Should Ginger have been allowed to date a bigger variety of men

[TMC]

I thought about this for a long time, but I was afraid to bring it up out of fear that it would be interpreted the wrong way. I now feel that it's an opportune enough of a time to ask about this after reading about Sheryl Lee Ralph's story about how a casting director told her that nobody wanted to see her kiss Tom Cruise.

I did sometimes wonder why upon joining It's a Living in the fourth season, why Sheryl's character only dated exclusively within her race. I mean, Ginger like her predecessor, Cassie (as played by Ann Jillian) presumably had an active sex and social life. In other words, she was basically the girl that you would think that "all of the guys" wanted first.

I naturally assume that it was simply still a very taboo concept to depict interracial relationships on mainstream American television in the '80s. Really, the only major precedent that we had were Tom and Helen Willis on The Jeffersons. And even then, the fact that they were a part of an interracial relationship, couldn't really be ignored or shown as "no big deal".