Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Main / HumansAreWhite

Go To

1%% Image removed per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1409078233074771100
2%% Please start a new thread if you'd like to suggest an image.
3%%
4->''"Why '''am''' I the only black Jedi on the Jedi Council? Ain't nobody else in here black, and if ya ''are'' black you got a bone in the middle of yo head."''
5-->-- '''Mace Windu''', ''Film/StarWarsALostHope''
6
7Space has a lot of peoples in it. Way, way more peoples than science tells us there should be. There are [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation blue people, green people, orange people, purple people]], [[ImAHumanitarian people that eat people]], {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s, ScaryDogmaticAliens, BigCreepyCrawlies, EnergyBeings, and even the odd SufficientlyAdvancedAlien with [[AncientAstronauts a very familiar name]]. And most of them even [[AliensSpeakingEnglish speak English]], but there is still probably [[TokenMinority just the one black guy]].[[note]][[AlwaysMale Seldom gal.]][[/note]] You'll have an even harder time finding East Asians[[note]]and if you do they are almost AlwaysFemale[[/note]] or Indians, even though East-, South-, and South-East Asia together contain slightly over half of Earth's current population.
8
9This trope can also appear in alternate dimensions or histories as well as in futuristic space stories.
10
11Arguably a little more justified in SwordAndSorcery works, which are usually set in an iron age culture where travel is difficult, and you might have to travel a long distance to encounter significant ethnic diversity. Plus, if the story is based around a particular real world culture's legends and mythology (Greek, Norse, Japanese, Zulu, whatever), it is to be expected that most of the cast will belong to that ethnicity (indeed, exceptions run the risk of being BlackVikings).
12
13In older live-action works, this occurs because [[MonochromeCasting the great majority of actors were white]], and MediaNotes/TheHaysCode prohibited mixed-race romantic pairings of characters ''and'' the actors who played them.
14
15Note that Humans Are White doesn't have to be about white people [[Administrivia/TropesAreFlexible exclusively]]. If a UsefulNotes/{{Bollywood}} movie set in a distant, alien-filled galaxy features an all-Indian cast with other races in minor roles, and there is no in-universe explanation for the imbalance, then it's an example of this trope.
16
17Contrast with PoliticallyCorrectHistory. Also contrast with InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace, in which no race can be suspiciously over-represented because there is only one race to begin with. Compare with HumanAliens.
18
19Please do not confuse this trope with its SisterTrope, MonochromeCasting (and note that one doesn't imply the other; the cast could still be mixed-race if, say, all Asian actors played Martians rather than humans). Compare with how [[PlentyOfBlondes whites are blonde]].
20
21----
22!!Examples
23
24[[foldercontrol]]
25
26[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
27* ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' has evolved a lot since its beginnings. Though it is at times [[{{Mukokuseki}} a little hard to tell the 'white' people apart from the Asians]] since they used to make not such a big fuss about it.
28** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'', had at an Afro-Argentine character, Ryu. (He might also have been black to [[BlackDudeDiesFirst fit the trope]]) and the Indian Lalah Sune. Apart from that most people looked a lot the same but were probably evenly distributed between Asians and white ones.
29** ''[[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam Zeta Gundam]]'' had TagAlongKid Shinta.
30** ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamZZ Gundam ZZ]]'' features [[ScaryBlackMan Rakan Dahkaran]], a ruthless and rather dangerous ace pilot that heavily contrasted with the recurrent goofy {{Bunny Ears Lawyer}}s that preceded him. Several episodic stories set when the cast travel through Africa begin a trend showing the Universal Century has small populations on Earth that ethnically and cultural resemble the modern day, including a two-parter about the African Liberation Front, who oppose cultural assimilation into the [[OneWorldOrder Earth Federation]].
31** ''[[Anime/MobileSuitVictoryGundam Victory Gundam]]'' featured at least one female, Afro-American main cast member and a couple of other kids who were not white. Also, the origin of Shakti are up to debate, with her name suggesting Indian descent.
32** ''[[Anime/MobileFighterGGundam G Gundam]]'' Chandra (Indian), Conta (Kenyan), Chico (Mexican), Frank (Cuban) are the fighters other than white or East Asian shown.
33** ''Anime/TurnAGundam'''s Loran Cehak is definitely brown-skinned, as is Earthrace noble Guin Lineford, villain Agrippa Maintainer, and side characters Keith, Miashei, and Joseph (with varying shades), along with plenty of nameless background folks. It's difficult to pin actual ethnic origins on them, however, given that some are from the moon and they are frequently dark-skinned blondes. (Plus it's 10,000 years in the future and humans are recovering from a self-induced bottleneck, so gene pools have been basically put in a blender.)
34** ''Anime/GundamSeedStargazer'' has Shams Couza, a black mecha pilot fighting alongside with Mudie (white), and Sven (ambigously mixed White-Asian).
35** ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Gundam 00]]'' has at least two black secondary characters: Graham Aker's late wingman Daryl Dodge and the president of TheFederation. There's also AmbiguouslyBrown Johan Trinity (who seems to be a different race than his siblings. They're DesignerBabies). Despite his Japanese CodeName, the main character Setsuna F. Seiei is Kurdish, along with his ex-mentor/arch-enemy Ali Al Saachez. Princess Marina Ismail and her right-hand Shirin Bakhtiar are Persian (Azadistan is of Persian etymology) Fellow Gundameister Allelujah Haptism is Kazakh. And of course, there are all the other cast members with apparently multiracial origins, as shown through their names. However, any crowd scene not set explicitly in the war-torn parts Middle East will be all-white. (E.g., during the Battle of the Oribtal Elevator, we see the populations of several cities explictly in central Africa, and they aren't black.)
36** ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Gundam Wing]]'' had a large background cast of Arab characters, in the form of Quatre's private army. However, although also of Arabian descent, space-born Quatre was blonde-haired and blue-eyed. Justified with his surname "Winner" which suggested mixed heritage.
37* ''Anime/IrresponsibleCaptainTylor'' has its main characters supposedly as members of an [[TheFederation international military force]]. However, pretty much everyone on the ship has a Japanese name, and the high command are likewise Japanese. The token minority member is Lt. Kim whose [[UsefulNotes/KoreansInJapan appearance in the show]] is probably meant as proof of a more "racially harmonious" future.
38* There are absolutely no non-white characters in TheEmpire in ''Literature/LegendOfTheGalacticHeroes'', for justified ([[MoralEventHorizon if abominable]]) reasons. The Free Planets Alliance, by contrast, showed a number of other ethnicities; in fact, the leading character of the Free Planets side is a Chinese.
39* ''Anime/ZoidsChaoticCentury'' features the AmbiguouslyBrown Moonbay in the otherwise all-white main cast.
40* ''Anime/{{Macross}}'' as a whole does its best to present an ethnically diverse future society, even if its main casts tend to lean towards East Asian and/or European.
41* Outside of {{Filler}} extras, there is exactly one black character (or possibly Indian) in ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', Uub, and he's introduced in the very last episode. He does get an expanded role in GT, but like everyone else who's not named Goku, he's useless.
42** The original ''Manga/DragonBall'' has more diversity, with [[TheDragon Staff Officer Black]] of the Red Ribbon Army (black), Nam (Indian), Bora and Upa (Native American).
43* ''Anime/AldnoahZero'' has a large amount of both Asian characters and white characters living in Japan. This only makes Martian characters stand out. They're descended from, or are outright, humans from Earth who live on Mars. However, pretty much every Martian is white. The two main Martian characters - one who actually was born and raised on Earth though - are blonds with light eye colors in contrast to the black-haired, brown-eyed protagonist.
44* Inverted in ''Anime/RyuTheCaveBoy''. All humans have dark skin. Pale skin is seen as a curse, hence pale-skinned babies being killed after birth. The main character, Ryu, is born with pale skin, and his fellow cavemen try to kill him at every opportunity, with very few tolerating his existence.
45* ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato2199'': Despite the Yamato being under the United Nations Cosmo Navy, the ship's human crew is entirely ethnic Japanese. There is no named human character that is not ethnic Japanese.
46[[/folder]]
47
48[[folder:Comic Books]]
49* In MediaNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}}, ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' featured many aliens but no black human or {{Human Alien|s}} members. Eventually, in MediaNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}}, Tyroc was added as the {{Angry Black Man|Stereotype}} that was a common sort of TokenMinority back in the day (very similar to the earliest portrayals of the John Stewart ComicBook/GreenLantern.) Supposedly, in the 30th century, the world is above caring about things like race, but the [[ExecutiveMeddling meddling executives]], very much of that point in the 20th century, weren't quite up to having a black character as just another guy instead of The Black Guy.
