On-screen diversity in casting can mask rather than correct racial stereotyping.

Evidence

Projecting a multicultural U.S. society is another strategy to circumvent accusations of racism while representing Arabs and Muslims as terrorists. In Sleeper Cell, the terrorists are of diverse ethnic backgrounds, and Darwyn, the African American FBI agent, is in an interracial relationship with a white woman. For several seasons of 24, the U.S. president was African American, his press secretary Asian American; the Counter Terrorist Unit is equally diverse, peppered with Latinos and African Americans throughout the show’s eight seasons. The sum total of the casting decisions creates the impression of a United States in which multiculturalism abounds. The projected society is one in which people of different racial backgrounds work together and racism is socially unacceptable. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 153

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to corporate diversity-washing discourse and to ‘diverse but not inclusive’ critiques in media studies and HR literature.
• SEED: Angle: ‘diversity as alibi’ in prestige TV — how representative casting lets shows claim anti-racism while continuing to depict Arabs only as terrorists.