as a
first-generation college student; she switched to a liberal arts degree in order to graduate. After
graduating, she married David and they had a “honeymoon baby.”
After having “one of the worst labors” when she had her youngest child, Diamond
realized her passion for helping African American women through pregnancy and childbirth:
“Right now, I’m all about black women. Black women and black babies.” As the first person to
breastfeed in her family, she advises her own friends and family about the benefits of
breastfeeding, and encourages them to try it as opposed to formula feeding, if possible. She
recently participated in a program to become a doula, and plans to eventually go to medical
school to pursue her desire to help Black women through this phase of their lives.

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Participant 15: Tamia Patrick

Tamia Patrick was born in 1989 and grew up primarily in Jersey City, New Jersey. She
and her husband are raising four children, ages eight, four, two, and one. She has also worked
with children in daycare and school settings. Tamia and her family still reside in Jersey City.
Tamia and her two sisters were raised by their mother and father. As a military family,
Tamia spent most of her elementary school days in public schools, bouncing from school to
school. She spent time in schools in Louisiana and Arizona before returning back to New Jersey.
She attended a charter school at the end of middle school, and then attended a Catholic high
school. While she struggled with consistency in extracurricular activities such as basketball,
Tamia is quite passionate about music—an interest that was cultivated by her father when she
was young. Her father had a music studio setup in their basement, and added her own computer
to the setup equipped with Photoshop and graphic arts guides. She would also write songs with
her father in those basement studio sessions. She currently sings on the worship team at her
church and continues to write music.
Tamia states that in her older years in Jersey City, she began to get involved in “things
[she] had no business being in”: “I used to be in a lot of trouble…I was so curious about what
everybody was doing outside.” This was a tension that Tamia feels was exacerbated by the faith
culture in her household: They were “drinking, smoking, doing drugs, partying [outside]. And I
was so sheltered when I was little that that’s what I wanted to do.” Her mother would take her to
church so that she could hear about God, but she just “wanted to go out and just experience life.”
The life her mother was leading her in seemed “boring” in comparison, because everybody
seemed to be “having fun outside.” While she used to blame Jersey City for the trouble that she
got into while following that path of more fun, she eventually concluded that “it’s all about

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choices,” and personally believes that she “chose the wrong ones.” She recently found her way
into her own faith, and says that her relationship with God primarily shapes her now.
After graduating high school, Tamia—to her dismay— attended Jersey City University
and studied computer technology. She had always wanted to study graphic arts at Berkeley
College in New York City. However, her parents did not want her to “go away,” though the city
is just a short commute from Jersey City. She had originally chosen computer technology
because her parents, who had both grown up in the projects in Jersey City, placed great emphasis
on getting good grades, going to “the best schools,” and getting solid, stable money. Her father,
who now works in I.T., assured her that computers would always bring in money, because
computers were “always gonna be there.” Alas, she was unhappy studying computer technology,
so left college to be trained in the field of medical assistance. She was eventually drawn toward
early childhood education and taught in daycares and schools. After the birth of her fourth child,
she left her job at a Christian school to focus on raising her children.

Section III. Research Design, Procedures, and Analysis

Inclusion Criteria

Certain criteria needed to be met in order for Black millennial parents to participate in the
study. First, participants had to be a part of the millennial generation. There is some debate about
whether the Millennial generation begins in 1980 or 1981, although most define the window as
1981-1986. Due to this debate, I allowed one participant who was born in 1980 (see Table 2.1).
Second, participants had to identify as a parent or primary guardian/caregiver to at least
one child between the ages of one- and 13-years-old. In the recruitment materials, I specified that
“parent” and “caregiver” could be defined loosely (i.e., biological, adoptive, foster, sibling,

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shared custody, etc.), as long as they considered themselves to be the primary or one of the
primary caregivers of the child. This flexibility was put in place to include several familial
structures. “Primary caregiver” was also defined loosely, and participants were taken at their
word. Unless screening questions clearly revealed that the participant was not a primary parent
or caregiver to a child, their interview was included. Honesty appeared to be the case for all of
the participants—and many of their children made appearances during the online interviews. The
broad age range for children was set in order to observe whether there were any differences in
interview responses based on the age of the child. While one-year-old is below the recommended
age range for media use set by the American Academy of Pediatrics (Hawkey, 2019), I assumed
that there would be parents who have incorporated media use into the lives of their one-year-old
children.
Third, participants had to self-identify as Black/African American. The terms “Black”
and “African American” were not explicitly defined in the recruitment materials, so as to leave
room for the many ways in which Black people self-identify and to account for the rich diasporic
history of African people across the globe.
Finally, though the diaspora was accounted for in identity, participants were required to
have spent a majority of their childhood in the United States. This choice was to make it more
likely that the participants would have had potential access to some of the same shows during
their childhood (considering the already varying levels of access due to cable vs. non-cable or
varying levels of parental mediation, as well as the large age range of millennials that would
make it more likely that they were watching different shows in their childhood).

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Recruitment

Participants were recruited using paper fliers and digital fliers. The paper and online fliers
featured the criteria for participation (i.e., identify as a Black millennial parent with at least one
child between the ages of 1-13). Fliers also included information about the content of the
interviews (“TV shows from the 1990s and 2000s”) as well as the length and format of the
interviews (90 minutes on Zoom or via phone call). Fliers also included colorful photos from
television shows such as The Proud Family, Moesha, Rugrats, and Mighty Morphin’ Power
Rangers. Physical fliers were posted around Los Angeles (e.g., grocery store bulletin boards).
Digital fliers were emailed to public-serving institutions such as libraries and community centers.
Data collection commenced in April of 2020, just a few weeks after the COVID-19
lockdown began in March of 2020. After sending recruitment emails with the digital fliers
attached, I received responses from libraries and community centers that explained their lack of
communication with their patrons and communities due to the pandemic. Therefore, no
participants were recruited through public-facing institutions and community centers. Only two
participants were recruited from paper fliers. This may also be explained by the lockdown and
perhaps people’s unwillingness to touch physical objects such as a tear-off phone number in a
public place (at this time the public was told that the coronavirus could live for days on surfaces).
Unsurprisingly, the majority of participants were recruited through convenience sampling
(Creswell, 2012). For example, a friend knew of a friend who identified as Black millennial
parent. The digital fliers also made their way through sharing (not by me) into Facebook
parenting groups, Black fraternity and sorority online groups, and WhatsApp group chats.
Interested participants contacted me via the email address or a Google phone number—both

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created specifically for the project—and were screened to determine whether they fit the criteria
detailed above.

Data Collection Method

Data were collected using a 90-minute, semi-structured interview. This section details the
process for the construction of the interview instrument and procedures for data collection. Due
to COVID-19, interviews took place online or by phone, and interviews were recorded. Because
participants often completed the interviews in their home environments over Zoom, this made
the interviews somewhat observational. However, interviews were prioritized, and observations
were not included as this is not what participants agreed to do.

Instrumentation. Data were collected with a 90-minute semi-structured interview
instrument with open-ended questions. The survey instrument was developed first through
drawing from literature resources in three primary areas: children and media studies,
communication studies, and Black popular cultural studies. Gaps in the research regarding Black
millennials and Black millennial parents were identified, and I developed research questions to
address these gaps (See Chapter 1). The interview instrument includes a) broad questions
regarding their childhood context (i.e., where they grew up, who was in the house with them,
regular activities, etc.), b) questions regarding the types of television shows that they watched
and what they learned from those shows c) questions regarding their childhood hopes for their
futures (i.e., what they wanted to be, where they wanted to live), d) questions regarding
influences to their worldviews and ideologies (i.e., religion, parental or mentorship advice,
family histories), e) questions regarding perceptions of the TV shows their children watch and
whether they coview with their children, and f) demographic information.

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When it came to demographic information, I intentionally chose not to ask participants
about their income. While household income is typically a staple in sociological research, the
primary goal of this study was to make space for Black millennial parents to share experiences,
lessons, and values from their childhood through to adulthood. The research questions and the
design of this study relied more on storytelling than demographic data points, and conversations
emerged that pointed to their socioeconomic and social status such as their education level. I felt
asking for their income would be somewhat intrusive, unnecessary, and put a damper on the
interview experience.
The survey instrument sufficiently guided the interviews. Participants were able to
comprehend the questions and answer them accordingly, and they felt comfortable asking for
clarification of any of the questions. The instrument sufficiently addressed the research
questions, and its open-ended format also allowed for stories and information to emerge that
added depth to the original research questions. For example, when asking participants broadly
about how they would identify and describe their “culture,” some would say that they were Black
or African American, while others noted family, values, faith, or a specific passion as their
culture. The semi-structured and open-ended format of the interview allowed for much more
freedom on the part of the participants to share what was important to them, their identities, and
their stories.
Procedures
Those who passed the screening questions were scheduled for interviews to take place via
phone or via the online meeting platform, Zoom, depending on participant technology access and
preference. Most participants chose to conduct the interview on Zoom, with the exception of one
who wanted to do the interview on the phone during her lunch break. Participants completed

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consent forms according to IRB standards (see Ethical Considerations) prior to their interviews
and returned them via email prior to the interview unless they had any questions about the
consent form. At the scheduled time, parents either received a phone call or a Zoom link
depending on their preferred form of contact. In some instances, internet connection was
unstable during the interview, and interviewees asked to switch the conversation to Facetime.
Each interview, whether conducted via Zoom or by phone, was recorded. At the beginning of the
call, participants were asked whether they felt comfortable with recording. None of the
participants declined. For Zoom calls, I used the record meeting function and saved the interview
to my computer rather than to the cloud. For phone calls and Facetime calls, I used an additional
phone to record the interviews.
After introducing myself, I verbally reviewed the IRB-approved consent materials, asked
if they had any questions, and made clear that they were not required to participate and could
stop their participation at any time. After completing the consent review, parents participated in
approximately 90-minute interviews. In some cases, both parents from a household were
interviewed. For example, I had an official interview scheduled with one parent, and he
participated in the first half of his interview while driving in his car to pick up his wife. Once his
wife got in the car, it was clear that she wanted to jump in on some of the questions and answer
for him. I paused his interview to ask her whether she would like to officially participate, as I had
not planned to interview her and had not gone over any consent materials with her. She agreed to
participate, and we went through the official procedures of participation. We clarified that each
of them was meant to participate in their own interviews, answering questions for themselves.
While they both participated in the interview during the same phone call, they each answered
questions on their behalf and each answered all of the questions. Due to the nature of the call,

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some aspects of the interview became much more conversational, which was quite beneficial for
the semi-structured interview. Some other parents were part of a marriage, partnership, or
parenting partnership and also both opted to participate. Some participated together, while some
participated in two separate interviews. In both cases, each participant answered all of the
questions. Many other parents participated alone, whether they were single or part of a
partnership.
Incentives
Prior to agreeing to participate in the study, potential participants were informed that they
would receive $50 via Venmo, Cashapp, or a related platform for their 90-minute interview. As
busy parents balancing family and work life, it was important to me to compensate each
participant for their time. This is especially true in cases where a spouse or partner was present
and wanted to contribute to the interview. As described above, in one case I stopped the
interview and asked the spouse if they would like to enroll as an official participant so that they
could also be compensated for their time and thoughts. After the interview, each participant was
sent $50 via Venmo or CashApp, and participants were asked to send a screenshot to confirm
that they had received the payment.

Ethical Considerations

Institutional Permissions

This study was submitted to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and was given exempt
status (UP-19-00352). The IRB reviewed research aims, research questions, recruitment
materials, consent materials, and the survey instrument (see Appendix A). Slight changes were
made to the language of the informed consent document to ensure that participants knew that

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they could reach out to the IRB if they had questions or concerns. An amendment was approved
on February 18, 2021 to include updates to the research questions and interview instrument in
case more interviews were added in the future.
Participation and Risk

Prior to the scheduled interview, participants received the consent documents via email to
ensure that they had time to read the information. This document includes the purpose of the
study, a description of what types of questions the 90-minute interview would include, and
details about compensation, confidentiality, and researcher contact information. In the email, I
noted that participants could read, sign, and send the consent back to me if they did not have
questions. Or, they could read the information, hold off on signing if they had questions, and
then sign once their questions were answered. In either case, all participants were given an
overview of the consent document prior to beginning the interview, and asked whether they had
questions. All participants were also told that they were not required to participate in the study
and that they could stop their participation at any time. Few potential risks were identified in this
study. The primary risk was that discussing childhood memories, current circumstances, and
sometimes difficult stories—if the participant chose to do so—might trigger an emotional
response or require emotional processing. However, participants were not forced to share
anything that would make them uncomfortable, and were informed that they could stop sharing
at any time or change the direction of the conversation.
Treatment of Data

Participants were ensured that their privacy would be protected. First, all participants
received pseudonyms so that their real names would not be revealed. All audio recordings,
transcripts, and other research materials are stored in a password protected laptop and, in a

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password, protected account in the cloud. Only I have access to the data. Materials will be stored
for a minimum of three years.

Trustworthiness and Researcher’s Role

Throughout the interviews, I participated in a form of active listening to ensure that what
I heard was what the participant communicated. For example, I asked many clarifying questions
and also repeated back to the participant what was being recorded and understood. For example,
I would use phrases such as “What I’m hearing is,” “Just to clarify,” “Are you saying…?” “Can
you repeat…?” and “Could you reword…?” In cases where I either misheard or misunderstood
the participant, or the participant felt that what was said was not the best representation of what
they meant, the participant clarified, elaborated on, or reworded what they said. It is possible that
my asking for clarification could have made the participant feel that what they were saying was
not “correct” or was not a “good” or “desired” answer, causing them to change what or how they
said it. However, I tried to communicate that the role of a researcher was that of a listener, and
that the clarifying questions were simply to make sure that the data collected were true to what
the participant wanted to communicate. Most participants seemed confident enough in their own
answer to repeat it verbatim, or to expound upon their already expressed idea rather than change
their idea altogether with the request for clarification.

Data Preparation and Analysis

During the interviews, I took field notes in a paper notebook about the interview with
preliminary jottings in the margins (Saldaña, 2013). These notes were typed and stored in a
password protected laptop. The paper notebook is stored in a secured desk. As stated in
Procedures, each interview was also audio or video recorded (i.e., via Zoom). Interview

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recordings were stored on a password protected laptop and saved using the format:
DissRecording_LastName_FirstName_DateofInterview.
Each interview was then transcribed using a Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data
Analysis Software (CAQDAS) called Dedoose (Saldaña, 2013). After transcription, I listened to
the audio while reading along with the transcription to scan for mistakes. I also created a
spreadsheet with descriptive information about each of the participants (i.e., pseudonym, date of
interview, year of birth, hometown, current city, number of children, and any relation to other
participants in the study). This spreadsheet is stored on a password protected laptop.
Data from this study were analyzed and reported primarily using a traditional qualitative
analysis approach (i.e., coding and thematic analysis), and these analyses were also informed by
traditional storytelling approaches (i.e., Endarkened Storywork and Critical Fabulation).
Qualitative analysis using coding and thematic analysis were useful in that they helped to
identify emerging themes within and across participant stories. As I read through each transcript,
I used an open coding approach to assign codes to excerpts (ibid). Each transcript was coded
with parent and child codes (or sub codes). When new codes were added in each subsequent
transcription, those codes were then applied to previous transcriptions that were originally coded
without those newer codes. Excerpts and codes were then analyzed thematically to yield findings
for the chapters. In addition, memos were written for each participant (or, in the case of married
or co-parenting couples, for each familial unit) with basic information and summaries of the
stories that they shared in the interview—these informed the participant introductions above.
Analytic memos were also written to delve into emerging themes.

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Methodological Limitations

As with any research design, there are methodological limitations within this study of
Black millennial parents. This section goes into detail about the challenges encountered
methodologically, and how it shaped the design of the study. These include limitations such as
the context of data collection (i.e., COVID-19), sampling considerations and time constraints.
This section also highlights the ways in which these methodological challenges sometimes
worked out for the better, and how the study still yielded strong results despite these limitations.

Challenges of the Social Context

First and foremost, this study commenced just a few weeks after the COVID-19
lockdown began in the United States (i.e., April 2020). Previous iterations of the study design
involved in-person interviews with local families as well as observations of parents interacting
with their children within their homes. Being able to observe the family in context and alongside
their children would have added additional perspectives on the role of media in family life
(Takeuchi, Wartella, & Gee, 2018 ). There may have also been opportunities to observe and talk
to children to understand how they view their parents and their parenting styles as well as the
role of media in their relationships and in their homes (ibid). However, due to COVID-19
precautions such as staying at home and limiting physical contact with others, this design was
not possible. COVID-19 also limited the success of different forms of recruitment (i.e., paper
fliers and public-serving institutions—see Recruitment), meaning that online convenience
sampling became the primary form of recruitment.
In addition, the societal context was certainly one filled with fear and uncertainty, which
may have had an impact on participants’ emotional and mental states of mind during the data
collection process. While George Floyd had not yet been murdered by the police in Minneapolis

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(May 25, 2020) which sparked a summer of uprisings and heated racial debates, many
participants were grieving and processing through emotions around the high-profile police
killing of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor in her home in Louisville, Kentucky on March 13th, 2020.
While the mistrust present within many interviews can be attributed to genuine opinion or a shift
that came with becoming a parent, it is also possible that participants might have grown in their
mistrust of the government, the media, and other institutions during this time due to the often
inconsistent and highly political and divisive nature of reporting about COVID-19. Reporting
about Breonna Taylor’s death also resulted in starkly divided and politically-charged mediated
conversations. At this moment in time, people questioned and fought about what was true, what
was false, and what was best for themselves and others. People questioned who was safe (from
COVID-19, police brutality) and who was not.
There was often a heaviness, sadness, and tiredness that was either explicitly stated or
simply felt given the societal context. In addition to hearing about these violent events, many
participants were juggling relationships, children who were attending school at home and online
due to the pandemic, and adjusting to working from home. Some seemed to deal with
exhaustion, fear, and a desire for everything to go back to “normal.” It is possible that the
circumstances may have made participants very reflective of their own lives and may have added
a level of skepticism or pessimism to their interview responses. While this skepticism and
pessimism yielded very thoughtful and thought-provoking responses, it is possible that the level
of skepticism might have been lower in different contexts.

Benefits of the Social Context

Again, the social context of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the tragic killing of
Breonna Taylor very much framed the moment in which data collection took place. While this

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was a very heavy and quite sensitive time for the world and for participants, there were ways in
which these contexts allowed for a different design to emerge. This design was not necessarily
better or worse, but brought to the fore questions, emotional processing, and logistics that
allowed Black millennial Parents to share their stories in different ways. This is not to say that
these tragic events were beneficial, but rather that it prompted different approaches to data
collection and analysis.
Because of the COVID-19 lockdown, the study design was shifted from in-person
interviews and in-home family observations to instead include online or phone interviews. While
the original study design would have primarily included Los Angeles residents, the switch to
online and phone interviews opened participation to anyone in the United States. Gaining insight
from people with different regional backgrounds added diversity to the analysis. This shift from
a more ethnographic, observational approach to one that relied on the storytelling of the
participants allowed a shift in power from myself to the participants themselves. While
observation would have likely prompted more of my point of view alongside interviews, I was
solely reliant upon the stories that the participants chose to share.

Sampling Limitations

The study design utilized a non-probability sampling technique, so while the data provide
in-depth findings from this sample of 15 Black millennial parents, it cannot be generalized to the
entire population of Black millennial parents in the United States. In addition, because a majority
of the participants were recruited through convenience sampling (especially because the digital
fliers were distributed among Facebook groups, WhatsApp groups, and word of mouth among
friends of other participants), there was not a great level of demographic diversity within the
sample. Specifically, all but one of the participants went to college, many of the participants also

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came from a faith background, and many were from or lived in similar demographic areas (see
Table 2.1). Future iterations of this research could include more interviews or a nationally
representative survey of Black millennial parents in order to increase the sample size and the
demographic diversity among participants. This sampling technique and smaller sample size,
however, did allow for deep listening and analysis of a few people within the population.
Furthermore, the study findings can point to themes to consider for future research with larger or
more demographically diverse populations.

Time Horizon

One objective of this study was to fill gaps in research about the ways in which Black
millennials (as children) experienced television alongside other interpersonal narratives. The
study also attempts to answer questions about how Black millennials feel about their childhood
interpersonal and mediated experiences now that they are adults, and now that they are parents.
An ideal design for this study might have been a longitudinal one in which Black millennial
children were interviewed during childhood and through to adulthood and parenthood. Because it
is obviously too late to do this, asking Black millennials as adults and as parents to not only
share about their current lives but to also reflect on their childhoods and childhood mediated
experiences must suffice. One benefit of this cross-sectional approach rather than longitudinal
approach is that while studies of children often speculate about their futures depending on their
current contexts, this study asked adults to tell their own studies about their upbringing—this
allows the participants to steer the conversations to the parts of their own upbringing that they
found important and formative, rather than expounding solely upon factors and contexts that
researchers might suspect would influence children’s futures.

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Personal Capacity

As I am sure many researchers experience, my excitement for this topic led to an
abundance of ideas about methodology—from parent, child, and industry interviews and
observations to content analyses and large-scale surveys (yes, all within one study). Thankfully,
my advisor and dissertation committee assured me that while they liked the enthusiasm of my
research proposal, it was better to pare down to some more specific goals and methods. I am
eternally grateful for this advice. It was necessary for me to come to grips with the reality that
this research needed to be conducted in the contexts of my own life, which, like the parents in the
study, included a social context of COVID-19 and racial tension alongside family life, a toddler,
and the early stages of my 2nd pregnancy.
Learning to design a research study with my own personal capacity and life
circumstances in mind was an extremely valuable learning experience. Furthermore, it reinforced
the notion that excitement for different phenomena can be explored in myriad ways, but they do
not all need to be explored at one time. Rather, they can become part of a research program.
Recognition of the limits of my own personal capacity was also helpful in relating to fellow
Black millennial parents, many of whom were in a similar state of mind. As highlighted
throughout the stories in Chapters 4 and 5, our generation was often taught to find our limitations
and push beyond them. However, I found great emancipation in recognizing my “limitations,”
working within their confines, and seeing them as opportunities to make me a better research
partner, wife, and mother.

Chapter Conclusion

This chapter detailed the development and implementation of a study of Black millennial
parents that addresses research questions related to the contexts and influences of their

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upbringing. The chapter also provides details about the nature of research and research
approaches utilized, which aim to center the stories of Black millennial parents and fill gaps in
the archive. It also discusses the research design, procedures, and limitations. Most importantly,
this chapter has introduced the readers to the 15 participants who were interviewed—information
that might be useful to refer back to particularly while reading Chapters 4 and 5.

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Chapter Three

Bringing “Dreams to Life”: The Shaping of Black Millennials

I see the magic in your eyes. You’re strong enough, you know, to bring your
dreams to life.

— Mya and Blackstreet, “Take Me There,” 1998

In the Fall of 2021, a viral Tik Tok trend featured audio from standup comedian, Tom
Papa, performing at Gotham Comedy Club in New York City: “Have you made people yet?
Have you made….Oh yeah, you wait. I’ve made my own people, and I’m their leader.” Several
parents lip-synced these words in their Tik Toks, often with deadpan faces and large glasses of
wine in hand; some featured their little ones tearing up their living rooms in the background.
Though the dry-wit, parental humor makes for a good laugh, there is a heavy weight that comes
with the idea of “making” a person. It is a considerable feat to make a person in the physical
sense—several months of growing bellies, swollen limbs, and the marathon of labor and
delivery. It is yet another ongoing and even seemingly more daunting feat to “make” a person: to
shape them, cultivate their interests, ease their fears, and guide their choices. It can be
overwhelming to think that little children depend on you for care and love, and that you are
ultimately largely responsible for the shaping of their learning, character, and futures.
However, not only parents and caregivers have a role in “shaping” children. Rather, each
child is impacted by the contexts in which they are brought up. Children in the height of the
COVID-19 pandemic, for example, are subject to ways of thinking, being, and playing that differ
from generations before them; parents have told stories about their children “playing COVID,”
setting their dolls six inches apart from one another, and pretending to screen for masks before

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entry into their imaginary restaurants. Each child is born into a generation of children
experiencing unique circumstances not only in their individual lives, but in society, the economy,
and culture. Each generation is directed and influenced by the normalized ideologies, cultures,
and politics of the time. Each generation and each time period cannot be examined in isolation—
especially considering the roles of familial history and experience, intergenerational storytelling,
and parenting. Though a grandparent or parent generation might have lived formative years in
different historical contexts, these experiences often live on through parenting strategies in
response to another period. This is especially true for Black millennials, who have navigated the
period of their own childhoods alongside the histories, images, and legacies of slavery, Jim
Crow, mass incarceration and police brutality, and systemic inequality. Black millennials are
uniquely positioned not only in terms of a time period or era, but in terms of historical and
conjunctural forces—to give insight into how broader systems can intimately impact one’s
development and the development of subsequent generations. Therefore, while this chapter is
meant to contextualize Black millennial childhood, it also necessarily incorporates forces at play
within generations before them—especially their parents—primarily Black Baby Boomers raised
in the post-World War II era. Furthermore, societal hopes and anxieties are projected onto
generations at a larger scale; and at this scale, the shaping of children becomes the part of life
when you are socialized into citizenship. In turn, these large-scale imaginations about what
childhood is, how children should be, and who they should become—ultimately ideations
concerned about the future of the nation—influence the present, everyday lives of children.
Dream-Making
One hope that many parents likely have for their children is that they can dream big
dreams and achieve them. Dream-making for children can be linked to their seemingly limitless

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imaginations, in which they could probably think of the most creative and innovative ideations of
their futures. In American culture and discourse, however, we are often prompted to dream, to
hope, and to construct particular visions of our futures and what they could or should contain—
primarily in relation to our value in the economy and society. For example, in the United States
neoliberal context, the pursuit of dreams is often linked with pursuits such as individualized
success, high educational achievement, or good careers.
Furthermore, for Black children growing up in the United States, I argue that their dream-
making practices are often informed by discourse around the access that they have to different
realms of participation in their raced and classed bodies. This was apparent in Martin Luther
King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington. In his speech, he asserts that
100 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, “the Negro is still not free”(King,
1963). He gives specific examples of the ways in which Black Americans were cheated out of
this promise for freedom:
One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of
segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives
on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One
hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and
finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a
shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check (King,
1963).

