The Last Ever Fictional Character Race Assessment

My friend has just flat out refused to do another month and I think we have enough data to answer our main question if only we could remember what the question was. This February I will be answering a question from much closer to home namely - Do London stories dominate the national news agenda? I say 'no' grumpy northerners say 'yes' - we shall see.

Back to racial representation on American TV and the question of whether non-white non-regulars are more likely to be portrayed as criminals? The answer is yes! Plus... they're massively under represented in the first place by a significant margin.

Month	nw%	wc%	nwc%
December	21%	34%	50%
January	19%	30%	40%
February	21%	30%	34%
Overall	20%	31%	40%

 nw% = percentage of non-white non-regulars.
wc% = percentage of white non-regulars who were criminals.
nwc% = percentage of non-white non-regulars who were criminals.

As you can see the actual proportion NW characters remains consistent over the 3 month period as does the percentage of white characters who are portrayed as criminals. It would have been nice to see whether  the percentage of NW criminals continued to fall  but some people lack the mental toughness to carry on(1).

But Ben what you've got to understand is that black people are a minority in the US and so the shows are bound to reflect that.

You're absolutely right Straw Man but according to the US census (via Wikipedia) non-white people constitute 27.6% of the total population so 20% is an undershot by 7.6%.

Yes but... all the TV industry is based in California and so it's bound to reflect the ethnic mix of that state rather than the country as a whole.

Okay California's non-white population is 25.5%...

I meant Los Angeles, duh, obviously I mean they're not making TV in Sacramento are they?

Well Los Angeles has 49.2%...

But the shows are set in specific regions so some are bound to have more ethnics in than others - right?

But you said....

What?

Never mind - moving on. It just so happens I have a break down by region.

Show	nw%		Setting	nw%
Prime Suspect	41%		New York City	56%
Hawaii 5.0	37%		Hawaii	75%
Person of Interest	33%		New York City	56%
Law and Order: SVU	22%		New York City	56%
The Closer	19%		Los Angeles	49%
Justified	19%		Kentucky	19%
Unforgettable	17%		Queens	59%
CSI	17%		Las Vegas	23%
Leverage	17%		Boston	36%
Burn Notice	16%		Miami	27%
Blue Bloods	16%		New York City	56%
The Mentalist	14%		California	26%
Castle	10%		New York City	56%
Once Upon A Time	10%		Maine	4%
Supernatural	9%		United States	28%
Grimm	8%		Portland	22%

Look see - Once Upon A Time and Justified have more black people than there are in the state. Obviously it all balances out in the end.
Really, you're going with that are you?
Nope I'm going to ask whether British TV is any better and even if it was you'd still be speaking German if it wasn't for us - so there!
I'm certainly not going there with you Straw Man but for the sake of completeness I'm going to post the final show by show break down.

Show	nw%	wc%	nwc%
Prime Suspect	41%	30%	48%
Hawaii 5.0	37%	28%	37%
Person of Interest	33%	37%	33%
Law and Order: SVU	22%	27%	24%
The Closer	19%	28%	86%
Justified	19%	64%	78%
Unforgettable	17%	21%	33%
CSI	17%	27%	33%
Leverage	17%	42%	64%
Burn Notice	16%	43%	50%
Blue Bloods	16%	28%	29%
The Mentalist	14%	25%	50%
Castle	10%	20%	0%
Once Upon A Time	10%	2%	0%
Supernatural	9%	30%	0%
Grimm	8%	32%	14%

So next month the question will be; London centre of the Universe or merely the most logical choice for the Capital of the World?

(1) Apparantly it was the prospect of another 4 episodes of Law & Order: SVU that tipped the balance.