50-->"I always wanted to have a character who was African-American, and years later, when they did that, they did it in the worst way possible....instead of just incidentally having a character who happens to be black...they made a big fuss about it. He's a racial separatist....I just found it pathetic and appalling." -Creator/JimShooter
51** In the Legion's "threeboot" continuity, Star Boy is a black Human Alien from the planet Xanthu who's just one of the gang, though his previous incarnations in the older continuities were white. Atom Girl/Shrinking Violet, another human-looking alien from the planet Imsk, also has vaguely Asian features.
52* In the Franchise/MarvelUniverse, [[Characters/MarvelComicsKree The Kree]] were all originally blue-skinned, but interbreeding with other alien races led to the appearance of a white subrace; the superhero ComicBook/{{Captain Marvel|MarvelComics}} was one of them. The Blue Kree are now a minority that rules their empire and mistreats the others.
53** Both the ComicBook/UltimateMarvel universe and ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' seemingly do away with the white Kree idea, as they both depict Captain Marvel with blue skin like the rest of the Kree.
54* Franchise/{{Superman}}:
55** Starting in the 70's, Krypton is shown to have the [[DependingOnTheWriter island/continent]] of Vathlo, which is basically Kryptonian Africa. E. Nelson Bridwell {{Handwave}}d the lack of black characters in previous stories by pointing out that most black Americans and Europeans are descended from people brought over as slaves; since Krypton never had that type of slave trade, the ethnicities remained relatively localized. On the contrary, Vathlo already had a [[TechnologyLevels comparably advanced culture]] when Krypton's European-analogues first encountered them, and FirstContact ended up being peaceful.
56** Later Post-[[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths Crisis]] stories like ''ComicBook/NewKrypton'' depicted the population of Krypton as being much more diverse, seemingly {{retcon}}ning the previous explanations.
57* ''ComicBook/StarWarsMarvel1977'' was better about averting this than the films or, indeed, more recent Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse comics, as well as having more unremarked-upon female characters. Most of them were incidental, though. [[GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe Red-skinned human-shaped]] Zeltrons also had black-looking facial features, at least until [[DependingOnTheArtist later artists changed them]] [[RaceLift to look like magenta white people]].
58* ''ComicBook/XWingRogueSquadron'': As usual in ''Star Wars'', this is mostly played straight. The only exceptions were Sixtus Quin and Reina Faleur (Faleur was never seen again; Quin reappears briefly in the ''Literature/XWingSeries'' books). In fact, Quin's very existence is owed to the artist, who made him black--Creator/MichaelStackpole hadn't planned him to be that way.
59[[/folder]]
60
61[[folder:Fan Works]]
62* ''Fanfic/StrangeTimesAreUponUs'': The aversion is actually a minor plot point: Benjamin Smith, who's black, thinks that Ba'wov and K'Gan (Klingons pretending to be humans) are slaves escaping from the South because of their coloring[[note]]In ''Franchise/StarTrek'' Klingons are dark-skinned, and are typically played by black actors because it saves on makeup.[[/note]] and secretive behavior.
63[[/folder]]
64
65[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
66* ''Franchise/StarWars'': The original trilogy has only one human main character who is not white: Lando. There aren't even many background nonwhite humans. George Lucas has said that at one point he considered making Han Solo a black character, but decided he "didn't feel like making ''Film/GuessWhosComingToDinner''." [[note]]Keep in mind he also originally planned for Obi-Wan Kenobi to be Asian.[[/note]] Creator/CarlSagan famously pointed out the fact in his critique of ''Film/ANewHope'' when interviewed by Creator/JohnnyCarson in 1978 on ''Series/TheTonightShow''. The prequels and sequels diversify the cast.
67* ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet'' features a large number of space-traveling men... all of whom are white and kinda look alike. Morbius and Altaira are also white as well.
68* All of the citizens of the city in ''Film/LogansRun'' are conspicuously white. That could be the result of the city's DesignerBabies. Then again, the KillerRobot they fight was originally supposed to evoke a "tribal" African and was portrayed by a black actor. You'll just have to draw your own conclusions from that. Note that a single female Green with dark skin and an Afro ''does'' walk by in the background, mere seconds before "The End" crops up on screen. Then again, given the availability of easy facial and body reconstruction, there's no way to know if she's genuinely black, yet another white girl who had her melanin cranked up for style's sake, or if "Caucasian" is just now the "in" look for ''everybody else'' in that particular season.
69* The ''Film/DungeonsAndDragons2000'' movie. With a highly improbable array of bizarre species mingling together in one city, EthnicScrappy Snails is the only black man. Naturally, he has no choice but to fall for the elf ranger of the group... [[TokenMinorityCouple the only black woman in the entire movie]]. Apparently in the land of Izmer, cross-species dating is par for the course, but cross-color dating still doesn't quite come naturally.
70* ''Film/WingCommander'': Unlike in the earlier games on which the film was based (see below), this trope is played straight. There are only two non-white actors in the main cast, and one of them is barely present (Mr. Obutu is part of the Claw's bridge personnel, and often somewhat in the background).
71* ''Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes'':
72** {{Invoked}}. There's only one black man, Dodge, in the [[Film/PlanetOfTheApes1968 original film]], and in the novelization, Zira says that the apes were intrigued by Dodge and stuffed him for display because they'd never seen a human with dark skin before. That said, there ''was'' a black man among the mutant society in the [[Film/BeneathThePlanetOfTheApes second film]]. In the unproduced Creator/ChrisColumbus script, there is [[TokenMinority only one black astronaut]] as well, but [[AuthorsSavingThrow the apes say]] that he has the look of "[[FantasyCounterpartCulture the southern tribes]]" right after meeting him.
73** Pointedly averted in the later films in the original series, where chimpanzee leader Caesar's closest human allies are all men of colour. Caesar was raised by a character played by Mexican actor Creator/RicardoMontalban, and when he's trying to arrange an ape uprising against the dystopian slaver society in the [[Film/ConquestOfThePlanetOfTheApes fourth]] movie, the only human who sympathizes with his cause is [=MacDonald=], a black man who specifically cites the history of his own people as a major motivation. In the [[Film/BattleForThePlanetOfTheApes fifth]] film, Caesar has become the leader of a postapocalyptic community of humans and apes, and one of his advisors - tasked with representing the concerns of the humans - is [=MacDonald=]'s brother.
74* In ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'', the humans and other humanoid races are all white. White extras generally played "good" races while non-white extras were put into costumes as orcs. A British Pakistani woman, who flew all the way to New Zealand to audition as a Hobbit extra in ''Film/TheHobbit'' was [[http://tribune.com.pk/story/84461/pakistani-origin-woman-too-dark-to-play-hobbit/ bluntly told that she was too dark to be a hobbit]] by the casting director. [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105729-Hobbit-Casting-Agent-Fired-For-Dismissing-Non-White-Hobbits Said casting-director was later fired by Peter Jackson (accompanied with a public online apology)]] after the wave of anger on the internet caused by this incident, and yet the casting practice stuck regardless. In fairness, Tolkien did model the Middle Earth setting specifically on medieval Europe as it was perceived at the time (i.e. all-white), but it still sucks for actors of colour who don't want to be orcs.
75** In ''Film/TheHobbit,'' by contrast, some of the citizens of Laketown are non-white – which fits with the town's location in the east and history of being a trading hub.
76** ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'' also contrasts the original trilogy by having several characters of color as {{Canon Foreigner}}s and changing the race of of some canon characters like Queen Miriel.
77* {{Lampshaded}} in ''Film/TheIcePirates'', where the lone black character builds a black fighting robot. When asked why he made the robot black, he replies "I wanted him to be perfect".
78* There is only a ''single'' black person in ''Film/SpaceMutiny'' (a frozen corpse). This has bigger UnfortunateImplications than most examples since the film was made in [[UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra Apartheid era]] South Africa...
79* The sequel/parody of ''[[Film/TheManWhoSavesTheWorld Turkish Star Wars]]'' makes all humans explicitly Turkish (with one black person). There's a reason it's called Turks in Space.
80* ''Film/CatalinaCaper'' has an all white cast with the exception of Little Richard, who appears in one scene for a musical number. This was pointed out frequently when the episode was [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S02E04CatalinaCaper riffed]] on ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''.