Freedom in this passage is symbolized by a recognition of humanity, freedom from
discrimination, and the ability to participate in American society—including its material and
economic opportunity. In addition to a recognition of Black people’s humanity and inherent
equality, King desired for Black Americans to be able to fully participate in American society as
citizens: “There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his
citizenship rights”(King, 1963). King’s dream-making practice was very much in response to the

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discriminatory social, political, and legal practices that restricted the full participation of Black
Americans in society.
Likewise, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas discusses imagination, dreaming, and race in her
book, The Dark Fantastic (2019). She prompts us to wonder whether dreams can be simply
achieved through hope, faith, and perseverance. She grapples with lyrics from the film,
Cinderella, that suggested her dreams could come true simply through persistent believing.
Thomas writes that her mother told her that in the context of her Detroit, working-class, black
female body, magic did not exist for her: “My mother was doing me a favor by letting me know
that magic was inaccessible to me. The real world held enough trouble for young Black girls, so
there was no need for me to go off on a quest to seek it”(ibid, p. 1). Through these seemingly
opposing discourses, Thomas’ dream-making practices thus became tethered to and limited by
“the real conditions of [her] existence as a young Black woman in early twenty-first century
America”(ibid, p. 2). The advice from Thomas’ mother is reminiscent of Patricia Hill Collins’
theory of visionary pragmatism, in which “[Black mothers] remain simultaneously visionary
about what is possible, yet pragmatic about what it might take to get there.” (Collins, 2000, p.
199). These tensions are especially important to consider for Black millennials. In what ways are
Black millennials’ dream-making practices shaped, encouraged, or led by visionary pragmatism,
especially in an era of neoliberalism, multiculturalism, and a rampant encouragement to reach for
the stars and go after one’s dreams?
Robin D.G. Kelley discusses dreaming in-depth in his work, Freedom Dreams: The
Black Radical Imagination. He poses the question, “How do we produce a vision that enables us
to see beyond our immediate ordeals?”(Kelley, 2002, p. x). Kelley lovingly reminisces about
how his mother prompted them to dream about a future with endless possibilities. She herself

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dreamt of “land, a spacious house, fresh air, organic food, and endless meadows without
boundaries, free of evil and violence, free of toxins and environmental hazards, free of poverty,
racism, and sexism…just free”(ibid, p. 2). Although he asserts that the creation of these new
worlds starts in our imaginations, he occasionally wonders whether the “conditions of daily life,
of everyday oppressions, of survival, not to mention the temporary pleasures accessible to most
of us, render much of our imagination inert”(ibid, p. 11). In the everydayness of life, he suggests
that it is sometimes “difficult to see anything other than the present”(ibid, p. 11). For Black
millennials—who were encouraged in childhood to imagine not only their own futures but how
they could contribute to the future of their communities and nation—dream-making practices
were likely often colored by the everydayness of life, the visionary pragmatism of their parents
or generations before them, and the neoliberal context.
What Martin Luther King, Jr., Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Patricia Hill Collins, and Robin
D.G. Kelley demonstrate here is that while dream-making is often considered to be an activity
free of limitations and boundaries, for Black Americans, dream-making practices are often
shaped by present conditions. Dream-making practices for Black Americans have often been
triggered by a desire for freedom from daily oppressions and systemic inequality, or shaped by
the social and economic context of the time. It is possible that dream-making is often tethered to
a desire to fully participate in several spheres of American citizenship which have been rife with
discrimination or barriers to participation.
Chapter 3 addresses the research questions: What were the social, historical, and
economic forces that shaped Black millennial childhoods? What was the televisual landscape at
the time of Black millennial television viewership, and how was this landscape shaped by
historical, social, or cultural influences? This chapter posits that children in the United States are

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presented with several spheres of opportunity for participation in and socialization toward
citizenship, including, but not limited to: dream-making, childhood, the family, education, the
economy (i.e., work), space/place, and media. However, Black people have either been
historically barred from full participation in these spheres, or they have been identified as sub-
par citizens who need additional support and programming to be fully functioning citizens in
these spheres. These spheres of citizenship formation are also areas in which Black people have
struggled through discourse, ideology, and action to be fully recognized. This chapter also shows
that Black millennials were raised and developed in a moment of unique shifts in childhood, the
economy, and race. Specifically, perceptions of childhood leaned further toward opportunities
for consumerism—a result of continued post World War II effects as well as late capitalism. In
order to examine these contexts, this chapter utilizes conjunctural analysis (as outlined in
Chapter 2) in order to map out a few of the structural forces that have affected Black Americans.

Access to Citizenship

What is a citizen? Who gets to be one? To what extent do citizens enjoy the rights of
citizenship? Linda Kerber (1997) discusses that citizenship as a concept and in practice—in this
example, in the United States— can be both “fluid” and “problematic” (p. 833). Citizenship has
applied differently or not at all to various groups throughout the history of the United States.
While “the definition of citizen is single and egalitarian,” (ibid, p. 837) people’s lived
experiences of citizenship have been unequal from its conception in this country. This is
particularly true for those who were enslaved and the descendants of those who were enslaved,
who were brought to the nation against their will, forced into brutal labor, denied access to rights
as human beings—let alone as citizens—and were not given the opportunity to be naturalized as
citizens until after 1870 (ibid).

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Furthermore, although the United States was committed ideologically to freedom, this
freedom did not consider the enslaved or free Black people as participants in that freedom, nor
did they count them as whole human beings. For example, in the three fifths compromise of
1787, it was determined that in counting the population for taxation and representation, three
fifths of the slave population would be counted toward the number. In other words, five enslaved
people were only equivalent to three whole people (ibid). After the emancipation of enslaved
people, new caste systems operationalized by race continued to emerge as southern Whites
desired a new system of racial order (Alexander, 2010). In the years following the Civil War,
“black codes” were enacted to restrict the freedoms of Black people, who could not move freely
about, were used to force them back into cheap or unpaid labor, and enforced a hyper policing
and surveillance system (ibid). Eventually, these black codes were overturned and legislation—
such as the Thirteenth Amendment (abolition of slavery in 1865), the Civil Rights Act of 1866,
Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection of the law), and the Fifteenth Amendment (extended
voting rights to Black men)—slowly brought on more rights to citizenship for Black Americans
(ibid).
Even after the significant political and legislative gains of the civil right era, the
continued systemic oppression and marginalization of Black communities continued through
both formal and informal practices, from redlining to mass incarceration to the exclusion and
marginalization of African Americans from images, narratives, and iconography representative
of American national identity. As Salamishah Tillet has argued, “one of the fundamental
paradoxes of post-civil rights American politics” is “African Americans’ formal possession of
full legal citizenship and their inherited burden of ‘civic estrangement’” (Tillet, 2012, p. 3).
“Civic estrangement,” Tillet explains, “describes the paradox post-civil rights African Americans

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experience as simultaneous citizens and ‘non-citizens,’ who experience the feelings of
disillusionment and melancholia of non-belonging, and a yearning for civic membership” (ibid,
p. 3). It is clear, then, that from the founding of the United States, Black citizenship has been
wrought with inequality and a fight for recognition, participation, and full access to the freedoms
of citizenship.

Spheres of Participation

This chapter shows that the struggle for Black people to have access to full participation
in different realms of citizenship is one that arises in different manifestations throughout history,
and that it begins with childhood. The purpose of this chapter is to use these social and historical
barriers to participation to demonstrate that the discursive practices and aspirational desires of
Black millennials were framed by forces and systems that were in place before they were born—
especially postwar forces that greatly impacted the upbringing of their parents’ generation. The
goal of the chapter is not to exhaustively catalog every sphere of participation from which Black
people were barred, given additional legislative or social hurdles, or identified as subpar citizens.
Rather, the chapter aims to map out some of the social, historical, and economic forces which
shaped the time period in which Black millennials were raised in order to better understand their
viewership and parenting practices. This chapter will discuss six spheres that operate as key sites
for the formation and exercise of citizenship: childhood, family, the economy (i.e., work),
space/place, education, and media. These spheres of participation serve as snapshots of and
doorways into discussions around the extent to which and the mechanisms by which Black
people have had varying degrees of access to these spheres. The goal is to highlight forces that
eventually serve as the macrosystem of Black millennial childhood. Furthermore, because these
spheres are interrelated rather than mutually exclusive, aspects of each of these spheres of

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participation will appear throughout the chapter, as opposed to siloed within their own discrete
sections.

The Construction of Childhood

There are longstanding debates about children’s rights and citizenship, and the extent to
which they can participate in society at the same level as adults (Lister, 2007; Rehfeld, 2011).
However, what is for certain is that the symbolism of childhood—possibly even more so than
children themselves—finds itself at the center of many national, cultural, and political debates.
This is largely due to the conceptualization of childhood. The concept of childhood and the
actions taken in the United States to create, preserve, and to change the direction of our nation’s
children are indicative of broader conflicts regarding the current state and future directions of the
nation. Therefore, the conceptualization of childhood, as well as an examination of the
discourses surrounding childhood, are decidedly useful lenses through which we can identify
opposing forces, problem-spaces, and tensions seeking balance within the contexts of their
historical specificity; and the construction of childhood is one that has spanned generations.
Childhood serves as a socialization tool for ways in which to participate in citizenship in other
spheres (e.g., the economy) but is also a sphere of citizenship, or lack thereof, in and of itself.
Just as Linda Kerber (1997) referred to citizenship as fluid, childhood is fluid both in its
conceptualization and in practice—especially when it comes to race. Just as we considered “who
gets to be a citizen?” we now ask, “who gets to be a child?” Philippe Ariés (1962) posits that in
the early 17th century, the concept of modern childhood as we know it did not exist. However,
one shift that occurred was that industrialization in the late 18th and early 19th centuries brought
on higher infant mortality rates and made childhood a particularly vulnerable and cherished time
of life (Bernstein, 2011; Cox, 2015; Jenkins, 1998). Philippe Ariés also notes that until the 19th

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century, the death of a child, while disappointing, was simply seen as a part of life with high
infant mortality rates in society. However, the 19th century, according to Ariés, brought a culture
of extreme mourning with the death of a child—attaching great amounts of emotional value to
children (ibid; Zelizer, 1994).
In addition to shifts in the vulnerability of child life and the emotion attached to it,
perceptions of childhood piety have seen historical shifts. Scholarship on the changing
perceptions of a child in the western context often point to the religious ideology that was
prevalent in the colonial era of the United States—approximately 1607-1775. Robin Bernstein
notes that during the colonial period, children were viewed as “inherently sinful and sexual—
even more so, potentially, than adults, who had learned, through rationality and self-discipline,
how to control their impulses” (Bernstein, 2011, p. 4). In his 1762 work, Emile, Jean Jacques
Rousseau resisted the idea that children were inherently sinful, and instead asserted that children
were inherently pure, and simply needed the right education to cultivate and maintain that purity
(Leonard, 2015). Scholars then point to the Victorian era in British history—approximately
between 1820-1914—as a period in which the perception of children followed this philosophy of
Rousseau. Children in the Victorian era were viewed as holy, sinless, and ignorant of evil. They
were therefore a class to be protected and shielded from outside corrupting influences such as
sex and consumerism, (Bernstein, 2011; Jenkins, 1998). In each of these cases, the concept of
childhood circles around the dialectic of guilt and innocence, with no in-between except for a
slippage from one toward the other. Childhood, therefore, became a symbol of an inherent,
“natural” state of being (whether evil or pious) that must be molded, influenced, and managed by
adults.

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Furthermore, Viviana Zelizer (1994) and Lynn Spigel (1992) explain how shifts within
the economic function of the family also changed the value and role of the child in society. In an
agrarian economy, the whole family, including children, labor as a unit in order to provide.
However, industrialization, and drastic changes to the economy and society, brought about a
social movement called The Progressive Era in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—in which
child safety and the preservation of childhood became of utmost importance (Griffin, 1999;
Spigel, 1999). This era was characterized by concerns about children working in dangerous
factory environments, child labor laws, and the introduction of widespread compulsory
schooling—children became almost completely separated from the work force. The 19th century
and industrialization reorganized the family and each member’s role in it. Because the family
was no longer unified as an economic unit, it primarily began to function as an ideological and
emotional one (Spigel, 1992). Furthermore, as work began to migrate to urban centers, the home
came to serve as a respite from urban centers and from what was seen as sinful work
environments (ibid). Middle class sensibilities posited that work was public life, and family and
the home became private life. Women and children, who were once participants in the economic
gain of the family, functioned primarily in home life. Women’s primary roles became child
rearing and home keeping, while children—other than their child work (e.g., attending school)—
had their time structured primarily by leisure and play.

Foundations of Black Childhood

Of course, these histories of childhood are western, white, and middle class. If we return
to our discussion of citizenship regarding Black populations in the United States, we remember
that Black children in the foundational centuries of this country were enslaved. Ned and
Constance Sublette (2016) trace the disturbing slave-breeding industry that capitalized off of the

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reproductivity and fertility of Black enslaved people as a means to perpetuate and maximize the
profits available through slavery. They describe it as an economy in which “people were capital,
children were interest, and women were routinely violated”(ibid, p. xiv). Furthermore, enslaved
people were often perceived as strong and unable to feel pain”(Bernstein, 2011). This is a far cry
from the gentle innocence and vulnerability that characterized white children. While efforts may
have been made to protect Black enslaved children, it was certainly not for the same reasons as
white children of that time; rather, it was because they were property and had financial value
within the slave economy. This is but one of the earliest examples in which Black childhood in
the United States was not considered to be a childhood at all. Black children were property.
Beyond slavery and into the present day, Black children and youth still seem to lack full
citizenship in the sphere of childhood and the freedoms that comes with its assumed innocence.
Take, for example, the Scottsboro Boys—nine black youths who in 1931 were arrested after
getting into a fight with white freight riders and being subsequently accused of raping two white
women on the train. Eight of the nine were found guilty as charged and were sentenced to death
(Miller, Pennyback, & Rosenhaft, 2001). Consider the brutal 1955 murder of 14-year-old
Emmett Till: a Black boy who was tortured, lynched, and thrown into the river after being
accused of whistling at a white woman in a store (Onwuachi-Willig, 2018). Or, we can
remember Trayvon Martin, who was murdered on his way home from the store with a bag of
Skittles and an iced tea—as he was assumed by neighborhood vigilante, George Zimmerman, to
be suspicious and up to no good (Lane, Williams, Hunt, & Paulk, 2020). Black children’s origins
as property and interest in the United States and their shift into assumed danger and criminality
demonstrate historically a lack of full access to the sphere of childhood.

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Barriers to Black Family Life

As discussed above, the family as a function and as ideology saw major shifts with the
change from agrarian society to industrialized urban centers, and roles within domestic life
shifted greatly with these changes. However, it is important to note the ways in which family
formations for Black Americans have also have unique histories. As Ned Sublette and Constance
Sublette (2016) suggest, black reproduction was not viewed as a function of family life, but
rather as a profitable endeavor, and was often used in traumatizing manners such as forced
mating toward that profit. Furthermore, because of slave trafficking, the complete destruction of
Black family ties was horrifically normalized (ibid). According to Sublette & Sublette, “the
family was the strongest unit of social cohesion and resistance to slavery” and therefore
“destroying family webs systematically in every generation was the best way to guarantee the
perpetual existence of an abject underclass whose labor and upkeep would remain as cheap as
possible”(ibid, p. 24). Enslaved women were used as wet nurses for white women whose milk
had dried up—often to the detriment of their own children (ibid). Enslaved people could hardly
live into family life, as their time, bodies, and labor went primarily toward the family life and
economics of their masters. This is a demonstration of the ways in which family-making
practices for Black populations in the United States—particularly those who were enslaved and
descendants of those enslaved, in this example—often required a navigation of control,
surveillance, labor beyond the benefit of that family unit, and varying levels of legitimization and
recognition.
What do these constrained contexts of family formation and family-making practices
have to do with Black millennial childhood? Family is a generational institution, and parenting is
a necessary practice within the contemporary structure of family life. Therefore, the lives of

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Black millennials will have been shaped not only by the macro-level contexts in which they were
raised, but in the influences of previous generations and their contexts. The life circumstances,
desires, and practices of Black millennials will have been formed at least in part by the values,
ideologies, and actions of their parents: most often the Baby Boom generation, born
approximately between 1946-1964. This generation was raised in the post-World War II
context—an important period in the new ways of participating in family life and citizenship, as
well as the ways in which we made sense of the hopes and fears surrounding childhood and the
future of the nation.

Postwar Parenting

In 1945, with the end of World War II, there was another major shift in how society
organized around home life, family, and childhood. Women, who had stepped in as workers
during the war economy, were expected to leave their jobs with the return of war veterans;
couples were also encouraged to have children and build their families. This resulted in a great
increase in the number of babies born—hence the term, “baby boom.” Seventy-six million
children were born between 1946 and 1964 (Griffin, 1999). The postwar period, the great
increase in the number of children, and the ways in which the United States made sense of its
own identity in comparison to the Soviet Union greatly shaped the ways in which childhood was
framed. Importantly, this era demonstrated the ways in which childhood symbolized the identity
and future of the nation as well as approaches to parenting, education, and the management of
space and play.
Lawrence Grossberg states that while kids are “caught at the intersection of a number of
different struggles, the most powerful of these is a struggle over ‘the question of the future’—
over our assumptions about the relation between the present and the future”(Grossberg, 2010, p.

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63). Levander (2006) argues that children are not only representative of utopia or a restoration of
loss, but that children in fact stand in for the nation itself. Children are the nation, the future of
the nation, the foundation upon which nationalism is built. As children are often perceived as
pre-social and apolitical (Jenkins, 1998), many political and ideological battles for the nation are
waged on their behalf (Bernstein, 2011; Jenkins, 1998). No matter what the cause, the fight on
the backs of children always appears to be noble, acceptable, and right: “Childhood in
performance enabled divergent political positions each to appear natural, inevitable, and
therefore justified.”(Bernstein, 2011). Any battle fought for children, therefore, seems justifiable,
as it not only holds stakes for sweet, innocent children themselves, but for the future of the
nation.
Shortly after World War II, Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union commenced. The
United States wanted to position themselves in opposition to the Soviet Union and their ways of
life and thinking. Specifically, the United States wanted to organize the post war society in a way
that upheld democratic ways of being as a superior political ideology. Furthermore, discourse
around Soviet childhood asserted that Soviet children were, sadly, stripped of their childhood
due to the strict adherence to rules and structure. In order to position itself in opposition to and in
a superior position to the Soviet Union, perceptions and practices around child rearing and
development took a major turn. Democracy and American exceptionalism were embedded into
debates about childhood (Jenkins, 1999). Children, especially as they represented the “American
way” and the future of the nation, were viewed as needing protection from Communism (Griffin,
1999, p. 105). Soviet childhood came to represent egregiously disciplined lives, a loss of
childhood fun and exploration, and pawns of an overbearing state. Therefore, instead of rigid
structures that lacked the joys of childhood, parenting literature and advice began to lean toward

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a permissive approach. American children, on the other hand, were meant to represent freedom,
play, and childhood in its best form (Spigel, 1999). According to Lynn Spigel, “Comparisons
between American and Soviet children often stressed the ways in which the Soviets had lost their
childhood to the disciplinary will of the state”(Spigel, 1999, p. 36-37). It is no wonder that Dr.
Spock’s child-centered, more permissive approach was championed as guidebooks for the
upbringing of American, democratic childhood (Jenkins, 1999; Jenkins, forthcoming; Kapur,
1999; Spigel, 1999). This form of parenting was viewed as much more democratic in principle,
and therefore superior to the Soviet ways of child rearing.
Henry Jenkins (forthcoming) notes, however, that this permissive method of parenting
came with an element of white privilege. Black American parents were much less likely to
practice this form of parenting for fear that their children would be assumed to be up to no good,
or to run into trouble with various authorities (Jenkins, forthcoming). The freedom to relish in
the fullness of childhood as it was defined in that moment in society—as free, playful, and
natural—was again not given fully to Black boomer children. Likewise, Black parents could only
somewhat participate in what experts were calling good parenting toward the benefit of the
children and the nation.

Participation in Spaces

While parenting and Baby Boomer childhood were being highly influenced by a guiding
ideology of permissiveness, it was paradoxically also driven by a growing regulation of
children’s spaces and play. After work became separated from domestic life, and after children
were separated from labor, children’s main work became play, and childhood became
characterized by play and freedom (Zelizer, 1994). However, for Baby boomers, play and the
spaces that children could occupy started to become much more regulated. With such a drastic

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increase in the number of children, it seemed there were “little ones everywhere, just waiting to
run out into the city streets and be hit by cars, or to fall down the stairs of urban apartment
buildings”(Griffin, 1999, p. 105). There was a great increase in the regulation of children’s play,
and an increase in supervised and organized sports and activities (ibid). Furthermore, families
began to ponder the level of safety their children had in cities, and scholars began to question the
effects of city life and housing on the development and mental health of children (ibid). Parents
began to look to the suburbs as hubs of safety from the dangers of living in the city, distancing
themselves from physical spaces as well as people that would be deemed treacherous. Suburbs
provided an abundance of space for children to live and play, while fences and playgrounds
provided a sense of control and regulation over that play and exploration (ibid). Thankfully, for
these mostly white, middle-class, heterosexual, married couples, the dream of the suburbs was
attainable. This was not so for the families of Black Baby Boomers.

Spatial Inequality

The mass suburbanization of the postwar era is often characterized as “white flight,” and
as possibly part of a response to the Second Great Migration of southern Black populations
heading to the north and to the west in search of new opportunities (Boustan, 2010; Self, 2003;
Wilkerson, 2010). However, Robert Self (2003) claims that this mass suburbanization was not
only a result of “flight,” but also a drawing away due to “material and ideological incentives” for
residents (Self, 2003, p. 2). This suburban expansion was bolstered by policies within federal and
municipal governments that “gave contour and direction” to both the migrations of southern
Black populations and increasingly suburban White populations (ibid, p. 3). Furthermore,
discriminatory housing policies and bank practices made it easier for White, married,

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heterosexual families to make the move to the suburbs (Howard, 2013; Wolfinger, 2012; Self,
2003).
In The Color of Law (2017), Richard Rothstein describes how housing segregation was
not simply an act of private bigotry, but that local, state, and federal policies actively shaped
housing opportunity and the right to space and housing. Rothstein writes that under President
Roosevelt and The New Deal (a series of social programs enacted in the 1930s during the Great
Depression to aid Americans), the Public Works Administration began building public housing
for the working and middle classes that were segregated by race. This was the beginning of
public housing, though it looked nothing like the public housing in our public imagination today.
After World War II, droves of veterans returning from war meant a shortage of housing, and
President Truman, who succeeded Roosevelt, built more public housing to accommodate
returning soldiers—these were still segregated by race. However, white public housing began to
develop major vacancies, while black public housing buildings had long wait lists. Therefore,
white public housing opened up to black residents. These vacancies in the white buildings were
largely due to a Federal Housing Administration program that was designed to allow white
families only to purchase homes in the suburbs in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. This is one of the
ways in which segregated housing also became a raced concentration of poverty (ibid). Some
Black families who did manage to move to suburban neighborhoods were met with threats,
mobs, and intimidation. This was the case, for example, in Levittown, Pennsylvania—a suburb
of the city of Philadelphia designed by William Levitt for returning World War II veterans—in
which its founder refused to sell to Black families as a means to obtain the funding to complete
his development. When the Myers family managed to move into a home in Levittown in 1957,
they were met with riots and consistent harassment (Wolfinger, 2012).

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Mass suburbanization, however, did not mean a disappearance of urban city centers. Self
posits that the “overdevelopment of suburbs” also led to an “underdevelopment of cities” (Self,
2003, p. 1). Racial segregation in housing increased while employment opportunities also
decreased due to jobs also moving to the suburbs, postwar reconversion, and outright
employment discrimination (Wolfinger, 2012). While Black homeownership went up in cities
like Philadelphia due to White flight to the suburbs (ibid), the living conditions within the cities
were often subpar. The imagery attached to “the city” began to be increasingly racialized,
demonized, and identified as needy. The term “inner city,” for example, was popularized in the
late 1950s and early 1960s by suburban liberal Protestants at the periphery of these areas who
viewed them as opportunities for evangelism (Ansfield, 2018). The term “inner city” is a
reflection not only of the mass geographic segregation, but also the race and class-based
connotations attached to these spaces in the postwar era (ibid).
Henri Lefebvre asserted that making a place—a dwelling—was an emancipatory act
(Gutman, 2020). However, space in the form of purchasing a home and creating a place and a
dwelling—becoming a neighbor—is yet another sphere of civic participation from which Black
Americans have been historically barred. These policies occurred leading up to and during the
childhoods of Black Baby Boomers. This meant that while white families were obtaining bank
loans to purchase homes in spacious, clean suburbs with amenities designed specifically to
benefit the safety, play, supervised freedom, and cognitive development of children, many of the
families of Black Baby Boomers were being geographically cut off from work and were
confronted with unjust housing programs and policies that directly aided in the concentration of
poverty. Even after the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, Rothstein claims that the policies
enacted during the postwar era have had lasting effects to this day. Specifically, white families

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were able to obtain homes at low prices with the aid of government policies. The value of the
homes appreciated over time, allowing white families to accumulate equity and financial wealth
that could be passed on to their children in the form of college, down payments for more
property, and the like. Black families, however, tried to enter this same market once the homes
were already drastically less affordable. Rothstein claims that much of the wealth gap between
white and black families in the United States can be directly traced to unconstitutional housing
policies in the early 20th century (Rothstein, 2017). Likewise, Clarissa Rile Hayward and Todd
Swanstrom (2011) describe these spatial inequalities as “thick injustice.” This is a kind of
injustice that is so deep that it is obscured, and is additionally hard to trace to a particular root.
As both Hayward and Swanstrom and Rothstein suggest, housing inequality and segregation are
easily obscured by being able to lean on things like individual choice: “Place also makes
injustice thick by imbuing it with the innocence of personal preference, market competition, and
choice"(Hayward & Swanstrom, 2011, p. 17). Segregation, 1fragmentation, and personal choice
cloud the deeply embedded injustices related to the right to space and housing. This often leaves
Black families in “urban” environments, often left in subpar conditions through policy. In the
post-civil rights era, discriminatory housing policies gave way to predatory ones. As Keeanga-
Yamahtta Taylor explains,
New financial instruments such as mortgage-backed securities, produced an intense
demand for more homeowners and more money for home financing, while lax oversight
and regulation incentivized unscrupulous and predatory targeting of urban communities.
Far from being a static site of dilapidation and ruin, the urban core was becoming an
attractive place of unparalleled opportunity, a new frontier of economic investment and
extraction for the real estate and banking industries. The race for profit in the 1970s
transformed decaying urban space into what one U.S. senator described as a ‘golden
ghetto,’ where profits for banks and real estate brokers were never ending, while
shattered credit and ruined neighborhoods were all that remained for African Americans
who lived there (Taylor, 2019, p. 4).

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Taylor’s explanation of predatory housing policies is another example in which inequality is
produced and reproduced through and within space.
The term “urban” is often used interchangeably with “city,” both of which have been
extensively theorized. Mumford (1937/2011) conceived of the city as a “social institution”(p.2),
an institution that extended beyond its built environment. He also posits that the city is "a
geographic plexus, an economic organization, an institutional process, a theater of social action,
and an aesthetic symbol of collective unity. The city fosters art and is art; the city creates the
theater and is the theater"(Mumford, 1937/2011, p. 93). He characterizes the city as an active
agent in social, institutional, economic, and artistic life. Chicago School scholars such as Wirth
(1938) have been called environmental determinists, claiming that “environment, including the
built environment, will affect human behavior"(LeGates & Stout, 2011, p. 96-97). Regardless of
positionality, the city, or the urban environment, is considered to be an influential actor upon life,
and is also dynamically engaged with on multiple levels. The urban is where all of these systems
collide, and where injustice often occurs. Swyngedouw (2006) writes that “questions of justice
cannot be seen independently from the urban condition, not only because most of the world’s
population lives in cities, but above all because the city condenses the manifold tensions and
contradictions that infuse modern life”(as cited in Soja, 2010, p. 1). These injustices often
manifest in social, racial, and economic forms, though all of these components are also highly
intertwined. Injustice, often seen as a natural occurrence and inevitable characteristic of the
urban environment, also have an influence at macro and micro levels. Soja notes that
distributional inequality is “... the most basic and obvious expression of spatial injustice, at least
when emphasizing geographical outcomes rather than the processes that produce them”(ibid, p.
47). This includes access to places and services such as quality doctors, grocery stores, health

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clinics, and hospitals. He notes that unfortunately, a lack of distributional equality is viewed as
“the normal, expected, and unavoidable consequences of urban living” instead of “modifiable
injustices or violations of civil rights” (ibid, p. 48).
In the analyses of his fieldwork, Matthew Desmond (2012) points to the injustices
embedded in the process of eviction. He found that there were both gendered and raced findings,
and also noted psychological and emotional (i.e., depression in women) impacts of eviction in
addition to the challenge of having to move or to lose one’s home. Evicted residents have little
home security, and the new homes they relocate to are often in worse conditions than their
previous homes (Desmond, 2012). Along with housing choice and mobility, Manuel Pastor, Jim
Sadd, and John Hipp (2001) find that race and socioeconomic status have a high impact on
health, as poor and minority residents’ health is disproportionately affected by toxic facilities. A
debate in environmental justice, as they discuss here, is whether the toxic facilities, or the
residents came first, with some blaming low political power and civic engagement of poor
minority residents. Their study of toxic facilities in Los Angeles county using geolocated GIS
data, and they found that demographic variables did in fact have an impact for sitings of future
toxic facilities. Furthermore, they found that minority communities attracted toxic facilities, and
not the other way around. While whites in Los Angeles have been able to secure their health
through suburbanization and moving to cleaner environments (Pulido, 2000), low income and
minority communities continue to suffer from toxic materials and poor air quality. It is no
wonder that in Black American discourse about freedom, success, and citizenship, place and
mobility are major points of attention.

