African Americans In Television Today

I am, as we speak, in the process of acquiring all there is to know about the culture of a nation called the United States of America. -prepare yourself for the obvious joke- I, as a proud European, had no knowledge that this nation had any culture at all. -nobody's laughing, all right- Of course, I am only kidding. I have been a fan of American pop culture for quite some time now. -since Mommy let me watch television- I have seen the perils of Steve Urkel in the great matters of the next door family. I have seen The Fresh Prince bust more bad moves than even I could come up with. I have even seen the parental advice by Micheal Kyle. -I would not have done anything differently-

As you might have figured out now, all three of the shows mentioned above contain African-American stars. These shows made me laugh my white ass off. But while acquiring the knowledge I have to acquire, my mind drifted into modern day television. Since My Wife and Kids, there really haven't been any good sitcoms, or television shows which feature African Americans in leading roles. This oddity might be explained that most African American stars went to the movie business to make them big bucks now, but that would be odd since the little screen has been making much better tv shows. -you could not tell it from the ratings though-

What has happened? During a guest lecture for the course I follow, an American professor gave us some stats about how "white" America perceived the "integration" of African Americans. The stats claimed that "white" America no longer perceived racism as being a mayor issue. It might be the case, and the election of Barack Obama is the strongest arguement, that racism is no longer a severe issue in American society. I admit that in legal matters racism has been as good as completely abolished. Yet, other statistical data does reveal a huge discrepancy between poverty levels of the different ethnicities in America.

I wonder if the African American ethnicity suddenly lost its appeal as a market group for television makers? Is there not enough money to create a new series which has African Americans in leading roles? Or have they created their own subculture which has disappeared from the mainstream audiences?