'Twice as good as them' to get half what they have: Racism and the subpar presidency of Donald Trump
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In the first episode of Season 3 on ABC’s hit TV show Scandal, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) gets an epic lecture from her father, Rowan (played by the brilliant Joe Morton). By this time in the fictional world created by writer Shonda Rhimes, the coun'Twice as good as them' to get half what they have: Racism and the subpar presidency of Donald Trump
In the first episode of Season 3 on ABC’s hit TV show Scandal, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) gets an epic lecture from her father, Rowan (played by the brilliant Joe Morton). By this time in the fictional world created by writer Shonda Rhimes, the country knows what viewers have known since early in Season 1, that Olivia Pope is the mistress of the president of the United States. Rowan knows that the successful, overachieving daughter he raised is about to experience hell—not only for being outed as the woman who is sleeping with the married Republican president but also, or perhaps especially, because she is a black woman. As he addresses his soon-to-be-disgraced daughter, he reminds her of a lesson he taught her throughout her childhood: that she, as a black person, has to be twice as good as them (meaning white people) to get half as much as what they have. The show about politics and scandal in Washington, which ended its seven season run this April, was wildly unrealistic in so many ways—though in today’s political climate, the fictional world of Scandal seems way more normal and saner than our current reality. However, this particular scene and what Rowan was attempting to impart to Olivia is a concrete reality for many black people of a certain age who heard the exact same thing from our own parents. Read more