… Hollyoaks, Emmerdale and Australian soaps such as Home and Away were picked out for having no virtually no ethnic minority characters.

Viewers cited Asian corner shop owner Dev in Coronation Street and black single mother Denise, who had two children by two different fathers in EastEnders, as examples of stereotyping and tokenism in soaps.

Ethnic minority viewers accused all broadcasters of tokenism and stereotyping, screening exaggerated and extreme representations of minorities and failing to reflect modern ethnic minority culture. Yahoo News

This is not surprising at all. It may be to the white people who watch these programmes and haven’t realised it, but minorities have had to become used to not seeing a reflection of ourselves on TV. It’s so normal now that its not strange to us either.

When you consider that ethnic minorities make up 8-11% of the population in the UK and also the continuing negative attitudes towards ethnic minorities, it is not surprising that these soaps don’t bother to include them in their story-lines and if they do it is simply to emulate ’stereotypical interaction characters’ as a backdrop for white characters (and viewers).

In the same report (commissioned by Channel 4), US tv shows were praised for their diversity, as were UK talent shows, reality shows and news/current affairs programmes. The thing is the US is much more diverse country than the UK, so it would be more realistic for them to reflect that and talent, news and reality shows cannot really omit ethnic minorities.

But when you think about it even though ethnic minorities pay for their TV licenses, like everybody else, broadcasters do not provide a diverse range of viewing. All the old programmes that used be thoroughly enjoyed, such as Desmonds, The Real McCoy, Babyfather and The Kumars at No. 42 no longer exist and nothing has replaced them.

Having these kind of programmes is not only important to recognise and represent the ethnic people we have in the UK, but its important to expose parts of the country that do not have a diverse community to other cultures. In some parts of the UK there are white-only neighbourhoods and racism festers – learned from adult to child with nothing to combat it. Even the in Birmingham, all the black and Asian people are based in one area. Step outside of Birmingham and you barely see any colour in the West Midlands unless there is a university nearby.

Its time that ethnic minorities are recognised in this society, and treated with fair representations in the media and with a variety of programming that reflect our interests, our cultures and ourselves.