While most are crying over their favorite TV show, movie, actor or actress not winning the Golden Globe of their respective category, I’m taking it upon myself to uncover a greater purveyor of dramatic injustice: The History Channel!

In researching my Space Dark Age setting, I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries on the ancient world. The Fall of Rome, the Rise of the Ottomans, Fifty Tried and True Ways to Get Syphilis – programming like that. I especially enjoy the dramatizations  for the way they really inspire the imagination with tense moments in the histories of great nations, moments I’d like to emulate in my campaign: “Goth warlord Alaric survived his combat encounter on the way to Ravenna and is now ready to finally enter Rome. You’re playing the false Emperor Priscus Attalus of Rome; save versus shitting your toga brown.”

There’s a sticking point in these re-enactments though. An Irish Colin Farrell playing Alexander the Great, no problem – especially as the flick gave us Rosario in her full beauty. Hannibal played by a Semitic-looking guy I can buy. He was from Carthage in northern Africa, but depictions of him fit this. I’m not one of these uber-Brothas who believes that everyone south of the Mediterranean was automatically a Wesley Snipes look-alike.

The problem comes when History Channel goes down to the Immigration Office to hire extras for the promise of a work visa. I just watched a documentary on the Mongols – from Mongolia, in Asia – that was cast full of extras from Univision. Mongolian actors are that hard to come by? OK, maybe so, but honestly, Chinese, Korean or Japanese will do – as long as it‘s not Sandra Oh. They found enough Asians to play Indians – actually Sioux – for Dances with Wolves (played by Canis Lupus). What the fuck?

Do a special on the Crusades, and you’ve got Palestinians and Jews putting aside differences to audition. Are they at least faithful in their depictions of African history? If you can find a show on The History Channel about Black folks that isn’t about slavery or a special presentation of Shaka Zulu, I’ll send you my collard greens recipe.

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