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Race & Ethnicity On TV

callie lee 29

By callie lee 29
in Everything Else TV

Meredith Quill
Message added by Meredith Quill,

This is the place to discuss race and ethnicity issues related to TV shows only.

Go here for the equivalent movie discussions.

For general discussion without TV/Film context please use the Social Justice topic in Everything Else. 

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jhlipton

jhlipton

Marvel has announced the main cast of the new Inhumans show.  Lots of white folks (of course), two Asian men, one black man and a Hawaiian.  Do you see what's missing here?  I'm telling you, black women are scary!

I'm already hearing excuses ("They're all one family" -- No, look at that cast list again.  "There weren't any black women in the comic" -- then there was a problem with the comic; fix it!).  I don't care why representation only matters for some -- if there's not a black woman in the main cast, I won't watch.

(Some people are speculating that Amara might be out on Legends of Tomorrow.  If so, or if they think they can just pop another black woman in like interchangeable parts, I'm out on that one too.)

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jhlipton
jhlipton

I have a lot of friends who are very active in working against racism and sexism and not a single one hates whites or men.  White male ego is so fragile that two women of color on the latest Star Trek

Trini
Trini

I mean, sure; but it would be weird to have everyone on TV look like this:   I personally like seeing people of different ethnicities in my entertainment.

DearEvette
DearEvette

Megyn Kelly doesn't have the charm or charisma to attract a morning talk show audience or any sort of positive attention.  The only time she gets any attention is when she does something execrable.

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Oracle42

Oracle42

(edited)
On 3/9/2017 at 10:00 PM, jhlipton said:

if they think they can just pop another black woman in like interchangeable parts

I got enough of that with black men on Walking Dead

Edited by Oracle42
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maraleia

maraleia

57 minutes ago, jhlipton said:

Marvel has announced the main cast of the new Inhumans show.  Lots of white folks (of course), two Asian men, one black man and a Hawaiian.  Do you see what's missing here?  I'm telling you, black women are scary!

I'm already hearing excuses ("They're all one family" -- No, look at that cast list again.  "There weren't any black women in the comic" -- then there was a problem with the comic; fix it!).  I don't care why representation only matters for some -- if there's not a black woman in the main cast, I won't watch.

(Some people are speculating that Amara might be out on Legends of Tomorrow.  If so, or if they think they can just pop another black woman in like interchangeable parts, I'm out on that one too.)

The same white guy (Scott Buck) producing Iron Fist is producing the new Inhumans show so it will be awful. I'm so sick of this and I'm a white woman.

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jhlipton

jhlipton

On 3/7/2017 at 9:52 AM, St. Claire said:

I just want to say that I find this board really helpful in trying to change my own complacency as someone of non-color (Irish, Scottish, Norwegian, Polish, Hungarian and German make-up, with looks that scream Irish and Scandinavian; my genealogy research goes back four generations without me finding any Latin/Hispanic, African, or Asian contribution). I've given up on claiming that I'm not a racist, because I'm pretty sure I still am without intending to be. While I can find specific behaviors and beliefs from my parents' or grandparents' generations that I actively move to not repeat, my very nature as a middle-class white woman has given me a life that doesn't even see it until it smacks me in the face sometimes. I don't know if having an eye toward the overwhelming whiteness of most TV shows (and applauding the appearance of well rounded, properly written characters of color) will do a darned thing, but I'm trying.

I wanted to let you know that I did share this on my Facebook page, with a link back to your comment.  Something so beautiful and hert-felt needs to be shared far and wide.

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BoogieBurns

BoogieBurns

My friend and I were having a discussion of girls who represented us when we were younger (in the 80's and 90's). I am black, and she is Mexican. I had a few examples, and she couldn't think of any. Could you help me come up with any Mexican females that you remember from TV in those two decades that a teen/tween could look up to?

She actually lived in Mexico in the 80s, so it's very possible there are shows she never saw that I could help her explore. But I can't think of any myself! You are the best at this stuff, so thanks in advance. 

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jhlipton

jhlipton

4 hours ago, BoogieBurns said:

My friend and I were having a discussion of girls who represented us when we were younger (in the 80's and 90's). I am black, and she is Mexican. I had a few examples, and she couldn't think of any. Could you help me come up with any Mexican females that you remember from TV in those two decades that a teen/tween could look up to?

She actually lived in Mexico in the 80s, so it's very possible there are shows she never saw that I could help her explore. But I can't think of any myself! You are the best at this stuff, so thanks in advance. 

