Interracial Couples on TV

There's a trend I've noticed in a few shows that I have watched recently and it involves interracial relationships. I haven't had the chance to watch a lot of new TV recently, so I've just been rewatching shows. A few shows that I've revisited have been Happy Endings, Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23 and other similar ABC shows.

In these shows, I've noticed that the way the men of color on this show are written are maybe a bit unique, at least from the limited amount of TV I have seen. The men don't usually follow typical "black stereotypes" as I've mentioned a few times on this blog. The men on these shows speak proper English and very rarely say "yo yo you" or other phrases associated with African Americans. These men, in a sense, are the classic "oreo" example. They are white men in a black body, at least as the media would have us see it.

The TV world and the real world are different, and that is clear just based on what we watch. The fact that I notice that these characters are different from many other African American characters shows that the TV world is not representative of the real world, as there are many non-stereotypical black men in the real world.

The thing about these shows, is that both of these men are in relationships with white women. Now, as I said, I haven't watched a wide variety of shows, but I really have not seen many interracial relationships in shows. But, in the shows that I have seen, it seems that the media wants us to believe that a white woman is only interested in a black man if that black man isn't "really" black. In a way, the media is telling us that black men aren't deserving of a white woman (as they tend to be the Ultimate Prize) unless he conforms to white culture. Again, this is just what I've seen, so please let me know in the comments if I am dead wrong.

However, I feel that this shows that we haven't come very far in terms of acceptance of interracial relationship as a culture. Sure, catalogues and commercials have interracial couples frequently, but we see them much less frequently in long term relationships on TV shows. I find this odd, because again, it is not representative of real life.