A bit off-topic but on US tv shows is ridiculous how actors (esp. main characters) are usually white or black, little or no Asians and Hispanics. "Friday Night Lights" is about teenagers in Texas (1/3 pop. Hispanic) and they are all white or black (they even had an episode or more about the divide), not a single Hispanic or Asian ever (only one secondary character for a bit).

EDIT: Also we laugh now at stereotypes like the token cool/funny black guy in shows form the 90's or so, but now it's about the super aggressive female black lead ("Suits", "Scandal", "How to get away with murder" etc).

A Native American actor classmate of mine did a lot of tv during the era where Vietnam-based programs (e.g. China Beach) were running as casting directors would hire him for those parts (his hair was short then). I guess that's why you see self-financed stuff. Defiance has a Native American in a lead part, but I am hard pressed to think of anything else. Figure 2% of the population would give you something statistically.

Longmire has many Native American characters and addresses Native American and reservation issues throughout the series.

One of the worst such cases was the movie 21, where the real life MIT Blackjack Team (mostly asian) was portrayed by white actors.

it's better than it used to be, and is improving.

a relative dearth of characters is worlds better than a population of deliberately hateful caricatures and racially venomous dialog.

i have white friends who started commenting maybe 10 years ago on how uncomfortable it was for them to watch that kind of shit on tv, because it wasn't just isolated incidents, it was basically a conspiracy to make asian people look absolutely fucking awful on tv/movies.

there was some outside pressure but i think society as a whole, including writers in hollywood, just started going "wtf are we doing here?" and is now moving toward neutral characters for asians actors i.e. nothing terrible, nothing amazing. there's an unremarkable asian family sitcom on tv, for example. i think a lot of the young writers probably grew up in a racially diverse group of friends.

Best remedy -- watch shows with other minority actors.

I watch Fresh of the Boat and just started watching Quantico, among other shows with non-traditional ethnic leads. And TV is one of the few places in society where its relatively easy to show your support for diversity.

> And TV is one of the few places in society where its relatively easy to show your support for diversity.

Sure. Except for religious diversity. I can't think of a TV show that touches religion with a ten foot pole.

If I had to guess, I would say it's the cultural imperative of the family unit.

One of the worst things slavery did, to african americans as a people, is to strip away their cultural meaning of family unit.

I think it's on-par with the holocaust in terms of the human cost. Yes, there are a lot of other things, but not having a stable family unit while growing up messes up the next generation, perpetuating the cycle. That is how black people are different from any other ethnic minority in the US. And that's why I think hispanic people(PC term?) will climb the economic ladder before/faster.

Can you explain a bit more about what you mean by "cultural meaning of family unit"? How did slavery take away from the african americans?

Families were often separated through the slave trade. Slaves were expensive, so owners typically wouldn't or couldn't spend more than they needed to, which meant buying husbands but not wives, mothers but not sons, etc.

I think it's overlooked because for many Asians it simply comes down to parenting. Many people don't want to address the fact that that may be one big difference between certain minorities.