Keep in mind that those were far from enlightened years, so stereotypes will abound


Actresses:
Charo and Raquel Welch come immediately to mind as guest stars on any and all anthology shows (I think Charo was a recurring character on The Love Boat). 
Ms EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) Rita Moreno was a guest star on a number of shows, as well as starring in a few
VJ Daisy Fuentes
JLo (Jennifer Lopez)  started as a dancer on In Living Color and went on to several shows during the 80's and 90's

Shows:
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (a kid's geography show)
I Married Dora  (she needed a green card)
Partners in Crime starred Wonder Woman herself Lynda Carter

That's all I could find.

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Sparger Springs

Sparger Springs

On 1/10/2017 at 4:08 PM, BoogieBurns said:

Another interesting biracial duo are long time buds Sofia Richie and Paris Jackson. They are both half black, and both well, look ambiguous..

I never thought  for a half a second that Paris Jackson or any of Michael Jackson's kids were biologically 1/2 black.  90% of the Jacksons married white people and the  only one with kids that look unambiguously white are Michael's.

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Sparger Springs

Sparger Springs

On 1/21/2017 at 7:41 PM, In2You said:

Black people come in all shades an skin tones. You have lighter skin toned Africans who don't have recent white ancestry.

As far as mixed race celebs I always through Derek Jeter and Jennifer Beals clearly looked mixed and wondered how people could think their tan skin was just from the sun.

Hallmark must be feeling some kind of backlash from their lack of diversity because they're finally working on a project with a non white/ non passing for white lead. And it is long overdue. I saw so many complaints during the holiday season from viewers black and white about their non diverse casting.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/entertainment/television/Holly-Robinson-Peetes-Hallmark-project-has-Scandal-connection.html

I don't know why it took so long. The budget of these movies can't be more than a 100k. My daughter and I are convinced we can write a Hallmark movie in an afternoon. Scene 1 plucky girl engaged to city loser who doesn't appreciate her country roots. Scene 2 back home for the holidays or death or the strawberry festival. Scene 3 runs into old boyfriend who works with his hands and is renovating the old Jenkins Barn into a house for his future bride that he hasn't met yet Scene 4 city boy shows up and is dumped for being a snob. Scene 5 kiss and back with old boyfriend and maybe a wedding if we have a few bucks left in the budget.

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Popples

Popples

3 hours ago, Sparger Springs said:

I don't know why it took so long. The budget of these movies can't be more than a 100k. My daughter and I are convinced we can write a Hallmark movie in an afternoon. Scene 1 plucky girl engaged to city loser who doesn't appreciate her country roots. Scene 2 back home for the holidays or death or the strawberry festival. Scene 3 runs into old boyfriend who works with his hands and is renovating the old Jenkins Barn into a house for his future bride that he hasn't met yet Scene 4 city boy shows up and is dumped for being a snob. Scene 5 kiss and back with old boyfriend and maybe a wedding if we have a few bucks left in the budget.

They throw in an extra 50k if it's set at Christmas.

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BoogieBurns

BoogieBurns

8 hours ago, Sparger Springs said:

I never thought  for a half a second that Paris Jackson or any of Michael Jackson's kids were biologically 1/2 black.  90% of the Jacksons married white people and the  only one with kids that look unambiguously white are Michael's.

I was taking her race as her father intended. Their hair has been bleached since childhood and Paris looks the same race as Sofia. But, I didn't take a DNA test. Just referring to her the way she refers to herself. 

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Sparger Springs

Sparger Springs

4 hours ago, BoogieBurns said:

I was taking her race as her father intended. Their hair has been bleached since childhood and Paris looks the same race as Sofia. But, I didn't take a DNA test. Just referring to her the way she refers to herself. 

Any grown ass man who dyes babies hair blonde has issues. I think the intended race he wanted was white.  It's not what you say its what you do.

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jhlipton

jhlipton

On 3/10/2017 at 3:26 PM, BoogieBurns said:

Could you help me come up with any Mexican females that you remember from TV in those two decades that a teen/tween could look up to?

BTW, Charo is going to be on the current season of Dancing with the Stars.

