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butterflyI don't naturally 'see' racism. Instead, I have to remind myself to look twice. I read the opinions of the people who live with racism every day and see what they have to say about a particular show or character. This doesn't mean blindly agreeing with them, but it does mean giving weight to the words of people who are familiar with the way racism feels in every day life (I have more than a few on my flist). I have to remind myself that I have white privilege and that means that I can afford to be 'colorblind' because I'm not the one who is being discriminated against. It isn't automatic to me. It isn't obvious to me, the way that homophobia and misogyny so often are. And that means, when I see someone saying, "hey, this feels kinda racist," I put myself under an obligation to question the issue. It would be wonderful if there were no racism in the world. But there is and it is still very much embedded into the fabric of American society, the society that most of the fans of SGA (and many fannish shows) belong to.
I'm a 'food service worker'. Fast-food (Burgerville, though, which means that I have health insurance and our company buys wind power and converts its used cooking oil into biodiesel, so it's cool). About half of the people I work with speak Spanish as their first language. And yet, someone else who worked there warned me about those 'Mexican bike thieves' when I started riding to work. That's racism and it's ugly and it exists. And to go from there to television -- Los Angeles County has over 4.6 million people of Hispanic origin. The city itself almost has a Hispanic majority (it's expected that they will by the time of the 2010 census). Angel had zero main cast Latino characters. Nada.
I love Joss Whedon for what he does with women. But he could do better with race (I do think that he's getting better over time, though! There's that.). Over on Stargate, I love Teyla and Ronon and Teal'c (oh, Teal'c!). But, when it comes to meaty stories, they tend to get the short straw more often than not. And it's important for people to point that out. Because we aren't there yet. I do not allow myself to ignore color, because I am aware that our society is still one where discrimination and prejudice are real. And I feel a personal, ethical need to be aware of it, and to try to combat it where I can.