ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 16, 1996 TAG: 9601160037
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: LYNN ELBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
David Milch is a big-time TV producer, of ``Hill Street Blues'' and ``NYPD Blue'' fame, who got in hot water saying he doubted black Americans could write successfully for television.
David Mills is a young black writer who took exception to Milch's attitude and told him so in a blunt letter.
Now, the writer is working for the producer. The result: ``NYPD Blue'' is a better show.
And the talented Mills has a job he deserves.
Judge for yourself - a story by Mills is the basis for ``The Backboard Jungle,'' tonight's episode (10 p.m., WSET-Channel 13) of the police drama created by Milch and Steven Bochco.
In the racially charged tale, a black-organized community event ends in murder and the pressure is on Lt. Arthur Fancy (James McDaniel) - who decided against a police presence at the basketball game - to find the killers.
Under pressure, the police squad's veneer of tolerance cracks. White Detective Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) utters the despised epithet ``nigger,'' provoking a confrontation with the black Fancy.
``I've been dealing with white cops like you since the academy,'' Fancy tells Sipowicz. ``I could manage you with my eyes closed. Now, maybe you can't handle a black man being your boss.''
``Backboard Jungle'' is a sharp-edged, subtle take on the police racism issue that got a far splashier Hollywood treatment via Detective Mark Fuhrman and the O.J. Simpson trial.
The episode shines a rare spotlight on Fancy's character in a show designed to focus on lead actors Franz and Jimmy Smits - and illustrates why it matters that TV puts a pen in other than white hands.
If those hands are talented, of course. Which is the point that Mills made to Milch.
The 34-year-old Mills, a former Washington Post feature writer who started his TV career with a script for ``Homicide: Life on the Street'' and a ``Picket Fences'' staff job, read about Milch's comments on black writers made at a seminar in fall 1994.
Milch told the gathering that blacks were more likely to create powerful, but not commercially successful, art out of their experience.
``Maybe disingenuously, I assumed that, since I was addressing a group of professional writers, I could speculate candidly about the realities of our business,'' Milch writes in his new book ``True Blue'' (co-written with former detective Bill Clark).
Milch's widely reported comments, in which he also talked about his difficulties writing a black character and Sipowicz's racism, provoked a flurry of criticism - including Mills' letter.
``To me, it's the Dirty Little Secret of TV drama - rampant white mediocrity, combined with a virtually absolute absence of black writers,'' Mills wrote to him. ``And as a black man who can write, this makes my blood boil. You call this a `meritocracy?' ''
To his credit, Milch met the writer for breakfast - and gave him a forum to make his case.
``I knew he was first and foremost a storyteller,'' Mills said in a recent interview. ``I made a moral appeal, but more so I appealed to him on the basis of the product: `You're doing a show about crime in New York City and you don't see the value of having a black voice around the [writers'] table?' ''
Milch picked up the breakfast tab and the gauntlet, giving Mills a chance to write a script for ``NYPD Blue.''
The result, which aired last year, was an episode introducing Fancy's younger brother and their generational clash as they coped with racist colleagues. It earned Mills a job on the series.
Mills is the only black on the formerly all-white-male writing staff (a woman also has been hired). He is among the less than 300 blacks who are part of the 7,900-member Writers Guild of America, West.
``In these times, I can imagine reactionary elements saying `Well, he [Milch] was buffaloed into putting a black and a woman on his staff. ... That we're here at the expense of more worthy whites,'' says Mills.
All the ``NYPD Blue'' writers are there, insists Bochco, for one reason: They have skills to contribute.
``There is absolutely no point to having a black writer just because he or she is black. The only value to any writer is their talent, and this guy [Mills] is a deeply talented man,'' Bochco said.
One who looks forward to the day when he might be in the powerful position of a Milch or Bochco and be able to pull other black writers into the Hollywood circle.
``It's time we destroyed this mindset. I'm half angry because I bought into it myself,'' says Mills. ``It's one thing if there are zero blacks writing on staff in dramatic television if all the whites are good, if merit is the standard.
``But merit is definitely not the standard. And blacks should be allowed to be as mediocre as anybody else.''
LENGTH: Medium: 91 linesby CNB