NAACP outlines TV diversity options

HOLLYWOOD, California (CNN) -- Citing a "virtual whitewash of TV," NAACP President Kweisi Mfume outlined his organization's options for action -- including a possible network boycott -- if the four major television networks do not work to incorporate more minorities in lead acting roles and executive production positions.

"We've waited as long as anybody can wait for change, " Mfume said, noting the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People doesn't "seek quotas [or] special privileges, but we do seek equality."

Mfume outlined four options in a report, released Wednesday, that he will present to the NAACP's policy-making board for consideration in October:

- A "sustained selective economic boycott" against one of the major networks and its advertisers, emphasized during a sweeps period, when networks try to attract more viewers;

- Lobbying Congress for new federal regulatory relief legislation;

- Pushing for courts to mandate primetime "programming opportunities for people of color";

- Class action litigation against networks "that seeks to prove a long-term systemic denial of opportunity through employment hiring and promotional practices that have resulted in the abysmally low number of ... racial minorities in entertainment, in news programming, in public affairs and in sports programming."

RESOURCES Message Board: Race relations

In 1999, the NAACP blasted the entertainment industry for a lack of minority representation on television schedules. A study released last week by the Screen Actors Guild said only modest progress has been made since then.

While more than half of the 22 new prime-time shows on the four major broadcast networks this season feature African-American characters, critics are not satisfied.

"You know, the old saying is the order of things is from bad to worse, but I think we've gone from worse to bad," said Charles Holland, the executive producer of "Soul Food," a program on Showtime.

"You don't see numbers of Hispanics and Asians anywhere. It's almost as if they don't exist. They're not in television, you don't see them very often in movies, you don't see that at all," said Holland. "The second thing that hasn't improved is that lots of all minorities of color really have not seen significant movement as executives. There's not a glass ceiling; it's a cement ceiling."

The Screen Actors Guild study showed that of 53,134 roles given to SAG members in 2000, 14.8 percent went to African-Americans. That was up slightly from 14.1 percent of roles in 1999, the union said.

Hispanics received 4.9 percent of the roles cast, the highest percentage since the Guild began tracking statistics in 1992.

The union said Asian/Pacific Islanders received 2.6 percent of the roles cast, up from 2.2 percent in 1999. Native Americans received 0.3 percent of the roles, up from 0.2 percent in 1999, SAG said.

-- CNN Contributor Tavis Smiley contributed to this report.