81* ''Film/StarTrek2009'' did roughly as well at this as the shows typically did. In addition to the main cast including a black woman[[note]]who, let's not forget, [[AscendedExtra was practically an extra]] in her original incarnation in ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''[[/note]] and an Asian, the original captain of the ''Kelvin'' is Pakistani, and Admiral Barnett, the head of the Starfleet Academy Board (who is played by Creator/TylerPerry, incidentally) is black. The extras have various other colors, including of course {{green|SkinnedSpaceBabe}}. ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'' adds Thomas Harewood and his family, Harewood being the black British Starfleet officer whom Khan uses to blow up [[spoiler:Section 31's weapons lab]]. However, ''Into Darkness'' drew a lot of criticism for the RaceLift of the ethnic Indian Khan Noonien Singh into a white guy (though it's worth noting [[PlaysGreatEthnics the original actor was Hispanic]]).[[note]]It was later explained that Khan's RaceLift was the result of MagicPlasticSurgery to create a false identity and conceal his status as an infamous war criminal from the 21st century.[[/note]]
82* In the ''Series/{{Nova}}'' documentary ''[[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/decoding-neanderthals.html Decoding Neanderthals,]]'' the Cro-Magnon characters all seem to have brown hair, gray eyes, and light skin, while the Neanderthal characters all have black hair, dark eyes and slightly darker skin. This is especially odd given that the Neanderthals' ancestors have been living in and adapting to Europe for hundreds of thousands of years, and the Cro-Magnons' ancestors left Africa not all that long ago in evolutionary terms. It's also been learned that Neanderthals were pale-skinned, and some even ''redheads''.
83* In contrast, ''[[http://www.pbs.org/first-peoples/home/ First Peoples,]]'' a later Creator/{{PBS}} miniseries on the same topic, correctly portrayed the theoretical skin colors of the hominids involved, with the only recognizably white actors cast as Neanderthals and nearly all the modern humans either black or AmbiguouslyBrown.
84* PlayedStraight (for Hispanic standards) in ''Film/SantoContraLaInvasionDeLosMarcianos'', all humans are white Mexicans. This is probably due to a common practice in Mexican cinema of casting mostly European-looking actors for its movies.
85* 1984's ''Film/{{Dune|1984}}'' has a mostly white cast, even for the Fremen (desert-dwellers of Arabic descent) and the Atreides (of Greek descent, and explicitly described in the source novel as "dark"). The [[Film/Dune2021 2021]]-[[Film/DunePartTwo 2024]] adaptation averts this.
86* ''Film/StarshipTroopers'': The cast is significantly whiter than in the book it's supposedly based on. The protagonist Johnny Rico, a Filipino in the novel, is given a RaceLift in order to make the human society look more Nazi. Granted they're supposed to be future Argentinians (Argentine is the most European Latin American country, though still not ''that'' white in terms of looks).
87* ''Film/TheTimeMachine1960'': In the future, all Eloi (one offshoot of modern humanity) are uniformly white and mostly blond. This might seem plausible as it's set in the former London (yet even then the blondness isn't) but they also are living in what looks like a pretty hot climate to judge from the lush jungle that sprung up. So you would expect the Eloi to have darker skin and hair eventually as a result (granted, it isn't clear how long the climate's been that way).
88* ''Film/TheGirlFromMonday'': The whole cast is white, even minor characters. Apparently, the future US has gotten far whiter, contrary to demographic predictions.
89[[/folder]]
90
91[[folder:Literature]]
92* In Poul Anderson's ''Literature/AfterDoomsday'', Earth has been destroyed by hostile aliens but the crew of two spaceships survive. One with an all-male crew from the USA, and there is no indication it includes any Black, Asian or Latino; one with an all-female crew from Europe.
93* ''Literature/EarthsChildren'': The story takes place entirely in Europe, and the characters generally have modern European coloration. Two exceptions:
94** Ranec, who is half-black. His father walked from (modern-day) Ukraine to northern Africa (yes, ''walked'') before meeting his black mother's people. However, Ranec gets around sexually (like most men in this story), and many characters have observed his genetic influence on the younger generation, so a darker skin tone is present among some of the Mamutoi children whom he fathered.
95** In ''The Plains of Passage'', we are introduced to Jerika (East Asian), the second wife to Jondalar's (European) father Dalanar, and their daughter Joplaya, and Jerika's father Hochaman.
96* Inverted in the ''Literature/ImperialRadch'' universe. Although the interstellar [[TheEmpire empire]] of the Radch runs the gamut of assimilated planets and peoples, upper-class Radchaai culture views pale skin as somewhat unfashionable, so there is some social pressure to have it darkened.
97* In the ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'' black people are extremely rare, and it goes so far as for one character to ask if one of the black character's skin is dyed. They apparently come from far away and travel is limited by technology, much like the real world. The series swings into UnfortunateImplications territory when it mentions that the "wandering tribes'" favorite thing to do is "smoke cardus weed."
98* Every human character from ''Literature/TheIronTeeth'' could fall into this trope. The in story explanation for this is that in this world all humans come from a single isolated continent known as The Homelands, and are thus there is less genetic diversity than on earth.
99* Somewhat subverted in John Scalzi's ''Literature/OldMansWar'': colonists for newly discovered planets are specifically taken from the less developed and/or overpopulated countries in general (though mostly war-torn India). If an American/European (unless you're from Norway) wants to get off-planet, they have to join the SpaceMarines (who have ''green'' skin and die a lot).
100* Inverted by Creator/LEModesittJr in ''The Parafaith War''. The hero is blond and white-skinned... and therefore regarded with a lot of suspicion by everyone as straight "anglos" are rare in the Eco-Tech Coalition. They are more often associated with their adversaries, the fanatical Revenants of the Prophets. Most Eco-Tech citizens are Asian (predominantly South East Asian with a strong component of Japanese.) Because of that he is ultimately sent into enemy territory as a spy.
101* In ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'', all main characters and most of the side characters are white, though Hotep-Ra is depicted as being black.
102* Justified in ''Literature/SewerGasAndElectric: The Public Works Trilogy'', in which virtually anyone with black African ancestry has been wiped out [[spoiler:by a racist nanite plague. Two of the main characters, a father and daughter, are black ''with green eyes'', this being a trait the virus was programmed to read as "not black"]]. Period movies featuring black characters have to cast Australian aborigines in those roles, and there's a [[ShowWithinAShow TV show]] with an all-aboriginal cast who play black space colonists who'd survived the plague by being on Mars at the time.
103* The future history of Creator/HBeamPiper's ''[[TheFederation Terran Federation]]'' implies that the original races of humanity have been mixed in a Waring blender, resulting in such character names as "Hideyoshi O'Leary" and "Themistocles M'zangwe"; M'zangwe in particular is specifically noted to be brown-skinned in ''Uller Uprising''.
104* In Creator/LSpragueDeCamp's ''Literature/ViagensInterplanetarias'' stories, one alien monarch simply refused to believe that African-descended Earthmen and European-descended Earthmen could ''possibly'' be of the same species. So he tried to test this "scientifically" by imprisoning two people (black man and white woman) together to see if they could breed. Needless to say, they didn't find it very romantic.
105* The ''Literature/WarWorld'' series has black white people--the descendants of extreme South African white supremacists who wound up on a planet with so much UV that they selected for dark brown skin. One of the latter-day inhabitants describes this as "ironic".
106* Justified in ''Literature/WitchellASymphony'' via unexpectedly harsh means -- the European mages killed the magic users of other societies when they were encountered, leaving the European (and very white) mages as the pre-eminent magical society. However, it's also suggested that the other mage societies might have survived the massacre and simply become very adept at hiding from their enemies.
107* Played with in ''Literature/TheWizardTheWitchAndTwoGirlsFromJersey'': all of King Rellett's warriors have dark hair and skin, but it's explicitly stated that this is what the people "of the region" look like. There are lighter-skinned people elsewhere in ''The Queen of Twilight'''s universe, as the princes of the Eastern Isles include one who appears Irish and one who appears Latino.
108* ''Literature/WorldsOfShadow'': {{Lampshaded}} in the sci-fi universe, where all the Imperials we see are Caucasians. Though they claim people of other races live there, but separately, none actually appear. It's made explicit that they are also white supremacists, disliking to see black people working at an equal level with whites on Earth, and thus other races in their empire are probably forcibly kept separate in an inferior position.
109* Inverted in Creator/ArthurCClarke's short story ''Reunion'', which takes the form of a message sent by an approaching alien spacecraft. Earth is a lost colony whose inhabitants contracted a disfiguring disease. Though many of the colonists were immune, it led to thousands of years of hatred between those who were affected and those who were not. However the aliens have good news: the disease is treatable, and they assure us that [[spoiler:If any of you are still white, we can cure you.]]