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Educating the Children

In addition to an emphasis on moving white families to suburban areas for the safety and
development of their children, education also became a major emphasis of the postwar era.
Again, children became symbols in the postwar era for democratic principles, freedom, and good
(permissive) parenting. However, just over a decade after the end of World War II, the Soviet
Union completed a successful launch of its satellite—Sputnik—into space, crushing the United
States’ goal of being the first to do so. While the United States up to this point felt they were
doing a better job raising children toward democratic principles and giving them real, playful,
and unrigid childhoods, it suddenly felt it had fallen drastically behind the Soviets in the
education of its children (Spigel, 1999). Suddenly, worry swirled about how the United States
could better educate its children, especially in the areas of math and science. The fear was that
without an immediate intervention, Baby Boomers would grow into adults who were inferior to
Soviets, and feared it had implications for the superiority of the nation. During Baby Boomer
childhoods, education became central to the discussion of their futures while more programs and
funding went toward ensuring that “Ivan” didn’t know things that “Johnny” didn’t (ibid).
However, like other spheres already discussed in this chapter—such as childhood, family,
space—education is a sphere of citizenship that has not historically been fully granted to Black
children in the same way that it has been to white children. In 1957—the same year that Sputnik
went up into space—people in the United States were vehemently protesting the desegregation of
schools. The 1954 Supreme Court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education declared that the
segregation of schools was unconstitutional. However, it was not until the beginning of the
school year in 1957 that nine teenagers who would come to be known as the “Little Rock Nine”
desegregated Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas while escorted by federal troops

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(Anderson, 2010). These nine black youths were symbols of what white families thought would
be the downfall of their schools, and potentially, their own children.
Things did not look much different four decades later when approval for the construction
of affordable housing in the primarily white suburb, Mount Laurel, New Jersey was finally
passed (Massey, Albright, Casciano, Derickson, & Kinsey, 2013). This came on the heels of two
Supreme Court decisions—Mount Laurel I and Mount Laurel II—that stipulated that land use
policies that hindered the building of affordable housing were unconstitutional. Mount Laurel
families who opposed the building of affordable housing feared the implications of lower income
families and families of color moving to the safe, suburban neighborhoods from cities such as
Camden, New Jersey, known for crime (ibid). The families feared that children from Camden
and similar cities would have the opportunity to attend their children’s schools, exposing them to
poor influences and putting them in danger. Mount Laurel families preferred to keep their
neighborhoods and their schools largely segregated, just as the families forty years before desired
for their children’s schools.
A “good education” for Black children, just as the right to dwell in spaces or certain
neighborhoods, remains at the center of discourse. It is no wonder that Black Baby Boomers,
who grew up in an era where being well educated was central (i.e., to compete with Soviet
education) and an era of desegregation and the fight for access to schools, would pass on to their
own children (i.e., Black millennials), the importance of a good education. In addition to
struggles over access to schooling, Black Baby Boomers also grew up in a time in which
discourse over education in the media became prevalent. Specifically, in 1964, President Lyndon
B. Johnson declared a “war on poverty,” and pledged to implement a series of programs that
would aid in alleviating poverty and disparities. Project Head Start, a program to support and

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teach preschool-aged children from low-income families, was a part of this effort (Hendershot,
1999). Like Project Head Start, The Children’s Television Workshop—the creators of Sesame
Street, a show for preschool children that premiered in November 1969—believed in research
that asserted that human cognition and emotional development were heavily impacted by the first
few years of life, and that a child’s environment would greatly impact that development (ibid).
This was especially believed to be true for children living in poverty. Therefore, The Children’s
Television Workshop premiered Sesame Street primarily with the hopes of educating and
providing socio-emotional support to children living in poverty, and children of color (ibid).
Researchers and educators looked at the development of the brain as a “great equalizer” (ibid, p.
144), though Heather Hendershot argues that this approach ignores structural inequality, and
points out that some argued that Sesame Street actually widened the gap as advantaged children
were watching the show and advancing even further beyond lower income children.
Nevertheless, Sesame Street was available for Baby Boomer children—and was especially
designed (through the urban streetscape and characters of color)—to try to attract the attention of
black and brown Baby Boomers. Therefore, Black Baby Boomers also grew up in an era where
television, in addition to brain development, was a method for educating children and for
attempting to alleviate poverty and inequality. Technology and media entered the conversation as
a means to developing children’s abilities and preparing them for other spheres of citizenship.

Politics, Blackness, and TV in the Reagan Era

In the 1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent president, Jimmy
Carter. He won reelection in a landslide victory in 1984. These years also marked the first years
of the birth of Black millennials (often cited as being born between 1981-1996). Reagan’s
presidency marked a major shift in the political climate of the United States, largely attributable

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to backlash against the previous democratic president and spearheaded by affluent Republicans
and disillusioned working class and middle-class white citizens (Hunt, 2005). Known as a great
communicator, Reagan was able to lay much of the blame for the economic struggles of the
period on policies and social programs aimed at supporting racial minorities. Reagan’s
presidency ushered neo-conservative politics which are often characterized in history and politics
by moral panics, fears about welfare abusers, and a fierce effort to save the family (Gray, 2004).
Blackness in the Reagan era was used in very particular ways to mobilize certain political
sensibilities—specifically fears about the disintegrated black family, crime, abuse of the welfare
system, and an overabundance of programming to assist low income Black Americans (ibid).
However, at the same time, the administration and its surrounding culture ushered the
nation into a moment of both rampant individualism and competition. With the help of a
“demonization of the black urban underclass and attacks on the liberal welfare state”(ibid, p. 25),
Reagan’s administration strove to “eliminate dependency, reduce regulation, and let the
unfettered market regulate itself”(ibid, p. 24). Massive deregulation led the nation into a political
and economic neoliberal context, or, an ideology underwritten by capitalism, competition, and
economic growth. With a shrinking role of government and an emphasis on individual
competition toward economic success in a free market, Black millennials were growing up in a
social, political, and economic moment much different from that of their parents.
Herman Gray (2004) argues that the construction and use of blackness as a symbol in this
period occurred significantly through television programming. Although blackness—and
particularly images of the black “underclass” were utilized to induce moral panic, television also
helped to usher in multiculturalism, which fit neatly within the neoliberal and individualistic
context that asserted that free market capitalism and competition were the best ways forward for

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the nation. In a multiculturalism context, blackness could be used to signify panic, while also
uplifting stories of Black success—stories that would prove that the neoliberal philosophy
worked. Shows like The Cosby Show, for example, solidified the possibility of an upper class,
professional, happy, successful Black family in the public imagination (ibid; Lewis & Jhally,
1992). The Cosby Show featured a Black couple living in an elegant, culturally-relevant (e.g.,
African American artwork and music) brownstone—with Bill Cosby starring as a loving, funny
father, husband, and OBGYN, Cliff Huxtable, and with Phylicia Rashad starring as Clair
Huxtable: a beautiful, classy wife, mother of five, and lawyer. Having a black, “hegemonic”
family dominating on air while the lower income black people were demonized for a
disintegrating society reinforced individualized and meritocratic notions of how to succeed in the
United States. Therefore, while Black millennials spent the early years of their lives witnessing
growing racial tension, through television they were able to dream of and aspire to full
participation in society.

Clinton, Kinderpolitics, and Children’s Television

There was a major shift yet again in both the political climate and the televisual
landscape during Black millennial childhoods. In 1992, Bill Clinton defeated incumbent George
H.W. Bush—a republican president who succeeded Republican president, Ronald Reagan. This
was the first time a democratic president was in office since Jimmy Carter. Clinton built much of
his political platform on “kinderpolitics,” or, a dedication to children’s welfare, development,
and education. Clinton, like so many before him, strongly asserted that children were the future
of the nation, and that developing policies to ensure their success should be of utmost importance
to the nation (Spigel, 1999). Under Clinton and his promises to help children, a few key pieces of
legislation were passed related specifically to children’s education, technology, and media.

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Just two years prior to Clinton’s election, the Children’s Television Act of 1990 was
passed. This stipulated that the Federal Communications Commission must enact standards that
limit the number of hours that children are exposed to advertisements during programs created
for children (Kinder, 1999). The Children’s Act of 1990 was then strengthened under Clinton
when in 1996, it was required that stations had to broadcast a minimum of three hours of
educational program geared toward children (i.e., viewers under the age of sixteen)(ibid). Clinton
also pledged to increase access to the internet for children regardless of race and class, as a
means to provide them with informational and educational access in ways they had not had
access before. At the same time, Clinton promised to protect children from scandalous images,
and the V-Chip technology was implemented under his presidency. This technology would allow
parents to block programs that, based on ratings, they felt would be inappropriate for their
children to watch (Hendershot, 1999). Through these policies and regulations under Clinton, a
great emphasis was placed on children’s wellbeing and education, and a spotlight was shone
upon children’s programming in a way that both increased the number of children’s programs
and also increased the standards that these shows would be held to.
In addition, the television industry more broadly was drastically changing, as audience
segmentation and fragmentation became more and more prevalent. This was especially true for
both child audiences and for Black audiences. After World War II and the baby boom, children
were not only increasingly viewed as beings to be protected, but also beings to be shaped into
consumers (Kapur, 1999; Pecora, 1998). For example, Norma Pecora (1998) briefly moves
through each decade since the war on how children were increasingly viewed as consumers. For
example, with the growth of television ownership in the 1950s alongside the baby boom brought
increasing interest in children as a market from advertisers. With an increase in both births and

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income in the 1960s, children of the baby boom were moving into adolescence and also had
some discretionary income to utilize, which drew even more attention from advertisers. In the
1970s, there was an increase in academic research on children and television which translated
well into the market research industry. Furthermore, the 1970s brought fragmentation as well as
a combination of the media and toy industries, which had a huge impact on the ways in which
consumerism played into children’s programming: “Where once there were three national
networks, there were now multiple media outlets; where once each industry, media and toy was
relatively autonomous, they were now collaborative”(ibid, p. 26). It is collaborations like this
that led to child advocacy efforts toward limiting the amount of advertising placed in front of
children. For example, in the 1970s, the Action for Children’s Television, led by Peggy Charren,
began to push for regulation regarding the amount of advertising minutes along with the
elimination of host selling (e.g., having a character from a show endorse a commercial product)
(ibid). Eventually, the Children’s Television Act of 1990 (previously mentioned) was passed to
stipulate standards regarding these concerns.
However, in the 1980s and 1990s, when Black millennials were born, children were not
seen any less as consumers. With more fragmentation, an increase of independent productions
and stations, and more content available for children, there were even more opportunities for
advertisers to lean into the child as a consumer. Partnerships between programs and
manufacturers continued, and several shows were put into production that were subsidized by the
toy industry (Kline, 1993; Pecora, 1998). For example, shows like He-Man, Transformers, and
Thundercats were popular shows that were explicitly linked to the toy industry (Pecora, 1998).
By the 1990s, children also had access to programming on public stations, cable (i.e.,
Nickelodeon), and possibly premium stations such as the Disney Channel. By 1990, there were

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300 hours of children’s programming available to view, with more variety in content than ever
before (ibid).
This was the same for programming featuring black casts as well. Just as children became
an increasingly separate and valuable market segment for commercial sale, Black populations
proved to be a lucrative market segment. Nielsen began to demarcate African Americans’
viewing habits as a separate segment starting in the 1990-1991 season (Smith-Shomade, 2012).
While in previous decades, scholars and viewers called for more black characters on television,
black characters in prime-time television were actually overrepresented in relation to the actual
Black population in the United States in the late 1990s (Hunt, 2005). However, this notion may
likely be contested in scholarship regarding representation as the networks in 1999 revealed their
lineup of 26 shows—none of which had a person of color as a lead (Warner, 2012).
Nevertheless, networks like United Paramount (UPN) began to cater to a young, black audience
with their programming lineups. This became so prevalent that one of the common ways in
which black people, including participants in this dissertation, referred to UPN was “underpaid
negroes.” The same was true for the Warner Brother network (WB), which people jokingly
referred to as “We Black” because of its lineup of urban youth programming. In the 1990s,
blackness—especially in music and in television—was not only cool, but profitable. Some
participants in this dissertation study have even referred to it as a “golden age” of representation
due to the sheer number of black faces they remembered seeing on networks such as UPN and
The WB—in addition to children’s media networks that followed suit with black children and
teenagers cast in shows like Kenan and Kel, All That, and My Brother and Me—all shows on
Nickelodeon.

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Chapter Conclusion

This chapter is not strictly about Black millennial children, though it does importantly set
up the conjuncture in which Black millennials were raised by examining snapshots into the
social, historical, economic, and televisual forces at play in the upbringing and discourses
surrounding Black millennials—many forces of which were put into motion in the early
generations of the United States. While an in-depth glimpse into the history of each of these
forces is beyond the scope of this project, the goal of this chapter was to bring these forces and
discourses to the fore in order to frame the reading of subsequent chapters specifically about
Black millennials (i.e., Chapter 4 and Chapter 5).
The approach taken to give these “glimpses” was to approach these forces through the
lens of citizenship. The chapter posits that in the United States, there are different spheres in
which citizens are expected to participate in particular ways. Some of these spheres include
childhood, family, space, and education. However, I also assert that throughout the history of the
nation, “citizenship” has been complicated for Black Americans, and they have either been
barred from participation, or have had to navigate participation in these spheres with many
challenges.
While this chapter necessarily traces challenges to participation as far back as slavery and
reconstruction, the primary periods of historicization are between the postwar era and the
childhood of Black millennials. First, this is because this chapter argues that conjunctures are not
so easily or cleanly ruptured, and that part of this is because of parenting. Parents and their
children often grow up in the context of different social and historical forces. However, the
forces that influence the parents’ upbringing and experiences will influence their worldviews and
ways of being, which will almost certainly be translated through family communication and

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parenting practices and discourses will be passed down to their children. Therefore, it was
important to examine the influences at work in the Baby Boomer generation—especially for
Black Baby Boomers—who would eventually become the parents of Black millennials who grew
up with very different approaches to childhood, politics, and technology. For example, Black
millennials were likely exposed—due not only to family communication but to their education as
well as television viewership—to discourse about racism, a good education, discrimination in
housing, and the “values” of living in a “good, safe, neighborhood.” They are likely aware that
Black populations in the United States have had to, and often continue to, deal with barriers in
these spheres of citizenship. However, they also grew up in a time in which Black families and
youth were not only viewed on television, but were popular and loved on television. They had
access to an “abundance” of programs for children and for young black youth in which people
who looked like them were getting an education, laughing with their families, living in unique
homes or apartments, and living great social lives. While history points to struggle, media of the
1990s and early 2000s often pointed to fun and success. Black millennials also grew up in a time
that children were centered under the Clinton administration, and technology and media were
viewed, alongside brain development, as great equalizers for children growing up in less
advantaged environments. There was a technological turn that gave hope that no matter where
someone came from, they could access information and education that could give them a
different future. Black millennials grew up as well on the heels of and in the midst of a political
climate underwritten by late capitalism/neoliberalism, meritocracy, the American Dream, and
multiculturalism. Even if these struggles were present for previous generations of Black people,
it seemed that in this new climate—especially with technological advances and a presence of
successful and happy Black people on television—that these spheres of participation could

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finally be fully open to Black millennials. Their parents, who grew up in an era centered on
education for the sake of the country, told them how important education was for their futures.
All that they would have to do is work hard, make themselves valuable in a competitive market
through degrees and skills, and they would be able to access the lives that they saw on television.
Black millennials, who had access to information and technology that generations before them
did not, would be the generation that reached the mountaintop. They would be the ones to finally
be able to fully participate as citizens in ways that even their parents couldn’t (Allen, 2019).
As Chapter 4 will show, this is exactly the discourse that occurred in many Black
millennials’ upbringing. There was an emphasis placed on college, getting good jobs, and living
a successful life. They were given specific ways of reaching these goals that were driven both by
discourse sparked by longstanding challenges due to racism, and the images that they saw on
television. Many of them followed this path in the way that they felt they were supposed to.
While some are quite happy with how those choices turned out, others reached the other side of
their goals to feel unfulfilled and bamboozled. Chapter 5 will then discuss the ways in which
Black millennials have processed and made meaning of their upbringing alongside media, and
how they are now parenting their own children—who, like Black millennials—are growing up in
a different conjuncture from their parents.

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Chapter Four

“Thinkin’ ‘Bout Yesterday”: Reflections on Black Millennial Childhoods

In the final scene of the popular family sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air—which
originally ran as an NBC production from 1990-1996 —Will, the show’s adored main character
(played by Will Smith), walks alone into the empty living room of the Banks family mansion in
Bel Air; this was Will’s home for several years after his mother sent him to live there with his
aunt, uncle, and cousins to avoid getting into mischief in his hometown of West Philadelphia.
Now the Banks family members have packed their things as each of them prepares to move on to
the next phases of their lives. The room which was once filled with the family’s laughter, snarky
jokes, conflict, and embraces is now left only with a large gray and white rug with Will standing
at its center. He seems to hold back tears as he walks over to the light switch, takes one more
look back at the Banks living room, and turns off the light. But, in classic Fresh Prince fashion,
the show leaves viewers with a laugh; Will’s cousin, Carlton, squeals from the top of the steps:
“Hey! Who turned out the lights? Where is everybody?” He runs down the stairs and out of the
front door in a goofy panic as the live TV audience laughter ensues. Will emerges one last time
and chuckles at his cousin’s shenanigans: “I am definitely gonna miss you, C.” Will exits, and
we as viewers are left alone in the haunting shell of what once was the iconic Banks living room.
This jarring moment alone in the living room gives viewers a chance to remember all of their
favorite moments and scenes in the show’s run, and to say goodbye. It prompts a complex
mixture of joy, nostalgia, and loss as the show comes to an end. There is a heaviness in that final
scene in the living room, as if it signals the end of an era and prompts you to hold on dearly to
those stories.

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If the empty Fresh Prince living room represents the dimmed mental and emotional
space in which we house the memories of our childhood television viewership, this chapter
represents a reawakening and reconstruction of that space. It asks interview participants to zoom
in, turn on the lights, and once again fill the empty space with the colors, laughter, and stories
that once lived there—as well as the real-life contexts surrounding their viewership. It asks them
to pull from memory and affect and reconstruct, to the best of their ability, what once occurred. It
asks them to remember not only television shows, but to remember them alongside the other
situations and narratives in their lives. It prompts nostalgia as well as critical reflection. Black
millennials growing up had access to more television than any generation before them—
particularly in regard to television geared toward children (Pecora, 1998) . But, they still grew up
in an era where a majority of television viewership was controlled by the programming and
scheduling decisions of the networks. Therefore, Black millennial children (depending on factors
such as TV and cable access, age, and taste), were probably watching many of the same shows.
However, each person had these televisual experiences within the context of their own lives, and
their recollection of these televisual texts are intertwined with personal memory.
While the conjunctural analysis in Chapter 3 brings to the fore a discussion of the social
and historical forces at work prior to and during Black millennial childhoods, Chapter 4
examines the ways in which those forces are present in Black millennials’ meaning-making
about their upbringing and media viewership. Chapter 4 addresses the research questions: How
do Black parents narrate the key social, historical, economic, and televisual forces that shaped
their upbringings? How, if at all, did Black millennials’ ecological/contextual circumstances
influence the ways in which they engaged with television? How, if at all, did Black millennials’

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television viewership influence their dream-making practices? It relies on data from 15 semi-
structured interviews with Black millennial parents, who are the study’s primary interlocutors.
While Chapter 3 argues that the forces in different conjunctures do not always have clean
breaks, and that sometimes those forces are continued through family communication as well as
media, Chapter 4 provides examples of this discourse at work in Black millennials’ lives. This
study is interested in exploring the phenomenon of Black millennial children’s television
viewership within broader social and historical contexts of the time, but also within the
personalized, individual contexts of the participants. What can the participants’ act of
remembering and storytelling through the lenses of past, present, and future show us about the
role of media in the lives of children? How might we approach reception studies from a
reflective critical lens couched within the contextual memories associated with viewership? It
meditates on the emotion conveyed in participant interviews, from joy and hope to the heavy
weight of societal expectations. Black millennial experiences can give unique insights about the
late 20th century, especially as they relate to race, class, and power.
Chapter 4 demonstrates through participant interviews that for Black millennials, sense
making about their television viewership as well as their dream-making practices were often
tethered to and permeated by their understandings about their raced and classed experiences
beyond the TV screen. Their active meaning-making revealed the ways in which they viewed the
role of television narratives and images in the contexts of their social, economic, and
interpersonal situations. Television content energized the imagination, helped them to navigate
life circumstances, reinforced narratives exchanged interpersonally, and served as a tool to bond
with friends and family. This chapter also aims to capture these participants’ stories as snippets
of the experiences of Black millennials.

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Before advances in streaming technology which give us seemingly endless access to
current and older content, viewers would often take charge of and take responsibility for
capturing the characters and stories that they love. Recording episodes onto snowy VHS tapes,
buying DVDs and box VHS sets, and recording on TiVo were popular methods. One would be
devastated to come home and find that they either never pressed the record button, or that the
recording for some reason did not happen. In the same way, research can serve as a form of
recording, archiving, and preserving the experiences of others. However, I posit that research and
policy at the time of Black millennial childhood was so preoccupied by the future of children—
and especially Black children—that we did not capture much of the present-ness of Black
millennials’ lived childhoods. It is almost like coming home to find that we never pressed the
record button—we have not captured the experiences of Black millennials’ childhoods or
television viewership. Stories about Black millennial childhood and viewership are largely
missing from the research archive, and this chapter attempts to bring forth and preserve those
narratives.
At its core, this chapter asserts that as millennial children, participants were presented
with conflicting messaging around childhood; on the one hand, they were prompted through
television content, commercials, and retail to live a constructed version of “childhood” to the
fullest. Through slogans like Nickelodeon’s “Nick is Kids,” Chuck E. Cheese’s “Where a kid can
be a kid,” and Toys R’ Us’ “ I don’t want to grow up; I’m a Toys R Us kid,” children were
bombarded with the celebration of carefree childhood. On the other hand, Millennial children
were viewed as clay to be molded primarily through education, extracurricular activities, and
21st century technological skills toward success and stability for themselves and for the nation.
In this way, childhood simply represented pathways toward successful adulthood, thereby

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diminishing the ideal of “carefree childhood” promoted by television and commercial content.
Furthermore, as Black children, they navigated this tension between childhood and emerging
adulthood with the additional layers of race, class, and mobility. They work through ideas about
who gets to be a child, who gets to live, who gets to be seen, and who gets to be “successful.”
Through these interviews, we are given an opportunity to understand how Black millennials have
made sense of their own life experiences, especially as they relate to narratives they were
exposed to about shaping their futures. We can understand what they took to heart, what they
wish they hadn’t, and can begin to think about what that means not only for participants, but for
their children: the next generation of “clay” (see Chapter 5).

Making Sense of Black Millennial Childhoods

This portion of the chapter explores the ways in which the macro conjunctural forces
outlined in Chapter 3 were potentially at work in the micro and meso spheres of the lives of
Black millennials as children. For example, it questions whether macro, social forces were at
work in their experience of things such as childhood, family, relationships, and education. It asks
about their childhood dream-making practices and how their aspirations were shaped. Through
each of these, this chapter also explores the role of media as an imaginative agent that either
reinforced or complicated each sphere of participation in citizenship. The chapter demonstrates
how discourse is present through interpersonal, generational, and mediated communication, and
how the television viewing experience of Black millennials was often colored by their own lived
experiences. Black millennial childhoods were influenced by an intricate weaving of
interpersonal, social, economic, racial, and mediated narratives and circumstances. In addition to
the conjunctural analysis conducted in Chapter 3, this chapter is influenced Bronfenbrenner’s

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Ecological Systems Theory (1977) as discussed in Chapter 1, which takes into consideration the
microsystem (e.g., home, school, workplace, etc.), mesosystem (i.e., the interaction between
microsystems), exosystem (e.g., neighborhoods, government, informal social networks)
macrosystem (i.e., societal and cultural ideologies and patterns), and chronosystem (i.e., changes
that happen in the systems over time). Both the conjunctural analysis and Ecological Systems
Theory address the ways in which these forces and spheres are intertwined with one another.
The point of the following examples is to demonstrate that many of these forces and
spheres cannot be cleanly disentangled from one another. The spheres of citizenship outlined in
Chapter 3, such as childhood, family, place, education, economy, dream-making, and media, are
present in intertwined, inseparable ways throughout the remainder of this chapter. Black
millennial stories demonstrate the complex ways in which Black millennials have made sense of
their childhoods, family lives, and television viewership in quite thoughtful and critical ways.
The following analyses are snapshots of the participants’ sense-making around each of these
spheres, that give us a glimpse into their experiences.

Concerted Cultivation Meets Racialized Discourse
Chapter 3 discusses how after the post war baby boom and tensions with the Soviet
union, parents were encouraged to lean into parenting practices that were much more
“permissive” in nature, emphasizing freedom, play, and a lack of rigidity. This was viewed as a
more democratic, more American way of parenting (Jenkins, forthcoming; Kapur, 1999; Spigel,
1999). However, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into space, the United States began to
panic about the educational state of the children of the nation, and felt that it needed to strategize

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about making its children more knowledgeable and successful on the school front—especially in
math and the sciences (Griffin, 1999).
Furthermore, as the nation moved into more aggressively neoliberal ways of living, with
an emphasis on individualism and competition, this mentality crept into not only the educational
experiences of children, but a move toward more and more extracurricular activities as well.
Annette Lareau (2011) identified two broad forms of parenting; the first she calls concerted
cultivation—typically associated with the middle and upper classes—in which children’s lives
are often rigidly scheduled, packed with extracurricular activities like sports, choir, and the arts.
These are activities that are often assumed to help students get into good colleges. The second
form of parenting, Lareau calls the accomplishment of natural growth—often associated with the
working class—in which parents who have less free time due to work schedules do not
necessarily have time to shuttle their children around to different activities. In these cases,
children have much more unstructured time and activities, and find their own things to do such
as play basketball at the park (ibid). Ironically, while the accomplishment of natural growth form
of parenting is likely closer to the permissive parenting lauded in the postwar era, the concerted
cultivation form of parenting might be seen as “better” parenting in a context of late capitalism—
in which children are often projects to be formed toward certain types of success and toward
their ability to generate wealth.
While Lareau associates concerted cultivation efforts with middle- and upper-class
families, some of the participants in this dissertation, who grew up in various socioeconomic
contexts, also suggest that they lived this type of childhood. These structured activities were very
much toward the future goal of attending college. However, participation in several activities

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was also associated with discourses of blackness and the effects of long histories of being barred
from full participation in society.
While there are multiple examples of this in the interviews, the most prominent example
is Crystal Landon. Crystal grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her great grandparents,
whom she describes as Black business owners. This would likely place her in a middle-class
upbringing. However, she describes the location in which she grew up as one in which you had
to stay focused, or else you could fall into the wrong activities or situations. She was distanced
from her local neighborhood schools through magnet and charter programs, and feared losing her
place in them:
There’s not much room for error, right? One bad grade and you are not allowed to stay
in your magnet program. Then you’re put in your neighborhood school with the kids who
don’t have parents to go home to and help them with their homework. So, it’s like one
distracted Friday night and you can get gang raped in the back of an alley. That’s just
the reality for young kids who are growing up in America who are black and brown. And
no family wants that for their child….So you had to be extra, you know?

