Racial Tokenism in Television

Last week in class, the topic of racial tokenism came up as we discussed race in the American classic Huckleberry Finn. For those who don't know, racial tokenism is including a person who is a miniority in order to create an appearance of racial equality. Many times, racial tokenism occurs in television.

In many cases, miniority actors appear on hit television shows, but typically as the supporting actor. They appear much less than the main character(s) and are less complicated. Some times they are even given positions of power, such as being a judge or a boss. But rarely are they ever the main character.

Here are a few examples:

NCIS ("TV's Number One Drama")

Leon Vance, played by Rocky Carroll, is the only minority in the cast and is given a position of authority on the show as a director. However, if you look at the cast picture, he is clearly positioned behind three white characters.

Another example would be Grey's Anatomy, who's show has a few minority characters.

Miranda Bailey and Richard Webber, are both minority characters and hold authority roles in this television show. Webber is the Chief of Surgery while Bailey was Chief Resident. In the picture above, both characters are on opposite sides of each other (evening the picture out) and are placed on the outsides. Seven characters, most white, one who is Asian, separate the two. Furthermore, both characters are sitting.

While watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy, I took note of the screen time of the character Miranda Bailey and noticed that out of the 42 minutes of the show, she had only been on for 3 minutes and 36 seconds.

Why is does this kind of tokenism occur in television?

I believe that it still has to do with society. We might believe we're making progress, we do have a half-black president after all! But not until very recently with the NBC show the Undercovers, has a black character been the center of prime time television show. Undercovers was canceled on November 4, 2010.

Many television shows place minority characters not only in the cast, but also as extras in order to appear racially diverse. However, many of these characters do not receive an appropriate portrayl or enough screen time. Perhaps, in years to come this will change as society becomes more accepting and we will see more racially diverse MAIN characters instead of the typical white male (and now even more female) lead.