110* ''Literature/TheArtsOfDarkAndLight'' Since the world of Selenoth is a MedievalEuropeanFantasy world, there are no African or Asian human cultures in it, at least not on the main continent where the stories take place (the werecats in the South are vaguely Egyptian, but they aren't human). There is still a fair bit of diversity between cultures [[PeopleOfHairColor within the white races]], though, from Latin-Mediterranean types to stocky Bavarian/Swiss analogues, gingers and Tacitus-inspired blond and blue-eyed Nordics.
111[[/folder]]
112
113[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
114* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
115** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E21TheReturnOfTheArchons Return of the Archons]]", the ''Enterprise'' beams down two disguised crewmen to a primitive planet. The crewmen are identified as strangers and get in trouble almost immediately. The crewmen seem surprised by this, despite the fact that the planet seems to be inhabited entirely by white folks, and one of the crewmen is ''Sulu''.
116** Painfully applied in ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', which has one African-American guy, one Japanese woman, and the rest of the crew is seemingly made up entirely of whites, except for a minor marine played by a pre-''Series/{{Lost}}'' [[RetroactiveRecognition Daniel Dae Kim]].
117*** Throughout ''Enterprise'', the blue-skinned Andorians repeatedly use "pinkskin" as a derogatory term for humans in general, even after meeting others. Especially weird in their first appearance, where they are using it to differentiate the humans from a group of Vulcans with the exact same skin tones. {{Lampshaded}} in one of the ''Literature/StarTrekEnterpriseRelaunch'' novels, where Shran starts to call Mayweather "pinkskin" and then realises that his skin isn’t pink, apparently for the first time.
118** Though most of the ''aliens'' in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' are white, the human cast is quite colorful, including two African-Americans (one of whom is the lead), Bashir (whose actor is of half-Arab, half-white descent, though both of his parents were played by Brian George, an Iraqi Jewish actor who usually plays Indian or Arab characters and by an Egyptian actress), and one white man (who clearly identifies as Irish more than white American). In addition, several black guest stars appear throughout the show (though most of them are love interests for the African-descended regulars).
119*** There is a 'behind the scenes' book that claims that the only way race impacted casting for ''Deep Space Nine'''s initial regulars was Jake having to be visibly the same race as his father.
120*** The casting directors decided that it would be unrealistic for alien species to have evolved the same 'races' as humans have. A majority of white Bajorans are shown to have red or sandy hair, for instance, and while Asians were cast as Bajorans, no Asians were cast as Klingons and only one black actor was cast as a Bajoran, as a walk-on.
121*** Side-note: of the first five ''Trek'' series, ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' was the only one in which ''none'' of the starring characters was a white person from the United States. ''TOS'' had Kirk (Iowa) and Bones (Tennessee), ''TNG'' had Riker (Alaska, with ancestors from New York), ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' had Janeway (Indiana) and Paris (San Francisco, son of an admiral), ''Enterprise'' had Archer (San Francisco but grew up in upstate New York) and Tucker (Florida). Sisko was from New Orleans and visits it a few times in the show's run, but is African-American. The one white human, O'Brien, is from Ireland.
122*** Bonus points: near the end of the series, in "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E15BaddaBingBaddaBang Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang]]", Sisko even criticizes the Vic Fontaine holodeck program of a 1960s Las Vegas casino lounge club, for ''not'' being Humans Are White in-universe. It's programmed to ''ignore'' the races of characters and human players in it, rather than put a bunch of offensive racism in it -- but Sisko argues that this is essentially whitewashing history, because black people ''did'' face a lot of racism in the real-life 1960s. He points out that most such clubs didn't accept black people as customers. Kasidy disagrees, however, saying it's how the '60s ''should'' have been in real life, i.e., an idealized fantasy is good sometimes.
123* ''Series/Babylon5'' has a mixed record:
124** The pilot included [[NumberOne second-in-command]] Lt. Commander Laurel Takashima, a Japanese woman with a substantial role in the "bridge" command crew, but she was PutOnABus for the main series because her actress Creator/TamlynTomita wanted to focus on film work, and replaced with Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova (a Russian Jew). Although Commander Jeffrey Sinclair's love interest Carolyn Sykes, a white woman, was also PutOnABus and replaced with Catherine Sakai, a Japanese woman, for the main series.
125** Chief medical officer Doctor Stephen Franklin (and his father, General Richard Franklin, who appears in one episode) are apparently African Americans. Dr. Franklin replaced Dr. Benjamin Kyle from the pilot, who was also black.
126** With the exception of Dr. Franklin, the core cast and most actors with speaking parts were white. The show does better on ethnic diversity when you consider minor characters (e.g., Earth Alliance President Luis Santiago; Senator Hidoshi) and the extras playing the human population of the station. Puzzlingly, however, there are hardly any Indians or Chinese (Asian characters are usually Japanese).
127* The ''Babylon 5'' spinoff ''Series/{{Crusade}}'' had one Asian as NumberOne, Lt. John Matheson, again played by a pre-''Series/{{Lost}}'' Daniel Dae Kim! There was also Dr. Sarah Chambers, the chief medical officer, who was black. Everyone else was white, though.
128* In ''Series/{{Firefly}}'', though the cast is hardly monochrome, people of Chinese descent are rarely if ever seen, and the only ones given any lines play ''[[AsianHookerStereotype prostitutes]]!'' This is in a world that is ''supposed'' to be an American/Chinese fusion, with Chinese language common enough to be scattered through the English-speaking characters' conversation (mostly Chinese swear words). The DVD commentary on the episode "Shindig" points out that there are a few characters with "Chinese" surnames like Tam and Wing, which could suggest that there's been a bit of mingling, [[FakeMixedRace but they're still played by white actors]]. Kaylee was meant to be Asian, but when Creator/JewelStaite auditioned, she ended up being white anyway.
129* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in the 2007 ''Series/{{Flash Gordon|2007}}''; when Nick asks Baylin whether there are any "people of color" on Mongo, she replies "I know many people of color - yellow, red, even blue. I am [[FantasticRacism not so fond of the blue ones]], though."
130* Given that ''Series/MortalKombatConquest'' is a FantasyKitchenSink that has superpowered {{ninja}}s, [[AnotherDimension dimension traveling]], and a [[PhysicalGod storm god]] who routinely acts more like an [[CoolOldGuy affectionate great uncle]] than an all-powerful deity, it's reasonable that there might be an Asian temple near a city populated mostly by white people and that Raiden would take the form of a European. This is countered by the fact that the series is supposed to be set in ''ancient China''.
131%%* ''Series/ThirtyRock'': Briefly {{discussed|Trope}}.
132%%-->"How come there ain't no Puerto Ricans on'' Franchise/StarTrek''!? They got every race and life-form in the galaxy, except for Puerto Ricans! What's up with that?!
133* ''Series/TheTomorrowPeople1973'' had a black actress in their regular cast, who was once forced to sit out their visit to a HumanAlien planet because there weren't any black people on that world. A native asked her if she was from the same planet as the other Tomorrow People, then commented that there must be "an interesting variety of skin color" on Earth when she said yes.
134* Rather darkly pointed out on ''Series/BlakesSeven''. Dayna, who's black, wonders before one mission if she'd be able to pass for a native on the planet they're visiting. Avon assures her that the planet was colonized a long time ago, back when there were laws in place requiring colony projects to include a proportionate number of all ethnic groups. Basically, affirmative action in space. The implication is that once the Federation overturned those laws, colony projects suddenly got a lot whiter.
135** However in that very same episode, the supposedly diverse planet has an all-white cast, except for a [[EqualOpportunityEvil single black soldier who's a Federation trooper]]. Clearly whoever cast the extras hadn't read the script.
136* In ''Series/{{Space Rangers|1993}}'' all human characters (apart from one recurring extra) are white. Asian actors are cast as aliens.
137* TV stations in the south, especially before the civil rights movement, often did not want to air shows with non-white characters. This led to an all-white cast for shows such as ''Beverly Hillbillies'' and ''The Andy Griffith Show'', and only very occasional non-white characters in shows such as ''Gunsmoke''. The producers of ''Andy Griffith'' admitted they wanted black characters on the show many times but could not do so for fear of southern TV affiliates pulling the series. They were able to subvert that after the show became ''Series/MayberryRFD''. Even after southern TV stations began to relax their standards, racist tensions were still present - the kiss between Kirk and Uhura in ''Star Trek'' was filmed specifically to avoid showing their lips touching simply to avoid southern network affiliates pulling the show.
138* ''Series/{{Defiance}}'':
139** When the Castithan villain Datak Tarr is listing the things he hates about humans to his human nemesis Rafe [=McCawley=], it includes "the smell of your pink skin makes me sick". Rafe, who is of Native American descent and played by [[Creator/GrahamGreeneActor Graham Greene]], says "Does this skin look pink to you?", to which Datak replies that we all look the same to him.
