Jaleel White believes the beloved sitcom "Family Matters" is unfairly overlooked in rankings of the best Black TV shows. The actor, famed for his iconic portrayal of Steve Urkel, shared his perspective during a fireside chat at the Wilmington Library, coinciding with the release of his memoir, "Growing Up Urkel."

“Being a part of the ‘TGIF’ [ABC programming block] brand sometimes makes you feel like you don’t completely belong in the pantheon of Blackness,” White told moderator Randall Law around the 7:30-minute mark of the video below. “Blackness has been treated as a very monolithic experience in entertainment. 'If it’s not a hood story, it’s not a Black story.' And you know, sometimes I feel left out of that.”

“If there’s ever a poll, and they say, ‘Oh, what are your favorite black shows?’ ‘Martin’ is in there, ‘Living Single’ or any of those kinds of shows… I already know we’re coming in last," he joked. “But if there’s ever a poll and it’s just your favorite family shows, suddenly, we rank really high. So it’s kind of interesting how we look at ourselves, even as Black folks.”

But while "Family Matters," which ran for nine seasons, was mainly about the Winslow family, the examples that White listed aren’t technically ‘hood’ sitcoms. The ‘Living Single’ crew were longtime friends and business professionals based in Brooklyn, while ‘Martin’ also depicted the relationships between the radio DJ titular character, played by Martin Lawrence, his girlfriend Gina (Tisha Campbell), and their close-knit friend group in Detroit.

White, however, was able to recognize that the Urkel character made an impact on “Black male nerd culture.” “Any brother that grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s and 2000s, he was told that he looked like me," he continued. “He was called Urkel and he didn’t look anything like me, guaranteed. But still, his peers would find a way to call him Urkel, and even girls to that extent. So it’s really humbling to see how far nerd culture has come. And really it’s not nerd culture, it’s smart culture, it’s hobbyist culture, it’s skateboarders… I could never have known in a million years that I could be the face of that.”