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We Cannot Underestimate The Significance Of Our Fave Sitcoms

Streaming giant Netflix has finally decided to give UK audiences the iconic black 90s and 00s sitcoms that USA audiences were granted a little while ago. Sister Sister, Moesha and Girlfriends have now joined The Fresh Prince of Bel Air on Netflix and my timeline has become a hub of nostalgia as well as younger people discovering these shows for the first time. It has been truly beautiful to see the outpouring of love for these iconic shows and the black stars who made them, from the ever-stylish Girlfriends cast, to the adorable Mowry twins and hilarious Fresh Prince cast.

These sitcoms are certainly worthy of this admiration, and even more so when we consider what these images meant in the context of the 90s and 00s. These decades saw the United Kingdom and Presidents Bush (senior) and Clinton trying to hide racist policies in their ‘colourblind’ rhetoric. They did this by focusing on progress already made – or by ignoring race entirely – in order to shift focus from the work that needed to be done.