140** The following season, when Datak's son Alak is upset about his wife Christie, Rafe's daughter, {{cosplay}}ing as a Castithan, he asks her how she should like it if he painted his skin "human pink". Christie also points out that her skin isn't pink. Obviously, one thing Castithans ''don't'' have is superior vision.
141** ''Contextually'' this is played straight as while the [[RubberForeheadAliens Votan]] are an [[FantasyCounterpartCulture alien]] [[AnImmigrantsTale immigrant]] allegory, everything culturally human/"Old World" is monolithically white with just a few [[TokenMinority Token Minorities]] sprinkled about like ''Film/{{Avatar}}'' instead of ''Series/AmericanGods2017'' in cultural perspectives. To count:
142*** Besides the above example, Rafe is a rich Native American millennial that misses the past yet is essentially like an old white RacistGrandpa toward the Native-''like'' Irathients without him or the show showing any self-awareness about this.
143*** For the same reasons, Christie is essentially the naïve white woman who married into an ethnic family and put on the alien-equivalent of ''{{Blackface}}'' that understandably disgusts her husband.
144*** MonochromeCasting. The town of Defiance is a re-named future St. Louis. The real/modern St. Louis is a majority black city yet the show, alien future or not, is overwhelmingly/inexplicably white with only a token amount of black and POC characters, [[spoiler:made worse by the fact that ''all'' the recurring POC humans are ''dead'' before the show wraps up.]] Meaning [[WhiteMaleLead Nolan]] should've been the TokenMinority instead of [[BadassBookworm Tommy]].
145*** Related to the above, [[FantasticSlur "pink skin"]] implies the majority of humans in post-war America are still white despite both the projected future demographic changes ''and'' the fact that humans ironically are more diverse-looking than all the Votan races combined (ex. Irathients universally have red hair and bronze skin, Castithans universally have white hair and literally white skin).
146*** CoveredUp or not, musically, predominantly white genres and artists are played yet there is no rap, R&B, Latin, etc. meaning ''Music/{{The Cure|Band}}'' were played yet black music like St. Louis's own Nelly was not.
147*** And lastly, [[WhiteMaleLead Joshua]] [[DesignatedHero Nolan]] is the literal [[TheFace face]] of the show whose character arc is the [[SarcasmMode classic]] [[TheAtoner repenting]] [[WhiteMansBurden White Savior]] story from the casual racism to the DarkAndTroubledPast to the HeroicSacrifice for the helpless aliens.
148* ''Series/{{Earthsea}}'' played this straight despite the thorough aversion by the source material, where everyone except the white Viking-analogue Kargs had red-brown or black skin. Everyone in this Earthsea is white, with the exception of Ogion, played by Creator/DannyGlover (who, as a wise, old mentor, fulfills MagicalNegro tropes even in a cast of wizards), and Tenar, played by Creator/KristinKreuk (who ironically actually ''was'' white in the novels, since she was of Kargish descent). The main protagonist, Ged, has red-brown skin in the books, but is played by Creator/ShawnAshmore in the miniseries. This was among the many reasons Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin {{disowned|Adaptation}} it.
149* In the TV version of ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', it's Humans Are White and British, especially since Arthur and Trillian, the only two surviving humans, are white Brits.[[note]]Except for the American actress who played Trillian. People familiar with the original radio show and the novelisations pointed out Trilian should be as British as Arthur Dent.[[/note]]
150* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace The Ark in Space]]" seems to have only white people representing the future of humanity. Creator/RobertHolmes had not had this as part of his original vision for the story -- in fact, he had wanted Vira to be Haitian (partly to avert this, partly for RuleOfSymbolism as she was a medical officer tasked with [[VoodooZombie reviving people put into a living-death state]]). The character as seen on screen is white and British, presumably because of the lack of access to Haitian actresses in the BBC's low-budget programming in 1975.
151** The show is much better about it these days. In the old serials you could go quite some time between non-white person sightings. Martha Jones was the show's first series-long black companion (Series 3, in 2006), and of course there's {{Recurrer}} Mickey in the Ninth and Tenth Doctors eras (Series 1-4). Later in the Twelfth Doctor era, more black characters appeared in major roles: Danny Pink was a key recurring character in Series 8 (though, awkwardly, he ended up in a similar RomanticRunnerUp position to Mickey storywise), and Bill Potts was the principal companion in Series 10 (and the first lesbian companion in the televised canon). Of the three main companions associated with the Thirteenth Doctor, only one is Caucasian, and an additional non-white recurring character also appears in Series 11. Moreover, the people stuck in the situation-of-the-week with the Doctor and his/her/their companions will almost never be all-white. When it comes to the future, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E2DinosaursOnASpaceship Dinosaurs on a Spaceship]]" has ''India's'' space program as the main people dealing with said spaceship! The ExpandedUniverse, particularly ''ComicBook/DoctorWhoTitan'', has additional non-white companion characters.
152* ''Series/FrankHerbertsDune'' has a mostly white cast, even for the Fremen (desert-dwellers of Arabic descent) and the Atreides (of Greek descent, and explicitly described in the source novel as "dark").
153[[/folder]]
154
155[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
156* ''TabletopGame/Space1889'': Justified. In late 19th century, white humans probably have the largest share of the total human population they ever had. More importantly the white nations are much more powerful than the non-whites and except for the US have no big non-white minorities except in the colonies. These being fairly racist societies non-whites rarely get important positions in white majority countries. Humans on Mars are almost exclusively white, except for a few Japanese in their out-of-the-way research station. Canal Martians do not have any significant geographical differences since they have had fairly easy long-distance travel and even a global society for millennia. Canal Martians refer to humans as "red men" because white people look red to them. (Canal Martians are themselves pale yellow, with the other Martian races having darker complexions.)
157* Most of the art for the UsedFuture in the [[AfterTheEnd bleak]] game ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' shows the humans as [[DarkerAndEdgier particularly grizzled]] European-types. Leading to a gamer extension of the game's tagline. "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war" ("And white people"). This could be partially justified by the large amount of hive worlds, where the population would receive little to no sunlight, and by humanity's incredibly strict "no mutations" policy. A few exceptions include:
158** The Salamanders SpaceMarine chapter, who are all black-skinned due to "unique genetics". Note that this black as in the color black, jet black, (like obsidian), not what we call black skin in real life. Whether the unmodified humans of their world are black or white keeps getting retconned back and forth. The ''Literature/{{Salamanders}}'' series implies that it depends on where the native Nocturneans are from. Surface-dwellers tend towards darker shades, whereas cavern-dwelling ones are paler.[[note]]Paler as in "not as dark". Apparently, most people living on Nocturne have darker skin due to the planet's topography, geological activity and magnetosphere letting in a large amount of UV rays[[/note]]
159** The Dark Angels first company, the Deathwing Terminators, seem to be influenced by Native American culture although their actual members still retain an appearance out of Middle Ages Europe.
160** The Imperial Fists seems to be multi ethnic, with Latino and Germanic influences being present although Rogal Dorn (their Primarch) landed on a planet based on Inuit culture. One of their successors, the Crimson Fists, are all Latino.
161** Khan and the White Scars are often depicted as Asian while Corax and the Raven Guard are (pale faced) Native Americans. [[InvertedTrope Thus, the Damocles campaign which features both chapters going up against the Tau actually shows no white space marines present in the fluff.]]
162** The ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'' RPG, where you can roll for your skin tone -- aside from the void-born, whose skin-tones range from "porcelain" to "ivory", (bear in mind, most Voidborn have never seen a window, much less a sun) all origins can have a variety of skin tones and eye colors.
163** Possibly the God Emperor, who is "from the general area where modern Turkey now sits." It's unclear exactly what race he is, however, as he comes from a time ''before'' Turks lived in Anatolia. It's stated in the fluff that the power base of the Emperor of Man during the Unification Wars on Earth was the Achaemenid Empire, located in what would be the Iranian-Arab sphere of influence throughout history (and apparently up to the 30th millenium); and it's mentioned that due to the fact that the inhabitants of that region were his earliest followers, they got out of the Unification Wars largely unscathed (as opposed to the other populations who usually had to be beaten into submission by the Emperor's henchmen). So in fact, the backbone of the Imperial Army during the Crusade should rather have been predominantly Middle Eastern (of varying skin tones if Warhammer's Iran is anything like it is today).
164** ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' introduces Inquisitor Mordecai Toth, who is black. Perhaps the only explicitly black character in the setting, until ''Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising'' gave us the Blood Ravens Librarian Jonah Orion, who also has a vaguely African skin tone.