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BoogieBurns

BoogieBurns

On 3/10/2017 at 7:45 PM, jhlipton said:

Charo and Raquel Welch come immediately to mind as guest stars on any and all anthology shows (I think Charo was a recurring character on The Love Boat). 
Ms EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) Rita Moreno was a guest star on a number of shows, as well as starring in a few
VJ Daisy Fuentes
JLo (Jennifer Lopez)  started as a dancer on In Living Color and went on to several shows during the 80's and 90's

@jhlipton you did the best you could! Unfortunately, Charo - Spanish, Raquel Welch - Bolivian, Rita - Puerto Rican, Daisy - Cuban, JLo - Peurto Rican.

Salma Hayek was on the Sinbad show in 1993 (which is when I met her in person) and she is Mexican. But she is the ONLY example I can find, and that was only one season. I think "Latina" ends up covering so many types of ethnicities that it's hard to find the needle (Salma) in the Haystack of Charos and Shakiras. But it's good to know the 90's weren't without color on screen. I appreciate the digging! 

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Silver Raven

Silver Raven

Ana Alicia was on Falcon Crest.

Vanessa Marcil was in Prince videos and then became a superstar on General Hospital.

Ara Celi (born Aracely Valdez) was on All My Children and had an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

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jhlipton

jhlipton

2 hours ago, Silver Raven said:

Ara Celi (born Aracely Valdez) was on All My Children and had an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

How did I know that it was going to be as "The Inca Mummy Girl"? (Cultural appropriation aside, that was a decent episode as I recall).  I think this is the first appearance of Oz, and it's the one where Willow is So Damn Cute as an Eskimo)b0bdcf71168b8ead4845c3b0a3ca8c16.jpg

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phoenics

phoenics

On 3/4/2017 at 10:31 PM, jhlipton said:

And a bi-racial woman (Brooklyn Sudano, Donna Summers's daughter), too, because the skies will part and the earth will crack if they cast a black woman.  Hard pass.

Weellll.... I have been watching and I really like it.

I know Donna Summers' daughter is biracial - but she looks like many of my black friends - and I'm black and we have similar hair and coloring (I'm not biracial).  I know she is still light skinned, but I'm still enjoying this show.  In one scene, I counted 6 POC - 6!  And there were only 2 white characters in that scene.  The show is nailing it in the diversity department.  I still want the Asha character to be more than the love interest she seems destined to be, but I'm waiting for the show to find its legs.  Right now, I'm entertained.  The lead guy is a badass - but somehow sweet and earnest.  Weird combination, but I'm feeling it.

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jhlipton

jhlipton

2 minutes ago, phoenics said:

Weellll.... I have been watching and I really like it.

I might have to give it a look-see.  I have to say that revenge-plots are among my least favorite, so that probably didn't help.  But your recommendation means a lot.

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xaxat

xaxat

(edited)

Did anyone else catch the Sportscenter opening today? It featured a remake of the intro A Different World. It started out with Sportscenter hosts Jemele Hill and Michael Smith. Then Sinbad popped up, and Cree Summer and Glynn Turman and probably a couple of other cast members I missed. 

Nostalgia. (Although I have a hard time getting over the Bill Cosby connection.)

Edited by xaxat
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Bastet

Bastet

26 minutes ago, xaxat said:

Did anyone else catch the Sportscenter opening today? It featured a remake of the intro A Different World. It started out with Sportscenter hosts Jemele Hill and Michael Smith. Then Sinbad popped up, and Cree Summer and Glynn Turman and probably a couple of other cast members I missed. 

That's Elle Duncan, not Cree Summer, isn't it?

Dawnn Lewis and Darryl M. Bell are in it, too.  It's fantastic.

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Popples

Popples

Someone posted a phone recording of it on Instagram a couple of days ago, and I nearly drowned in a wave of nostalgia. It's so good.

I just learned that Glynn Turman was married to Aretha Franklin, which is why she sang the second (and best) version.

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maraleia

maraleia

2 hours ago, jhlipton said:

Nice to see how much Hidden Figures has accomplished, isn't it?   SMH

This is CBS remember. If it were ABC or NBC I would be more irritated but CBS has a major diversity issue.

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vibeology

vibeology

11 hours ago, jhlipton said:

Nice to see how much Hidden Figures has accomplished, isn't it?   SMH

Well, CBS strikes again. It's actually amazing to me that in 2017 they are still pulling this shit. No other network is this adverse to a Black lead. Add to this the fact that the more diverse CBS programming (Star Trek if they ever get it together for example) has been pushed to their paid All-Access site and I just am done with CBS. I like Elementary and have wanted to support Lucy Liu but at this point I'm done.

