[driftless2]

When I was growing up the fifties and sixties, you virtually never saw any blacks or minorities in ads or tv shows. Certainly black people and other minorities bought many of the products sold on tv. It wasn't until almost the late sixties or early seventies that you saw somewhat proportional numbers of different American ethnicities.

Of course, that's all turned around now. I guess most companies fear lawsuits if they don't include blacks in their commercials. I'm wondering if Hispanics will start agitating for more representation?

[Verginius Rufus]

I've wondered if it's that they fear lawsuits, or shakedowns by Jesse Jackson, or just want to demonstrate how incredibly enlightened they are compared to the "typical white person."

Back at the time of the Clinton impeachment trial in 1999, AMC ran an old movie (ca. 1940) about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson which was very sympathetic to President Johnson. I watched part of it and noticed there appeared to be almost no black people in the movie--despite the fact that it was disagreement over how to deal with Reconstruction and the status of the recently-freed slaves that led to Johnson's impeachment.