Soaps "white washed?"

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Are soaps "white washed" STILL? Melrose Place was painfully guilty of this, the only memorable black characters they had were memorable but TOO SHORT guest star runs from Jasmine Guy & Anne Marie Johnson. Dynasty was the only prime time soap to feature a powerful, prominent black character (Diahann Carroll's "Dominique Deveraux) and on the daytime side, the only prominent black characters *I* can remember were the Barber/Winters characters (Olivia, Drucilla, Malcolm & Neil) on The Young & The Restless. The Bold & The Beautiful has two black characters (men at that) on its permanent cast roster for the first time in over 20 years but neither of them is considered a "main" character.

In this day and age...why is this still happening? Is it simply more institutionalized racism? are the studios out of touch? Y&R's predominent audience is older black women followed by blacks in general age 18-34 and then white women...and when they callously killed off Drucilla (due to behind the scenes issues) the rest of the Barber/Winters characters faded into the background...a far cry from the90s when they were the biggest draw on the show.
 
i know but i named the only ones i remember/know of or that stood out.

give some that are recent if you can :p. (cant include sitcoms either lol). I name the only ones I know of and while i dont watch other channels' soaps outside of CBS, ive yet to see/hear about any black characters on par with the Barber/Winters characters on Y&R. Dru was killed off in 07. Oliva just cameoed on B&B when her cousin Justin Barber (one of the only two black characters on that show) got married a week or two ago. Malcom on Y&R is a joke without Shamar Moore portraying him so basically Neil Winters is the only black character still somewhat prominent on there.
 
Well if you're taking daytime soaps, absolutely. Atleast on General Hospital. There's 3 black characters that are on the soap, and 2 of them are reoccurring, so they're not even in the main cast. And the actual principle black actor isn't used very often.

Primetime however, I see more diversity for sure. For example the new 90210 has Dixon who's a main character and black and Naveed who is a main character and Persian. On Gossip Girl they just introduced a very powerful black family who's trying to take over Chuck's family buisness. Private Practice has Taye Diggs and Audra McDonald. They even have an interracial relationship going on between Taye Digg's character Sam and Kate Walsh's character Addison. True Blood is definitely a huge one as well. Desperate Housewives [which I don't watch anymore] has Vanessa Williams and Eva Longoria. Glee has black, Asian, and Hispanic. Etc. Etc.

I think Primetime TV has definitely gotten a lot better about diversity than in prior years. Soaps are just notoriously bad when it comes to being "white washed".
 
I guess I miss out on some of the progress being made courtesy of these shows that i don't watch. i tried to get into gossip girl because kelly rutherford was on there but it just didnt work for me and that was a while ago. i fell off of desperate housewives after season 3...but i do wanna check out Vanessa Williams on there.

Prime does seem to be better than daytime. Daytime really is bad and with soaps waning in popularity , some even falling to the axe, you'd think the producers would get a clue and try to bring in MORE variety of viewers. Y&R was a juggernaut in the 90s and early 00s in large part because of the Barber/Winters characters and the big black audience they pulled in and honestly, those characters were more fun to watch than the supposed "core" characters like Victor Newman at various points. I loved seeing Drucilla and Phyllis go at it.

I was watching B&B last week and this week when this question came to my mind because in over 20 years, B&B has not had one black character on its main roster until the last 4 or 5 years and again, they are more reoccurring than anything else.
 
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