Community is a sitcom which has a relatively diverse cast for a Network TV show (and also relatively low ratings for a network TV show); the main cast consists of two black characters, one asian character, one muslim polish-palestinian character and four white characters, one of whom is Jewish. The young white woman on the far right was going to be cast as a latina or asian woman, which would have made the cast predominantly nonwhite, but the producers could not find anyone to fit the role. In my opinion, Community does not adhere to Mr. Bolos' thesis regarding TV tokenism, yet still exhibits racism in perpetuating racial stereotypes (mainly between the white and black characters and perhaps for satirical purposes).
The main character, an attractive, disheveled white man, is shown front and center right next to his blonde, white love interest and to the left of his other white love interest (in the show, this character only dates white women). Upfront next to him is the token "mystic minority," a black mother who is portrayed as severely religious. The other black character is simply a dumb jock with the behavioral patterns and mental capacity of a ten year-old, given the same kind of brutishness as is seen portrayed in Spike Lee's Bamboozled. Of course, this blatant stereotype is pushed to the back of the photo. It is also worth noting that all of the white characters on the show are relatively rich, the old white character played by Chevy Chase is unabashedly racist and the young white female character in the center is forcedly and uncomfortably politically correct (see: racist).
At the same time, though, each main character in the cast is equally complex and fleshed-out, with no one character being morally or behaviorally one-dimensional. In addition, the two best-dressed characters are arguably the two white male characters, and only because their socioeconomic statuses in the context of the show demands it. This is, in my opinion, the perfect evidence for the show's lack of tokenism and perpetuation of stereotypes- after all, why do the white characters have to be so much richer than the minority characters?
The thing I found most interesting about this picture, though, is how it is literally split down the middle between the white cast members and the minority cast members, yet the white cast members take up markedly more space (notice how the main character is leaning into the middle of the frame and Chevy Chase is towering over the black character to his right).
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