165** As [[WordOfGod stated in certain interviews]], the UnfortunateImplications were completely unintentional; it was the working assumption that there would be as much variance in the human appearance as there is now, and with Abhumans and the Astartes, even more. However, the early art teams were rather small, and tended to paint what they knew... A habit that's been continued on, more out of familiarity than anything else. There's numerous cases in the fluff and literature, as well as several from video games, of people with varying racial profiles, and there's nothing stopping modelists from making different skin tones. Another contributing factor is that dark skin is much harder to paint (and get to look good) on miniatures than light skin.
166** The ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' novels indicate that in the larger galaxy there's quite a lot of variation. Cain's Valhallan troops are mostly white, but ''Caves of Ice'' says that humans from the other planets in Valhalla's system tend to have much darker skin. This seems to be a case of humans gradually gaining or losing melanin based on solar output; Valhalla is far from its star and very cold with most people living underground. A minor character on the troopship in ''Death or Glory'' is clearly of African descent.
167** The Vitrian Dragoons who work with the {{Scotireland}}-[[RecycledInSpace in-space]] Tanith First in ''[[Literature/GauntsGhosts First and Only]]'' are all described as dark-skinned.
168* The ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' sourcebooks for UsefulNotes/NewOrleans, UsefulNotes/{{Atlanta}}, and UsefulNotes/{{Milwaukee}} feature next to no black characters, even though all three cities have a black majority. Atlanta in particular is known for being a thriving center for African-American culture, but this is completely glossed over.
169* This was (at least during the 1980s) ''the official policy'' of Creator/{{TSR}} when it came to ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', their reason being, "That's what we have demihumans for." Thankfully this isn't as strong as it once was, with entire sourcebooks having since been written on non-Eurocentric fantasy settings. The one downside is that these sourcebooks tend to have names like ''Oriental Adventures''.
170[[/folder]]
171
172[[folder:Video Games]]
173* In ''VideoGame/FrostPunk'', not only is everyone white but almost everyone is British. The only exceptions are a handful of Americans [[spoiler: who survived the fall of Tesla City]] and a token Norwegian in the form of Fridtjof Nansen [[spoiler: who is implied to have died while guiding survivors to New London]].
174* In the world of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', there are [[TalkingAnimal lion-like people]], robots, robot cats, ancient beings... and only about four black guys.
175** In ''Crisis Core'', however, just about one in three of the [=NPC=]s (for each gender) is black, seemingly at random, in Midgar at the very least. Though, whether it's an intentional aversion of this or just coincidence is anyone's guess.
176** Even before ''Crisis Core'', certain locales (most obviously North Corel) have a large portion (or even majority) of their [=NPC=]s rendered with much darker skin. Given the limitations of the engine, counts as an aversion.
177** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'', Humes could only be white or vaguely Asian-looking. It wasn't until ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' where human protagonists in the multiplayer games could have varying skin colors.
178** Similarly, ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' has only two black men, Sazh and his son.
179** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'' features a somewhat more diverse cast of non-playable characters, however only two characters of any significance are black, including Weskham Armaugh, a close ally of Noctis' father and restaurant owner who in the past fought alongside Regis with two firearms and a rapier. The other was Sania Yeagre, a quest-giving NPC who had a smaller role as a famous biologist and one of the few people who noticed the effects [[spoiler:the Starscourge was having on living beings.]]
180* In ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'', while there are plenty of non-human characters (like Donald and Goofy), the only main character in the Dark Seeker Saga who isn't white or Japanese is the villain. [[spoiler:Different versions of him, to be exact.]]
181* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' had as its only black character an easily-forgettable minor noble who only exists in one cutscene.
182** Rafa and her brother are clearly meant to be Arab, however.
183** Granted, FFT takes place in a single country, based off of Middle Ages Europe. Make of that what you will.
184** Similarly, its predecessor ''VideoGame/TacticsOgre'' had exactly one black character, the Dark Knight Andoras.
185*** ''VideoGame/OgreBattle64'' actually features multiple people from Bolmarcia, who are explained as being the [[FantasyCounterpartCulture ambiguously African]] people [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything conquered by the obviously evil Lodissian Empire]].
186* Played straight in ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}} 4''. Every regular unit regardless of the civ is white.
187** Averted in the expansions. Various civs get more accurate unit models for their military units.
188* Played straight in the ''VideoGame/{{Disciples}}'' series. Arguably justified as the world of Nevendaar is based on medieval Europe. The only characters with dark skin owe it to [[TheUndead necrosis]].
189* There is exactly one non-white human NPC in the entirety of ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'', Aarin Gend. ''Shadows of Undrentide'' averts this, though, as a portion of the campaign is spent in the desert of Anauroch, which has vaguely North African-based inhabitants.
190* Better dealt with for the squad of ''[[VideoGame/{{ARMA}} ARMA 2]]'' - there are two black men, two white men and a latino in the five-man squad. Even more, the main player character is one of the black men.
191* Most of the people we see in ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' are white, despite the fact that all the locations visited on Earth are in Africa. Additionally, most of the major [[SuperSoldier Spartan-II]] characters, including the entirety of Blue Team, are also white. That said, there are still plenty of exceptions:
192** One of the main supporting characters is African-American Sergeant Johnson; other named black characters in the original trilogy include Marcus Banks in ''VideoGame/Halo2''. As far as Hispanics go, there's Manuel Mendoza in ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved''. A few of the random unnamed [=NPC=]s are also nonwhite, such as a Hispanic marine voiced by Creator/MichelleRodriguez in ''Halo 2'' and a female black marine in ''VideoGame/Halo3''.
193** It's implied that scientist Ellen Anders from ''VideoGame/HaloWars'' and ''VideoGame/HaloWars2'' is of mixed European/East-Asian ancestry like her voice actresses Creator/KimMaiGuest and Faye Kingslee.
194** ''VideoGame/Halo3ODST'' introduces ODST sniper Kojo "Romeo" Agu and New Mombasa natives Sadie, Dr. Endesha, Jonas, and Commissioner Kinsler, all of whom are black (with the latter four being native African). That said, New Mombasa's population is surprisingly white for an African city, even accounting for the fact that it's a major port city hosting a space elevator.
195** ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' features three Spartan-III squad members that aren't simply of European ethnicity, although Emile, who has a black voice actor and is depicted as such in concept art, never removes his helmet. There's also black NPC Sergeant Duvall.
196** As shown in these [[http://kylehefley.tumblr.com/post/89592689343/heads-heads-and-more-heads-over-24-unique models]], ''VideoGame/Halo4'' has a decent amount of diversity in its human [=NPC=]s; it's just not very noticeable in-game due to the fact that most of them wear helmets that cover most of their faces. As far as named characters go, there's black Spartan-IV Carlo Hoya; the other four members of Fireteam Majestic are all white, though.
197** ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians'' averts it nicely with Fireteam Osiris; half of the team is non-white, including its leader (and overall {{Deuteragonist}}) Jameson Locke.
198** The ExpandedUniverse contains way more characters of non-European ethnicity than the games do; Fhajad-084, Li-008, Jilan al-Cygni, Zheng Cho, Akio Watanabe, Zhou Heng Lopez, Ngoc Benti, Kopano N'Singile, Raj Singh, Maria Esquival, etc. Serin Osman from the ''[[Literature/HaloGlasslands Kilo]]-[[Literature/HaloTheThursdayWar Five]]'' [[Literature/HaloMortalDictata trilogy]], who is of Turkish ancestry, shows up in ''Halo 4''[='s=] ''Spartan Ops'' co-op campaign, as head of [[StateSec ONI]] to boot. Additionally, the head of the SPARTAN-IV program has the Arabic name of "Musa".
199* ''{{VideoGame/Starcraft}}'': Most of the human characters are white, with a handful of exceptions, one of whom [[spoiler:is a shapeshifting alien horror whose ''second'' identity has light skin.]] Things aren't much better gameplay-wise: only one unit in each game is nonwhite. In the first game, he's your basic worker. It's ''possible'' this is because every human in the Koprulu Sector is descended from a couple thousand people sent there on colony ships, but when a fleet from Earth comes calling, most of ''them'' are white too [[spoiler:except for the aforementioned alien shapeshifter, whom they recruited locally in any case]].
200* Every important human characters in the ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' games are white. ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' makes a token effort at sprinkling dark-skinned human [=NPC=]s around (albeit as unimportant quest givers or random extras). These darker skins are also available to players in character creation, but are seldom chosen by players. There is some kind of an explanation for this in-universe [[spoiler:humans descend from the very scandinavian Vrykul]], but still.
201* The Wild-West game ''VideoGame/WildARMs3'' has Gallows, a "Baskar", a race obviously inspired by Native Americans, as one of the characters in your party. He's not really {{Flanderiz|ation}}ed, either. He's the only playable Baskar.
202* In the first two ''VideoGame/{{Fable}}'' games, where the only black characters are Thunder and Whisper in the first game and Garth in the second. Garth is from another country, so it's not unreasonable that Thunder and Whisper are as well (the game strongly supports this via dress and accents).
203* ''[[VideoGame/CapcomVsSNK2MarkOfTheMillennium Capcom vs. SNK 2]]''. The roster is made up of mostly East Asian and white characters. 4 Eurasians (Ken, Ryo, Yuri, and Benimaru) are also on the roster, along with Balrog (black American), Blanka (originally white, but now takes the appearance of a wild man with green skin), Dhalsim (Indian), Morrigan (a succubus hailing from Scotland), and Sagat (Thai). M. Bison's ethnicity isn't clear, though.
204** When the games made the jump to FullMotionVideo, the ratio of ethnicities tilted towards white, but there was still a fairly significant non-token minority presence, including the first carrier captain seen in the series who wasn't white, Captain Eisen.
205* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
206** Subtly played with.. Of the four races of "humans" in Tamriel, three (the Roman/Italian Imperials, Anglo/French Bretons, and Norse Nords) are primarily white.[[note]] Obviously, you can set the skin tone on your PlayerCharacter of these races very dark if you wish, and as of ''Skyrim'', there are some AmbiguouslyBrown [=NPCs=] of these races for the first time, such as [[http://uesp.net/wiki/File:SR-npc-Adrianne_Avenicci.jpg Adrianne]], [[http://uesp.net/wiki/File:SR-npc-Tacitus_Sallustius.jpg Tacitus]] and [[http://uesp.net/wiki/File:SR-npc-Florentius_Baenius_02.jpg Florentius]].[[/note]] The Redguards are the fourth human race, and they are dark-skinned with their culture being a [[CultureChopSuey mish-mash]] of Arabs, North Africans, and even a little Japanese influence. However, the Redguards have a different origin (they come from the now-lost continent of Yokuda) and have a very different pantheon/belief system that is as alien to the other human races (who all likely share a common ancestor and have similar belief systems) as it is to the various races of Elves.
207** The few descriptions of the supposedly extinct (or absorbed by the [[SnakePeople Tsaesci]]) Men of [[{{Wutai}} Akavir]] describe their physical appearance as similar to that of real life east Asians, another aversion [[UnreliableExpositor if true]].
208* Happens in ''VideoGame/TheWitcher''. It's noted in the EncyclopediaExposita that the world at large is more diverse but only one character in the games is non-white, Arabic to be specific.
209* Mostly played straight in the ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]]''. [[OnlySixFaces Most humans are shown as white]], but there's at least one AmbiguouslyBrown Argon NPC face. The Terrans are likewise mostly white with a couple AmbiguouslyBrown faces, although the name of the ATF general in ''X3: Terran Conflict'', Rai Ishiyama, suggests there's more to it.
210* Played semi-straight in ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}''. The population of the planet the game takes place on is primarily white, with some Asian people, some vaguely Arabic-looking people, and... that's it.
211** ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' takes it even further. 4,000 years in the future, there are white people and Asian people and exactly one black person. Made especially jarring by the fact that the first game's prologue takes place in near-future Kenya, and features more black people than the rest of the game combined.
212* Justified trope for the Horatio faction in ''VideoGame/EndlessSpace''. They are all clones of one mad narcissist. [[OppositeSexClone Even the women.]] The other two human factions in the game avert this trope.
213* ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'': Played straight. Despite taking place in Kryta, whose populace was primarily brown-skinned in the past, the majority of humans are now white. This is especially odd as Kryta is supposed to be a melting pot of refugees from all the previously mentioned nations yet the only sign of their presence is the architecture. Averted with ''Path of Fire'' returning players to Elona, which is still populated by people with African and Middle Eastern appearances.
214* Zigzagged throughout the ''VideoGame/TalesSeries''.
215** The [[VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia Ase]][[VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia lia]] setting seem to play this straight at first, only for an UpdatedRerelease later down the line to add Rondoline: an action girl who's... [[AmbiguouslyBrown brown? Light-black? Arabic?]]
216** Averted in the ''[[VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny Destiny]]'' continuity, where [[TheWisePrince Garr]], [[TheBigGirl Mary]] and [[TheLancer Loni]] are darker-skinned than the rest of the cast. ''[[VideoGame/TalesOfInnocence Innocence]]'' is the same, having the darker-skinned [[CuteBruiser Hermana]], [[InconsistentSpelling Sian]] and [[UpdatedRerelease QQ]].
217** ''VideoGame/TalesOfEternia'' goes one further in averting the trope. There's a world full of white-to-AmbiguouslyBrown people (including the protagonist) and a world full of AmbiguouslyBrown-to-black people. It's from the darker-toned world that the most important characters in the game - including the Saviour and the BigBad - are from.
218** ''VideoGame/TalesOfLegendia'' has an odd take on this trope. TheHero, TheBigGuy and the DiskOneFinalBoss are AmbiguouslyBrown but everyone else is pale to almost creepy levels. However, this makes sense in when you realise that one of the game's races (of which many plot-relevent characters are from) originates from under the sea. Also, in a subversion, said sea-dwellers do not actually see themselves as being "human".
219** Among the other DS games, ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheTempest'' subverts this with a black party member while ''VideoGame/TalesOfHearts'' does so with the odd darker-skinned boss enemy.
220** ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' plays this straight among the plot-relevent cast. While Raven might seem AmbiguouslyBrown, art of his younger self implies that he's actually just white with a tan. While there ''are'' darker-skinned characters, they only appear as random [[{{Mooks}} bandits]] and-- [[UnfortunateImplications oh dear]].
221** ''VideoGame/TalesOfRebirth'' subverts this with Militsa. Also, half the game's characters belong to a BeastMan race: of which, the heroic [[GeniusBruiser Eugene]], TheEvilGenius Tohma and the BigBad [[spoiler:Zilva]] are darker in colour than most.
222* ''VideoGame/DestroyAllHumans'' runs with this: everyone is white, but since you're playing as an alien grey and are encouraged to slaughter people--and entire cities, which are modeled specifically on campy '50s nostalgia--mercilessly, it's less a straight example and more a TakeThat at the trope.
223* Zigzagged in ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown''. As a NonEntityGeneral the PlayerCharacter doesn't even enter into it. Your command staff and the {{Non Player Character}}s have three or four Asians and the rest are whites. However, in keeping with XCOM being a MultinationalTeam, your troopers can be of any ethnicity (you can even change their looks and names if you don't like the random ones) and be from anywhere on Earth.
224* In the ''Franchise/DragonAge'' series:
225** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' was a massive perpetrator of this. Of the main cast, [[AmbiguouslyBrown only Duncan]] appeared to be of non-white descent. This was especially egregious '''with the playable character'''. The Noble Human origin has an entirely white family and castle. You have the option of customizing the character to be any race or ethnicity, but no matter how your character look, his/her family will still be white (of course, this is an AcceptableBreakFromReality as with the many origins, the developers would need to have fluid racial traits for dozens of characters). Justified by the setting; Ferelden is modeled on Saxon England.
226** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' fixes the last issue, by changing Hawke's family to match what the player chooses. Additionally, its setting, the Free City of Kirkwall, is a much more cosmopolitan place than Ferelden, and so the colour palette is much larger for skin tones.
227** Averted in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition,'' where quite a few minor [=NPCs=] and major characters are black, including one party member (Enchanter Vivienne). It's mostly set in Orlais, which is again a much more cosmopolitan place. Ferelden is still almost entirely white.
228* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' has no excuse, with three Asian characters on the entire Federation side (one of them being Lt. Kirayoshi O'Brien, [[ButNotTooForeign who is still half-Irish]]) and the rest almost all either either white or white near-human aliens.[[note]]Two exceptions are Admiral T'nae, a light brown Vulcan, and Lt. Cdr. Tem Inasi, a chocolate-skinned Bajoran on the ''Enterprise''-F command crew. Tuvok also reappears.[[/note]] The game's effective mascot is likewise white male, which drew some flak from the players when he was made part of the forum art. However, CharacterCustomization and the Foundry LevelEditor allow players and mission writers to avert this at will.
229** The devs are trying to correct it. Worf's stepdaughter, Captain Koren of the I.K.S. ''Bortasqu[='=]'', is very black and even has an African-American voice actor. There's also Commander Mesi Achebe (AmbiguouslyBrown) as well as several racially diverse Foundry contact {{Non Player Character}}s hanging out on Social Zones like Commander Futagami or Captain Ford. Also the art team found time to introduce new racial face options for Season 9 (including a new Asian face, an Eastern European and an African-based one). Based on the game's legendary TroubledProduction, its really a DownplayedTrope.
230* ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'': It happens to the player's own species. Your species never seems to have any other sub-races or ethnicies other than the one you control. Subverted when you encounter a wild version of your creature. But even that's not common.
231* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' has typically portrayed the dominant Hylian race, along with the closely related Sheikah race, as white (or at least in a lightskinned {{Mukokuseki}} style). Meanwhile, in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'', the only dark-skinned folk were the Gerudo, a OneGenderRace of women who rarely ventured out of their desert homeland. Because of this, fans have frequently assumed that any rare dark-skinned Hylians in later games had some Gerudo ancestry. This is averted in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild Breath of the Wild]]'', where there are quite a few dark-skinned Hylians and light-skinned Gerudo, with subtler variance in skin tone for both groups. Even the King of Hyrule in this game is AmbiguouslyBrown. However, the Sheikah still appear to be light-skinned only, likely due to being heavily based on ancient Japanese people in this game.
232* ''VideoGame/EverQuest'': Played as straight as possible because there are three human races, but two of them go by other names. The gods originally created the Barbarians, whom the game developers modeled after Celtic influences. Living in Everfrost Peaks required the race to be rugged, burly, and strong. Over time, Barbarians moved down into the lowland plains of Karana, where they adapted to the more temperate environments, and gained more intelligence as they no longer had to devote so much time to survival. The Human race that resulted are all white and represent medieval European cultures and societies. As more Humans began to spread out, a group of them who dedicated their lives to learning knowledge and practicing magic split off and moved to the tropical continent of Odus, eventually adapting further into the Erudites, who have the highest intelligence stat and are among the best magic users among every playable race, and are all dark-skinned.
233[[/folder]]
234
235[[folder:Webcomics]]
236* The titular characters of ''Webcomic/FreakAngels'' are all pale, even though KK is a pacific islander and Caz is black. They also have purple eyes and were born at the exact same time in the same small English village.
237* In ''Webcomic/TowerOfGod'' the eponymous Tower is full of weird creatures, but if they are humanoid, they are most likely white, except for Quant and Kurdan.
238* ''Webcomic/WeaponBrown'' invokes and frequently lampshades this in a satirical jab at how NewspaperComics in general seem to lean towards MonochromeCasting, with only the occasional TokenMinority appearing every once in a blue moon. In "A Peanut Scorned", Chuck expresses puzzlement upon encountering Patty's bodyguard, Franklin, asking her if his darker skin is some strange kind of mutation. In "Blockhead's War", Chuck remarks to [[ComicStrip/TheBoondocks Hughie X]], after meeting his family, how weird it is to see more than one black person at the time, comparing seeing three of them together to encountering a convention. It then also becomes a justified trope when Hughie reveals that during the GreatOffscreenWar, the [[ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}} Elbonians]] developed a SyntheticPlague meant to either kill every person of African descent, or turn their skin white, and that they for the most part succeeded. Hughie and his family only avoided that fate due to having [[{{Animesque}} some Japanese ancestry]].
239* Played with in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}''. Compared to the other nonhuman races seen in the comic, humans are generally portrayed with literal bone-white skin, and the characters who have Trickster forms have their skin turned Caucasian (later retconned into a light-skinned, "peachy" color). Hussie would eventually clarify that human skin is meant to be read as blank rather than white, with any references implying otherwise scrubbed or left only to depictions of real-life humans.
240[[/folder]]
241
242[[folder:Web Original]]
243* The ''[[WebVideo/DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog Dr. Horrible]]'' musical commentary, "WebVideo/CommentaryTheMusical", includes the song, ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNmzegQUtFA Nobody's Asian in the Movies]]''.
244* The blog [[http://www.starshipnivan.com/blog/ ''Astrogator's Logs'']] addresses this trope [[http://www.starshipnivan.com/blog/?p=2645 here]] (note that the author is Greek).
245* #1 on Website/{{Cracked}}'s list of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20082_6-insane-stereotypes-that-movies-cant-seem-to-get-over.html 6 Insane Stereotypes that Movies Can't Seem to Get Over]]: In Fantasy Movies, Everyone Has to Be White.
246* Used as a gag in ''WebAnimation/IfTheEmperorHadATextToSpeechDevice''. The Custodian that is usually giving exposition about the Warhammer 40,000 setting mentions off-hand that many people find the black skin of Salamander space marines unsettling. The Emperor is furious about the implied racism, but it eventually turns out that 1) the Salamanders are actually JET black, and 2) the Custodian is what we now think of as black under his armor, but the normal range of skin pigment is such a non-issue he didn't even know there was a word for it.
247* WebVideo/TreyTheExplainer complains about this in his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiWLm7ASxL4 scientific analysis]] on ''10,000 BC''. He commends the film for featuring a racially diverse cast by saying that, though it's still not period accurate, it's still better than other films that portray "cavemen" as all white (centuries before such a skin-tone became a thing).
248* In ''WebAnimation/{{Autodale}}'', all of the citizens are white. Justified, in that Autodale's society is based on the idea that humans are only cogs in a machine, and to reinforce that, everyone is made to look practically identical, with identical clothing, hairstyles, and even masks to cover up their faces. Anyone who deviates from the norm is deemed Ugly and executed. And indeed, the sketchbooks of the creator lists "Black" as a trait that gets you branded as Ugly.
249[[/folder]]
250
251[[folder:Western Animation]]
252* The ''WesternAnimation/DungeonsAndDragons1983'' cartoon had one black character - Diana the Acrobat.
253* ''Franchise/TransformersGeneration1'' was pretty bad about this as well; the only non-white non-alien recurring character was Raoul, a Hispanic-ish street punk... ''whose skin tone switched to a lighter color in his second (and final) appearance''.
254** They probably figured that Jazz was enough.
255** Later series were better about it, with major recurring humans such as [[Anime/TransformersRobotsInDisguise Koji Onishi]] and black [[Anime/TransformersCybertron Colonel Franklin]].
256** ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' itself did a pretty good job averting this. The main recurring human is not white [[spoiler:or a human]], Detective Fanzone in second place is white, but Issac Sumdac is indian, the mayor of Detroit and his aide are black, as is CorruptCorporateExecutive Porter C. Powell, and backround humans come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Almost all the recurring human bad guys are white, but that's probably to avoid other implications if a MediaWatchdog only sees one episode. On another note, during an short story arc in Animated, the five main Autobots turn human. Four out of the 5 are white, to match their voice actors.
257*** Don't forget the third-season episode of the original cartoon, ''Only Human''. The four lead Autobots have their minds transferred into Synthoid bodies, which become conveniently white (the episode is also noted for being a crossover with the ''Franchise/GIJoe'' cartoon).
258** The live action movies have visibility of non-white races, but with some UnfortunateImplications that are ''not'' just limited to the twin EthnicScrappy bots.
259* ''WesternAnimation/SilverHawks'' (which was basically ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCats'' [[RecycledInSpace in Space!]]) started with a bunch of white people and their pet. They later added one black guy and one vaguely Hispanic guy (from the future!) to the team.
260* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'''s [[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuyPresentsLaughItUpFuzzball parody]] of ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''.
261-->'''Leia:''' The Lando System?\
262'''Han:''' Lando's not a system, he's a black guy. Perhaps the only black guy in the universe.
263** Then when he shows up on screen, he's played by Mort (the only Jewish character) with his skin tone altered, [[HypocriticalHumor because the ''only black guy'' from the regular cast]] was already playing R2-D2.
264* In ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers'', TechnoWizard hero Doc Hartford is black. So are two one-shot villains. They seem to be the only non-white humans in the galaxy.
265* There was a black character in ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones''. There was none in the corresponding futuristic program, ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons''. This led to the occasional dark joke that the animators believed that there was "no black to the future."
266* {{Subverted}} in ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime''. Finn is white and seems to be [[LastOfHisKind the last human on Earth]]; Susan Strong, who [[TheUnReveal may be]] [[AmbiguouslyHuman human]], is white too. However, [[spoiler:[[WasOnceAMan the Ice King]]]] was AmbiguouslyBrown back when he was human; BMO's creator Moe, who seems to be a human-turned-cyborg, is dark-skinned too. Also Marceline, a [[HalfHumanHybrid half-demon]] who's now a [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]], had a black mom, despite her own skin matching her father's pale blue. [[spoiler: And when their far-away island civilization is discovered, humans are shown to run the gamut of human ethnicities and skin tones.]]
267[[/folder]]

Top