Black men really get the worst of it in audiovisual representation. It's the epitome of political and aesthetic failure on the part of artists perpetrating these stereotypes. And it's so easy to go with the flow.

I think part of the problem is that we (and by we I mean practically every culture of the world) still hold onto that idea that everyone who does not look like us, looks the same. We say this about asian people; asian people say this about us. It's universal, in one of those really, really ironic ways. Because of this, we tend to associate different skin pigmentations with different emotions: when we want a gibbering crowd for comedic effect, we use a flock of little Asian ladies; when we need people (things, really) to blow up to a - usually, though not always - less comedic effect, we use african-american men; when we need menace to no comedic effect at all, we have a knot of middle eastern men, glaring. Automatic visual response + cultural lesson-learning usually = bad.

Aw, I feel so flattered - I inspired rage by rambling! (This is one of my greater achievements, so far.) ...Mind if I +friend? It was lovely to debate rant.

(Personally, I hold that Donna should get an "<-- I'm With Stupid" shirt. Or something. There are not nearly enough cracks made at the Doctor, when there is so much general crack'dness to laugh at.)