Scans_Daily

I don't think this principle is limited to far off future Sci Fi (though I like seeing it there, why would current prejudices continue hundreds of years in the future? Anybody here hating on the Irish for stealing all our jobs these days?). Consider for example ER... was it really necessary for Dr. Peter Benton to be black for that character to work? He could have been any ethnicity, really. I'd argue he was just written as a doctor, at least 95% of the time.

And things like that help set examples, and setting examples of how we think life should be is important. This isn't to say we can simply ignore race entirely or even intentionally hide it. But setting examples of how life should be can be extremely useful. I'd say that every alt future or general future show that randomly had a black president or a female president or any such thing, for example, was helping. And I think the same of ER and any other show like it.