Crystal explained in her interview that she felt she “had to be extra.” Growing up, she was
involved in a plethora of activities: dance, church choir, cheerleading, Vacation Bible School,
professional jump rope, jazz band, orchestra, swimming, volunteering at the YMCA, camp
counselor, and debate. She was even the citywide debate champion. Her husband joked during
her interview that she “also ran for president” of the United States, noting that her list of
extracurricular activities was quite robust; the above quote was her response to his joke. She felt
that she had to distance herself from the “reality” of black and brown children and create a new
reality for herself through the pursuit of success. She was told that she had to go above and
beyond not only to achieve what was deemed as success, but to stay safe. She associated her
neighborhood schools with children who did not have parents to support them academically, and
associated a lack of focus with the potential to get assaulted in an alley. To Crystal, there was no

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middle ground. It is clear in this quote that Crystal is steeped in discourse about place,
education, and family in Black life, and felt that her strategy to navigate these spheres is an
intense childhood guided by concerted cultivation.
When I asked Crystal how those activities shaped her upbringing, she said, “It made me
excellent.” She went on to say that in her household, her great grandparents emphasized the
importance of excellence and a hard work ethic:
It was because if you didn’t, you would end up pregnant. You would end up in jail. You
would end up on the street. You would end up living a less-than life. I grew up in a pretty
affluent household in the inner-city, but the status quo was that most of the kids on my
block did not go to college. Most of them are not married now. Most of them had children
out of wedlock. Most of the men had…interactions with law enforcement because they
were doing illegal activities. For my household, it was “listen, this is not the way that you
will go. In order to keep you focused so that you can live a good life, this is what you
need to – this is what needs to be done.” So it was kind of life or death. It was like do you
want to live well or do you want to suck? There was no in-between. It was excellent or
die or be pregnant.

Although Crystal grew up in a fairly affluent household, she describes her surroundings as the
“inner city” and the status quo of her neighborhood as somewhat different than what might be
likely in an affluent neighborhood. She describes a “less-than life,” in which getting pregnant as
a teen or out of wedlock was just as serious as ending up homeless, ending up in jail, or dying. A
“good life” and “doing well,” then, was likely described as going to college, getting married,
getting a good job, and having children within the confines of a marriage. While this could be
viewed as a normative, hegemonic way of thinking about a successful life, it is important to
consider that the emphasis on achieving these particular goals was possibly influenced by the
history of barriers in each of these realms of citizenship: having a marriage recognized as
legitimate, having a family, getting an education, or participating in the economy. Crystal’s
childhood was very much shaped by her grandparents’ communication around living a good life,
as well as her environmental surroundings. She felt that she had to go above and beyond in her

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performance, remain focused, and work hard in order to avoid a “less than life.” Her childhood
was heavily shaped by a mindset that always considered the precarity of her future as a young
Black girl living in West Philadelphia.
While Crystal’s childhood was the most in line with Lareau’s (2011) notion of concerted
cultivation, a majority of the participants were told that they had to go to college. In fact, all but
one of the participants attended some form of college, and all but two received a degree from a
four-year university. Crystal was told that “college was [her] ticket out.” She said that this goal
of college was primarily pushed by her great grandmother and her uncle: “This was the plan, this
was the agenda…this was the goal: that I would go to college and live a much better life than
what would have been expected of me given my statistical demographic when I was born.”
Crystal’s husband, Dre Landon, echoes his wife’s sentiments. Growing up in Yonkers,
New York, raised only by his mother after his father was killed, Dre felt he had to distance
himself from his block through involvement in activities:
I mean, it kind of feels intense but it’s legitimate. I definitely know that if I didn’t have
certain things in my life that I was focused on or went after, that I literally could have
just stayed on my block and kind of got involved in certain things that people got involved
with. Nobody in my life that I grew up with went to college, you know? Some of them, I
mean [my wife] said “interaction with law enforcement.” I’ll say some of them went to
jail. Unfortunately, some of them are gone. They’re not alive. That was my reality. I
kinda had to be geared and pushed in a different direction. I could have basically fallen
into the same situation that they unfortunately fell into.

As a teenager, Dre was very involved in football, church, and working a job. Dre notes that
college was esteemed as the ticket to success: “College was supposed to be the gateway to like,
infinite possibilities, you know. Especially in our era. Growing up kids in the 90s…You think
about ‘Yeah, you’ll go to college, you’ll get a good job, you’ll be successful. You’ll live the
American Dream.’ That was kinda the thing.” Like Crystal, Dre was not only taught that college
and staying focused were pathways to success, but they were pathways away from what was

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inferred to be the only alternatives: jail or death. This dichotomous existence of either
college/success or jail/pregnancy/death was likely shaped by discourse about centuries of racism,
discrimination, and systemic and place-based inequality.
Again, their childhood play and activities were not simply driven by childhood for
childhood’s sake, but for safety and a sense of future. Several other participants stated that they
were expected to go to college—that it was not optional for them. Their parents and teachers
pushed them to go, else they might not live a successful life, or worse. While in previous
generations college might not have seemed to be an option, Black millennials were fully
expected to attend as a means to combat racism through the legitimization of credentials. They
were also told it would increase their chances of getting “good jobs” and being able to fully
participate in the economy.

Experiencing Childhood Through Television

Many of the participants spent their childhoods either with intense extracurricular
schedules, tunnel vision for their studies with the intention of attending college, or somewhat of
an anxiety about what their choices in childhood meant for the direction of their futures. This is
likely true for millennials more broadly, especially since they grew up in a neoliberal era in
which competition, hyper-individualism, and a focus on children and education with both
Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush. However, the difference is that for Black millennials,
these same narratives were emphasized by racialized and classed experiences and discourses that
seemingly increased the severity of the stakes.
The freedom and play associated with childhood, I argue, often took place for them
through the function of watching television. Television programs—especially those created for
children—represented an “idealized” form of childhood and allowed Black millennial children to

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experience a specific form of childhood through viewership. Specifically, some Black
millennials equate childhood with the ability to imagine. To them, to be able to imagine was
representative of being a kid. However, their “freedom to imagine” was often tethered to raced
and classed experiences, especially as they imagined realities different from their own.
David Kirk, who grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, says that children’s media
helped him to imagine: “I felt like looking back on it, looking at those shows gave me the
reassurance that I could imagine, I could dream big, I could just be a kid, if that makes sense.”
Here, David equates imagination and the act of dreaming as quintessential childhood. He goes on
to say that characters on the shows that he watched repeatedly, such as Charlie Brown, “could be
whatever they wanted to be.” Similarly, Crystal Landon stated that she felt freedom by watching
the freedom that other kids experienced on television:
Well I just think that like just being a kid who watched other kids be really free on TV and
that was all that I watched, right? Like freed my imagination and gave me this huge
ambition to go and want to see the world and do amazing things that most kids who come
from where I come from…don’t even feel comfortable asking adults questions or stepping
outside the boundaries…There are kids who grow up in Brooklyn who have never left
Brooklyn, or kids who grow up in West Philly who have never gone downtown to see the
fireworks at Penn’s Landing... Now I’m fortunate that that wasn’t the case with my
family; my family took me anywhere and everywhere they could take me. I got to see a lot
of different things, but it was doubled down. What I was doing with my family was
doubled down by what I was watching.

Here, Crystal expresses that children on television are free. This echoes David’s sentiment that
children’s media helped him imagine and that he could be whatever he could dream up.
However, Crystal ties her freedom of imagination back to physical place. She expresses that
there are children who grew up in her hometown of West Philadelphia who had never made it
twenty minutes away to see fireworks at the Penn’s Landing waterfront. She reminds us that
there are children who do not have physically mobile childhoods. To her, this freedom of
imagination is especially important for children whose childhoods were geographically stagnant,

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as their imaginations could open them up to new possibilities. However, she does not feel that
this was the case with her. Instead, television emphasized the experiences that she was already
having through travel and leisure time with her family.
Crystal’s husband, Dre Landon, feels that imagination is quintessentially a childhood
experience that is rooted in a sense of innocence—one that opened him up to a sense of endless
possibilities. When speaking of children’s media, he says:
It sparked your imagination that anything was possible….A lot of the stuff that we
watched was spawned from someone’s imagination and it blossomed through a world of
imagination. So, when you tapped into that, you’re in the essence of being a kid. You
know, basically in the state of imagination. You’re completely innocent. I guess when I
look at [my kids] now, I see that. I remember what it was like to be completely innocent.

Dre suggests that being in a “state of imagination” is the “essence of being a kid.” Furthermore,
he equates this state of imagination with innocence. His statement is in line with scholarship that
examines the concept of childhood as one that has come to represent innocence, as well as a
sense of imagination toward possibility and future (Ariés, 1962; Jenkins, forthcoming; Jenkins,
1998; Zelizer, 1994). As he looks upon his children, he “remember[s]” that innocence of
childhood, suggesting that as an adult, he has moved on from that state of being. If he has moved
on from innocence, he has moved on somewhat from the essence of childhood—this may also
suggest that he has lost some of that sense of the freedom of imagination. Perhaps getting older
and experiencing life caused him to stop believing that anything was possible. However, Dre
states that he had witnessed and lived through many hard situations in his childhood, and that
watching television played a part in the way that he made sense of those experiences:
It took away some of the hardest realities that were going on in the neighborhood or in
the world, you know. Especially like – we’re adults now. We can go back and look at
some of the events of the 90s. We live in LA now, but this place had like a riot when we
were kids. Or the O.J. saga went on here—those kinds of things. But we were kinda
shielded.

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Dre previously expressed that growing up in Yonkers, New York, he had witnessed many friends
getting in trouble with the law and even dying. He states that watching television “took away
some of the hardest realities” that he experienced in his own neighborhood, providing a sense of
escape. He also states that he was “shielded” from events elsewhere by watching children’s
television, which did not hone in on events such as the O.J. Simpson trial or the 1992 Los
Angeles uprisings. In this statement, children’s television serves as both a tool of escape and a
tool of possibility. Dre goes on to state the importance of children’s television—namely, that it
presents an alternate reality: “When you have like that exposure to another reality or something
like that, then you see that where you are and what you’re living is not the end all be all. And
sometimes that’s necessary. Because if not, you can succumb to that reality.” For a child like
Dre, who felt he was living in harsh reality, being exposed to different types of life situations—
even if on television and mostly fictional—gave him a sense that his situation was not the only
one that he could live.
Many of the participants echoed Dre’s opinion that television portrayed different realities.
In Dre’s case, it was a reality that gave him hope that his childhood reality was not the only one.
In other cases, the reality presented was not one that was necessarily better or worse, but just
different. Other times, the participants stated that they desired to have those different realities.
Most times, whether they desired those realities or not depended on their own life experiences
and circumstances.

Mischief and Discipline
While Black millennials experienced some freedom, play, and “idealized” childhood
through television, they also viewed these shows with a critical eye. Childhood has sometimes

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been characterized as a time in which children can explore and get into mischief. Lynn Spigel
notes that comic strips such as Dennis the Menace and Peanuts represented childhood as a time
of “unbridled freedom,” nothing their “fascination with childhood as a time of exploration, a
time when children played without fear of retaliation from their parents or any other social
institution”(Spigel, 1999, p. 38). Henry Jenkins couches his discussion of Dennis the Menace in
the postwar lean toward permissive parenting, and notes that Dennis’ creator, Hank Ketchum,
believed that Dennis represented many boys in his age bracket (ibid). Jenkins states that
“...Dennis was simply an adventurous young boy who wanted to explore and understand the
adult world. Dennis was part of an army of tow-headed boys in striped shirts and blue jeans who
romped through postwar American popular culture”(ibid, p. 122). However, in Chapter 3, I
discuss the ways in which Black children’s “romping,” or even their simple presence in a space,
is often associated with criminality. Black children’s “mischief” often has different and very
serious consequences (Miller, Pennybacker, & Rosenhaft, 2001; Onwuachi-Willig, 2018; Lane,
Williams, Hunt, & Paulk, 2020).
Preston and Evelyn Adams noticed that the punishment and discipline styles of children
with white families on television—namely, getting grounded, going to one’s room, or having
talks—was foreign to the ways things were run in their households. Both Preston and Evelyn
laughed at the way children on television had the freedom to stomp and yell up the stairs, which
would often be followed by “violin music playing” and the parent sitting down with them to say,
“‘This is why we're going to talk about this, because you've disappointed me.’” These were
scenes common on programs like Full House, in which the adults in the home—Danny (the
father), Uncle Jesse, or Joey—would often have deep conversations with the children—three
girls—after conflict, mischief, or disobedience. Preston and Evelyn chuckled together about how

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in their homes, they would have immediately been put “on punishment” for displaying such a
disrespectful attitude toward their parents, or would “get a whoopin’.” The brazen behavior
demonstrated by children on television would not be tolerated in their household. These
comments harken back to Jenkins’ (forthcoming) suggestion that while permissive parenting was
often upheld as a more democratic form of parenting in the postwar era, Black families were less
likely to utilize them as they did not feel they had the same freedom to do so. To train Black
children using these permissive strategies might eventually lead them down paths that would get
them in trouble with authorities outside of the home (ibid).
Similarly, Dre Landon says that as a child, he watched the film, Blank Check (1994)
frequently on television. The live action Disney comedy features an 11-year-old boy who
receives a blank check after a series of events. He cashes the check for one million dollars and
uses it to purchase a home and other possessions. Dre says that as a child, and even now when he
watches the film with his own children, he imagined how each of the situations in the film would
have played out differently if he himself experienced them as a Black child: “If I’m in that
situation, how I would handle this and how I would handle that? It becomes a different
experience to insert myself into that situation.” If a Black child came across a blank check and
cashed it for one million dollars to purchase a home, would the situation play out differently? It
is possible that any 11-year-old child who did this would face some form of consequence (after
all, it is a fictional film), but Dre importantly implies that the outcome would be much more
severe for a Black child. Although Dre quickly breezes over his experience with Blank Check, he
brings up a crucial sense-making practice for Black children. The white children that they
viewed on TV seemed to have large amounts of freedom to express themselves, get into
mischief, and explore different actions with very little consequences. Again, these are fictional

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plots. However, Dre, Preston, and Evelyn each viewed these circumstances from a distance, as
they felt they would not have the same outcomes as the children on television. Their reasoning
was not tied specifically to the fictional nature of the plots, but to racial and cultural experiences
and discourses. They felt that as Black children, they would not be able to engage in mischief in
these same ways.

Black Millennial Dream-Making Practices
Thus far, interviews with Black millennials have revealed that in many ways, their
childhood was, in fact, heavily shaped by their ecological contexts as well as the specific
conjuncture in which they grew up. Furthermore, generational transmission of narratives
alongside the histories of Black Americans influenced the ways in which their childhoods were
formed. We have also begun to see the ways in which television intertwined with these forces
and narratives; television served as a way in which Black millennials could imagine and
participate in an “idealized” form of childhood. However, as their stories suggest, their cultural
experiences alongside the awareness of cultural narratives around Black discipline and
criminality mediated their relation to the content they viewed.
This portion of the chapter discusses the ways in which Black millennials’ dream-making
practices were also influenced by discourses about race, class, place, family, and career. These
were further shaped by television as an imaginary sphere—one that often reinforced
interpersonal discourse and experience or gave glimpses into different “realities” and
opportunities. In the neoliberal context, and often through televisual demonstration, millennials
were encouraged to reach for the stars, to dream big, and to work hard to achieve their dreams.
How then, were Black millennial dreams formed in an era in which dream-making was praised,

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and in which a move toward multiculturalism told Black millennials that these dreams were
possible for them, too, with hard work and an education? What were the dreams of Black
millennials, and how do they reflect intergenerational narratives, racialized discourse, and the
nature of mediated content? How did their dream-making respond to their lived experiences?

Perceptions of Family Life and Dreaming of Family
In Chapter 3, I discuss family life as a sphere of participation in American citizenship.
For many Black millennials, their in-person relationships and familial situations highly
influenced the ways in which they made sense of, related to, or cherished the television content.
Sometimes, the television content influenced the way that they made sense of their own family
life, as they compared their families to the families on television. Other times, exposure to
different relationships and family structures gave them a window into different realities, but did
not necessarily influence a judgment on their own relational circumstances.
Many of the participants in the examples that follow express a desire for a father or for
more attentive parents. These stories are not included to further pathologize Black fatherhood or
Black families, but rather to demonstrate the ways in which the ecological and interpersonal
contexts of the participants’ upbringing intertwined with their television viewership.
Furthermore, these are the stories of the participants—stories that they claim deeply affected
them—and thus they are shared to honor their experiences. However, it must be made clear that
few circumstances are known for the fathers’ absence (such as Dre’s father being killed, Johari’s
parents’ divorce, or Jason’s father leaving the family when he was 10). It is important to note
that the absence of these fathers is different in each circumstance, and that many of the

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circumstances might have been exacerbated by the neoliberal context of the 1980s and 1990s,
policing and incarceration policies, or other forces within the conjuncture.
Watching television influenced the ways in which Black millennials viewed their family
structures and dynamics; or, their family dynamics influenced the ways in which they related to
television content. For some, the interaction of their television viewership as well as their
familial circumstances did lead to dream-making around family life and a particular family
structure. Dre Landon’s father’s death led him to desire the nuclear family structure for his own
future. He states:
I wanted a life similar to the Cosby Show. Being successful at a profession or having a
good job, a wife who is successful as well. Having a family, beautiful children. That’s not
what I saw growing up. That’s probably another reason why there was that urge to move.
Just because – I mean I’m not trying to make it seem like my neighborhood was so
horrible that I had to get out of it. You know, I was safe. I didn’t grow up without or
anything like that. But thinking about that scenario of a mother, father, children—that
sort of thing. That wasn’t a reality that I saw in my own home or in the neighborhood to
be honest with you. But I did see some crazy things growing up.

Dre’s statement perfectly demonstrates the ways in which dream-making can often be linked to
both personal and social circumstances. It also demonstrates the fusing of the different spheres of
citizenship, as his dream is influenced by television and was centered on success in a profession,
a particular form of marriage and family life, and place. The Cosby Show (1984-1992)
represented a Black family who was able to fully participate in the spheres in which they have
historically had to face discrimination and racism.
Jason Paul regrets that his father left his family when he was 10; he was raised by his
mother alongside his two younger brothers. As recorded in previous scholarship about The Cosby
Show (Lewis & Jhally, 1992), Jason looked to Cliff Huxtable, the father figure on the show
(played by Bill Cosby) as an example:

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Yeah I mean Cosby…like I said my dad wasn’t really there that much growing up. You
know, when you don’t have the dad in the household, you kinda look for how the dad
“should be,”—should have a job, working, the problem solver—not just the mom to
coach the kids through bumps and bruises and trials and tribulations. Like also to have
that father role coaching the child through their trials and being that supportive figure
for the household.

Jason’s relationship with his own father and the role (or lack thereof) that he played in his own
life provided a lens through which to view The Cosby Show and Cliff Huxtable’s character. What
he saw on television registered in his mind as a “should”—an ideal—and as something that he
was not experiencing. Therefore, it was a window into another way of family life (Bishop, 1990;
Botelho, 2021). Jason is also highly attached to the show, Martin (1992-1997), as he has fond
memories of watching Martin along with The Jamie Foxx Show (1996-2001) with his father and
his brothers just before his father left: “...Me and my brothers were always acting out the
different jokes all the time and laughing about it, like laughing about the different things with my
dad or different people in my family.”
Jason also draws on the show Martin to bolster his perception of his current relationship
with his girlfriend, Reese Harrison. Reese and Jason are not married and live together, just like
the iconic Martin couple, Martin and Gina, who moved in together during the course of the
show. He notes that some people “might feel like it’s something wrong with moving in before
you get married.” Jason feels like Martin and Gina provide an example for him to “identify
with—couples who are “just trying to learn each other, get to know each other, figure it all out.”
Although people around him might find his cohabitation situation to be less than ideal, he leans
on this couple that many aspired to be like growing up; their example makes him feel that it is
acceptable.
When Reese Harrison was asked about who was most influential to her in her life thus
far, she named ”strong black women” who had to navigate many of life’s challenges on their

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own and make their own independent paths. Reese was raised by a single mother, alongside her
aunt Tammy—her father’s sister. Both of these women demonstrated strength, independence,
and doing their best through life’s obstacles. She especially looked up to her Aunt Tammy who
graduated from Penn State University and who was always there for Reese without her needing
to ask. Reese’s daughter’s aunt, whom she met later in life, was also an example to her of the
“strength of a strong black woman.” With the concept of the independent, strong, black woman
being so influential in her life, it is no wonder that Reese was especially drawn to Mara Brock
Akil’s television series, Girlfriends (2000-2008), which premiered on UPN and also had a stint
on The CW network. The show was centered on the friendship between four black women as
well as their love lives, life transitions, and careers. Reese liked that in Girlfriends, “they were
four women—black women—that had different careers but still played their parts [in the group’s
friendship dynamic]. Reese believes that “strength” is a characteristic demonstrated by Black
women in her own life, and recognizes this same strength in the characters she watched on
television. She finds value in Black women’s independence through education and career (i.e.,
her aunt who attended Penn State as well as the different career women in Girlfriends), yet also
posits that strength is relational and embedded deeply in being there for one another in
friendship. Girlfriends demonstrated an alternate form of family life and sisterhood between four
independent women—something that Reese could relate to in her own life.
Tamia Patrick stated that watching television shows made her wish that she had different
parents.
I used to want their parents…Because some of their parents in the shows were a little
more attentive. Even like watching The Cosby Show, where you see the parents working
all the time, but they have times to sit together family stuff. Like and really be attentive
and wanna hear what you have to say… I had a lot of things growing up in my home. We
didn't like sit and listen to one another talk about what we felt when we sat together. It
was like a quiet moment to do whatever we doing in that moment and that's that.

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Tamia desired greater attention from both of her parents, and desired those bonding familial
moments that were present in The Cosby Show as well as many of the other family-based shows
during her childhood. It is clear from these interviews that for Black millennials, The Cosby
Show and other shows centered on nuclear families had major influences on their
conceptualization of what families could or should look like. Tamia noted that even though Clair
and Cliff Huxtable in The Cosby Show were two working and busy parents, they still made time
to focus on their five children and have conversations. Although the show was unrealistic in its
representation of the amount of time and attention that a busy OBGYN and lawyer could give to
five children without additional support, Tamia compared the Huxtable family’s quality time and
conversations to her own household. However, instead of striving to have that type of family,
watching the show and comparing it to her own family made her not want to have a family of her
own: “I remember for years I told myself I was not getting married. I was not having kids. I ain't
even have a view of what kind of family I wanted.”
Johari Brown’s parents divorced during his childhood, which deeply affected him. Other
than a few game nights, his family did not spend much time together. They would often separate
into different rooms in the house, with the exception of Johari’s brother, whom he would watch
TV with. He states that “seeing Black families together” in shows such as Martin, The Fresh
Prince of Bel Air, and Living Single greatly affected him. It is worthy to note that he highlights
each of these shows as depicting a family, as each of them has a different familial structure. In
Martin, Martin and his girlfriend, Gina, are cohabitating in an apartment, with their best friends
frequenting their abode. In Living Single, a friendship/roommate ensemble serves as the familial
structure. While The Fresh Prince of Bel Air depicts more of a “traditional” and nuclear familial
structure, its main character, Will, is a cousin and newcomer to the Banks residence by way of

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Philadelphia. Johari also sees his own familial relationships reflected within the show: “We grew
up on Martin…And a lot of our bonds—like me and my sister—we treated each other…like
Martin and Pam. We always roasted each other.” Pam was the best friend of Martin’s girlfriend,
Gina. Pam and Martin, while they were friends themselves, had a nemesis relationship and
always teased each other. Finally, like many participants who watched Martin growing up, Johari
desired a relationship like that of Martin and Gina, especially because of their laughter and
chemistry: “We always wanted that Gina. I say that to this day, like, ‘I need my Gina.’ Seeing
that [relationship] is still playing a part today.” He claims that “Martin and Gina is the ultimate
image that anybody want to be.”
Participants such as Preston and Evelyn Adams, who grew up with both parents, siblings,
and extended family, had different things to say about the family-based shows that dominated the
1990s. Preston states that he always grew up with and around family, so shows like The Cosby
Show and My Wife and Kids “didn’t give [him] anything new” but rather showed him “how other
people’s dynamics worked.” Evelyn noted that while she has often heard friends say that The
Cosby Show made them want a family like the Huxtables, she already saw so much of her own
family dynamic reflected in the Huxtables. Instead, she wanted the opposite. She states that she
often thought, “Man, I can't wait to be single and just have my own stuff and be in my own
apartment!” She desired the lifestyle depicted in Martin: living in an apartment in the city with
friends popping in and out as freely as they wanted to.
Shows like The Cosby Show or The Fresh Prince of Bel Air often featured Black father
figures that purposefully responded to the pathologizing of Black fatherhood, and intentionally
presented different and more “positive” images of Black fathers. Depending on the person and
the circumstances, this push to display positive Black father figures on television had mixed

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outcomes for the viewers. Many Black millennials may have gotten their ideas about fatherhood
cultivated by these Black father figures, while others might have comparatively viewed their own
circumstances from a place of lack and a desire for something different. For those who had
active father figures in their own lives, these images of Black fathers may have either reinforced
what they were already seeing, or might not have had a major impact at all. Ensemble shows
such as Living Single, Martin, and Girlfriends presented alternate forms of family life such
cohabitation without marriage, Black friendship, and Black sisterhood. These types of shows
were also highly influential to Black millennials, especially depending on their lived familial
circumstances. The bottom line remains: television viewership must be studied in the context of
lived experience and racialized, familial, and broader social discourse.

Dreaming of Career
At one point in the interview, I asked participants the question: “What was your dream
for your future when you were growing up?” The answers to these questions were primarily
about working in a certain career—this is something that is trained in children, likely when we
consistently ask them, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” This is reflective of the
neoliberal context, in which we often equate “being” to a form of labor, service, or career. It
makes sense, then, that many of the participants would respond to this question about their
childhood dreams in terms of career success (Chapter 5 will discuss their current definitions of
success and many of their current desires).
Rosaline Joseph-Miller says that her childhood love for reading led her to want to be a
librarian. However, a tragic event in her family set her sights elsewhere:
My mom's parents…died while they were in Haiti…their house was robbed. It was the
late 90s. So, there was like a lot of sort of turmoil going on. And these people broke into

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their house, and my grandmother was killed…My grandfather was shot but he was okay,
or I mean, he would have been - and he got to the hospital. And they just didn't have the
resources and the staff available to help him. So, it's something where if he would been
here [the United States], he would have been fine. But he unfortunately, he also passed
away. And so I remember hearing that story and hearing what had happened, and I felt
like doctors are important. People who can help other people with things that they don't
have or don't know are really, really important. …That's when I decided I want to be a
doctor.

Rosaline pursued her dream of becoming a medical doctor by becoming a pre-med student in
college. However, she found that she absolutely hated the field, and changed majors. She did
eventually end up becoming a doctor, but through a Ph.D. rather than an M.D. Nevertheless,
Rosaline’s story is an example of the ways in which our familial experiences alongside the social
and economic challenges of place (i.e., the lack of resources at the hospital in Haiti that might
have been able to save her grandfather), can shape the dream-making practices of children.
Preston Adams believes that his career desires were heavily influenced by film. At an
early age, Preston desperately wanted to become a marine biologist because of his love for the
film, Free Willy (1993):
I saw Free Willy, and wanted to touch the bottom of a killer whale. They're still my
favorite animal to this day. I have small figures of killer whales in my house now, still. Of
course since the movie, Blackfish, came out, I don't endorse the idea of Sea World or
keeping them contained, but still the idea of them fascinates me altogether.

Like Rosaline, Preston also began to pursue this desire, but was not drawn to the scientific,
academic aspect of marine biology. Once he realized there was a “regimented, rigid thing that
you have to do to get the degree and then the time you have to work before you can interact with
the animals," he moved on from the dream. However, his next dream was still inspired by film
and television: He recalls watching Jurassic Park and how it influenced his desire to want to
work in film:
I remember seeing the BTS [behind the scenes] of it, and saying ‘Oh my gosh, this is
cool.’ Literally. And then also just seeing my dad and his whole video camera and seeing

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other people get impressed when he would show them videos from the previous years.
That lit a fire in me.

