Before our class presentations started Mr. Bolos and Mr. O'Connor posed an interesting question: is tv tokenism a problem? Recently I've been thinking about this and have not come up with a clear answer.
After seeing many people's presentations it was clear that the token black character gets little screen time and is not a developed character. Personally I think it would almost be better if the black character were not in the authority position but instead tv shows gave a more realistic approach and showed the view a deeper side to the black character. I do not want to sound like I am saying that blacks cannot achieve high level positions but did you know that over the course of history that there have been only 8 CEO's of Fortune 500 companies? and only 6 African American senators in history? I feel like tv stations are doing a disservice to stopping racism and stereotypes by portraying so many blacks in unusual positions. TV tokenism in this sense is bad. If a show wants to have a token minority character why not show a hard working mom or a family having trouble adjusting to living in a primarily white suburb? Basically my point is that we should be showing the opposite of the stereotypes not special exceptions. Sure showing a black CEO is great but that doesn't really break down any stereotypes because I don't think that there are any stereotypes about black CEOs. In my opinion it just make me think how rare they actually are.
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