>>105442350>Nothing wrong with racemixing.There's a general fetishization in black culture of black men "marrying up" by getting with white women, but when it comes to the larger racial politics it feeds into the idea of betraying your people by marrying out.
>Which everyone should so.>What?The crux of it "rebel, cool professions good, authoritarian uncool professions bad." The idea is becoming something like a prosecutor makes you The Man and The Man is responsible for keeping The Black Man down and the Black Man gets his by hustling his personal, physical or lyrical skills for material gain. Riley exists for this kind self destructive mentality.
Note that the show treats this mentality in general as A Bad Thing and I'm agreeing with it. The fundamental mentality behind it is routinely criticized for helping to perpetuate the problems of the African American community. That's why it's shown as retarded thing to criticize in the R. Kelly episode. But in general Tom exists to show that just because it's not wrong to do these things doesn't mean they can't be motivated by other self destructive tendencies. Tom has actual hangups that are a result of him being black and trying super hard to not be stereotypical. It's not entirely racially driven and is treated largely as a joke, but Tom's motivation is eventually revealed to stem from being traumatized by the idea of being raped in prison and highlight the irony that his job mostly consists of sentencing other men, especially black men, to end up in just that situation.
He's not in much more a healthy place than the other characters, mentally, but he is less of an asshole and at least his family is generally happy if a bit fucked up. His daughter's greatest sin is mostly being a wide eyed, somewhat spoiled optimist and his wife is eventually revealed to be similarly messed up like Tom, such as having a fetish for black men and more stereotypical black culture and behavior.