The excitement that he felt watching the behind-the-scenes footage, alongside his father’s
passion for recording and showing videos and people’s reactions to those videos, inspired
Preston to pursue a career in film. He claims that he “never [just] watched [television and film]
to consume,” but rather “wanted to be in the credits.” Preston pursued this dream and attended
the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He now runs a film production company with his wife,
Evelyn.
In addition to film, Preston also felt a “calling” toward ministry. Preston was raised in the
church, and says that he “felt the hand of God on his life” from the time he was three- or four-
years-old. As he was growing up, he began to feel the call to pastor: “I remember feeling the
burden of, ‘Oh, you don't just belong in church. You're supposed to be in charge, you're
supposed to help direct other people's attention to higher places.’ And so that really influenced
me to understand, I do feel like I'm called to pastor.” Preston felt that he had a responsibility to
serve and to lead in addition to church attendance. While this was likely influenced by being
raised in the church and in a Christian family, Preston refers to a spiritual, higher force—God—
as an influence on his dream-making practices as a child.
Tiffany Packer, who grew up in South Los Angeles, recalls wanting to become a criminal
justice lawyer. She claims that this was inspired somewhat by watching the recording of Rodney
King being beaten by the LAPD in 1992 when she was just 8-years-old. She also remembers the
1992 uprisings breaking out at the intersection of Florence and Normandie in South LA, which
was only blocks from where she grew up: “I remember you could see people walking down our
street with couches and all type of stuff, and it was crazy. It was crazy during that time.” Tiffany
also recalls watching some of the O.J. Simpson trial as a child, and being “intrigued” by Johnnie

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Cochran defending him. Most importantly, as she was growing up, she desired to see justice, and
also to practice grace and giving second chances:
I'm always like pushing for you know, justice and stuff like that. Even though people
didn't have the best upbringing, you know sometimes they did bad stuff, it doesn't mean it
should come with a sentence of your life is over, you can't change, or you can't
rehabilitate. That's what I wanted to do.

Tiffany’s dream of becoming a criminal justice lawyer was greatly influenced by the conjuncture
in which she grew up. She grew up in a time in which technology allowed for her to see a
recording of Rodney King’s beating by the LAPD as well as the O.J. Simpson trial—and a time
that was rife with racial tension and narratives about Black criminality. The events that she saw
on television were also reflected in her lived environment, as she witnessed the 1992 Los
Angeles uprisings with her own eyes and in her own neighborhood. She was also driven by a
sense of love, justice, and grace—hoping to help people get a second chance if they had made a
mistake. While Tiffany did not pursue this path—she currently works as a custodial technician
and has started her own social media- and pop-up-driven clothing business—she is still
passionate about justice and second chances.
While reflecting on the career-based dreams of Black millennials, it was apparent that
while many of their dreams were about career—which could be linked to the neoliberal context
of their childhood alongside social, familial, and economic circumstance—but it was also clear
that many of their career choices were driven by affect, emotion, and experience. For some Black
millennials, their career dreams were driven by a desire to help others. Rosaline wanted to be a
doctor in response to a tragic event that affected her grandparents in Haiti. Preston wanted to
help animals, bring people joy through filmmaking, and serve through ministry. Tiffany wanted
to help give people second chances by becoming a criminal justice lawyer. In telling millennials
more broadly that they can be and do anything—and reinforcing to Black millennials that they

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should aim for excellence and also consider familial and community narratives—it is possible
that Black millennials set their sights outwardly in their career goals and tried to root them in a
sense of purpose.

Place-Based Dreaming
For some, dream-making practices were driven by a desire to experience a certain place,
or certain kind of place or lifestyle. This is not new in considering the ways in which Black
populations have imagined their desires fulfilled in a different geographical place. Robin D.G.
Kelley discusses this at length in Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (2002). In it,
he emphasizes the histories of Black people’s migration, often in search of freedom, such as
“Repatriation to Liberia and Sierra Leone. Flight to Canada. Escape to Haiti. The great Kansas
Exodus”(Kelley, 2002, p. 17). He refers to these as “travel/escape narratives” that “point to the
biblical story of Exodus, of the Israelites’ flight out of Egypt” (ibid, p. 16).
Both historically and in the Black imagination, Black populations have either fantasized
about leaving or actually left geographical places, largely in response to outright or systemic
oppressions. Kelley asserts that “Exodus represented dreams of black self-determination, of
being on our own, under our own rules and beliefs, developing our own cultures, without
interference”(ibid, p. 17). In other words, for many Black populations throughout history,
changing geographical locations represented freedom. They have imagined new places and the
possibilities that come with them. This was also true for some of the Black millennials in this
study.
For example, Chavonne Smith, who grew up in Camden, New Jersey, says that part of
her dream growing up was to move to New York City or to a state in the south:

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I always wanted to move to New York. Either New York or down south. I always wanted
more of a city vibe, where people were just everywhere, all different types of people. I
wanted things to be, kind of like you see on TV. Where you just constantly see the big
stores, the bright lights, people everywhere—instead of just buildings, most of them being
abandoned, because a lot of places in Camden are abandoned. Yeah, I wanted the TV
life. So, I wanted to be in New York or I wanted to be somewhere down south.

While Chavonne does mention her own hometown and its abandoned buildings as a motivator to
leave, she is more so driven by the excitement and buzzing of the city that she saw on television.
She desired to see different kinds of people and have new experiences. In her interview, she
described Camden as a “bubble”:
Staying in Camden wasn’t even optional. I hated the bubble [laughs]...There were not
real experiences besides the basketball court or sitting outside your house. You saw the
same people every day and that’s it. For me, it wasn’t enough. It was boring, and I just
hated it. I hated it so much.

Growing up, Chavonne wanted to see what was beyond the city she grew up in. Television
portrayed New York in a way that looked like it would provide her with the new experiences she
wanted.
I feel like every show would show New York in some way. It was always The Big Apple
this, The Big Apple that. And you would just see the limousines. Any time there was a
celebrity on TV, it was in New York. Even in cartoons – when Mickey Mouse would make
it big, he was in New York. So, everything was in New York. Either New York or
Hollywood – but I only noticed New York.

Television presented New York to Chavonne in a way that made her believe all of her dreams of
pursuing music, meeting new people, and witnessing exciting new things could happen there.
New York represented “making it big.”
Crystal Landon also desired a life outside of Philadelphia when she was growing up,
often dreaming about a life under the twinkling lights of New York or the sunny shores of
California. She says that these places looked “more vibrant,” “more fun,” and “exciting” to her
as a child. She also desired a life somewhat in between the life of the teens in the cult classic

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film, Clueless (1995), about rich, fashionable teens living life in Los Angeles—and that of the
TV show, Moesha (1996-2001), who grew up on Crenshaw. She desired to have all that she had
in Philadelphia—Black culture, Black people, bike riding—but in California, where kids hung
out at the beach after school.
These examples demonstrate that television sometimes energized the imagination and the
dream-making practices of Black millennials when they were growing up. It provided a visual
for different possibilities, places, and ways of life and leisure. It led them to believe that the
places that they saw on television—such as New York and California—had much more to offer
them in terms of leading an exciting life. Furthermore, while many Black millennial stories
mention the ways in which place-based inequality affected their upbringing, these narratives
from Crystal and Chavonne also show that while their geographical location did influence their
desire to move elsewhere, it was not solely an “escape.” Both women are proud of where they
are from. However, these larger metropolitan cities—at least the way they were presented on
television—seemed to both shape and reflect their desires for particular lifestyles and
experiences.

Chapter Conclusion
This chapter has addressed the following research questions: In what ways did social,
historical, economic, and televisual forces shape Black millennial’s upbringing? How, if at all,
did Black millennials’ ecological/contextual circumstances influence the ways in which they
engaged with television? How, if at all, did Black millennials’ television viewership influence
their dream-making practices? Interviews with Black millennials demonstrate that the formation
of their childhood, their television viewing practices, their familial relationships, the places in

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which they grew up, and intergenerational narratives regarding race and class were heavily fused
in a way that influenced their dream-making practices as well as their understandings of their
childhoods and their futures. Now that we have discussed some examples of the ways in which
Black millennials were raised and how their dreams were cultivated, Chapter 5 will delve into
how those dreams turned out. Now that they are adults, how do they reflect on the ways in which
they were raised and the images they saw on television. Through those reflections, how, in turn,
do they parent their own children?

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Chapter Five

“Take My Hand”: How Black Millennial Childhoods and Viewership Influence Parenting

“So come on and take my hand to that special place where smiles come to life and
dreams come true.”
-Mya and Blackstreet, Take Me There

But, ultimately, emancipating the dark fantastic requires decolonizing our
fantasies and our dreams. It means liberating magic itself (Thomas, 2019, p. 169).

Chapter 3 explored the social, political, and historical conjunctures in which Black
millennials grew up. Chapter 4 examined the ways in which Black millennial childhoods were
shaped by these forces—particularly the combination of interpersonal interactions, generational
narratives, and televisual meaning-making. This chapter aims to help us understand how Black
millennials made sense of their upbringing, the narratives that they were told, and the images that
they saw. Its goal is not only to delve into how Black millennials experienced television
viewership, but how those experiences, alongside their lived experiences and growing
understandings of the world, affect their parenting—especially around media. It addresses the
research questions: How do Black millennials make sense of the interpersonal and mediated
narratives that shaped them as children, now that they are adults and parents? What are Black
millennial parent perspectives and practices around their own children’s media use? Finally,
how does the current moment shape parental strategies? Data are drawn from semi-structured
interviews with 15 Black millennial parents that took place over Zoom or over the phone.
This chapter is one that can be looked at through the lens of critical media literacy. Media
literacy education typically refers to a tradition in which people (often young people in both
formal and informal education settings) are trained to become more “aware” of or well-versed in

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the economic motivations, ideological messaging, and production processes embedded within
media texts such as television, film, and advertisements. The motivations that drive traditional
media literacy education are certainly well-intentioned, including the ability to discern and
analyze what might be considered harmful messaging (Buckingham, 2003; Masterman, 1985),
the building of technical media skills (Buckingham, 2003; Goodman, 2003; Masterman, 1985),
and the cultivation of young people’s democratic and civic participation (Buckingham, 2003;
Kellner & Share, 2005; Kellner & Share, 2007; Lewis & Jhally, 1998; Gordon & Mihailidis,
2016). While conceptual interventions have since been proposed, such as critical media literacy
education and discussions about more democratic participation and activism (Jenkins, 2006;
Jenkins, Shresthova, Gamber-Thompson, Kligler-Vilenchik, & Zimmerman, 2016), it is still
necessary to continue to interrogate the assumptions and interventions of the field.
This chapter posits that a missing aspect of critical media literacy is first that critical
media literacy can change over time, and that it can also occur retrospectively. While critical
media literacy aims to equip viewers with the skills to deconstruct and decipher the images and
narratives that they engage with, we must consider the ways in which this deciphering can
happen at different stages in life. For example, while I argue that Black millennials were critical
consumers of media even in their youth, they became even more critical and reflective of the
media they consumed as they got older, and especially after they became parents. Though the
research process prompted many to reflect on their childhood viewership in ways they hadn’t
considered before, most of the responses that Black millennial parents gave reflected a well-
developed critical media literacy that took place over time, as circumstances changed in their
lives and as they navigated lived experiences. This retrospective critical media literacy is also
complicated by affect, nostalgia, as well as changes in technology that allow content from their

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youth to be accessed through streaming. This chapter should be read as Black millennials
reflecting on their childhoods and childhood viewership, and engaging in either ongoing or
retrospective critical media literacy that then informs their values, perspectives, and parenting
practices.

Fond Memories of Coviewing
Much attention has been given to the potential benefits of parent-child coviewing or co-
use of media. Most frequently, parent-child coviewing of media has been linked to increased
learning in children (Collins, Sobol, & Westby, 1981; Connell, Lauricella, & Wartella, 2015).
Co-use of media has also been linked to increased family connectedness and is considered to be
family time (Coyne, Padilla-Walker, Fraser, Fellows, & Day, 2014).
While coviewing has historically focused on television viewing together, without
discussion about the program (Takeuchi & Stevens, 2011; Valkenburg et. al, 1999) joint media
engagement (JME), a term coined by Stevens and Penuel (2010), describes media experiences in
which multiple people engage with and around any form of media together, and can include
activities such as viewing, talking, playing, and searching (Takeuchi & Stevens, 2011). The
concept centers on the benefits of coviewing for children and opportunities for intergenerational
learning (Stevens, Satwicz, & McCarthy, 2008; Valkenburg, Krcmar, Peeters, & Marcielle,
1999). Many coviewing and JME studies focus on the ways in which parents often try to mediate
children’s technology use and the different roles that they play in their child’s media use (Barron,
Martin, Takeuchi, & Fithian, 2009). Other studies focus on how coviewing and joint media
engagement aid in learning (Bogatz & Ball, 1971; Fisch, 2014). Others have examined the desire
for joint media engagement in familial and situated contexts (Takeuchi, Wartella, & Gee, 2018.

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Taken together, these studies highlight the potential use of media to aid in family communication
for learning and bonding, and the role that media can play in strengthening family bonds.
Instances of joint media engagement were shared throughout interviews with Black
millennial parents. In their interviews, Black millennials express many fond memories with their
families that involved watching television together. These experiences point to the ways in which
family dynamics and conversations were often structured around media, as well as some of the
loving and tender moments that Black millennials had in their childhoods with other family
members around media. These affective experiences that Black millennials had while watching
and bonding with others had the potential to influence their meaning-making around the show,
its messages, and its importance.
Evelyn and Preston Adams reminisce about how each of their respective families
growing up incorporated television into their family life. Evelyn even claims that while some
families are outdoorsy families or musical families, hers was a “TV family.” The following
discourse between Evelyn and Preston occurred through lots of laughter and smiles, each of them
feeling nostalgic about their family rituals around television, and their shared experience
although they did not know each other in their childhood:
Evelyn: In our house…it was very much scheduled…on Monday's we're all gonna watch -
[simultaneously]: UPN [United Paramount Network]!
Preston: Moesha, Martin…
Evelyn: Moesha, Martin... Martin was on FOX [network], sorry.
Preston: UPN was like, Girlfriends, Moesha, Parkers…
Evelyn: On one day, we would all watch West Wing. That was my dad's charge, like...we
had to watch Smackdown. And then on Fridays it wasn't really television, it was -
Preston: ...go to the movies!
Evelyn: It was we go to Blockbuster and we go and rent a movie and we watch that
together.
Preston: Or Hollywood Video.
Evelyn: And, it was a meal around it, meaning Fridays we knew we got Pizza Hut and
that was a rare commodity.
Preston: It was Little Caesar's for us.

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Evelyn: No, we never did Little Caesar's.
Preston: It was Little Caesar's for us because they had hot-n-ready's for five dollars.
Evelyn: Hot-n-ready's been around for a while.
Preston: That's what I'm tryna say. So y'all had money to be going to Pizza Hut?
Evelyn: No.
Preston: Y'all would just find the coupons and save them?
Evelyn: Yes! We found coupons. When we came home from school on Friday's and we
saw those Pizza Hut coupons on the table, we were like "Yooo we ‘bout to get some
pizza!"

I share the fullness of this dialogue as it is an example of what many Black millennial children
might have experienced in terms of their television rituals. As soon as Evelyn mentioned
Monday, Preston knew that she was going to say her family watched the UPN network—this was
a shared experience of many Black millennials in the study. The UPN Monday night line-up
featured several Black sitcoms such as Moesha, The Parkers, and Girlfriends—shows that were
repeatedly mentioned by participants in the study. In fact, some participants mentioned that they
knew if you wanted to watch Black shows, you would turn to UPN. Rosaline, for example,
chuckles as she remembers a comedian who referred to the network as “under-paid-negroes.”
Evelyn and Preston’s conversation sheds light not only on what they were watching and when,
but the particular rituals surrounding viewership. Friday was a day that both Evelyn’s and
Preston’s families left the home to access special content—either at the movies, Blockbuster, or
Hollywood Video. These special nights were also enjoyed over a shared meal. Evelyn states that
these viewing rituals “gave structure to [her] life and it made [her] appreciate small things.”
These viewership rituals provided a context through which Black millennials could reminisce
about or made sense of the shows they watched. The shows were not watched in a vacuum, but
were colored by the experiences surrounding them and the people that they were with.
Highlighting the importance of intergenerational bonding and communication in Black
families, several participants gleefully recall watching television with their grandparents. For

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example, Jason Paul spent a lot of time at his great grandparents’ and his grandparents’ homes
while his mother was at work. He spent many hours watching The Price is Right (1972-), soap
operas, Jeopardy (1964-), Family Feud (1976-), and Amen (1986-1991). While he did not care
for the shows themselves, he says that watching the shows with his great-grandparents and his
grandparents were “good memories”:
Some of the shows I was laughing at and being all into the shows. I don’t think I ever
liked the Price is Right. My great grandma would watch that faithfully…Family Feud was
always alright, but I just would laugh; it was just entertaining ‘cause I felt like [my great
grandparents] were real animated when those shows were on. Like you couldn’t tell them
they weren’t part of the game.

Because of his great grandparents and the joy he gained from watching them get excited and
animated, Jason sat through television shows that were not entertaining to him, and were not
made for his age demographic. These experiences were less about the television content itself,
and more about his desire to spend time with people he loved. Likewise, Reese Harrison laughs
as she remembers watching television with her maternal grandmother. She recalls her
grandmother being absolutely obsessed with Walker, Texas Ranger, starring Chuck Norris,
though Reese herself was not a fan. Her grandmother also loved M*A*S*H* and professional
wrestling: “She was in love with The Rock…I mean, IN LOVE with The Rock.” While Reese
wasn’t into Walker, Texas Ranger or M*A*S*H* her grandmother got her very involved with
WWF wrestling: “I was all into that, into watching it with her. She would pay for the Pay-Per-
View. We watched every Pay-Per-View together. If she were still here, she would definitely be
The Rock’s biggest fan.” David Kirk remembers watching Matlock (1986-1995) with his
grandmother—they watched it so consistently that his nickname for her was “Matlock.” He says
the show was a major “point of connection for them,” and that the show is special to him,
especially since his grandmother has passed away. Similarly, Johari Brown cherishes the

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memories of spending time at his paternal grandmother’s house. For the most part, she let Johari
run around outside without supervision, allowing him to explore. He also says that they used to
watch the news together along with James Bond movies. They would have small talk while the
news was on: “I miss those times. Those are some of the most memorable moments with my
grandmother.”
While production and marketing professionals often hope to reach Black children with
their content by appealing to their tastes and desires, these stories demonstrate that Black
children were also willing to watch television shows created for adults that did not appeal to
them in any sense. Rather, the appeal was that their grandparents enjoyed and had attachments to
these shows. The experiences of watching these shows with their grandparents in turn fostered
the nostalgic attachments of Black millennials.
Some participants claim that watching film and television with their grandparents gave
them a soft spot for these shows even to this day, even though they did not care for the content.
Again, Evelyn and Preston Adams laugh through dialogue about watching film with their
grandparents, who had a love for the police drama, In the Heat of the Night (1988-1995):
Preston: They're great memories now. They were the most annoying thing in life because
it's not what you wanted to watch as a kid.
Evelyn: No one wanted to watch a black and white cowboy show.
Preston: You don't want to watch a Black man be a cop in the south in black and white.
Evelyn: Always looking sweaty.
Preston: Always looking sweaty and oily. Ain't nobody care. To them [grandparents], it
was epic.
Evelyn: Then now, you have this sort of appreciation for it. Like I remember a couple of
months ago, I binged Season 1 of In the Heat of the Night for no reason at all.

While Preston was shocked to hear that Evelyn watched the show since they had been married
without his knowledge, he agreed with her sentiments, stating that those times watching shows
with their grandparents and other family members are moments that he remembers fondly. He

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says that he sometimes watches CSI because it is his mother’s favorite show. He begins to
remember more moments of joint media engagement with his entire family:
We came up in a time when reality TV became big. So, I remember watching like Ozzie
Osborne with my parents, and Big Brother, Survivor, Amazing Race - all CBS
shows…Watching that stuff now, it's like, I see how this is fun to watch, but also part of it
gives you this sentimental like, "Oh my god, I do miss being at home." Just coming home
from school to do homework and that being it. Not bills and debt, you know. It brings
back a lot of great memories.

Preston associates reality television with times spent with his family, being in the comfort of his
childhood home, and being free of adult responsibility. The nostalgia, then, is not only a longing
for the shows themselves, but for the emotions, the lack of adult responsibilities, and the bonding
time with family that accompanied the shows themselves. Preston also remembers all of his
uncles coming over to watch Pay-Per-View fights on TV, an example of coviewing with
extended family during special occasions.
While some scholarship states that Black youth watch the most television, and are most
likely to watch it on their own (cite), these examples demonstrate that Black millennials have
very detailed memories of joint media engagement with family members. These memories are
strongly attached to their affect, triggering a deep sense of attachment to the content itself.
Furthermore, these examples demonstrate that the intergenerational nature of many Black
familial relationships meant that Black children were watching much more than children’s
media—media created for children. Instead, they were watching content such as children’s
shows, shows made for older and broader Black audiences, game shows like Wheel of Fortune
(1975-present), wrestling, soap operas, international media, the news, reality television, and
dramas that drew audiences like their grandparents like Gunsmoke (1955-1975) and M*A*S*H
(1972-1983). In this way, it is important to expand our understanding of children’s television

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viewership—especially in communities where intergenerational interaction is the norm.
Although the era of Black millennials’ childhood had increasingly segmented and fragmented
audiences, these examples show that while Black millennials did watch the shows they were
likely expected to (i.e., children’s television shows and Black youth programming), they watched
and became quite attached to shows not designed with them in mind—shows that they still return
to watch happily to this day.

Reflecting on Childhood Television Content
In addition to reminiscing on great memories of joint media engagement with family
members, Black millennials have quite a soft spot for the shows of their childhood. Talking
about these shows brings them much joy—as many of the participants answered questions about
what they watched as children and how it affected them, they often looked around the room and
to the ceiling—probably something they had to do often since these data were collected right at
the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic and lockdown—and smiled as they recounted “their”
shows. Thinking about these shows seemed to transport them to another place and time, and
some were overcome with nostalgia. Many of the participants broke out into song, singing the
theme songs from their favorite shows. Diamond Kirk reminisced about watching Zoom, a show
produced by WGBH that aired on PBS:
Diamond Kirk: And I just thought about another...remember Zoom? [sings] "Come on
and zoom come on and zoom...come on and zoom-a-zoom-a-zoom-a zoom!" I remember
that!
David Kirk: [laughs] You really did the whole thing.

These moments of joyful reminiscing especially took place in cases like Diamond’s and David’s
in which the participant had a chance to converse with another Black millennial (namely, their

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spouse or partner) and felt comfortable opening up in these ways. In some cases, they leaned on
me not as a researcher but as a peer and welcomed me into their nostalgia:
Preston: But then there's also like, Salute your Shorts, and Family Double Dare 2000,
and what's the one with the Mayan mind bender called? [Mayan Mindbender was a
rollercoaster at Six Flags in Houston]. Oh, not the Mayan Mindbender.
Evelyn: The Mayan Mindbender? That's a ride at Astroworld! [laughs]
Preston: But it's based on a TV show. [Addressing me] Do you know what show I'm
talking about on Nickelodeon? These kids used to have to run through like a Mayan…
Briana: Oh, Legends of the Hidden Temple.
Preston: Thank you. Legends of the Hidden Temple.
Briana: And nobody could ever figure out the monkey [a monkey puzzle].
Preston: That little monkey at the end! And it's like how do we see this every week, and
nobody can figure out this monkey?
Briana: Right, it was only three pieces.

These shared moments between Black millennials show a fondness toward the television shows
watched as children, and the varying levels of details that Black millennials remember about
those shows. After listing a number of children’s shows (such as The Proud Family, VR
Troopers, Power Rangers, Allegra’s Window, and Recess), Preston states, “I just named off my
childhood. That’s my childhood right there.” Television is one of the primary ways in which
some Black millennials reminisce about their childhoods.
The fondness and joy with which Black millennials discuss the shows they watched as
children is important in that those affective and nostalgic attachments likely color the ways in
which they remember the shows—especially compared to shows today.

A Golden Age of Representation?
The 1990s and early 2000s are sometimes referred to as a golden age in representation of
Black people (cite). Television shows from that era along with viewership of those shows has
garnered attention from scholars (cite the people from chapter 1). Black millennials in the study

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were somewhat ambivalent about how representative they felt the shows were. Many of them
believe that the era was special in terms of representation. For example, some participants felt
that the era featured many different kinds of blackness. Chavonne says that “you saw every
personality on these shows, “ such as “Black nerds…gangbangers. You saw the people trying to
make their way out, you saw people struggling.” She claims that in this era, you could see Black
people “from every angle.” Diamond believes “there were just so many options of Black faces.”
Participants felt that shows during this time were both educational and aspirational in a way that
helped them to see themselves in different roles.
However, participants could simultaneously champion the content of that era while also
being critical of it. For example, Chavonne says that she absolutely loved Disney movies. She
loved them so much that she did not notice there weren’t any Black princesses. When the 1997
version of Cinderella was released featuring singer Brandy as Cinderella and Whitney Houston
as the fairy godmother (two Black women), Chavonne thought for the first time, “Wait, anyone
can be a princess.” She says that this was a big moment for her, as she began to notice the
presence and absence of Black characters in film and television: “And that was the first time I
noticed there is no Black princess, like…So we don't get to transform and have pretty dresses?”
The presence of a Black princess in Brandy—something that she celebrates and appreciates—
also awakened her critical eye to a lack of representation. Chavonne further critiques television
from this time period. She claims that many of the depictions of Black people were “loud” or
“something ghetto,” utilizing blackness only to get a laugh: “If it’s the news and they’re
interviewing a Black person, the person is ridiculously uneducated in their discussion. And it
ends up being funny. That’s the norm. That was the image of Black people. That’s what it means
to be Black. You’re basically entertainment.” She also states that during this time period,

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television producers often avoided race in children’s television by avoiding skin color altogether.
Characters in animated television were often different colors, or as Chavonne says, not “natural
people colors.” This may be related somewhat to the multiculturalism of the time, or, perhaps a
move toward colorblindness. Either way, she believes race was not truly addressed. Rather, she
says it was “Kids vs. adults, and that was your only option. You either get dressed up in suits, or
you run around in your draws all day.” This echoes Sarah Banet-Weiser’s work in Nickelodeon,
in which she demonstrates the ways in which children and adults belonged to different realms of
citizenship (Banet-Weiser, 2007). John Gabriel Miller also noticed this avoidance of skin color:
John Gabriel: I have these theories about characters that are Black that like, even if you
don't know. So, I felt like Monterey Jack in Rescue Rangers was Black.
Briana: What, like Skeeter in Doug? [It was almost a common understanding among
Black children who watched Doug that Skeeter was Doug’s Black best friend].
John Gabriel: Yeah, like Skeeter in Doug, yeah. He's blue but like, really, he's Black.
Honk Honk! [a noise Skeeter used to make]. I think was probably noticing where black
wasn't, or where it seemed a character has attributes that would make them black or
where like I would expect them to be black verses where it's explicit. But I don't know that
I would notice a whole lot of like direct expression of black characters, even when they
were around.

In John Gabriel’s examples, children often wrote race onto characters when it was not present,
based on character traits, clothing, and other indicators of a racial affiliation. The only “natural”
skin color in Doug was white. It seems that Black millennials watching the show took it upon
themselves to write race onto Skeeter, perhaps as a way to make sense of their lack of
representation on one of Nickelodeon’s most popular shows. Where there was no belonging, they
created a representative. John Gabriel’s and Chavonne’s sense-making about representation in
media also demonstrates a bit of ambivalence about their perception of representation at the time,
and the ways in which Black millennials negotiated with the images and stories of their

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childhood. This is relevant to a remark made by Preston Adams, who suggests that even though
these representations were not perfect, you often had to take what you could get:
But I also think before Moesha, there was never - there was only Clueless. There was
only this white girl like LA belongs to the young white girl. And then all of a sudden, here
came Moesha, saying, "Oh no, the big city can also belong to you." I think that that was
part of it. That was our answer to - kind of like Living Single versus Friends, or
Girlfriends versus Sex in the City. It's like, you have to take it, because it's your only
alternative to the thing that is more popular.

