Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-34633327-20171201215836/@comment-5426254-20171202213330

On another note, regarding the whole representation argument - I understand why there was massive hesitation. The trick is to satisfy the audience without resorting to tokenism - in other words, create a character that resonates with people, without thinking, "we need a visible minority character!" (I'm looking at you, All New, All Different Marvel)!

Because by thinking "we need this", all they can think of is adding the minority status, and then worry about offending the audience once more should something happen to them - if nothing bad happens to them, then one half will call out the writers for favoritizing them and infantilizing the minorities with their tokenism, and if something bad happens to them, then the other half will call them out for invoking the "bury your minorities" trope.

I think the solution to resolving this is to make them characters first demographics second, and give their suffering equal weight to the rest of their cast, as well as their triumphs? By making it seem like the minorities don't get any special treatment, good or bad, everybody can be a little happier.