When Representation Dies: The Disproportionate Grief of Losing "Our People"
When Malcolm Jamal Warner died, I didn't just lose an actor I occasionally saw on TV. I lost a piece of my childhood, a representation of Black boyhood that was intelligent and loved, and a reminder of possibilities that seemed within reach.
Sometimes grief doesn't just make you stop—sometimes it makes you start.
When I learned that Malcolm Jamal Warner had passed away a few days ago, I felt that familiar, complicated ache that comes with losing someone who was never really "mine" to lose. But this time, something else happened. That grief—layered and specific in ways that are hard to explain to people who didn't grow up seeing themselves reflected in so few places—finally pushed me to do something I'd been putting off: start this blog.
Sometimes I get the side eye when I talk about Black grief and how we as African Americans carry a disproportionate amount of grief. I know that everyone's loss feels like the worst loss to them—and that's valid. But I also think it's important to acknowledge the specific nuances that exist for the Black community when it comes to grief, especially when we lose someone who represented more than just a celebrity to us.
Malcolm's death hit differently. Not that it wouldn't have affected others, but for those of us who are Generation X kids who grew up in the 80s and 90s, who grew up with The Cosby Show as a template for what Black families could look like outside of the limited narratives we usually saw—this loss carries additional weight.
More Than TV Family
The thing about The Cosby Show is that it wasn't just about Dr. Huxtable being a doctor or Claire being a lawyer. It was about the kids. If you grew up during that era, the Cosby kids felt like family. At least they did to me. And scrolling through social media after hearing the news, I keep seeing the same theme from other people of color: "I feel like I lost my brother."
I never had a brother, but if I had, he would have been like Malcolm Jamal Warner. Throughout the years after the show ended, whenever I'd catch him on some random show—Touched by an Angel, Malcolm & Eddie, Major Crimes—it was like seeing family. "Oh, there's my brother. Good to see him continuing on, doing his thing."
This is what I try to help people close to me, who happen to not be people of color, to understand about representation, especially growing up in the 80s and 90s when we had so little of it. Anytime there was a Black person doing anything on television, it was essential for a Black kid's confidence and sense of possibility. Whether it was Black people on TV or in sports, someone we were all rooting for—when a Black person won, it literally felt like your family won. Like those were your people.
And that could propel you into whatever your purpose was or whatever you thought your purpose could be.
Understanding Disproportionate Grief
When I use the term "disproportionate grief," I need to be clear about what I mean. It doesn't mean that one community's grief is more or less important than another's. One of the most important lessons I've learned in my grief education journey was not to compare "griefs." Everyone's grief is the worst grief to them.
What I mean by disproportionate is contextual—the additional layers of loss that exist when someone passes away who represented not just entertainment, but possibility, family, and cultural connection all wrapped into one person. Research supports this understanding: Wilson and O'Connor's work on grief among Black Americans explores how personal and collective grief intersect in unique ways within our communities, creating what they describe as grief that moves "from grief to grievance"—where individual losses connect to broader patterns of systemic loss and historical trauma.
Grief, as we know from research, is our response to loss. And loss and grief are separate things. Loss is what we experience—it could be bereavement from losing someone living, or it could be losing something more abstract but equally meaningful. Like losing your brother from childhood who happened to be on TV, along with all the memories and feelings that come with that. The laughter in your household during a Gordon Gartrell shirt episode, even when other things happening at home weren't funny at all.
When Representation is Scarce, Loss Hits Different
What research on parasocial relationships tells us is that the connections we form with media figures can be genuine and meaningful, even though they're one-sided (Horton & Wohl, 1956). Recent research has shown that people often perceive these one-sided relationships as more effective at fulfilling emotional needs than in-person acquaintances, though less effective than close relationships (Lotun et al., 2024). But in communities where representation has been historically limited, these relationships carry additional significance. When you rarely see yourself reflected in media, the few figures who do represent you become more than entertainers—they become symbols of what's possible, mirrors of your own potential, and yes, chosen family.
This is why Malcolm's death—and the deaths of other Black public figures—can trigger what feels like familial grief in our communities. It's not just about losing a celebrity; it's about losing a piece of our collective identity, a reminder of possibility, and sometimes one of the few positive images we had growing up.
The research on minority stress and historical trauma helps explain why certain losses hit marginalized communities differently. Wilson and O'Connor (2022) note that for Black Americans, individual grief often intersects with collective grief in ways that amplify the experience—when we lose figures like Malcolm, we're not just mourning one person but confronting the ongoing reality of limited representation and the historical patterns of loss our community has endured. When your community has experienced systematic exclusion and limited representation, the loss of visible figures who provided hope and connection can feel existentially threatening in ways that go beyond typical celebrity mourning.
Context, Not Hierarchy
As I continue exploring not just Black grief, but grief from cultural perspectives, I want to be clear: I'm not exploring this from a standpoint of something being better or worse than something else. I'm exploring it from the standpoint of context. And context, at the end of the day, is the most important thing when you're looking at any complex phenomenon.
Understanding the disproportionate grief that communities with limited representation experience doesn't diminish anyone else's grief. It simply acknowledges that loss occurs within cultural contexts that shape how we experience and process it.
When Malcolm Jamal Warner died, I didn't just lose an actor I occasionally saw on TV. I lost a piece of my childhood, a representation of Black boyhood that was intelligent and loved, and a reminder of the possibilities that seemed within reach when I watched him on screen.
That's not more important than anyone else's grief. But it is different. And in understanding those differences, we create space for all kinds of grief to be seen, honored, and held with the complexity they deserve.
"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us." - Helen Keller
References:
Horton, D., & Wohl, R. R. (1956). Mass communication and para-social interaction: Observations on intimacy at a distance. Psychiatry, 19(3), 215-229.
Lotun, S., Lamarche, V. M., Matran-Fernandez, A., & Sandstrom, G. M. (2024). People perceive parasocial relationships to be effective at fulfilling emotional needs. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 8185. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-58069-9
Wilson, D. T., & O'Connor, M.-F. (2022). From Grief to Grievance: Combined Axes of Personal and Collective Grief Among Black Americans. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, 850994. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.850994