Preston explains that in images like Clueless (1995) along with other visual culture centered
around Los Angeles, it seemed that Los Angeles was for white people. However, Moesha, which
featured the singer, Brandy, as its protagonist and took place in Leimert Park, allowed Black
children to see other Black people in Los Angeles, making it a possibility for them. Even if they
could not fully relate to characters like Moesha, Preston feels that Black children had to accept
whatever representation they were given.
Participants also appreciated television shows that encouraged both aspirational pathways
and character traits. Crystal, for instance, enjoys that Martin depicted a young Black professional
living in the city, dating, and having a fun life. He was also a “stand-up guy” of good character—
someone she believes Black men and boys could look up to: “...but if you were a young, black
man in that time, you could look to Martin to think about how your young professional career
would actually be. Who can you watch like that now?” Likewise, Chavonne believes that The
Fresh Prince of Bel Air was “more educational than [she thought],” as it often featured storylines
about Black history and featured Black musicians and artists. As someone who commuted from
Camden, New Jersey to a prestigious private school on a scholarship each day, she also felt
connected to Will Smith’s characters: a teen from West Philadelphia going to school in a wealthy
prep school in Bel Air.

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Something that also stood out Chavonne from Fresh Prince was that Will Smith would
often wear clothing featuring HBCU names on it. This is something that other participants, such
as Diamond, celebrated about shows from that era. Diamond specifically mentions Queen
Latifah wearing HBCU clothing on Living Single, and Martin Lawrence wearing it on Martin.
Celebrities sporting clothing with HBCU names on them celebrated historically Black colleges
and universities, and likely brought awareness to schools that people might not have known
about. When participants mentioned this, I smiled with pride as this clothing line—African
American College Alliance (AACA)—is very close to my own life and childhood. AACA was
started by Mark Vangrack in Washington D.C., who then brought on both of my parents as well
as my “uncle,” Chris Latimer, to help with growing the clothing line in New York City.
Eventually, my parents raised money to become majority owners of the company—and Chris
Latimer, a graduate of Howard University with several celebrity connections—worked extremely
hard to reach out to stylists for 1990s TV shows and music videos to feature the clothing. In a
conversation with my father, he told me that in the 1990s, college fashion was huge. However,
there was a gap in representation that AACA aimed to fill. Growing up, I saw boxes of AACA
sweat suits in my childhood home, and my parents traveled regularly across the country to
fashion conventions. It was enjoyable to think that something that was such a big part of my
own childhood in that way, also resonated deeply with other Black millennials who saw the
results of my parents’, Chris Latimer’s, and other team members’ hard work. Several of the
participants in the study, including Diamond, did attend HBCUs.
Participants also had reflections on the representation of Black families during this era.
Crystal asserts that the diversity of character personalities in the shows as well different family
dynamics allowed Black millennials some flexibility in who they could identify with:

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It was just layers to the dynamics of a family on white television and on black television.
Where you know, you look at the Cosby’s, and it wasn’t just about Bill [Cliff] and Clair.
You could decide that you wanted to be like Sandra, you know? Or Vanessa, or Denise,
or you know it was like layers to it. Of representation.

Crystal’s description of families as layered points to her value of textured and diverse
representations of family life. This is something that was echoed by other participants as well.
Shows such as My Brother and Me on Nickelodeon, which centered on a Black family, were
important to some in terms of showing Black childhood and Black family life. My Brother and
Me also featured elements of Black culture throughout the home, such as paraphernalia of Black
fraternities and sororities. Participants appreciated the different ways in which Black families
were depicted on television during this era. Preston says, “There were so many different
evaluations of what Black family is. There were a bunch of different shows like, ‘Here’s what it
is to be black and be in a family dynamic.’ And I’m like ‘Oh, that’s different from mine. Cool!”
Here, Black millennials value being able to see different family structures and dynamics on
television in a way that reflects the diversity of family structures of Black families in real life.
Finally, some participants felt that they felt more represented by the television shows of
their youth than they do by the content available to them now—even though streaming platforms
and alternate forms of production allow for more stories to be distributed. Reese is unsure about
representation on television prior to the decades of her childhood, but is fairly confident that the
era of the 1990s and the early 2000s is “when a lot of our shows did start coming out.” “Our”, in
this context, refers to Black populations whom she felt were more represented in her childhood
than they were in previous eras. She believes this era was superior in comparison to shows today:
“I mean, we are definitely seen [today]. We have different shows, but I don’t think all of them
are as positive. Because I think today is still that era of reality TV. So, reality TV ain’t really
putting us in the best of highlights versus the family shows.” Here, Reese suggests that

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representations of Black people in reality TV are unfavorable. She points to the family-based
sitcoms and dramas as far more positive images, equating the family structure with desirable
representations.

Representation Beyond Race and Culture
Crystal felt represented all throughout her childhood by Brandy in Moesha, Rudy or
Vanessa in The Cosby Show, or Lisa Turtle in Saved by the Bell. While these were all Black
characters, she also saw herself in white characters such as Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen—in
particular, she could relate to their “adventure, curiosity, ambition, and their femininity.” This is
a unique finding in and of itself—in discussions of representation for Black children, it is
important to consider race and culture alongside interests and character and personality traits.
While Crystal was able to see herself reflected in the shows of her childhood, she feels that as a
Black woman and a mother, there are not many people she can relate to other than Bow (played
by Tracee Ellis Ross) in the show, Black-ish. She cannot relate to certain popular images of
Black characters at the moment in shows such as Insecure, a show created by and starring Issa
Rae:
I sure don’t see myself in no Insecure! Like, it took me a while to actually like that show
because I was so upset that I didn’t actually see myself in it, right? And I just had to
appreciate, you know, this is another side of blackness that is good to see on TV, even
though it’s not my definition of a black. I complain about this all the time you know, ‘cuz
the women who I love - I don’t see my great grandmother on TV. I don’t see my aunts and
cousins. They’re not there, and it penetrates for me even deeper because I’m so far from
them. I can’t be in their homes and observe them.

Although Crystal cannot relate to the characters on Insecure—who are often trying to figure out
their love lives, professional lives, and personal growth—she still appreciates that it is showing
different experiences of Black people. However, she does wish that she could see more of her

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own family reflected in television—something that would more likely occur in family-centered
programming like the ones she watched growing up. The fact remains that Crystal felt
abundantly represented in her childhood by Black and non-Black characters, and in a sea of
current content, does not feel seen. It is possible that this sense of more representation is due to
nostalgia, or perhaps a sense of imagined community (Anderson, 1991) with other people
watching the shows in a more ritualistic and unified way. As Crystal shows—it’s also not just
about race and culture—Black millennials also want to feel represented in their values,
personalities, and stories. They appreciated shows that taught them strategies for navigating life,
as well as different ways of being.
This is evident in conversion with Jason Paul. Jason was drawn to A Different World
(1987-1993), a spinoff of The Cosby Show that takes place at the fictional Hillman College, not
necessarily because of college life, but because of the “strong personalities” of the characters on
the show. He appreciated that the characters were “Being assertive, being proud, being confident.
The confidence—that’s what I remember taking from that show specifically. Just the confidence
in people that looked like me.” Reese Harrison says that one of her main takeaways from
watching family-based television shows in her youth was learning how to navigate difficult
situations, especially within the family dynamic: “Learning still even then, when things happen,
how to react? What happens when you don’t react? With family bonding, how to laugh during
bad situations? Even when you don’t have the money, how to survive?”
For Evelyn Adams, an episode of Family Matters, also a show featuring a Black family,
helped her with a sense of body positivity. Evelyn claims that she has always been a “curvy
person,” which is accentuated by the fact that she’s short. She always had trouble finding clothes
that fit her and was bullied for her shape growing up: “that was part of my insecurity growing

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up.” She watched an episode of Family Matters in which a character named Laura tried out for
the cheerleading team, but the girls in her school made fun of her and called her fat. Seeing that
way that Laura navigated the situation brought “a little bit of comfort” to her. Body diversity was
just as important to Evelyn as racial or cultural diversity. Furthermore, other Black girl
characters such as Hilary or Ashley from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, did not feel relatable to
her. First, neither of them actually looked like her—both had very long hair. Socioeconomic
status also distanced her from the family, as the Banks’ were a clearly wealthy family. Finally,
Hilary was not relatable to her because she was an “airhead,” while Evelyn knew she herself was
smart. Although these characters are Black women, Evelyn felt that physical attributes such as
hair, along with differences in class and intelligence, hindered her from relating to them. In her
experience, she was more drawn to characters who could relate to her experiences and also
demonstrate strategies for navigating those life circumstances.
Reese Harrison was drawn to shows like The WB’s Smart Guy (1997-1999) starring Tahj
Mowry as a young genius who skipped grades and had to learn to navigate high school with
peers who were older than him:
Even though he was, you know…supposed to be a genius, he still went through the kid
stuff. And then having to try to fit in but still be the nerd and also being the youngest kid.
So, they still had lessons during that show and I loved that. They didn’t try to make him
older. They wanted him to still stay his age. And not to feel no type of way just because
you’re smarter than everybody.

Again, Reese points out television shows that demonstrated life circumstances and the ways in
which characters who looked like her figured out ways to navigate those circumstances. Her
interview suggests an appreciation for witnessing people—whether it is her mother or television
characters—confronting challenges. She also suggests a value for not rushing childhood and
resisting growing up too fast. She appreciates that this television show portrayed a kid being a

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kid, although he had to maneuver through situations that might typically occur in high school
years. Chavonne was also drawn to character journeys in the shows of her youth. She felt that
characters going on a journey of finding themselves were “well-portrayed in…shows growing
up. Because they never felt like they fit in. They were all put in situations that were out of their
comfort zone. They all had to learn how to adjust and they all took their own journey.”
Johari was a big fan of That’s So Raven, a Disney show starring Raven Symoné, who
rose to fame as Olivia on The Cosby Show. In That’s So Raven, Raven had the ability to “see”
into the future, prophetically viewing events before they happened in real time. Johari said that
he wanted to be Raven: “I don’t want to be another gender, but I want to be Raven…she could
see those visions…Like you know, just being a visionary.” He feels that now, as an adult, he is
also a “visionary” like Raven—not in the way of seeing future events, but in regard to seeing the
future that he desires. Johari was also drawn to The WB’s Smart Guy (1997-1999) starring Tahj
Mowry, who was a boy genius in high school: “He was an intelligent kid, and people looked to
him for insight on things. That’s what I really liked. He was different.” Johari also enjoyed
seeing two Black girls on Sister Sister when he was growing up, but not only because they were
Black. He was more so drawn to the stories and the “things that they went through.” He believes
that some of the situations might be relatable, especially for girls in high school: “I’m not really
like, Black-White like that…I think the scenarios was more relatable than anything. I wouldn’t
say the characters, but the scenarios were relatable.”
Both Preston Adams and John Gabriel Miller desired to see more Black characters doing
activities related to science, technology, and academics. Preston states: “I felt like there weren't
enough nerdy Black guys. Steve Urkel [Family Matters] was there holding it down, and so was

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Smart Guy. Other than that, there weren't a lot of nerdy black guys, and that bothered me because
I was a nerd.” Likewise, John Gabriel wanted to see Black people in relation to technology:
I feel like I noticed where black people weren't and where they were. In a lot of the
cartoons that I watched - if they had a race…like one of the main characters …like none
of the people that are in the show are raced, but the people who helped them and have a
relationship with the Transformers, they all white. And so it's like, oh, black people don't
like technology? Black people can't handle kickin' it with the aliens? There's kinda
messages in where people are and where they aren't, you know?

John Gabriel brings up a similar point that Chavonne mentioned—that many of the characters in
animation were not raced. However, he perceived that those who were—at least in the case of
science and technology content—tended to be white. He passionately speaks about G.I. Joe, in
which he noticed a similar trend:
In G.I. Joe, I can't remember the name of the character off the top of my head…it's gonna
drive me nuts [perhaps he was referring to Snake Eyes] - but I remember the Black dude
who like, he's big and bulky and strong and bald-headed. He does the heavy artillery
sh*t. And so even then, it's like Black people are work horses, black people are big and
strong. Black people are not like behind the computer screen, they're not the strategists-
they're the muscle. I remember that stuff.

John Gabriel recalls that this Black character did a lot of heavy lifting, but not much strategizing
or seemingly more intellectual work. He refers to Black people as “work horses,” which
references his knowledge of the history of Black people in the United States. It is interesting to
think about the ways in which Black millennials made sense of these images in their childhoods,
versus their current understandings now, with likely more knowledge of the function of racism as
well as more sophisticated racial formation and identity. It is hard to distinguish what children
noticed actually as children, and what they recall and reflect on retrospectively. However, these
examples demonstrate that John Gabriel and Johari did not simply desire to see Black people;
this would not suffice as representation. Rather, they wanted to see Black people doing specific
activities and having diverse interests such as science and technology.

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This section has helped us to understand the ways in which Black millennials related to
and viewed the media of their youth. This is important as their relationship with the content and
viewing experiences of their youth are influential in their understanding of current content—
especially for their children—as well as their parenting practices broadly and in relation to
media.

Parent Perspectives on Joint Media Engagement (JME)
As demonstrated above, Black millennials have very fond memories of their childhood
viewership, and watching content was a fundamental pillar in memories of their childhoods.
They have formed attachments to this content, and remember even small details about the shows.
Furthermore, I have shown above the ways in which Black millennials remember watching
television. For some, this involved sweet memories with their family members, siblings, or
grandparents. Therefore, watching television together was a ritual bonding experience that many
Black millennials had. I have also shown through the data the ways in which Black millennials
made sense of representation in the content of their youth. While they laud some aspects of the
era, they also view other content with a critical eye. While some of this sense-making may have
happened retrospectively, it is clear that Black millennials have always been critical consumers.
Now that they are adults and parents, it is useful to understand how these experiences have
shaped their own parenting practices with their children. When asked whether they believe it is
important to watch television with their children, Black millennial parents answered with a
resounding ‘yes.’ For many, they are drawn to the bonding experience that watching together
brings, as well as opportunities to get to know their children and to teach them along the way.

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JME for Discussion and Teaching
Chavonne had a unique experience as a child with television in her household; she was
raised in a strict religious household, and her mother referred to the television as the “devil-
vision.” Chavonne was not allowed to watch nearly anything, but always found ways to do so
anyway. She does not feel that the potential of coviewing for conversation or bonding was
tapped into in her household, but wants to lean into that potential in her own parenting: “I really
do [think that watching TV with your kids is important]. It creates discussion; it opens the room
for discussion. It leaves room for me to explain things that he doesn’t understand.”
Diamond Kirk enjoys watching television with her daughter, because she utilizes these
times as opportunities for teaching. She says that while they’re watching, she will ask her
daughter what colors she sees, what the objects are called, and about the actions of the
characters. She says they try to make the experience “more educational” than it might be with
her daughter watching alone. Diamond also believes it is important to be invested in the shows
and storylines that her daughter watches, so that she can have a sense of awareness of the things
she references.
Rosaline Joseph-Miller utilizes media and practices joint media engagement to teach her
children about current events as well as responsibility. For instance, she and her children listen to
the audiobook for Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, which she says has a very “environmental lean.”
Using content from the audiobook, they are able to “talk about the environment and like what
people do the environment and why it's important to take care of the earth” This is in line with
Rosaline’s a comment made by Rosaline’s co-parent, John Gabriel Miller, who said that they aim
to teach some Catholic faith principles to their children, such as stewardship.

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John Gabriel does not shy away from hard conversations with his children. He believes
that there is “this big push to protect kids,” from inappropriate media as well as content on the
internet. He says that there is no way for a parent to be aware of their children’s “every internet
query.” Therefore, he believes it is “much more important [for parents] to have those
conversations with [their children] up front, and to have vehicles for those conversations already
there so that they can come to [their parents] and ask questions.” For example, rather than
shielding their children from a show or movie where there is a stripper on a stripper pole, John
Gabriel would rather his children ask him, “Why is she dancing like that?” He would look
forward to a conversation about different people’s life circumstances, choices, and means for
making money. He says he would much rather have a “complex conversation” stemming from
media rather than have his children try to make sense of those images by themselves.

JME for Bonding
Many Black millennial parents feel that watching television together is an important way
for them to bond and create memories with their children; just as they have fond memories of
watching with their own families. For some, they did not realize how special those times were
until they were older. For example, Tamia Patrick says,
When you're a kid you don't really notice the value in things until you get older. So, when
I was younger it was like we're just sitting together. What I thought was kinda more
special was like if my dad was there cause he wasn't really home much, he worked a lot
and stuff. It was just me, my mother and my sisters, I just thought it was regular. It was
just something that we did.

While television watching just seemed like something to do, she realized in her adult years that
these were, in fact, special moments of togetherness. This was especially true when her busy
working father joined them.

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Diamond Kirk also views her coviewing times with her children as moments of both
emotional and physical bonding: “I think [watching content together] is cool 'cause we're all
sitting on the couch, hugged up, chillin', hanging out. We get mommy-daddy-daughter-son
time.” Diamond’s husband, David Kirk, echoes her sentiments. He says that television is a
“symbol for family time, for gathering, for quality time.” He believes that the medium has the
potential to draw family members into the same space and provide opportunities for
togetherness: “Even if it becomes a thing where you're not really watching the TV, or the show is
boring, or you see a rerun, you all still are collective as that family unit playing around, tickling,
talking, whatever the case may be.”
Rosaline Joseph-Miller remembers that when she first left for college, she wanted to
continue a set aside time that she and her mother had every week; on Sundays, they would watch
ABC’s Alias together. Her freshman year, she would call her mother every Sunday night to
confirm that she was going to watch the episode. After the episode, they would call each other
again to debrief about what happened. This fond memory prompts her to think about her own
daughter, who often asks Rosaline to watch H2O, a mermaid show, with her. She readily says
yes. While her mother did watch shows with her when she was older, she remembers that her
parents did not watch shows geared toward younger children with them. Rosaline makes an
effort to join in with her children in watching “younger” shows as well to show interest in their
interests.
John Gabriel Miller and Rosaline Joseph-Miller use joint media engagement as a way to
bond as a family, especially after their divorce and transition into co-parenting. Rosaline shares
that when Black Panther (2018) came out, she, John Gabriel, and their children all made it a big
event to go see the film together; they even made t-shirts. John Gabriel fondly mentions the same

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event, as well as other times the family tries to gather around media such as The Mandalorian,
the Star Wars trilogy, James Bond movies, and other Marvel films.
That's kinda something that we do - me and the co-parent, we do that together, so we take
them to Marvel movies in the theaters. I guess we'll figure out something with that now
[referring to COVID-19, movies shut down I think]. But yeah, those shared experiences
in front of the screen always being kinda something that you know, we do as a family.

Although the family structure is different now with the divorce and John Gabriel’s remarriage
(and third child on the way), watching films together becomes a way for them to practice new
structures of family life and to continue to bond as a family unit in a different form. Coviewing
in this circumstance becomes a useful tool in their co-parenting partnership.

JME for Bridging Childhood Viewership
Many Black millennial parents desire to watch the shows of their own childhood with
their children. With access to YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, and other streaming services, as well as
physical DVDs and VHS tapes, Black millennials have more opportunities to easily access clips
or full episodes of these shows. Their children have mixed reactions to watching these shows
alongside their parents. Reese Harrison and her daughter watch the That’s So Raven spinoff,
Raven’s Home together on Disney + . In the original That’s So Raven, Raven and Chelsea were
best friends. In Raven’s Home, Raven and Chelsea are now both divorced single mothers and
have decided to move in together to raise their children under one roof. Reese was excited to
have some experiential familiarity with aspects of Raven’s Home and to be able to explain the
character’s history to her daughter. She told her daughter, “Mommy used to watch this show!
But it was different because [Raven] didn’t have no kids. She was the kid.” Reese laughs and
says that her daughter’s response was not one of excitement, but rather, “‘Mom, get out of my
face. Don’t talk, I’m watching!’”

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Rosaline Joseph-Miller was excited when she subscribed to Disney + that she had access
to a number of her favorite shows from her childhood, including Darkwing Duck, Talespin, and
Gummy Bears: “I was so excited because I was like, Oh, I can share my childhood with my
children!” However, she claims that her children were not interested in the shows. However, they
were interested in some of her other favorite shows, such as X-Men. However, upon watching it
as an adult, she feels that the content is too mature for her own children, and wants to wait to
show it to them. This also causes her to reflect on her own childhood: “I think it's interesting to
sort of go back and to think about how I was consuming it. I look at it now like, ‘Oh, no, oh my
god.’ Through her excitement to share her own childhood viewership with her children, Rosaline
is also confronted with the need to be critical about what she was watching and how she was
watching it.
Even Evelyn and Preston Adams have decided to share a piece of their childhood with
their son, although he is only one-year-old. As Preston states frequently, his passion is for film.
Toy Story (1995), is his favorite film, and he could not wait to share this film with his son. He
joyfully reports that when Toy Story is on, his son is “glued to the TV.” This example
demonstrates that even when their children are at very young ages, some Black millennials may
desire to have points of connection with their children that are related to their own childhoods
and childhood viewership.

JME due to a Distrust of the Media Industry
As a parent to a seven-year-old daughter, Jason Paul believes that it is important to
“assess what she is watching,” especially after revisiting two movies that he watched often in his
own childhood: Disney’s Cinderella (1950) and Pinocchio (1940). He especially felt that

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Pinocchio was “just a terrible, terrible movie.” In his childhood, he thought the plot was just
about a puppet who wanted to be a real boy and whose nose grew when he lied; he was shocked
when he rewatched the film in his adulthood with his daughter and nephew. His reinterpretation
of the plot is as follows:
The wolf or the fox or whatever he is…he’s pretty much a predator waiting for
kids…trying to kidnap them and lure them into places…And so this guy goes and kidnaps
Pinocchio. In today’s time you got the sex and kid trafficking and female trafficking. Then
Pinocchio gets out of that just for the same fox to go ahead and kidnap for this other guy
who wants to kidnap all the children so that he can lure them to this playground—this
island—where all the kids play, and they smoke and do all these different things…he has
them smoking cigars, he’s shooting pool, they drinking beer, they on all these rides and
what not.

Jason is appalled by what he was allowed to watch as a child, and says sarcastically, “Yeah, this
was a real good movie for our parents to let us watch.” Jason wants to take a different direction
with his own daughter’s media use, playing a much more active role after realizing what kinds of
images and plots he was exposed to as a child:
I don’t want [the messages in these cartoons] to influence behaviors. I want to be able to
control what’s going to get poured into my child. Once she’s at the adult age or at the
age when she can understand for herself then that’s up to her, but I want to be able to
pour in and influence as much as possible into my child while I have her.

While Jason’s aim is not to completely shield his daughter from content he does not approve of,
his desire is that he would be a primary influence in her upbringing. He does not want the images
that she consumes to be more influential than his own parenting.
In general, some parents felt the need to protect their children from the media, or at least
to help them navigate it with discernment. Some parents continuously referred to the media
industry as “they” — and spoke about the people who created media as conspirators against them
and their children. Johari Brown, for example, has a deep distrust of media in his adulthood. He

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believes that the media are part of an active system to try to keep Black people oppressed: “The
images they show on TV, they want to try to make you feel less than and they’re not going to
empower us at all.” Johari goes on to say that “TV is manipulated” and “has an agenda to get to
kids.” He believes this is especially true in regard to sex as well as a desensitizing of children’s
minds:
People say it’s a conspiracy theory. It’s facts out there. They legit try to brainwash you,
especially as kids—like with these Disney shows. We are being programmed. And once I
realized that, it’s like I don’t even want to watch TV myself. I think that’s why it’s
important for you to monitor what you’re watching and what your kids are watching.

He gives an example in the show Tom and Jerry in which he says the animators made Tom’s tail
turn into the shape of a penis: “I’m saying like it won’t be blatant, but you will see things like
that. They try to instill into them kids’ conscious minds. They’ll say something subliminal. Just
basically referring to sex or something. This is crazy.” Furthermore, when reflecting on how the
show, Martin, partially influenced him to want to pursue a job in media, Johari Brown suggests
that he is an example of someone who has benefited from seeing Black people represented in
various careers. He then goes on to see that this is why the media do not want Black people
shown in this light, so as to not inspire them to do the same: “That’s why you don’t see nothing
like that nowadays. ‘Cause they know, even as a kid, unconsciously these shows can influence
you. That’s why they put evil stuff out there. That’s why they portray us as prisoners…or crime
artists.” Johari believes that the media industry is not just passively excluding positive
representations, but that they are actively conspiring against Black audiences by withholding
desirable representations and displaying undesirable ones.
Diamond Kirk shared this same sentiment when I asked her why she thinks there are not
as many “positive” representations for her children as there were in her childhood:

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I don't know if it's because the producers or the companies themselves that air it got
afraid of how many people was actually going to college and learning different things. I
don't know if it's because they wanted to paint us in a certain way so that people who
might have been interested to approach us won't. I don't know if it's a part of the
oppression that they want us to stay in, or an oppression that we want to stay in and
always blame somebody else for our difficulties and hardships. I don't know, but I think
before I can blame anything I have to blame us, because we can't unite. The black people
cannot unite. I know that started way back when with the slaving times: if you dark-
skinned you outside the house, if you light-skinned you inside the house, if you in between
you somewhere in the middle. But man. If we could unite like, the freed slaves did when
they saved all that money and created that first black freedman's bank, and saved up like
a million dollars...we can't do it 'cause we always think they trying to steal from us, or
they don't want the best for us, or they just mad 'cause I got this, and they don't have this.

In this statement, Diamond seems to go back and forth with the confidence in her statement
about whether or not producers, companies, or systems more broadly are actively trying to
oppress Black people. However, in this negotiation with herself, she highlights her belief that
what Black millennials are understanding as positive representations on television—of families,
education, careers—actually inspired them to pursue these pathways. She suggests that after
producers and creators saw the lived impact of the shows that were being aired, they severely
dialed back these types of representations in order to keep Black people oppressed. She then
also, therefore, suggests that freedom from oppression is linked to things such as going to
college. Both Johari and Diamond assert that Black millennials, somewhat due to their television
viewership, have gained a certain amount of access to the spheres of participation outlined in
Chapter 3; namely, career choice and access to higher education. It is likely that knowledge of
history and an awareness of current social issues, especially through personal experience or
family narratives, have shaped their perception of how media creators view Black people and
what they desire for Black people (i.e., oppression, lack of access). These discourses and
perceptions, alongside Black millennial parents’ experiences with racial formation and cultural
education, shape some of their parenting strategies around race and television.

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Some parents state in the interviews that they would rather their children watch the shows
from their own generation. First, it is content that they are at least somewhat familiar with and
have built a trust with. Second, as described above, parents are enthused when their children are
interested in the content that they loved as children, as it allows them to share an aspect of their
own childhood. For example, Chavonne Smith is happy when her son wants to watch DuckTales
with her:
I love it [when my son wants to watch DuckTales with me]! I get so excited [laughs].
Only ‘cause a lot of shows today, I don’t feel are made for kids! So, when he likes the
shows I used to like that were just funny and didn’t have no negative undertone or insider
jokes, I love that. Because I feel like he has a free childhood now. Like you can just be a
kid making a mess and laughing without it being something behind it or something I
worry about you saying in school to a kid [laughs].

Chavonne’s familiarity with the content allows her to make judgments on what she believes the
potential effects on her child might be. Rather than having him watch content that might cause
him to tell another child in school that he stinks (something that happened because he watched it
on TV), Chavonne feels her son can have a “free childhood” when watching the shows she
watched. Perhaps Chavonne feels that her childhood was freer in some ways—particularly in the
realm of TV viewership—than her son.

