CHAT: American Racism [was: Star Wars]

"Other nations do marginally better in making programmes where protagonists
don't need to be racially segregated."

Absolutely. I should have been very specific when I wrote: I mean American
television. Other shows shown in the US which have racially diverse casts
are all foreign-origin: Xena: WP, Hercules, and the like.

I have determined through conversation with my coworkers that racially
diverse shows in the US are apparently limited to:
Emergency services: ER, NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Homicide:LoS, etc.
Science Fiction: Star Trek TOS, Voyager, DS9 [the most racially diverse
show on TV, IMHO), Sliders
Foreign Shows: Xena WP, Hercules

Again, this may seem like a lot of shows, but they are all consider to have
'special audiences': it is not generally perceived that the 'general
public' watches the last two categories of shows in the US. Emergency
service shows are popular, but only 'ER' is understood to be intended for
'general consumption.'

Interestingly, Allie McBeal is less diverse than other shows; there was an
impending interracial romance, but that was quashed.

"One genre which is overlooked, not without reason, are soaps.  I'm not
thinking of the glamorous American soaps from Planet Spelling, but soaps
which are made to reflect the social realities of other nations."

Again, apologies for not saying I was speaking of the USA. Even daily soaps
here are utterly white.

"I would like to do a culturally pluralist conlang one day, a sort of
reaction to ethnic cleansing."

Would that be 'ethnic dirtying'? *irony*Here in the US, I always have to
fill out forms and mark my race as Caucasian, African-American-not-Latino,
Latino, Native American, or Asian-Pacific Islander. I fall into three of
those categories. And there is no 'other' or 'mixed' box.

BB

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Tomboy: "a wench that skippeth as a boy."
- Richard Verstegen, 1605

"Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo."
- H.G. Wells