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DearEvette

DearEvette

10 hours ago, maraleia said:

This is CBS remember. If it were ABC or NBC I would be more irritated but CBS has a major diversity issue.

Sigh. CBS is so basic.  And poor Andy Weir, he writes these diverse characters and casting just keeps messing stuff up .

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jhlipton

jhlipton

13 hours ago, vibeology said:

I like Elementary and have wanted to support Lucy Liu but at this point I'm done.

TV Grim Reaper puts the odds of Elementary being renewed at 10%, so that may not be a problem.  I also watch Hawaii 5-0, mostly for extremely mindless entertainment and because my wife watches.  That's the extent of my CBS shows.  If Elementary is cancelled, I'll be watching 3 times as many shows on SyFy as I am on CBS (all of which have WoC as leads, and currently have black women as leads -- don't kill Nyx, Dark Matter!!!!)

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xaxat

xaxat

(edited)

A couple of years ago, while visiting relatives, I was trapped into watching Blue Bloods, the CBS cop show. They managed to get through an entire episode without a single POC having a speaking role in s show set in NEW YORK CITY.

The closest it came to diversity was when the Italian cops were talking to the Irish cops. No exaggeration. 

I read a quote from a CBS exec claiming that they want to become more diverse. But he's either terrible at his job in accomplishing his goal or lying.

I think it's the latter.

Edited by xaxat
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JBC344

JBC344

On ‎3‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 3:58 PM, Bastet said:

That's Elle Duncan, not Cree Summer, isn't it?

Dawnn Lewis and Darryl M. Bell are in it, too.  It's fantastic.

This makes me so happy!!!!!

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phoenics

phoenics

I love the idea of redoing that promo and having the old cast - the promo makes me sad though because if this show managed to get remade I fear it would be "diversified" away from being about a black college experience.  Basically - they'd attempt more whitewashing even though the show was SO much more successful when they simply allowed it to be black centered.

This promo proves my point - it has some major flaws - the scenes with the "scientists" at what is an HBCU only has ONE black scientist?  No.  Fuck you Sportscenter.  The facts are that more (and a higher percentage of) black PhDs are created from HBCU undergrads than black grads from PWIs.  How dare you take my beloved ADW and use it to further racism like that.  Maybe DON'T choose something where black people are centered fully and try to apply it to a population (sportscenter staff)  it doesn't fit.  Thanks for keeping most of the promo black, but that science bit and some of the other scenes were destroyed for me due to this "remake".

By all means, take my fave show growing up aside from The Cosby Show about an authentic HBCU experience that popped Spelman up on my radar when I'd previously been focused on Hampton or Harvard (even though dad went to Morehouse), that centered black people unapologetically and use it to foment stereotypes because you "had to include non-black people" in your promo.

Everyone looked so excited about the promo and then I saw that and was just like WTF.

I'm mad!

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possibilities

possibilities

Has anyone heard anything about this show?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5093452/

My DirecTV on screen episode guide says: "An African-American cop shoots an unarmed white man, shaking a North Carolina town; the situation becomes more tense when the neglected murder of an African-American teen is brought to light."

First episode is next week. I had not seen ANY promotion for it, even though I did watch at least 1 show on Fox in the past week.

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jhlipton

jhlipton

4 hours ago, possibilities said:

Has anyone heard anything about this show?

I heard about it almost a month ago, and it's on my DVR.  Unlike Chicago Justice, race issues will be handled by a diverse cast, including a black female as the lead.

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Neurochick

Neurochick

A TV cliche that needs to go FAR away is one I've seen too many times on survival type shows; taking a person from "the hood" whose never been out of the hood and throwing them somewhere like Alaska to see if they can survive there.  The second season of Discovery's Alaska Experiment did just that and to me, that's a serious form of disgusting covert racism because the person in the hood is made the butt of the joke.

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Raja

Raja

13 hours ago, possibilities said:

Has anyone heard anything about this show?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5093452/

My DirecTV on screen episode guide says: "An African-American cop shoots an unarmed white man, shaking a North Carolina town; the situation becomes more tense when the neglected murder of an African-American teen is brought to light."

First episode is next week. I had not seen ANY promotion for it, even though I did watch at least 1 show on Fox in the past week.

It was only on the second waves of promos the week before the premiere that I knew that the young cop doing the shooting was Tristan Wilds, Michael from The Wire.  That the victim is white is a spoiler for me. It has been a constant promotions on both 24 Legacy and Lethal Weapon.

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