You know who  you are. You have been loud, screaming, yelling and calling people who watch, relate and enjoy the BET show Being Mary Jane every name under the sun meant to hurt and injure. Don’t try to play it off  now. I know who you are starting with me.

That’s right. I’m going to point the thumb and say I was somewhat wrong about this show and for that I apologize. I assumed, like many of you that won’t identify yourself, the show as about a materialistic, weave wearing, broken black woman, sleeping with a married man and whoring around while doing well in her profession and career.

Turns out, most of that is correct which is why I said I was “somewhat wrong”, but the show is actually much deeper and has much more happening.

After watching the two hour season finale yesterday, I discovered Mary Jane has layers. She is flawed, dealing with many different issues, but the focus of the show isn’t just about her adulterous meet ups. It is about a woman who is trying to put her life and family together when things haven’t quite worked out like planned. This is what many people can relate to in this this show.

Unexpectedly, she doesn’t stick around in the affair. I thought for sure that was going to be the cliff hanger. Broken black woman waits in the wings hoping her married beau will leave the wife and family, but it didn’t happen.

Mary Jane broke it off and he is trying to work it out with his wife and family. Mary Jane even apologized to the wife. Crazy! (Can’t even imagine.)

Why You Should Really Apologize

I don’t want to turn this into a recap of the show. If you want to know what else happened and all the messy drama, then you have to go and watch the replay. I want to get to why you should apologize in addition to Being Mary Jane not being what most of us thought it was.

The real reason is because this show took on some of the key issues the black community have in America, the prison industrial complex. Mary Jane even mentioned Michelle Alexander’s ground breaking book, The New Jim Crow, during her television show. She is a news broadcaster on what seems like a cable network.

In fact, Mary Jane committed on air to take on the fight against the prison industrial complex on air in honor of her friend that committed suicide. Ludacrous played the friend.

When I made this remark during the show on the UI FB page, someone retorted they would hardly call it taking on the issue…and I must agree. Mary Jane didn’t spend 20 minutes the fictional drama laying out the details of The New Jim Crow and the prison industrial complex, but she did bring it up. They have obviously commited to doing it again in future episodes.

While this isn’t what we all might want, but they brought it to light to a demographic that might not have read or heard of Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow, or the prison industrial complex. This is more than can be said about the music, the educational systems, the news and much of social media, so please give some credit where it is due.

Is Being Mary Jane a real life, political action thriller filled with valuable history lessons and motivation for the black community? No. It is not, …….

But it isn’t Real House Wives of Atlanta either.