A fairly recent report suggested that only 33% of New York City's population is white, which makes the lack of minority characters in Friends all the more surprising. Of all of the supporting characters there are very few who really reflect the cultural make-up of the city - though Joey's mixed heritage is a nice nod - and the show has been accused of white-washing, in the same way that Girls has more recently. But then that's not really the problem, because there are mintority characters within the Friends universe. Representing New York's 23% black community, for instance there are a number of speaking characters from across the gamut of jobs and backgrounds. There are two waiters, a self-defence coach, the guy who provided Ross with his Holiday Armadillo costume, Chandler's boss, Chandler's smoking co-worker in Tulsa, Gary the neighbour, "Morning is here" man, a fireman, Ross' divorce lawyer, Phoebe's toner boss, Chandler's fellow intern and his boss at the ad company, Jeff Goldblum's casting agent, Rachel's nurse, a coffee shop patron, two maitre'd tippers, Monica's customer who liked her duck, three guys Joey worked for (including the French incident), Rachel's baby proofer, Kristen Lang, and of course Charlie. So it's not like minorities don't exist, they're just not really welcome into the inner sanctum: aside from Charlie (and briefly Kristen Lang, who was pretty much playing the same character type). The question then is why the Friends are so unwilling to have black friends or lovers for the most part, which, when you pick it apart, sort of compromises how nice they're all supposed to be.