Self-Defining Culture and Heritage
One strategy of Black millennial parents was the use of media to teach children about
things like race and inequality, to build up their self-confidence, and to pass on any cultural or
value-driven information. During the interviews, I asked participants how they would describe or
define their culture or heritage—while most mentioned Black culture, each participant had
different ideas about what constituted Black culture, as it is not monolithic. Furthermore,

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participants mentioned other cultural and heritage descriptions worth mentioning, as they shape
the ways in which they communicate with their children and utilize media to do so.
For example, John Gabriel Miller identified his culture and heritage as such: “I am Black
American. Blackest of Black American. My grandfather was a sharecropper. I resist
characterizations of Black Americans as not having an identity. I’m Black AF.” John Gabriel
identifies with his blackness, which he further links to his family history. He also identifies
heavily with all of the places he’s lived as shapers of his sense of identity and blackness—with
access to different music, food, and lingo: “It's like feeling like I could be comfortable in any
urban or suburban environment and feel like I can be a stable, authentic version of myself no
matter where I am.” Similarly, Evelyn talks about her culture and heritage by mentioning her
family’s roots in Picayune, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. She identifies strongly with her
family’s southern blackness. She also cites family unity and closeness as a culture that she finds
important. Likewise, Crystal links her culture and heritage to nation, blackness, and place. She
describes herself as “American, a Black American, a descendent of Africa, a Philadelphian.”
Some defined their heritage and culture by tradition, family, and faith. David Kirk
describes his culture as “spirituality, religion, family, meals and dinners.” He says that his faith
set the foundation of his core set of beliefs. Tamia Patrick says that while she used to identify
strongly with race and Black culture, her perception of culture changed after she became more
serious about her faith: “Being a believer now, then I have a family, so I would put family and
faith together as culture.” She believes that Jesus, whom she follows, did not see people
primarily in terms of their ethnicity, so she chooses not to use that as a primary lens. John
Gabriel Miller also identifies with his spirituality—which has foundations in Christianity—but
feels that his experience as a Black man complicates some of his negotiations with key teachings

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in the Bible. For example, he does not believe that Jesus’ encouragement to “turn the other
cheek” should be taken at face value for Black Americans, who have had to deal with centuries
of racism and discrimination.
Just these select examples make it clear that Black millennials do not solely think about
their identities in terms of their race or their blackness. Instead, they consider their race and
blackness alongside family history, family tradition, geographic region and culture, faith and
spirituality, and personal convictions. This is important to note especially in regard to media
industries more broadly and especially the children’s media industry—which has been making
efforts to ensure the inclusion of the stories and experiences of children of color. We must
complicate our notions of racial identity formation, as they are not tied solely to histories of
oppression and systemic inequality—though these are integral parts of identity formation.

Black Millennials’ Cultural Education
Black millennials understand their heritage and cultures in complex, layered ways.
However, many Black millennials felt that they were not taught about these cultures—
particularly not Black cultures—in their formal education. With a few exceptions, most Black
millennial parents stated that their formal education only introduced them to topics such as
slavery as well the civil rights movement, and typically only during Black History Month. It
wasn’t until college that most Black millennials in the study said they began to learn about race
and to deeply make sense of their identities in regard to race.
Instead, during their childhood, Black millennials received most of their cultural and
heritage education through interpersonal relationships and enrichment opportunities. In terms of
cultural enrichment outside of the home, they participated in programs such as Rites of Passage,

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Kappa League and attended events such as the Unity Day Parade in Philadelphia or frequented
African American history museums and cultural centers. Dre Landon says that he learned a great
deal from Rites of Passage, in which he learned about the “origins of [his] culture” and that it
was “prolific to be a black man. And not just what they taught us in our history books—the
oppression and things to that effect—but the power, royalty, and the fact that we were kings and
queens.” Dre was also educated by his father, who followed Muslim principles as well as Five
Percenter principles. Before his father died, he had encouraged Dre to be proud that he comes
from the “original man” and that he descended from kings and queens.
However, they primarily learned about their culture just by being with and learning from
their families and communities. John Gabriel speaks of an uncle who actively engaged with him
in his cultural education and his identity. He would “make [him] read stuff” such as the
illustrated version of Fredrick Douglass’ biography and Malcolm X’s biography. He later came
to the realization that his uncle was leading him through somewhat of a black studies
independent study. He is thankful that people like his uncle were “having [him] trouble [his]
black identity outside the school.” This relationship with his uncle introduced him to key texts
that helped to shape his knowledge as well as his identity; the conversations with his uncle about
these texts also influenced his understanding of race. In fact, John Gabriel says that by the time
more “positive” Black representations began to appear on television, he felt as though he “had so
many positive expressions of blackness in [his] everyday life that [he] didn't really have to look
to TV for [his] identity formation.”
Rosaline Joseph-Miller’s family—specifically her father—made sure to instill her Haitian
culture. Rosaline’s family immigrated from Haiti, and she grew up in Long Island, NY. In
addition to traveling to Haiti regularly as a child, Rosaline’s father would get them history books

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about Haiti and would require them to complete book reports on the topics they learned. They all
learned Haitian Creole and regularly listened to Haitian radio as a family. Rosaline notes that as
a Haitian American, her parents often emphasized her distinction from Black Americans—she
was to be different, because her roots were in Haiti. This distinction became complicated for her
as she began to grow in understanding about race in America as well as systemic inequality. Still,
her father was essential to the foundations of her understanding of her identity, culture, and
heritage.
Diamond Kirk says she learned a lot about her culture just by being “around Black people
all the time.” She specifically remembers that her grandfather was a mason and her grandmother
was an Eastern Star—an appendant body to the masons. Diamond recalls meeting and socializing
with her grandparents’ associates, who would always ask her how she was doing and who she
wanted to be when she grew up. Diamond felt she was socialized and educated through her
relationships not only with her own grandparents, but by their affiliation with the freemasons.
Again, these intergenerational relationships that Black millennials were in exposed them to
networks, narratives, and discourse that influenced their understanding of themselves and the
world around them.

JME Strategies for Cultural Education
Many Black millennial parents reflect on the deep impact that their families and
communities had on their identity formation and their knowledge of their cultures and heritage.
Furthermore, they lament the fact that they were not given any formal education on their
histories until college, and felt that the images on television barely sufficed in terms of this type
of learning. Black millennial parents carry on their experiences of being taught and influenced by

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their families and communities by taking it upon themselves to also educate and socialize their
children. Furthermore, with myriad books, technologies, and resources at their fingertips, they
utilize their information-seeking savviness to further educate their children about race, culture,
and tradition.
Co-parents Rosaline Joseph-Miller and John Gabriel Miller are very intentional about the
media that they use for their children. As both John Gabriel and Rosaline explained, they both
had family members (an uncle and a father, respectively), who were actively engaged in trying to
shape their Black American and Haitian identities, respectively. Both were introduced to books
on the history of Black or Haitian people, and were expected to have conversations and give
reports on their gained knowledge with their family members. Both appreciated the effort and
time that their family put into sharing this information with them; it is no wonder that these two
university professors are actively engaged in doing the same for their own children. John Gabriel
says that they have been introducing books with Black characters in them since his children were
babies. He is also “complementing their school work with stuff related to black history and black
expression.” For example, he has his children, ages nine and seven, connect “the legacy of Dr.
Martin Luther King to Barack Obama to what we see coming down the pike in terms of the
larger political system." Rosaline echoes these sentiments in her interview, in which she claims
her first choice books for her children would feature children of color, or would be “thoughtful in
their approaches” to racial and cultural topics. Her children’s favorite series at the moment is
Jaden Toussaint, The Greatest by Marti Dumas, which features a five-year-old Black boy.
Rosaline, a child of Haitian immigrants, also uses television to talk to her seven-year-old
daughter about immigration. Specifically, they discussed a few episodes of X-Men, a television
show that Rosaline watched in her own childhood:

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So, I remember my daughter was watching - it was like one of the first couple episodes
where the Sentinels, like the robots, are like kidnapping people and locking them up in
cages. And she's like, "Oh, it's like the kids at the camp." And I was like, "what?" But she
was talking about the (immigration) detention centers. So we had a conversation about it.
And she was like, "yeah, you know, they're taking away - they're taking her away from
her family. And they're locking her up. And there's no one to protect her.”

Though Rosaline typically does not want her children to watch X-Men because of the more
mature storylines, she was happy to use this episode as a discussion and “teaching tool” for her
daughter, who drew connections between the fictional story and current events. In their
conversation, Rosaline positioned the X-Men as “good guys” and prompted her daughter to think
about who the “good guys” might be in the case of detained immigrants being separated from
their families (e.g., volunteers). In another episode of X-Men, her daughter equated a senator
who wanted to “lock up” a bunch of mutants to Donald Trump. When Rosaline inquired about
her statement, her daughter replied: “He doesn't care about like black people, or people who are
different, like people who are from different countries. And he just wants everybody gone. And
he just wants everybody to be white." Rosaline was quite intrigued by her “pro-black”
sentiments, and prompted her to connect the senator's comments about mutants to the ways in
which people of color have been treated as mutants.
Not only college professors are intentionally utilizing joint media engagement strategies
to discuss important topics with their children. Chavonne Brown is careful about the media that
her son watches. Specifically, she wants him to see Black people in different roles, positions, and
careers in society. She wants him to know that “Black people can do anything.” He watches
shows like Doc McStuffins on Disney Jr., an animated cartoon in which the main character, a
little Black girl, serves as a doctor figure to her stuffed animals that come alive. Chavonne also
seeks out videos on YouTube and books at Barnes & Noble that depict Black characters in
various positions: “I don’t care if you want to be a ballerina, whatever. I’m showing you a Black

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one.” She notes that these actions are somewhat a response to a lack of seeing these types of
portrayals in her own childhood:
I want him to know what he can be… I want him to know it’s a norm…To see a Black
person in a positive light for me growing up was not the norm. I want him to see them in
every position so it’s a normal thing. So when he gets older, God willing, he doesn’t have
to search for these things. It’ll just be included, and he’ll gravitate to what he needs
versus what he has to have. Just like “Ok, I’m looking for a book on this” – not “I’m
looking for a book on a Black person ‘cause they don’t really exist, like…” [laughs].
Yeah, I want to make it a part of his normal routine that you see Blacks blended
everywhere just like you see everyone else blended everywhere.

Chavonne says that she does not make a big deal to her son about the fact that she seeks out
Black characters for him. Rather, she actively does the seeking, and presents it to him as normal,
everyday life. Her hope is that by the time he is older, he will not need to actively seek out
representation, but rather, he can search for topics of interest and be able to easily come across
reflections of himself.
Dre and Crystal Landon also seek out YouTube videos to show their six- and four-year
old daughters videos of real-life Black girls doing fantastic things; they feel that most of the
current content for children that feature Black characters primarily feature Black boys. Their
girls love the Olympic gymnast, Simone Biles, as well as the ballet dancer, Misty Copeland.
They have also had to have difficult conversations with their daughters about the things they saw
on television. For example, Crystal shared that day, their daughters were playing doctor, when
one of them said, “But I’m not the doctor that did that bad thing to Simone Biles.” Her daughter
was referring to Larry Nassar, the team doctor who had molested over 200 gymnasts across
many years—including several Olympic gymnasts such as Simone Biles.
We had to have a conversation about that, because they do look up to Simone Biles. And
they were like “What happened to Simone?” It was really a lesson for them about like,
why we talk about strangers and not to trust people, why you need to have open
conversation and communication, why you need to tell us if anything ever feels off with

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an adult that we trusted you with. And how, you know, these types of things can happen.
They love Simone, so they remember. Like “how could the doctor do that?”

Their active engagement in seeking out Black girl heroes for their children also resulted in an
opportunity—though an unfortunate one—to speak to their daughters about open
communication, trust, and conversation. Though the girls are only six and four, the video clips
that their parents sought out in combination with the heartbreaking news story about Larry
Nassar’s actions opened the door for an important conversation.
As described before, Black millennials do not only consider their racial identity as a
marker of their culture or heritage. Faith has played a major role in the lives of many of the
participants. This is especially true for Tamia Patrick, who utilizes media primarily to further her
children’s knowledge and understanding of the Bible and to grow their relationship with God.
She and her husband regularly lead a “family time” in which they read their children scripture
that “explains the character of God.” They also utilize the internet by searching for videos like
the Bible Project and Listener’s Kids. Her children especially like the Listener’s Kids YouTube,
which has popular Sunday school songs along with scripture. Tamia is adamant that while her
racial identity is important, her main identity is in Christ; an understanding that she hopes to pass
down to her children. In fact, Tamia encourages her children to prioritize their faith over their
racial identity when making sense of conflict:
Of course, Black people had little more problems than other races. Technically it's not
really, it's not just it's not a color battle…the Bible say we wrestle not with flesh and
blood [Ephesians 6:12]...What we see on the surface—in our natural eye— we'll see like
a black and white thing but it's not. It's a spiritual thing. That's why I tell her in school
even in school if she have anything that come up just pray for that person, pray for that
situation come and tell me. …Don't get caught up in this racial stuff, keep in mind that
it's spiritual.

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Tamia prompts her children to make sense of their life’s circumstances through their faith, and
their families' bonding time and joint media engagement practices are meant to reinforce these
values.

Parent Perceptions: Raising Children for Success

As discussed in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, the familial, social, economic, political, and
televisual contexts of Black millennial childhoods have shaped ideas of success in a very
particular way. For example, the neoliberal context often positioned childhood in manners
characterized by competition, individual success, and success underpinned by high achievement
and career aspirations. Furthermore, histories of both blatant and colorblind systemic racism that
have barred full participation for Black Americans in different aspects of society sometimes
made those very spheres of participation the markers of personal success for Black dream-
makers. Black millennial parents have reflected both on their upbringing as well as the televisual
narratives that they consumed, and how these social, interpersonal, and intergenerational
narratives influenced their dream-making and understandings of success. For some, they feel that
these narratives paid off and led them to where they’d hoped. Others feel that while these
narratives were shared with the best intentions, they were not necessarily the best pathways for
them, or for their children.
Is College the Way?
Most Black millennials in this study emphasized that college was not an option for them,
but an expectation or requirement. Their parents, grandparents, mentors, and teachers each told
them that in order to be successful in life and in order to get themselves ahead in a world that
does not privilege Black people, they would need higher education—if possible, they would need
an elite higher education. Most of the participants in this study did in fact graduate from college

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after following the advice of their loved ones. However, they are not as adamant about college as
their families were with them, and have reflected on why this messaging was encouraged so
strongly.
Chavonne Smith believes that her mother’s generation pushed college so adamantly
because “most of them didn’t have [a college education].” She says: “Because most of them
didn’t have one and most of them struggled—looking at my own parents, aunties, and
grandparents—they all struggled. I think they blame a lot of that on being uneducated. So, their
whole thing is, to give our generation a better chance, we have to be educated.” As Chavonne
reflects on this, she says that she agrees “to an extent” that higher education is important.
However, she believes that life experience can be just as educational. Beyond her own family,
Chavonne believes that the Black community “just believe[s] education is the only way to
survive and make it.” Likewise, Tamia Patrick believes that previous generations had limited
options in their pathways to success:
They felt like that was the only way to succeed in life. You had good grades. You went to
the best schools, then you would be able to get further. Because my parents you know
grew up in the projects, and their mindset once they left there was like “no our kids gotta
have more.” It was always a knowledge thing, gotta know everything, gotta have money,
so it’s like make sure gotta business here start working on a business plan there and you
gotta make sure you know everything so that you can get to certain places. That’s what
they felt like they did.

Tamia’s parents, who grew up in the projects then got an education and steady jobs, felt that
education was the best way to success. More knowledge and education would mean more
stability, mobility, and peace. From the perspective of a daughter of Haitian immigrants,
Rosaline Joseph-Miller says that not attending college would be like a “slap in the face” and a
sign of disrespect to parents who worked extremely hard to come to the United States in order

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for their children to succeed in both higher education and career. In this way, the pursuit of
education is seen as a way in which children can honor their parents.
However, while Black millennial parents see the value in education, many do not plan to
push it onto their own children. Chavonne Smith elevates life experience over education. She
says that while she would like for her son to get a college degree, she is “more concerned with
him being happy in his life instead of just being successful.” She explains that many people, in
her experience, who go the college route are quite miserable: “They have a degree, they have a
nice check, and they’re miserable…I don’t ever want that for him.” As a college graduate with
several acquaintances who are also college graduates, Chavonne perceives that the treasure at the
end of the rainbow is not quite worth it—especially at the cost of one’s happiness. Crystal
Landon expresses these sentiments almost exactly in her interview. She desires for her children
to be “true to themselves, and to have the heart and discipline and perseverance to live life the
way they desire from their heart.” Like Chavonne, Crystal says that she “see[s] a lot of people
who get the smarts, get the money or the intellectual power to make things happen in the world,
but they don’t appreciate it, they don’t enjoy it. They’re miserable, they’re sad.” Crystal believes
that peace that accompanies success comes with “being creative and innovative and making life
to be what it ought to be for you.” The recipe that Crystal suggests is “peace and love and joy
and patience and all of the fruits of the spirit coupled with…material building and empowering
wielding in the world.”
Dre and Crystal Landon also claim that they will only encourage college to children
whose desired path requires college—such as their daughter who wants to become a doctor.
They believe that otherwise, “school is really irrelevant.” Crystal explains that their experiences
with college have somewhat shaped their views on it: “We don’t have the kind of economy to

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support people coming out of school with large amounts of debt, and into professions that aren’t
even valued anymore.” She also points out that students are leaving college with large amounts
of debt, and do not have jobs that can quickly pay those debts off. Dre chimes in by saying that
other than potentially meeting the love of their lives in college (like he and Crystal did), he
would not “sell them some pipe dream like ‘Oh yeah you gotta go to go to college.’ I wouldn’t
put that on them that they have to do it. Honestly things now are very different.” Crystal agrees,
noting that changes in technology have allowed people to take different paths to career success.
Together, Dre and Crystal outline a new conjuncture: one in which technology, innovation, and
entrepreneurship could potentially replace the narrative of higher education that was emphasized
to Black millennials.

Paths Toward Entrepreneurship
Johari Brown, who played basketball through his days in junior college, always dreamt
about being in the NBA: “That’s all I wanted. I didn’t want to do nothing else but the NBA.”
Johari, who grew up on the south side of Chicago, says that “in the hood it’s either a rapper or
basketball player.” His peers around him, as well as the images on television at the time, pointed
to rap and basketball as two of the best career paths for Black men . “I was watching how a
rapper like Young Jeezy—he was riding around in the Benz. And I was like I want to ride around
in the Benz. That’s cool. I legit wanted to do that. So watching them, you know, because of the
big white t-shirts and everything, with the watches. That’s exactly what I wanted to be.” He goes
on to explain how much he desired material things: “I wanted the best clothes. I wanted to be
fresh, like you’d see on TV. To have the Mikes (Michael Jordan Nike shoes). I never had those
type of things. But I was focused on material things.”

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Though his father, a pastor, tried to encourage him to also pastor, Johari was turned off
by the hypocrisy of the leadership in his church. While the NBA was Johari’s dream, looking
back, he sounds disappointed in terms of the pathways he was exposed to: “That’s all I knew. All
we seen was basketball players, athletes. I didn’t know about entrepreneurship, real estate, or
things of that nature.” Now, Johari is deeply interested in entrepreneurship and building
community wealth. He is inspired by the late Rapper, Nipsey Hussle, who was known beyond his
music for entrepreneurship and community activism: “ Nipsey Hussle—I studied that guy. When
I see guys like that rapping about how we can live and about entrepreneurship, that played a huge
role to this day. When Nipsey passed, like damn. Who I’m gonna look up to now?”
Johari says that he tries to “educate” the two 8-year-old children in his custody “as much
as [he] can.” He believes it is especially important for them to know “African culture” and their
“African roots,” and therefore prompts them to “study the history about who they truly are as
kings and queens.” To educate them, he shows them videos on YouTube about Black Wall
Street, Dr. Sebi, Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali. He shows videos of Dr. Sebi—a celebrity
herbalist who believed resources in nature could cure all disease— “so they can know about the
proper herbs and things of that nature.” He is particularly enthusiastic about sharing videos about
Black Wall Street, or what was the wealthy and flourishing Black enclave in the Greenwood
district in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It became the site of the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921 when a mob
burned down homes, businesses, and schools and killed hundreds of Black residents. Not only
does Johari want his children to see that Black people were able to build wealth and to thrive as a
community, but wants “it to be instilled in them about keeping our money within the same
communities.” He emphasizes “the importance of black wealth, the power it can create, and the
power that we have as individuals.”

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Furthermore, Johari states that he wants to instill in his children a confidence in their
blackness, especially to combat anyone or anything that might want to make them feel “less
than.” Beyond being confident in their blackness, he wants them to have a strong sense of
identity, a strong sense of “who [they] are.” This is to serve as a buffer against people putting
them down: “No matter what—a racist person they run into, anything they might deal with. It
ain’t even gotta be a white person. Anybody that’s trying to diminish they character.” Johari
utilized a practice of retrospective critical media literacy to understand the ways in which
media—particularly images of rappers and basketball players—influenced his ideas about
success. Once he came to some new understandings, he decided how he would then train up his
own children in their dream-making and goal-setting.

New Visions of Success
As demonstrated above, Black millennials have deeply reflected on the ways in which
their dream-making practices as well as their visions of success were shaped. These reflections
have led them to take different approaches to their storytelling about success to their children.
These dream-making practices around their children’s upbringing and outcomes are slightly less
rooted in higher education and career, but more in character traits, personal peace and happiness,
generational progress, and faith.
For example, Preston Adams desires “a legacy of faith and freedom for [his] son. He
reflects on all of the people who “sacrificed to get [him] where he is,” as well as the faith they
had in that process: “There is an equation that I am the sum of; that is combined with faith and
the pursuit of freedom.” Tamia Patrick’s ideas of success for her children are rooted in her faith.
Her idea of success is now “knowing of a relationship with the Father” and “becoming one with

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Jesus…Not just an action—the mouth saying, ‘I believe’ and not really having a real change of
heart.” She wants to help cultivate her children’s relationship to God so that “they can grow up
and change generations—not living the abuse or addictions we already know that Jesus is the
only one that can break those things.” David Kirk also alludes to “breaking generational curses”
through faith—a fairly common term in Black faith communities in which “curses” —such as the
ones Tamia mentioned (i.e., abuse and addiction)—are broken, and future generations can
continue without those curses by the renewing power of Jesus. Black millennials aim to be the
ones to break the chain of the generational behaviors and circumstances and cultivate new
patterns in the lives of their children—patterns that can continue for generations to come.
Jasmine Ellis’ dream for her children is also one driven by her faith and her understanding of
purpose. She says that she wants her three boys to “be everything that they're supposed to be,”
and to “use everything that God has placed inside of them—all their gifts and talents.” She also
desires for her boys to “be in a place where they can receive from others and give to others all at
the same time and just live a full life.” Jasmine’s understanding of success is that it is a potential
path laid out by God himself—that he has a purpose and plan for each person, and that he has
placed certain talents in each person to achieve that purpose. In this way, dream-making is a
practice that is co-constructed with God himself.
Many Black millennial parents just want their children to find out who they are, be happy
and at peace, and explore the pathways they desire. Chavonne Smith wants her son to find
himself and find his purpose. She defines “purpose” as “what you’re passionate about in life.”
She feels that college was meant to help people discover those passions and purposes, but instead
was corrupted and now serves only as a means to a financial end: “the big check.” Instead of

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pointing solely to college as the means to finding purpose, she uplifts the importance of
experience:
A lot of people like I grew up around, they don’t know what’s out there. So, if you’re
learning, you get to see and experience even if it is just virtually – what else is out there
beyond the borders of your own community? I feel like education should be used to find
the best version of yourself. Because you don’t know who that person is if you don’t have
any experiences.

Life experiences, in Chavonne’s opinion, are just as valuable or more valuable than formal
higher education. Furthermore, the purpose of education is not to get a degree or a steady
income, but rather to discover oneself and to better oneself. Jasmine Ellis echoes Chavonne’s
sentiments, as she believes that success is “knowing who you are, having peace, having love,
having joy, and then spreading that. And having influence and making an impact.” Diamond
Kirk just wants her children to “be happy and have peace,” and to know that “they don’t have to
do it the traditional way.” She says that she wants to “save them from having the student loan
debt that their parents had.”
John Gabriel Miller reflects deeply on the meaning of “Black success.” He fears that
many people have “uncritical notions of Black success” which would include desires to “join
larger, whiter, more successful spaces. Whether it’s going to college or joining the workforce,
there’s so many messages that are embedded in the way we teach people about what success
means.” He believes that we tell narratives that try to prepare children for success in “the real
world,” but that that world is “synonymous with white.” He says that he resists these notions of
success, and instead focuses on success as happiness: “My sense of happiness has always been
kind of founded in ideas of community. Like not what I do, but like, what I do and who I do it
with.” John Gabriel resists the narratives that many Black millennials were told about success
growing up: work hard, go to school, get a good job, and you will achieve the American Dream.

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He resists hyper-individualized notions of success and instead leans toward community and
being with other people.
Parents’ dream-making and meaning-making about their children’s success seems a bit
different from the success narratives told to them. However, it is likely that their parents also
desired the same things for them: to be happy, to have peace, to learn, to have safety and in some
cases, to know God. However, the means by which Black millennials were told they would
obtain those things was typically through higher education, steady career, and a desirable
location. With changes in the economy as well as changes in technology, Black millennials see
that there are now various pathways to that same type of success. As much as Black millennials
want to disengage from the machine of competition and high achievement, the fact remains that
they and their children must still participate in the system of capitalism in order to survive in this
society and to participate in the spheres of citizenship that Black Americans have historically
been barred from. However, perhaps entrepreneurship, which so many of the parents refer to as
an alternative to higher education and a 9-5 career, seemingly represents more freedom and more
of an ability to lean into ways of being rather than ways of doing. It seems Black millennials do
not want their children to be defined by their achievements, but rather who they are and what
their God-given purpose is. It is still necessary to reflect, however, on the ways in which they
must negotiate with the necessity of capitalist participation.

Perceptions of Today’s Media and Advice to Creators
Black millennial parents have several thoughts about the media available to themselves
and their children today, and are ready to give advice to children’s media creators. For example,
children’s media creators have made consistent efforts to try to diversify their content, especially

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in terms of the inclusion of more people of color. However, while John Gabriel Miller believes
the children’s media industry is “doing a much better job in being conscious of diversity in
general,” he encourages them to “push beyond the black-white binary. White as good and black
as bad still gets reinforced in a lot of ways, and some of the ways it gets reinforced is in the
absence of other diversity.” He pushes industry creatives to further reflect on the ways in which
they present the black-white binary, and to push for the inclusion of other races as well. Rosaline
Joseph-Miller also believes the children’s media industry is “intentionally more diverse,” but still
notices a trend of “sassy Black friends” — a trend she noticed in her own childhood. “Please, no
more sassy black friends,” she pleads. Rosaline does not want to see Black characters with
attitude serving in the role of the best friend or sidekick, but rather complex, layered characters
who are at the center of the narrative.
Furthermore, while Black millennial parents appreciate these efforts and believe they are
necessary, they fear that this effort has replaced the art of storytelling. Preston Adams says that
“diversity is too much of a hot issue right now” and that creators “just need to focus on telling
unique stories.” Rosaline Joseph-Miller also hopes for more complex storytelling. She fears that
because we want to protect children these days so intensely, we have “wrapped them in bubble
wrap” and are afraid to present them with “difficult subjects” in their media. She dislikes that
character development and storylines are “really simple,” and are “dumbed down” for the
children because we don’t think they can handle complexity: “Yes, they're children, and there's
appropriate and inappropriate, but I think the pendulum has swung too far to the other side.
These kids grow up and go to college and can't do anything on their own. I'm glad that I sort of
can go back and find some of the older stuff to share with them.” Rosaline believes that the
media that she grew up on “were much more creative.” Even in remakes of shows that she used

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to watch—like Voltron—she thinks the industry has really fallen flat on character development,
sticking each character into “very small boxes.” She feels that the media of her childhood
allowed characters to grow and develop. They went through difficult circumstances and learned
from their mistakes. Therefore, she often returns to the media of her childhood with her own
children in order to introduce them to what she believes is more complex storytelling.
Crystal Landon believes that the children’s media industry has “erased real children from
TV and movies.” Dre Landon agrees, stating that “real children’ —or live action children—are
“an afterthought.” They want their children to see live action children on television, exploring,
imagining, creating, and being adventurous: “We had Matilda. We had Harriet the Spy. We had
Macaulay Culkin in his prime. All these movies, all the movies that we’re watching with them
came during our childhood. There’s nothing like that now.” In addition to the removal of “real”
children, many Black millennial parents feel like there has been a removal of the family-centered
narratives that they watched when they were growing up. John Gabriel Miller is also
disappointed with the portrayal of fathers, and believes that children’s media content can be
somewhat “anti-parent.” He says, “I hate the way that men are characterized. I've always had a
problem with that, 'cause I feel like most male characters are like doofy and like the dad
character is dumb, and it kinda sits across a whole bunch of different spaces.” While he
recognizes that this was the case even when he was a child, he claims that it bothers him more
now that he is a father himself.
While many Black millennial parents long for the representation of children and families
that they witnessed as children, John Gabriel also wants his peers to be more critical about their
desires. For example, he wishes for his generation to reflect on where their desires come from,
and whether they are in line with hegemonic ideals about education, family, and childhood. He

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would like these images, as well as his peers’ desires for these images, to push beyond their
current boundaries.

