How Can We Learn From Our Mistakes if We Erase Them?

0

MINOT, N.D. — My daughter loves “The Office.” So do I.

This summer we had a standing lunch date. I’d get the food ready, and then we’d sit down and watch an episode or two.

In the final season of the show, there’s a scene where one of the characters, a white man, appears, briefly, in blackface. As we watched the episode, I was thinking about the conversation my daughter and I would have about blackface. The history of it, and why it’s offensive.

Only, the scene never happened. Turns out, NBC (which owns the rights to the show) and Netflix (the medium on which we were watching it) have sent it down the memory hole.

Apparently, similar scenes were also cut from shows like “Community,” “30 Rock” and “Scrubs.”

Continue reading…