by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: June 16, 2010

When we watch some of the network and cable shows that are in the top of the ratings, we see S. Epatha Merkeson who made enormous accomplishments in the role of a powerful,professional woman who could be strong and who could carry herself with dignity. She refused to fall into the trap of the stereotypical, degrading and exaggerated behaviors that bad directors want from Black or ethnic women.

But most roles for black women involve being irrelevant or invisible, temporary, loud, silly, crooked, drug addicts, bad parents, prostitutes, "ghetto", snappy, irrelevant or as non competitive with the white female leads as possible. In comedy, there are plenty of roles. But in representing real life, it is not good at all.

The black female character in "Glee" is a prime example of filling a racial demographic square while making it easy for the white female leads to stand out. Not having a black girl that is too pretty helps to get rid of the pesky dating problems of black women characters. Eventually she became invisible. She did not even get to perform the rare blockbuster songs that she was hired to do. An overaged woman who did a bizarre and horrible imitation of Madonna got more attention than she did.

In some rare episodes of shows that never can seem to show a person of color in a major city, black women are memorable...but very negative characters. When the producers of the USA channel's "Monk" series refused to find more than a couple of black people in the entire bay area of California, there was plenty of room for a hostile black female janitor to give Monk a hard time in a negative, temporary and irrelevant role. Even an episode that centered around Voodoo had to have a white male playing the role of the most expert voodoo person, as if black women never had a thing to do with the religion.

Of all of the "CSI" series, only CSI Miami had a significant role for a black woman, and an excellent, elegant and dignified performance was done by Khandi Alexander.

Black women do well in medicine, with Chandra Wilson's "Bailey" on "Grey's Anatomy" as an example of a major breakthrough performance. But the idea of Bailey having a romantic interest or dating the others was clearly part of America's dirty big secret: interracial or black romance is still an uncomfortable subject. Therefore, black women are not to be sexual creatures even on a sexually

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