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Chapter Six

“That Great Place”: Future Directions of Scholarship and Media Creation

Just as much as this dissertation was inspired by my own childhood, it has been shaped
by my experience with becoming a parent. When I held my first-born child in 2018, I was
completely overwhelmed. I could not believe that I was responsible for keeping this adorable
little human alive, teaching him, and raising him. Knowing that I would be one of his first
examples of love left me feeling both honored and terrified, as I knew I could not love him
perfectly. I felt an unconditional and continuously growing love for him, while also growing
acutely aware of my own downright selfishness. While I had always tried to be kind and giving
toward others, at the end of the day, I could live my life for myself. No one had ever truly
depended on me before—especially not for sustenance or protection. I never had to so readily
give up my time, my leisure, or my sleep. However, in those first few months as a mother, one of
my greatest anxieties was that even with a supportive husband and family, I would have to give
up on my dream to work in and study children’s media.
My love for children’s media started at a very young age, especially because of the
personal impact it had on my own life. In high school, I was already taking classes in children’s
literature and diversity in media in order to begin pursuing my dream of studying or creating
kids’ shows. When I had my son during this doctoral program, I feared that I would have to give
up on this dream because of my responsibilities as a mother. What scared me even more was that
I would gladly do so if necessary. Becoming a mother made me reflect on the origin of my
dreams; it also made me question why I held onto them so tightly. It became abundantly clear
that while I was passionate about working in and studying children’s media, it was an undeniable
idol and stronghold in my life. This dream had become my identity, and if I did not see it

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completely through in the ways I had always imagined, it would mean that I failed. Becoming a
mother brought me one of the greatest gifts I could have ever asked for in my son, and also
brought on one of my life’s biggest battles with God thus far—one in which I struggled over my
identity, worth, performance, and dreams.
In reflecting on these tensions, I realized how deeply affected I was by the narrative of
“going after my dreams” as a child; the notion that I could be anything that I wanted to be. This
was especially true in the very world that I wanted to be a part of: children’s media. I reminisced
about countless storylines, character arcs, theme songs, and songs like “Take Me There” by Mya
and Blackstreet that made the pursuit of a goal seem magical. These were reinforced by cheesy
yet inspirational 1990’s nature posters on the walls of school classrooms with text that told me
that I could create the life I dreamed of. My parents and extended family lovingly encouraged me
to continue to pursue my dreams, and that God had a special plan for my life. I am overwhelmed
with gratitude when I think about how many people throughout my life have supported me in my
own pursuits. However, I internalized the achievement of these dreams as the origin of my
identity and worth. I had always believed that the icing on the cake—the thing that would make
all of my efforts all worth it—would be a dream job in children’s media. I had to rethink my
dream-making practices, which I discovered were heavily shaped by 1990s and early 2000s
neoliberalism; my worth was strongly linked to my productivity and potential value as a laborer.
Instead, I slowly learned, with much resistance, to lean solely on my identity in Christ—the
notion I was already loved by God and valuable without any works or achievement—as my
foundational sense of worth. I could then build the rest of my identity, as well as my dream-
making and parenting practices, on this foundation. I can continue to pursue the dreams that were
crafted long ago, but the pursuit of it—nor its attainment—will define me.

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Outside of my personal story, I have witnessed other Black millennials reflect on their
lives and values differently after becoming parents. They think deeply about their own
upbringings and the things that they currently believe are important. They process stories and
intergenerational narratives from their youth and how this impacted their childhoods and their
sense of their futures as Black adults. They desire to be intentional in their parenting choices, and
to be aware of how those choices are informed by their own lives. Through this dissertation, I
sought to discover more about the meaning-making practices of my peers through research and
scholarship—especially as it related to the television viewership of their childhoods and the
formation of their dreams. As a communication and cultural studies scholar with a focus on
children and media, I was curious to learn how both interpersonal and mediated communication
might have influenced those meaning-making practices. To find out more about these
experiences, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 Black millennial parents who had
children between the ages of 1-13.
As the dissertation slowly took shape, several fields of scholarship were engaged.
Primarily, these were communication and cultural studies, Black pop cultural studies, and
children and media studies. The dissertation also drew somewhat from work on child
development as well as sociology. As is quite common in the tradition of children’s media
research, my approach to asking questions of participants was highly influenced by Urie
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (1977), which is a multilevel approach that
considers macro, exo, meso, micro, and chronosystems in a child’s development. In other words,
I hoped to examine the ways in which different spheres such as the home/family, the community,
school, and cultural and social forces might have influenced Black millennials’ development and
growing understanding of themselves and the world. In addition to asking participants what they

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watched, I asked questions about whom they watched with, who was most influential in their
lives, what their formal education was like, the places that they grew up in, and their dreams for
their own children and their media content. With this diverse line of questioning influenced by
Bronfenbrenner, I was unsure of what would emerge.
What surprised me in the interviews was just how much of the social, political, and
economic contexts that shaped Black millennial childhoods needed to be centered in analysis.
While I assumed race and class would be relevant to findings about Black millennial childhoods
and their television viewership, the extent to which it influenced their meaning-making and
dream-making was quite revealing. As participants shared their stories, it became apparent how
much their childhoods were shaped by their parents’ understandings of success and how to get
there, by perceptions of the places where they grew up, and by family and historical narratives
about Black experiences in the United States. Furthermore, these analyses had to be historical;
the narratives and ideologies that shaped Black millennials were informed not only by the people
who raised them from another generation, but by the forces that also shaped their caregivers’
generations.

Contributions and Challenges of the Dissertation
First, this dissertation has placed interdisciplinary scholarship in conversation in a unique
way that helps us to understand Black millennial childhoods, Black families, and the late 20th
and early 21st centuries. Chapter 1 gives a brief overview of some existing knowledge in the
fields of communication and cultural studies, Black popular culture studies, and children and
media studies. The literature within the tradition of communication and cultural studies examine
media within larger systems of representation, ideology, and citizenship. Media are positioned as

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a site of cultural struggle and a struggle over political and social power (Hall, 1981). While
communication and cultural studies have explored meaning-making within the realms of race,
childhood, and media, this project intentionally examines media and meaning making at the
intersection of blackness and childhood. Within Black studies and Black popular cultural studies,
scholars have centered race in their analyses of popular culture’s role in society and in audience
member’s lives. Scholarship has delved deeply into conceptualizations of blackness and the ways
in which they appear in popular culture—as well as the ways in which these representations are
often mobilized for political gain (Gray, 2004). However, children’s experiences in navigating
formations and representations of blackness have not been studied in depth. Finally, the chapter
demonstrates that within children and media studies, scholars are very thoughtful in terms of
examining the ecological contexts of development and viewership—they often consider the
home, communities, and sociological forces that might shape children’s experiences with media.
However, Amy Jordan and Kate Prendella write that much of children’s media research is firmly
based on Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic ‘WEIRD’ populations”(Jordan
& Prendella, 2021, p. 235). They encourage researchers to conduct more studies on
underrepresented and “invisible” children (ibid, p. 236). This chapter argued that Black
millennials were somewhat invisible, even though children in the 1990s were hypervisible in
politics, such as President Bill Clinton’s intense focus on the future of children. I asserted that
because politics and research are often concerned with the future of children, we often miss out
on capturing the “present-ness” of their childhoods. What are they experiencing now? While this
dissertation did focus somewhat on the dream-making practices about their futures, these
questions were simply a lens through which we could understand how they were experiencing
their childhoods. What did their dreams of the future tell us about their present? Thus, this

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dissertation has contributed to scholarship by placing these three fields in conversation with one
another to address these gaps in research.
Second, this dissertation makes a methodological contribution by aiming to center
storytelling in its approach. Specifically, it asks Black millennials to share narratives about their
childhoods, upbringing, and television viewership now that they are adults. Research on children
and television often focus on media texts themselves, and how those media texts might impact
behavior, learning, or the future of the child. However, in this project, I have asked Black
millennials to share how media texts and their experiences watching them actually impacted
them as children and as adults. Chapter 2 outlined the qualitative and theoretical frameworks that
centered the storytelling of Black millennials as the primary data. It also draws upon feminist and
Black feminist scholarship that asserts that lived experience is knowledge. Chapter 2 argues the
importance of enshrining Black childhood and meaning-making through Black storytelling, and
to approach its exploration through the lens of the social and historical complexities that
surrounded it.
The project took seriously its assertion that Black millennial children’s television
viewership must be analyzed in its social, historical, and political contexts. In Chapter 3, through
historiography and conjunctural analysis, I mapped out many of the forces at work in the
conjuncture of Black millennial childhoods. However, part of the challenge of this chapter was
that each of these social, political, cultural, and economic forces had long histories of their own.
The Chapter had to not only address the conjunctures at work in Black millennials’ lives, but
those of their parents, grandparents, and generations before. As this dissertation repeatedly
argues, parenting strategies can be shaped by the parent’s own experiences and understandings of
the world in which they are raising their children. Therefore, Black millennials' upbringing was

203
shaped as much by their own historical moment of the 1980s through the early 2000s, but also by
the experiences, memories, history that shaped those who raised them. Chapter 3 argued that
many of the lived experiences, parenting strategies, and dream-making practices of Black
millennials were tied to the ways in which Black people throughout the history of the United
States have experienced participation—or the lack thereof—in spheres of citizenship.
Chapter 4 bought personal narratives to the contexts outlined in the conjunctural analysis.
Black millennial parents shared reflections about their childhoods, their family life, the places
where they grew up, and their television viewership. Findings that emerged from Chapter 4 show
that much of Black millennials’ experiences with television content was very much tethered to
their raced and classed experiences, alongside their familial relationships. Some Black
millennials were shaped in a discourse of striving for excellence: they were encouraged to
participate in several extracurricular activities, get good grades, and set their sights on college as
a means to combat systemic racism through credentialization.
Others shared how their family dynamics and relationships provided a lens through which
to see the families on television. On the other hand, the families on television also shaped their
views of their own family relationships. Several participants shared that they did not have fathers
present in their lives, and that this shaped how they viewed Black father figures on television on
shows like The Cosby Show or The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. I personally struggled on the best
ways in which to share these stories. As for the actual stories of the participants, I wished to
honor what they chose to share, especially as these family dynamics greatly shaped their
childhood. However, being hyper-aware of the ways in which Black families, and particularly
Black fathers, have been pathologized, I feared that this analysis would further pathologize Black
families in the minds of its readers. However, my hope is that readers come away from this

204
section of analysis not with judgment, but more so an understanding of the ways in which
personal relationships both shape how children viewed television, and that television shaped how
they viewed their personal relationships.
Chapter 4 also argued that television was one of the primary ways in which Black
millennials participated in an “idealized” form of childhood—one that was characterized by
freedom, play, and imagination. While Black millennials did experience a sense of freedom and
play and the ability to imagine through television, they also viewed certain content with a critical
eye. In their Black child bodies, could they act in some of the same ways they saw other children
act? Ultimately, Chapter 4 demonstrated the ways in which the contexts of Black millennials’
childhood, along with social and economic forces, mediated their relationship to the content that
they viewed.
Finally, Chapter 5 contributed new perspectives for scholarship on critical media literacy.
First, it argues that Black millennials had moments throughout their childhood where they were
already viewing media critically because of their experiences as Black children or as children
from a particular class or neighborhood. Second, it demonstrates the ways in which critical
media literacy can happen over time, or retrospectively. In the case of Black millennials, many
began to reflect on the media that they watched as children as they got older. For others,
becoming a parent caused them to deeply reflect on the messages that shaped them, whether they
want to pass on those messages to their children, and what they hope for in their own children’s
media use. Black millennials were both completely nostalgic for the media of their era, but also a
bit ambivalent about the images and narratives that they were exposed to. They have shown
themselves to be sophisticated consumers of media from the time that they were young until
now.

205
Takeaways for Scholars and Media Practitioners
In scholarship, there is still much room to study the intersection of race and childhood—
and the ways in which media plays a role in that intersection. Furthermore, this study
demonstrates that exploring how Black children viewed and were impacted by the media that
they watched can yield quite powerful and interesting insights into the contexts of their
viewership such as their family life, their neighborhoods, and the intergenerational storytelling
that takes place around various topics. Therefore, the treasure is not only in their experience of
the media itself, but in the potential to learn more about what those media mean in the broader
contexts of their lives. Furthermore, this dissertation prompts scholars studying children and
media to continue to press into their ecological approaches to children’s media use and learning.
However, it is important not only to take note of the children’s current ecological contexts, but
the histories of those contexts as well as the forces that shaped the parents’ or caregivers’
parenting strategies—both in general and around media. While scholars who study children and
media are thoughtful in asking for parent perspectives—as they know parents can be
gatekeepers, learning partners, and mediators—it is necessary to understand how parents have
come to those conclusions, and how they might have been informed by their own personal and
mediated experiences. The final recommendation to scholars studying children is to honor the
present-ness of their childhoods. While it is abundantly clear that the circumstances of childhood
will shape their futures, it is also important to just understand their childhood as they are living
it. What does their childhood mean to them now? What do the media that they are watching
mean to them right now?
For media practitioners, the results of this dissertation result in an encouragement to
continue to expand upon conceptualizations of diversity. The children’s media industry has a

206
history of thoughtfulness regarding race, class, and learning, as iconically demonstrated by
Sesame Street. This tradition continues in the industry today, with several grassroots groups as
well as corporate companies that aim to diversity their content. What the data in this dissertation
suggests is in line with what scholars like Herman Gray (2004) and Stuart Hall (1993) have
strongly asserted: that blackness is not monolithic, nor can it be essentialized. Black millennial
parents’ definitions of their cultures and heritages ranged from place-based pride, to family and
tradition, to personality characteristics, to interests in certain types of activities. With a sample of
just 15 participants, it was clear to see that Black millennials in many ways navigate blackness
differently.
In addition, it appears that in their navigation of media, some Black millennial parents
have come to not trust media. While many media practitioners strive to build relationships and
partnerships with communities—especially low-income families and families of color—it is
interesting to see the ways in which some Black millennial parents have distanced themselves
from these media creators. While they were more likely to trust these same creators who brought
them some of their favorite content as children, some parents have now distanced themselves
from these networks, and media more broadly. Media practitioners have become “they” — a
distant entity that is conspiring against Black people and Black children, hoping to keep them
oppressed. While media practitioners aim to be more inclusive for children of color, it is also
important to delve into this disconnect of trust—especially since these same adults trusted them
when they themselves were children.
Furthermore, media practitioners can also reflect on the ways in which the media that
they create are part of the social, political, and economic forces that shape the children who view
their programming. Black millennial parents showed that they somewhat resist the definitions of

207
success that so shaped their own lives: especially the intense focus on formal and higher
education as a means to achieve the best chances in life. While they cannot fully refuse
participation in the neoliberal, capitalist society in which they raise their children (i.e., they
encourage them to become entrepreneurs as a way to have more flexibility to live the lives they
want), they resist some traditional views of education as savior. However, much of what drives
children’s content today is providing access to learning, educational preparation, and exposure to
different career fields. This is not a call to turn away from these honorable efforts to make
educational opportunities more of an equal playing field through media and technology, but
rather a heads up that parents are hoping to move their children toward their own shifting ideas
about success; these are rooted in peace, spirituality, faith, love, and knowing oneself.
In the end, I hope that this dissertation demonstrates the delicacy of parenting, media
creation, and scholarship. While there is much room for grace, the actions that we take in any of
these realms are never isolated from history, culture, or the economy. Furthermore, they do truly
affect the lives of the children that we study, parent, or create for. I hope that this dissertation is a
call to continue to be thoughtful in the ways in which we intentionally try to shape children; and
ultimately, to be reflective as adults as to why we hope to shape them in these ways.

208
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APPENDIX A

Recruitment Materials

IRB-Approved Recruitment Flier
Do you identify as Black/African-American?
Are you a millennial (born between 1981-1996)?
Are you a parent with at least one child between the ages of 1-13?

Would you like to make $50 by talking about TV shows from the 1990s and 2000s for 90
minutes?

If you checked “YES” for ALL of these questions, you may be eligible to participate in a 90-
minute interview conducted by a researcher at the University of Southern California. Due to
COVID-19, the interview will take place online on the “Zoom” video conferencing service. For
those who do not have access to the Internet at this time, there may be a phone interview as well.

If you are interested, please email Briana at kidsmediaresearch@gmail.com or call/text 424-265-
2245.

219

IRB-Approved Outreach Email to Community Centers and Institutions

Hello,

My name is Briana Ellerbe, and I am a Doctoral Candidate at USC Annenberg School for
Communication and Journalism. My focus is on diversity in children’s media, and I am
conducting interviews with Black millennial parents who have children between the ages of 1-
13. These interviews will center on the television shows that Black Millennial parents watched in
their youth, as well as shows they might currently watch with their children. Participants will be
paid $50 for a 90-minute interview. I would greatly appreciate the circulation of the attached
flier, or any assistance with recruitment.

Interested parents should email kidsmediaresearch@gmail.com or call/text 424-261-5779 to
determine eligibility and to schedule a focus group time.

Your help is greatly appreciated!

Sincerely,

Briana Ellerbe
Ph.D. Candidate
Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
University of Southern California
briana.ellerbe@gmail.com

[Flier attached]

220
APPENDIX B

INFORMATION SHEET FOR EXEMPT RESEARCH

Study Title: Media Experiences of Black Millennial Parents
Principal Investigator: Briana Ellerbe
Faculty Advisor (IRB): Henry Jenkins

You are invited to participate in a study on children’s television shows, conducted by Briana
Ellerbe at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication &
Journalism. Your participation is voluntary. This document explains information about this
study. You should ask questions about anything that is unclear to you.

Purpose of the Study
This research study aims to gather information on your experiences with television shows and
movies from your childhood/teen years, your current media experiences, and whether and how
you use media with your child(ren). You are invited as a possible participant because you
identify as a black/African American millennial parent with at least one child between the ages
of 1 and 13.

Participant Involvement
If you agree to take part in this study, you will be asked to complete a short paper questionnaire
and to participate in a 90-minute interview.

Some of the questions ask about your childhood media habits, your parent/guardian’s
perspectives on media, and some of your favorite TV shows and movies. Other questions ask
about your opinions on current media and children’s media, your children’s viewing habits, and
whether and how you and your children use media together. Some questions on the questionnaire
ask for demographic information. You are not required to answer any questions you do not want
to answer.

Payment/Compensation for Participation
If you agree to participate in this study, you will receive a $50 payment after the interview has
ended. This can be paid through Venmo, Cash App, or as a gift card. You will be asked to sign
two copies of confirmation of payment (one for the researcher, and one for yourself), and to take
a screenshot that you have received your payment.

221
Confidentiality
The members of the research team at the Annenberg School for Communication, and the
University of Southern California Institutional Review Board (IRB) may access the data. The
IRB reviews and monitors research studies to protect the rights and welfare of research subjects.

When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no identifiable
information will be used.

At the completion of this study, anonymized responses to questions, including demographic
information, may be used for future research. If you do not want even this generic information
used in future research, you should not participate.

Investigator Contact Information
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact:

Principal Investigator - Briana Ellerbe at briana.ellerbe@usc.edu
Faculty Advisor (IRB) - Henry Jenkins at hjenkins@usc.edu

IRB Contact Information
If you have questions about your rights as a research participant, please contact the University of
Southern California Institutional Review Board at (323) 442-0114 or email irb@usc.edu.

Please check one of the boxes below:

❏ I agree to participate in this study.
❏ I do not want to participate in this study.

_______________ _________________ _________________
Printed Name Signature Date

222
APPENDIX C

Black Millennial Parent Interview Instrument

[Bold Text] = Interviewer Script/transitions

Section 1. Introductions (1 minute)

Thanks so much for participating in this interview today. My name is Briana and I’m a
Ph.D. student studying communication at USC Annenberg School for Communication. I’m
really interested in children and media, and that’s what most of my research is about.

Hopefully, you’ll enjoy our discussion today. There will be some fun, lighthearted
moments, and possibly some reflective moments. We will be talking about your media use
in your childhood and teen years. I’ll also ask you some general questions that prompt you
to reflect on your life experiences as they relate to identity and media. We will also talk
about your children’s media use - what they watch and what you watch with them.

This interview will be audio and video recorded. This is simply so that I can go back and
listen to/watch our conversations to try to draw some conclusions. Do you allow me to
record? This recording will be for my personal use only. [once started recording] . So
now I have started recording. Your agreement to answer my questions and have them
recorded is a sign of your consent to participate in this study.

This should take about 90 minutes. Please feel free to let me know if you need a break.

Section 1. Basic Information

First, we will just do some very basic questions.

1. What is your name?
2. What year were you born?
3. How many children do you have, and what are their ages?

Section 2. Narrative Influences, Dreams

223
You are still quite young, but I’d like to ask a few questions about your younger years
(particularly your life up through high school). These questions are a bit more reflective
than the previous ones.

1. Where did you grow up?
a. How would you describe the place or places you grew up in?
b. How would you describe the household environment that you grew up in?
c. Did you imagine yourself staying in the city or town you grew up in? Why or why
not?
d. How do you feel the place(s) that you grew up shaped you?
2. Can you name up to three people who you believe were most influential in your life up
through high school?
a. Why were they so influential?
b. Were there any snippets of advice that each of these people gave to you that have
shaped you and stuck with you?
3. What was your formal educational experience like up through high school?
4. Outside of the home and your formal education, were there any other major formal or
informal commitments that you spent time with (i.e., sports, faith, community center,
after school program, tutoring program)?
a. For each of these places, how, if at all, did it shape your identity?
b. How, if at all, did it shape your perspective on your life during that time?
c. How, if at all, did it formulate your ideas about your future?
5. From childhood through high school, what were some dreams (i.e., hopes for your future)
that you had?
a. What inspired or influenced you to have that dream?
b. Do you still have the same dreams, or have they changed at all as you’ve gotten
older?

Section 3. Heritage and Culture
1. In general, how would you define your heritage or culture (this can be part of Black
culture, but if you define yourself by other cultures such as family, nationality, religion,
etc., you can also talk about these)?
2. [For each heritage/culture mentioned]: Growing up, did you feel that your formal
education taught you about your heritage/culture?
3. Growing up, were there any informal sources (media, trips, museums, etc.) that taught
you about your heritage/culture?
4. Do you recall if there was a moment as a child that you first realized that you were
Black?
a. What was your understanding of what it meant to be Black?

224
b. What influenced your understanding of what it meant to be Black?
5. What are your children’s understandings of their heritage/culture? In other words, is this
something that is talked about in your family?
a. Have you ever taken action to teach them about their heritage/culture? This could
mean through conversation, taking them somewhere, passing down stories or
songs, watching something on TV or online, etc.?

Section 4. Coviewing Memories and Media Attitudes

Thank you! Now, I’d like you to think about your television viewing while you were
growing up (from childhood through high school).

Own Upbringing
1. What word or phrase best describes the general attitude toward media in your house
growing up?
2. Who did you usually watch TV or movies with (For example, did you watch alone? With
siblings? With a parent or grandparent?)?
3. Did an older adult (like a parent, guardian, or grandparent) ever introduce you to shows
or movies that they enjoyed watching? If so, what were they?
a. Did you watch with them?
b. What, if any, are some of your favorite memories of watching TV shows or
movies with an adult?
4. Do you think it is important for parents to watch television with their children? Why or
why not?

Parent Mediation
5. Do you think that your parents’/guardians’ attitudes toward television use in your house
growing up has influenced the way you look at media use for your own child(ren)?
6. How would you describe your role in your child’s media use (i.e., bystander, active
participant, broker)?
7. What does your child like to watch?
a. How do you feel about the content available for your child to watch today?

Section 5. Nostalgic Kids Content

I am hoping we will have fun with this next set of questions!

225
1. Can you tell me some of your favorite kid TV shows growing up? To clarify, I am talking
about shows that were specifically made for kids (probably shows on PBS, Nick,
ABC/Disney, etc. You have a sheet to jog your memory).
a. [For each show] What did you like about the show?
2. Did the shows you watched impact:
a. Your ideas about what it meant to be a child?
b. Your ideas about what it meant to be a black child?
c. Your ideas about what is important in life?
d. Did it impact you in any other way not mentioned?
3. Did you feel represented by the characters in the shows you mentioned?
4. Did you feel represented by the types of stories told in the shows you mentioned?
5. Do you remember any children’s shows from that era that featured black children and
families (i.e., they were the stars, or were central)?
a. Which characters stood out to you? Why?
6. Do you ever still talk about these shows with your friends, family, or children?
7. Do you have access to the shows that you watched as a child?
a. If so, do you ever seek them out to watch them? Where?
8. Have you ever watched shows that you watched as a child together with your child(ren)?
a. If so, how/on what platform?
b. What was that experience like for you?
c. Why did you choose to watch those shows with your child(ren)?
9. As a quick addition, can you think of any kid MOVIES that you watched that might have
impacted you?

Section 6. “Golden Age” of Black Television?

Now I’d like for you to think about shows from the 1990s and early 2000s that seemed to be
created for young Black audiences or were popular with Black audiences (you have a sheet
to jog your memory).

1. What shows, if any, did you watch?
a. [For each show] What did you like about the show?
2. Did these shows impact:
a. The formation of your identity?
b. Your ideas on what it means to be a black person?
c. Your ideas about what is important in life?
d. Your ideas about your future?
e. Did it impact you in ways not mentioned?
3. Did you feel represented by the characters in the shows you mentioned?
4. Did you feel represented by the types of stories told in the shows you mentioned?

226
5. Do you ever still talk about these shows with your friends, family, or children?
6. Do you feel that you have access to the shows that you watched as a child?
a. If so, do you ever seek them out to watch them? Where?
7. Have you ever watched shows that you watched as a child together with your child(ren)?
a. If so, how/on what platform?
b. What was that experience like for you?
c. Why did you choose to watch those shows with your child(ren)?
8. As a quick addition, can you think of any MOVIES geared toward black audiences that
you watched, and you felt impacted you?

Section 7. Dreams for your children

1. What would you consider to be a successful life for yourself from this point forward?
2. What do you hope for your child, now and in their future?
3. What values do you want to instill in your child?
4. How do you or might you use media to pass values and information along to your
children?
5. If you could speak to people who create media, how might you ask them to improve the
media that they create for your child(ren)?
6. If you could be more involved in the creation of media for your children, what kind of
role would you want to have?

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Asset Metadata

Creator Ellerbe, Briana Lyn (author)

Core Title "Wonders and wishes": contexts and influences of Black millennials' childhood television viewership

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication

Degree Conferral Date 2022-08

Publication Date 07/26/2024

Defense Date 06/03/2022

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Black millennials,children,children's media,communication,conjunctural analysis,cultural studies,historiography,OAI-PMH Harvest,parenting,race,television

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Frazier, Robeson Taj (committee chair), Jenkins, Henry (committee member), Pastor, Manuel (committee member), Trope, Alison (committee member)

Creator Email bri.ellerbe@gmail.com,pressey@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC111374357

Unique identifier UC111374357

Legacy Identifier etd-EllerbeBri-10907

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Ellerbe, Briana Lyn

Type texts

Source 20220728-usctheses-batch-962 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu