Interracial Relationships on TV

"Will interracial relationships ever be common on TV?" asks Sophia Seawell in Bitch Magazine (9/4/2013).  

"Having grown up without that representation [on TV], myself and other multiracial people can attest to its importance," she writes.  

Seawell describes the few examples from 1989 to the present of interracial people and couples in advertising and on TV.  She credits TV shows like Parks & Rec and Grey's Anatomy where "these relationships are portrayed like any other, with the characters’ individual personalities driving the relationship (or causing it to end) and controversy stemming from personal differences rather than racial issues."  CBBG Advisor Erica Chito Childs is quoted in the piece explaining that in films, interracial relationships are "almost exclusively depicted as comical misadventures, introduced as part of a criminal case, used as symbolic of the different worlds that are being portrayed, or play on perceptions of difference, highlighting that racially matched characters are the norm.”  

Have you seen TV's first interracial kiss?

You can read Seawell's full article here.