My friend is a big snowboarder. She is black. When I first told her about this web series, she insisted that I do an episode about winter sports. When she mentioned this idea, I was skeptical mainly because I had some friends who skied. I told her that I would be open to the idea, knowing deep down inside that I wasn’t really open to the idea.

Then, I did the interviews with people on street. Almost every single person I spoke to, when asked to give their own “black folk don’ts” said black folk don’t ski. It was pretty remarkable. Now I am in New York City so possibly the answer might be different in Denver or Chicago but black folk don’t ski was by far the number one choice of people on the street.

We decided to expand the topic to winter sports partially because people would say ski or snowboard and clearly these two things are not the same. Also, by having the episode focus on winter sports, we could open up the conversation to discuss African Americans and sports in a more general way. Sports are a major part of our identity and the commodification of sports had both helped us and hurt us. (We don’t go that deep into it but we do go there a little bit.)

So I hope you enjoy this episode and, as usual, feel free to comment on our Facebook page or via Twitter @blackfolkdont.

When we were deciding episodes, I was invited to show a film at a festival in Olomouc, in the Czech Republic. I love to travel so if you are buying my ticket, I will go … anywhere! Everyone was really nice there and I had a great time. But I was shocked by how retro the experience was. Not only were there no dark people of any kind in this town (and I looked), but also people’s reaction to me was as if they had never seen a black person up close. People were fascinated by my hair, my skin. It was a little crazy to be exoticized in this way.

Knowing that Prague is one of the world’s biggest tourist cities. I decided to make a concerted effort to stop there and get a fuller picture of the Czech Republic. I decided to look for other Black tourists to interview for the series. (The beauty of a HD Flip camera) As I looked around, I saw a total of three people, amongst hundreds and hundreds of tourists. I was fascinated why there were so few people.

Many people disagreed with this episode so I thought it was important to show that in the answers we included. Travel is complicated because it is a socio-economic issue. Still I do think that the experience I had on this trip was reflective of an experience that many other people have had in their travels, especially throughout certain areas in Europe.

What do you think? Watch the episode and comment. Or let your thoughts be know on Twitter @blackfolkdont.

This episode is one that I wanted to do because I thought it was important. It wasn’t one that leaped to mind for people. However, when I interviewed people about therapy they all agreed that there is a big stigma in the black community around it.

This episode is important for me because I have had a lot of experience with therapy. My mother had bipolar disorder and I spent most of my life in a therapist’s office. My mother was in therapy twice a week and my parents eventually had me go to therapy to cope with her being in therapy. When I tell people this, they immediately feel sorry for me. Yes my mother’s mental illness took a toll on our family but being in therapy felt really normal. It was a part of my life and I knew that my mother was at her best when she was talking to someone about her problems. I, myself, liked having someone to talk to that wasn’t a relative or a friend about my inner thoughts. (Plus, my therapist had a really good hot chocolate recipe that I still have not been able to replicate to this day.) I know that being exposed to therapy that young has had a profound effect on me and I know that I am a stronger person for it.

Still, I always had a sense that I wasn’t supposed to talk to people about our family being in therapy. Growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood in New York, I understood that it was very, very important for everyone to believe that our family was just a happy go lucky family. This was very difficult for us to keep up, very difficult.

I know that there is a stigma around therapy in general and that this stigma is not tied to being Black per say. Notwithstanding I do think the stigma in the black community is a very specific phenomena that I was interested in having people talk about. Everyone we interviewed agreed that black folk don’t go to therapy and the reasons are very complex. Though many of the people we interviewed had gone to therapy themselves, they still had people in their lives that they didn’t feel comfortable sharing this information with.

We want you to share all of the episodes but make a special effort to share this one with anyone you think might appreciate it.

On the set with Black Folk Don't series creator Angela Tucker

First, I am black. You might not know that so let me begin my introduction that way. It might matter to you. It might not. But I thought I’d begin there.

A good number of Black people have heard it in some colloquial way. “Black folk don’t …” add your own phrase. Who defines this? That is complicated and complex but worth an attempt at an explanation. In some cases, “Black folks don’t” is a statistical fact. Black folk don’t go to the doctor in the numbers they should.

In other cases, “Black folk don’t” is an anecdotal idea and concept that is based on a negative stereotype. However, stereotypes are based in truth and in some cases, these ideas are true about Black folk. Ask any waiter. Black folk don’t tip. It’s just true. But Black folk do tip their hairdressers or barbers so go figure.

I approached Black Public Media with six potential episodes. At first, we were going to reach out to people via social networks to vote on the episodes. But then I decided to do it the old fashioned way. We polled people on the streets. (I am old fashioned and really enjoy face to face conversations. I highly recommend talking to strangers about this kind of topic. It is fascinating.) From those conversations, we came up with a new list of episodes. When every single person you interview says the same thing, even if you don’t necessarily agree, it inspires you to change your list. So we did. That was a really exciting part of the process.

In the end, no one is an expert on “being black” so my Production Manager and I decided not to kill ourselves trying to book Cornel West. Instead, we reached out to people that had original points of views and were articulate. (I mean articulate in a, “You can be vocal and concise about your ideas.” kind of way, not in a “You sound so smart for a black person.” kind of way.) Essentially we chose people who were either our friends or who seemed like they could be.

We filmed the exterior interviews in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and Harlem. The studio interviews were at a yoga studio, Kula Yoga Project to be exact. (I used to work there so I got the hook up.) We shot on the Canon 5D and 7D with fancy lenses. (I can’t tell you which ones – shout out to our amazing DPs Shawn Peters and Eliana Alvarez Martinez — but there are many, many websites devoted to teaching you how to make the Canon look as pretty as possible.) I wanted to use these cameras because I think they make black skin look really beautiful.

So why no one of other races in the series, particularly white people? Well, there are some people who are Latino in the series. A big topic of discussion in the interviews was this question of what is black? Some people see it as a cultural identity and some see it as a color of your skin kind of thing. Each person had their own take on this. Anyway, I have two answers to this. One, would you want to be the white person commenting on what black folk don’t do on a web series? But seriously, the conversation happening amongst the interviewees  is meant to feel like a conversation that you would have amongst friends or family. We welcome discussion from people of all races but that was the initial intent. (There were people of all races on the crew and I might make them talk about their experiences in a blog entry coming soon.)

I worked with my editor, Michelle Chang, long and hard to cut the episodes. There were several long conversations. Michelle is someone who challenges me a lot, in a good way. These are many complicated ideas here, which required a lot of thought and debate. I will admit that I underestimated that but we’re happy with the result. No idea was just put out there without thinking about what we are saying and what this means. We hope you like it or at the very least, we hope it sparks some kind of conversation.