One of my favorite shows on television is “Black-Ish.” The comedy features a wealthy black family living in Los Angeles and the way they handle life with four children and quirky in-laws.

“The Cosby Show” was the first to break that 1970s “moving-on-up” stereotype with the father as a doctor and his wife as a lawyer. There was humor in the show, but seldom did the writers venture into uncomfortable subject areas like “Black-Ish” does most weeks.

A recent episode was entitled “Hope,” and it caused quite a bit of reaction from viewers. The show opens with Andre and his family watching a riot in Los Angeles after a white policeman is acquitted of shooting a young black man.

The real question the show brings up is “how do we explain bigotry and hate to our children?” In light of the bombing in Brussels this week, the question is one all of us, no matter our skin color, find ourselves asking.

Bigotry isn’t new nor is killing in a deity’s name. In many religions, like the Aztecs and the Mayans, historians have found numerous accounts of human sacrifices to the gods because people believed a human sacrifice and a good crop went hand in hand.

Time hasn’t brought enlightenment because here we are in 2016 with extremists sacrificing innocent women and children to appease some god or to fulfill some expectation of their beliefs. Thousands of us are at a loss as to how to explain these extremists’ motives.

The “Hope” episode of “Black-Ish” took this situation on with the parents coming face to face with having to explain ugly truths to their children.

Sooner or later, all parents face this dilemma, whether it’s explaining why we can’t afford new cars like other families or why a family member’s actions seem odd. The hardest is explaining death to a young child.

It was in that self-examination where I realized perhaps I didn’t believe the same things I believed when I was young, and that time and life experiences changed my naïve view of the world.

I remember taking my middle son to see “A River Runs Through It” because I wanted to see the mountains and rivers of Montana. I didn’t expect to see a story line about a son dealing with the effects his drinking would have on his family.

On the way home, my son and I talked about alcoholism, and I explained what it was like growing up in a home where a father has a problem with alcohol.

Having to explain how my father came to abuse alcohol wasn’t easy, but I found myself understanding why the more my son and I talked.

We went from what it was like to see a father drunk to how proud I was of my dad when he stopped drinking for good.

And I saw my son’s innocence slip away.

But, curiously, not in a bad way. He came to understand that all people have their faults, but they can overcome them if they are willing to walk the hard road. The talk benefitted us both and allowed us to understand human frailty a little more.

And so it was with the writers on “Black-ish” as they crafted a script that did its best to help parents explain to their children why people do bad things to others, just because of the color of their skin.

If only they could write a script explaining why people killed innocent men, women and children, all in the name of religion, then that would truly be hopeful.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.