White Out: The Absence and Stereotyping of People of Color by the Broadcast Networks in Prime Time Entertainment Programming
![handle is hein.journals/arz45 and id is 311 raw text is: WHITE OUT: THE ABSENCE AND
STEREOTYPING OF PEOPLE OF COLOR BY THE
BROADCAST NETWORKS IN PRIME TIME
ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMMING
Leonard M. Baynes*
[F]or too long, women and minorities have faced barriers to working
in front and behind the camera. .... Our nation benefits when
television better reflects the diverse market it serves.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the fall of 1999, the then-new television schedule was announced and
none of the twenty-six new fall programs starred an African American in a leading
role, and few featured minorities in secondary roles.2 This absence caused the
National Council of La Raza to organize a protest called a National Brownout in
* Professor of Law, St. John's University School of Law, Jamaica, NY; B.S. New
York University, 1979; J.D. Columbia University, 1982; M.B.A. Columbia University 1983.
I also want to acknowledge that the idea for this Article came about while I served as a scholar-
in-residence at the Federal Communications Commission. I want to thank the individuals who
provided me with very helpful comments at presentations of prior drafts of this Article at the
Fifth Annual Northeast People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference at City University of
New York School of Law, at St. John's University faculty forum, and at the University of
Virginia Black Law Students Association and Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law
Symposium. I also want to thank my former Western New England School of Law colleague,
Bruce Miller, for his insights and expertise on a prior draft of this Article. Finally, I also want
to thank my research assistants Ben Darvil, Sheilagh DePeters, John DiBari, and Liliya
Abramchayeva for their able assistance with this project.
I. Former FCC Chairman William Kennard, Statement Regarding the NAACP
Public Hearing on Diversity in Network Television (Nov. 29, 1999) (praising the NAACP for
prompting a national dialogue about the glass ceiling in television), available at
http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Kennard/Statements/stwek969.html; see also Sherri Burr,
Television and Societal Effects: An Analysis of Media Images of African Americans in
Historical Context, 4 J. GENDER RACE& JUST. 159 (2001).
2. Gary Williams, Don't Try to Adjust Your Television-I'm Black: Ruminations
on the Recurrent Controversy over the Whiteness of TV, 4 J. GENDER & JUST. 99, 100 (2000);
see also Liz Leyden, NAACP's Mfume Warns of TVBoycott, WASH. POST, Nov. 4, 1999, at C7.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/arz45&div=20&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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White Out: The Absence and Stereotyping of People of Color by the Broadcast Networks in Prime Time Entertainment Programming
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