I am a black woman and most of my best friends are white.

This wasn’t planned; I didn’t go out seeking white best friends. Our friendships began the way most do: circumstances of college dorms, public speaking classes, and shared interests. I don’t note their whiteness because it matters to me outside of our clear cultural differences—I note it because whiteness is so often present even when the word isn’t said.

However, I am a black woman with white best friends who don’t eclipse my sun to shine brighter. They are supportive and kind, they keep me grounded; our successes and failures matter in equal measure and no one person takes precedent over the other. This is why I always find myself disappointed in interracial best friendships played out onscreen.

Sometimes disappointment is an emotion you feel even if you can’t understand why at the time. As a child, I watched Angela Moore from Boy Meets World in awe—she was beautiful, smart and sure of herself. But in terms of character development, Angela was never given much other than a father in the army and a few abandonment issues. Worse, the spinoff, Girl Meets World, turned Angela into a punching bag, taking shots at her character before wrapping up her storyline so her boyfriend Shawn could move on to someone else. The show essentially ignored Angela's friendships with both Cory and Topanga.

Clockwise from top left: Boy Meets World, Gilmore Girls, Vampire Diaries, Pitch Perfect, Young and Hungry Getty Images

Likewise, although Lane Kim from Gilmore Girls did not look like me, I saw much of myself in her. She loved music, cute boys and her best friend. She wanted to be in a band and travel the world playing drums, but what she received instead were twins after having sex with her unworthy husband for the first time, and a life spent stuck in Stars Hollow unable to live out the dreams the writers so carefully crafted for her in Season 1.

When Gilmore Girls announced the revival, I was hopeful the writers would redeem Lane, but instead we were given a storyline about a town musical that ran too long and a long-winded set of scenes with Lane’s best friend Rory, her former boyfriend Logan, and his secret adventure group The Life and Death Brigade. These women of color were written so that their suns were eclipsed in favor of—and to the advancement of—their white friends.

This problem is still relevant today. There's the treatment of Bonnie Bennett on the The Vampire Diaries, who was often only an embodiment of the mammy trope—there to serve her white best friends and be their vessel without any real story of her own, unless it ended in loss or sacrifice. Sophia from Freeform’s Young and Hungry is always getting the short end of the stick despite being much more qualified at most things than her best friend, Gabby. Sophia’s failures are played for laughs while Gabby gets to fail up. This is also the case in the Pitch Perfect movies, where the women of color don’t receive the same purchase as their white counterparts, and where race and ethnicity is derided throughout the second movie.

It's a set of racist stereotypes disguised as comedy



In Pitch Perfect 2, during a scene where several girls are lamenting their minor hardships, Flo, a Central American immigrant, jokes: “When I was nine years old my brother tried to sell me for a chicken, so…” in reference to her own impoverished childhood. I believe the writers were trying to punch up instead of down, but jokes like these insinuate that we can’t be more, have more, or say more than what is often expected of us through a set of racist stereotypes disguised as comedy. And in the original Pitch Perfect, the “quiet Asian” trope is played almost until the ending credits. The women of color in these movies don’t even have a sun to eclipse—and that’s what makes it hurt so much more.

Meanwhile, on Netflix, which makes some of my favorite shows, the narratives of black characters are repeatedly overlooked. In Orange Is The New Black, the inmates and characters of color are often sacrificed for the advancement of a white character—whether it's to give the white characters emotional turmoil, to teach them the cruelties of life, or to further their character development—like when Piper Chapman accidentally lead a white power movement in the prison, and the audience was supposed to sympathize with her because it was a mistake.

Clockwise from top left: Orange Is The New Black, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Bold Type, Stranger Things Getty Images

In The Handmaid’s Tale, the mishandling of race comes into focus with June’s best friend, Moira, a queer black woman who, as Vulture described, "is an appendage to someone else’s story." And in Stranger Things, we learn almost nothing about the family of Lucas, the sole black male in the otherwise white group. In Season 2, we finally meet his parents and little sister—an important development because black families existed and mattered in the '80s, too.



It is always meaningful when writers' rooms listen to critique enough to shift glaring problems. Freeform’s The Bold Type has promised some changes in regard to their character Kat in Season 2. Kat is a confident, brave, and messy character of color who is on a quest to live a life she is proud of. But her blackness was not explored at all in Season 1 and it left her feeling one-note—even raceless.

At one point in the series, she and her friend/love interest, Adena, a Muslim woman, are stopped by the police. Adena, fearful of jeopardizing her status in the U.S., makes a run for it, leaving Kat to be arrested and, afterwards, angry at Adena for running. But as a black woman, she would understand the risks of being stopped by the police. Her lack of understanding is, in part, because of the lack of black writers on an otherwise stellar show. Still, I am hopeful the writers will uphold their promise and allow Kat the fully realized characterization she deserves in Season 2.

Clockwise from top left: Runways, How To Get Away With Murder, This Is Us, The Good Place, One Day At a Time Getty Images

There are some shows and movies that get it right despite a few bumps in the road. Hulu’s Runaways is a diverse cast full of young people and adults who are all given the same amount of care and attention. They matter in equal measure and are given the room to be messy and complicated without sacrificing the people of color to the advancement of white characters. Meanwhile, Netflix’s One Day at A Time, NBC’s Superstore, The Good Place, This Is Us, and the Shondaland empire all treat their characters of color with the vigor and purchase they deserve. It's a testament to who is telling these stories.

A diverse writers' rooms matter as much as the show's cast. It is imperative that we continue to critique both the shows and movies we love until they properly reflect the world we are living in—and the people who live in this world. The fictional characters I love shouldn’t have to eclipse their sun to shine.

Keah Brown Keah Brown is a journalist and writer whose work can be found in Glamour, Marie Claire UK, Harper’s Bazaar, and Teen Vogue, among others.

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