Entertainment

Why 'New Girl's Race Discussion Is Super Important

It's easy to write New Girl off as a lovably quirky sitcom that only deals with sitcom-y type things. And most of the time, that's a pretty accurate assessment. However, during Tuesday night's New Girl episode "Par 5," the series decided to tackle a major issue that is extremely important: racial profiling. After asking a girl out who vocalizes her disproval of the police and the way they treat people of color, Winston decides to forego telling her his job, fearing that it would offend her, which led to a very important discussion about race between Winston and Nick.

Winston recalls how, when he was younger, he used to always run away from the police, even when he didn't do anything wrong, so he gets where her stance against law enforcement is coming from. But when Nick was trying to empathize with his friend, Winston told him to stop, insisting that Nick just can't relate to the same sort of stigma he experienced while growing up. "I love you, but you’re white, I’m black. I understand where she’s coming from," Winston explains to Nick. And while the conversation eventually transitioned back to Nick doing rather abysmal impressions of Eddie Murphy, the sentiment of the message was received loud and clear. And I, for one, have never been more impressed with New Girl.

Lamorne Morris, who co-wrote the episode BTW, managed to broach a major issue and do so without losing any of that New Girl hilarity we've come to expect from our Tuesday nights. While police brutality and racial profiling are certainly not funny, it's important to open up a flow of discussion about these issues as often as possible, and New Girl managed to do that in a respectful way that maintained the tone of the series. If I had any say in the matter, I'd seriously consider having Morris write many more episodes in the near future. Well done, sir.

Image: Ray Mickshaw/FOX