That's the thing. You have to, like...
you know...
The bigger part about being a parent
is you got to control the media your kids take in.
You know, you can't just let them watch anything on TV.
And we're really lucky in my household
'cause my oldest daughter is six,
and right around the time my daughter
Sami started wanting to watch TV,
the show Doc McStuffins premiered.
Some of you know what I'm talking about.
The rest of you, come along for the journey.
Here we go.
Doc McStuffins is one of the greatest TV shows
in the history of television.
Not one of the greatest kids TV shows.
One of the greatest television shows.
I'll put it up against The Wire and The Sopranos any day.
I watch that show. I'm excited for new episodes.
Let me explain.
Doc McStuffins is about a little black girl,
who's six years old, and she's a doctor
for her stuffed animals and toys.
She wears a stethoscope, and it's magical,
and when it makes a sound, all the toys come to life.
They don't explain how it works. Voodoo? I don't know what it is.
But when her toys have problems,
like they break their arm or they’re feeling tired,
she tells them what to do.
"You need to take a nap. Here's a cast."
And so she's actively being a doctor...
on the show,
as a six-year-old black girl.
-Have I blown your mind, yet? -Yeah!
There's more.
So it gets kids ready to go to the doctor,
not afraid of the doctor.
It also teaches kids how to speak up
for themselves in general.
There was an episode about inappropriate touching.
There was an episode where one of the stuffed animals was like,
"Well, of course storms are getting worse.
That's global warming."
Holy shit!
Doc is more woke than our president!
Wait. There's more.
On the show, Doc's mom, who's a black woman,
is also a doctor of real patients.
And we've been to her practice in the show.
She's got her own private practice,
so we know she's balliiiiiiiiiing!
And Doc's dad...
Black man. I don't know what he does.
He's just always in the kitchen cutting vegetables.
I don't know what’s happening.
I don't know if he gets paid for that,
but he's alway like, "Would you like a carrot?"
Which is, like, "Oh, my God, black man on TV
offering vegetables! What is this?"
That's never been done before.
No, it hasn't, so, yeah, that's true.
But there's more.
During the commercial breaks on Doc McStuffins,
they actually have real black women,
who are real doctors, in real life,
and they show you their office, and talk about their practice,
and how they became a doctor.
So, my daughters are watching Doc McStuffins,
and watching Doc be a black woman doctor,
they watch Doc's mom be a black woman doctor.
And then they watch real black women being doctors,
so my daughters are, like,
"Yeah. Black women are doctors."
Yeah.
Yeah. It's not even worth clapping about. Yeah.
Black women are doctors.
It's just how the world works. Black women are doctors.
And... we got to see how deep the effect was on Sami
when after she'd watched Doc for about a year,
it was time to go back to the doctor.
And she was excited.
Kids aren't excited to go to the doctor.
But she was excited.
She’s like, "We need to go to the doctor."
She got there.
She sat up on the table, like, "When's the doctor coming in?”
She’s like, “Can I touch the sphygmomanometer?"
And I was like, "Which one is that?"
And then...
the doctor walked in the room...
and it was a white man...
and she was, like, "What the fuck is this?''
''Nah.
Nah, nah, nah.
Mnh-mnh, mnh-mnh, mnh-mnh, mnh-mnh.
Nope. That's not a doctor. That's not a doctor.''
''That's not a doctor.
Frankly, I don't know if white men are ready to be doctors.
I don’t know.
I've never seen a white man doctor.
How would we know if they even know how to become doctors?"
But Sami's also smart.
So, she knew, she had to let us know
that she wasn't cool with the situation.
But she also knew, she had to do so in a way
that let me and her mom know,
but didn't alert the doctor to anything being wrong,
'cause as we've taught her,
you don't want to spook a white man.
You know what I mean?
All the people of color here know that.
You don't want to spook a strange white man.
Keep him in front of you. Make sure...
Right. We all teach our kids that.
You know what I'm talking about, yeah.
You know what I'm talking about.
So, she said something to let us know
that she was ready to go.
But what she said, was something kids never say.
So, I knew she was lying.
She turned to my wife and goes, "I'm sleepy."
"Oh my, God, I'm just so sleepy!
I mean, I'd like to stay with this white man touching me,
but I just feel like...
we should probably go and come back
when...there's a black female doctor here!''