Black geeks and all-American Muslims

The Tigers didn't make it to the Series (and the Cardinals won it all again, dagnab it!), but you still can see positive images of Metro Detroit on national TV this fall, especially representatives from our two most prominent ethnic groups.

Take Sunday, for example. If your only exposure to African-Americans was on television through daytime court shows (like our beloved Judge Mathis) or primetime reality or cop series, you might believe the majority of black people are undereducated, government-supported, philandering, ill-mannered, baby-producing, crack-smoking parolees. It's the most insidious type of stereotype, possibly surpassed only by the video depiction of every Arab American as a suspected terrorist. 

But at 8 p.m. Sunday on CNN — the Cable News Network, so it must be real — TV will show us a group of articulate, brainy, highly motivated tech entrepreneurs who just happen to be African-American. (You actually can see a gentleman of color use the word "eviscerated" in a sentence! It's inspiring.) Then, two hours later, at 10 p.m., TLC offers a unique and provocative glimpse into what it's like to be equally proud of being Muslim and a U.S. citizen with the premiere of the eight-part reality series All American Muslim, produced in and around Dearborn.

Leading off is the fourth in CNN's Black in America documentary specials, "The New Promised Land — Silicon Valley." And the California region where American enterprise is booming and the next Facebook could be just an investors' pitch away might be harder for blacks to enter than the Pearly Gates. According to the on-air statistics related by anchor Soledad O'Brien, 80 percent of all dot-com businesses launched by first-time entrepreneurs fail, and less than 1 percent of all venture capital financing in 2010 went to digital startups created by African-Americans. "This is a white and Asian world here, it just is," one resident observes. You'd have better odds of starting at wide receiver for the Lions.

Nevertheless, eight black tech pioneers from across the country agreed to spend last summer crammed into a boxy three-bedroom house in Mountain View, Calif., for something called the NewMe accelerator program. They shared ideas and strategies while competing for funding to become the next (well, probably the first) black Mark Zuckerberg, as CNN cameras recorded their every move. It's like Shark Tank meets The Real World, with a little Big Brother sprinkled in. 

Among the expectant eight was Detroiter Hajj Flemings, former Ford Motor Co. engineer, self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur, co-founder of the "instant identity kit" called gokit.me, and originator of the annual "Brand Camp University" personal branding conference held earlier this month at Wayne State.

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