When you turn on your TV, or watch your favorite television series, what do you see? Or more importantly, who do you see? Most people, after being asked this question, would complain about the absence of diversity on television and in the media. But if you ignore the countless articles about the scarcity of diversity in the media and just look for yourself, I think you would disagree. Or even if you don’t, at the very least, ask yourself why it matters?

The 2015 Hollywood Report found that “diversity sells,” however, in 2015, minority leads in shows were found to be more prominent in sitcoms, while white leads were found to be more prominent in dramas/more serious TV shows or films. Lets start by looking at the shows on networks like abc. Every Tuesday night on abc, Fresh Off the Boat airs at 8 pm and The Real O’Neals goes on right after, and the following night, Black-ish airs at 9:30 pm—all of which are comedic shows focused on racial humor. Yes, one television network has three shows solely based on racial and cultural stereotypes.

Fresh Off the Boat, mocking new Asian immigrant families in America, Black-ish, a show parodying black stereotypes and culture, and The Real O’Neals, satiring an Irish catholic family in America are all fairly recent shows. It’s pretty obvious that abc is trying to be more diverse as a network by the addition of these shows in the last year and a half. I know it’s hard to believe, but this is what networks are doing to be more diverse.

Eric Deggans comments on the addition of these shows to television in his article, “Racial Diversity Grows on Network Television, But Will Quality Lag Behind?” Deggans recognizes that the television industry constantly strives for television that reflects the racial diversity we have in our country “without amplifying its problems with stereotyping and prejudice.” But with the addition of Fresh Off the Boat, Black-ish, and The Real O’Neals along with other new non-white centered shows to television, Deggans believes that “the struggle is about to get more complicated than it’s ever been” knowing that all of these shows are focused on jokes based on these racial stereotypes and relations. While creating television shows to promote diversity does expose the youth to other cultures, the shows networks have chosen to put on television have largely encouraged and promoted stereotypes among America’s youth.

So the question is, why are we creating these shows to promote diversity on television when they are really just complicating the “struggle” the television industry faces?

Now don’t get me wrong, I am in no way advocating for white dominated TV, but what’s the point in being diverse if it means adding various ethnicities to television solely to mock their culture and play into their stereotypes? If you ask me, it seems like by doing this, we’ve actually taken a step backwards in our nation’s progress toward racial equality. 

The content in our modern media and television also adds to our opinions of what we think should be included in the media. W. Phillips Davison’s article, “Public Opinion,” discusses the impact the media has on people. Davison states that the media is powerful in “affirming attitudes and opinions that are already established.” Minorities across America believe that it’s important to include all ethnicities on television, and many of these people have spoken out about this issue via the media, creating a community of people willing to stand together for this problem. Lily Rothman’s article, “The Hidden Factor in Hollywood’s Racial Diversity Problem,” highlights the 2014 controversy of the addition of a black female comedian to the SNL cast. Adding the female black comedian, Sasheer Zamata, to the Saturday Night Live cast “drew attention to a perceived lack of diversity in comedy’s training grounds.”

So basically, it takes the addition of a racially diverse person to the media for people to realize the lack of diversity in the media?

It’s ironic.

Our society’s diversity driven brains has not only affected modern television, but college acceptances and advertisements as well. It’s no secret that being a minority with good grades helps you get into colleges. With the media’s focus on diversity, colleges want to show that they want equal opportunity for all races by accepting a certain quota of each race each year. While having diverse colleges is important, we shouldn’t be giving minorities a “one-up” over others simply because of their race. Now I know that admitting certain students to promote diversity ultimately creates a school in which students are able to become more cultured and understanding of others’ backgrounds, but Frank Bruni notices the lack of effectiveness diversity has at colleges in his article, “The Lie About College Diversity.” Bruni describes that the ultimate goal of diversity is to have “meaningful interactions between people from different backgrounds, with different scars and different ways of looking at the world.” However, David Reingold, the dean of the liberal arts college at Purdue University, told Bruni that despite the college’s efforts and goals with increased diversity, “it feels like they haven’t changed a whole lot in terms of self-segregation. Those tendencies [of cultural mixing] are as pronounced as they were 30 years ago. And [he doesn’t] think universities have figured out ways for students to build connectivity.”

The main purpose of diversity is to introduce students to other backgrounds and cultures, but since they are self-segregating themselves into common backgrounds and ethnicities, why should colleges strive for diversity?

So, why can’t we look at people as people? And, as cliché as it sounds, why should the color of our skin dictate our opportunities in life? As people, we can’t help but notice physical appearance, and that’s just what the entire television and media industry is all about: looks. If we truly believe in making progress with diversity in America, we will stop tallying the number of minorities on television and in the media, and really start treating everyone equally. So, next time you watch TV or meet someone new, I invite you to look past color and race, because through all this talk about diversity, isn’t that what we’ve been striving for?