It’s a question that comes up every year around the new TV season. New shows are trotted out, with the fresh faces and returning comfort people coming to promote their projects. Just like paraphrasing the line from Blazing Saddles, someone has to shout, “Where are the black people?”

More apt would be where are the people of color? In the late 90s broadcast stations were hit by minority groups asking where was their representation in TV shows. Unless the show was an “urban comedy” minorities were little more than sidekicks or had to represent so much they became boring. I noticed the new Melrose Place is coming on without one black character. When the show first aired, there was a point to have a black character on the show, but since they gave her the typical South Central roots, they were afraid to have her involved in the juicy stuff on the show. The character left after the first year.

The new Melrose Place does have an Asian woman, playing the stereotypical driven doctor type. She doesn’t have a lot for loans so they have her paying bills off by being a prostitute. It begs the question why she would move into the apartment if she has to prostitute for money, but logic isn’t something you look for in these shows. It’s not just this show because you can look at a string of TV shows coming out this season (exclude comedies) and you won’t find minorities in lead roles, nor as the stories progress will you see them significantly in the lives of the rest of the white cast.

It would be nice if this could be an isolated incident, but every year shows are dreamed up that become specifically white and when a minority is placed in the mix it is very awkward. Last year 90210 came out and there was one black person in the cast. In the course of the season we found that he was adopted by the white family from Kansas, who had a mother that instead of taking drugs to lose her child was a manic-depressive, got a white girlfriend and was probably the whitest black person on TV. The guy played lacrosse. It’s like the old SF joke about Geordi on the Enterprise, where you just wanted one time for him to crank up some Ray Charles or Funkadelic on his off time. The guy on 90210 plays the straight Carleton from Fresh Prince.

Why all this matters is because there is such a lack of minority characters on TV; so much so that anyone that is on becomes the poster child for everyone else and is restrained because of it. It makes sense that a black kid living in Beverly Hills might rebel a bit and want to be closer to his roots, even if that means adopting some of the stereotypes because he hasn’t been exposed to black people. That is explored briefly in an episode and not very well. His white girlfriend turns out to be a manic-depressive, just like his mother, and that becomes a storyline for 5 or so episodes.

I don’t want to harp on the one show but there are very few shows with black characters who either are too black for the room or window dressing. My concern is really for shows skewed to youth audiences like 90210. The CW or WB used to be the black networks. They may have only had them on one night, but there was at least some variety of black people on the network. After complaints because of not being in dramas, the network took steps to remove comedies, and thus their bulk of black shows, from the network. Other than reality shows like Next Top Model you would find it tough to find a minority character on any of their dramas on a regular basis.