Mistaken For Racist / Live-Action TV

Examples of Mistaken for Racist in Live-Action TV.

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• 3rd Rock from the Sun:
  • In an episode, Dick says to his black colleague, "You people all look the same to me." Of course, he means all humans and is explaining why he hadn't noticed that she and another colleague were of different ethnic groups.
  • In another episode, Dick, having failed to infiltrate a black study group, decided to seek out the white equivalent. He ends up taking his family to a "white power" rally.
  • He also starts calling other white people "brothers" after hearing some blacks doing this, always getting insults in return because of this trope.
• 30 Rock:
  • Liz in the episode "The Source Awards" where she dates a black man she ends up not liking. It seems only her date thinks she is racist rather than everyone, but her attempts to prove herself not racist still backfires in the typical manner:
    Liz: I am not racist! I love black men! I love you! This is fantastic! Let's get dessert. Death by Chocolate! [her date gives her a look] No, no, not that kind of chocolate.
  • From the same episode:
    Jack: Steven's a good man, he's on partner track at Dewey. And he's a Black.
    Liz: "A Black?" That is offensive.
    Jack: No, no, that's his last name. Steven Black. A good family. Remarkable people, the Blacks — musical, very athletic, not very good swimmers — again, I'm talking about the family.
  • Happens to Liz again when she's interviewing for adoption in "Do Over." She calls a black technician by the wrong name (maybe).
    Liz: Happens to everyone, right, Bev?
    Bev: Yeah, it happens all the time to my black husband.
  • Tracy is very fond of playing the race card against Liz to get what he wants. In one episode, he literally handed her a card labeled "race card".
• Arrested Development:
  • An episode features a "Mistaken for Homophobe" variant:
    Gob: Hey, have you seen the new Poof?
    Michael: His name's Gary, and we don't need another lawsuit.
    Gob: No, I was talking about the magazine! Wait, Gary's gay?
  • In another episode, Michael meets a pair of gay police officers who are awaiting the birth of their surrogate child. When he gives them a bundle that (unbeknownst to him) contains a pregnancy disguise with a fake belly and breasts, the cops assume it's a dig at their inability to conceive a biological child together.
  • Another episode has a visibly-shaken Lucille tell Michael that she was almost attacked by a "colored man" in her home. She was referring to her son-in-law, Tobias, who was wearing blue make-up while trying to join the Blue Man Group.
• Absolutely every non-black person the Militant Black Guy talks to in Balls of Steel due to the usage of words spoken causing very Unfortunate Implications from both sides.
• An episode of Becker revolves around the title character making comments that a journalist construes as racist (such as making fun of a blind black man, insulting an Asian taxi driver, complaining about a neighbour who plays rap music and one who barbecues his dinner on the sidewalk etc.), leading him to write an article attacking him. Becker confronts him during a radio interview and clears himself by pointing out that the blind man happens to be his best friend, his neighbor literally does cook his dinner on the sidewalk, and he has every right to not like rap music (especially when being played loudly and being broadcast into a public street), and to be angry with a driver who just crashed into his car, regardless of where he came from. Becker then counters by pointing out that he never mentioned that his neighbor was Puerto Rican or any other race and that Tetzloff jumped to that conclusion based solely on the "barbecuing on the sidewalk" comment.
  Becker: Same thing with your column, too: you took a private conversation, you imbued it with racial overtones, all under the guise of political correctness. You know something, that concept was meant to make us more sensitive to each other but instead all you did was use it to perpetuate some ugly stereotypes!
  Tetzloff: [stuttering] Well that certainly wasn't my intention!
  Becker Yeah, well, that's what you did.
• In the first season finale of Boardwalk Empire, the various sleazy politicians are talking about how to win an election by encouraging voters and one comments about getting the spooks to vote. This gets an angry reaction from the black gangster Chalky, who is in attendance. The speaker hastily clarifies that he meant spooks in the sense of ghosts and was talking about having the dead "vote".
• On one episode of Bones the socially challenged Bones compares the tune of rap music in a club to tribal music she heard in Africa. Two black women hear her and one accuses her of racism while the other one understands what she means. A near brawl ensues with the three women.
  • Another time Bones continually asks a black intern to continue doing research in a field. Sarcastically the intern uses a Southern accent asking her if there is "any more work she wants done on the plantation". She says no and asks what's wrong with his voice.
• Cobra Kai: Season 2 has Daniel create an advertisement for Miyagi-Do karate, heavily incorporating Japanese themes both as a nod towards its origins and as a tribute towards his own sensei, Mr. Miyagi. Unfortunately, the fact that Daniel is white results in him getting hounded on the internet over accusations of cultural appropriation.
  Daniel: Cultural what? What are you even talking about? "Asian whitewashing"?! They're calling me "Daniel LaRacist" on here!
• Community:
  • Pierce actually is pretty racist, but in the episode "Basic Genealogy", he makes an innocent mistake for once when his attempt to draw a windmill while playing Pictionary accidentally turns into a swastika. In front of a Rabbi. Who is his professor's brother. And he's apparently not the only one. When a fight breaks out and the police get involved, one officer remarks, "I may just be a simple cop, but people need to know: this isn't gonna stop until Pictionary bans the word 'windmill'."
  • In "Biology 101" Jeff, getting unhinged after being separated from the study group, spots what looks like conspiratorial evidence of a photo of Pierce with Professor Kane (black, ex-con) and grabs it, confronting Pierce with it, who points out it's a photo of him with a famous rapper.
    Jeff: But... but they look alike!
    Troy: Uhh, I guess they share one important feature in your eyes.
    Jeff_ But that's not fair! Look, I— I was standing far away and I saw the prison uniform!
    Shirley: Oh, Jeffrey!
    Jeff: Oh, come on, obviously, I don't mean all black people are in prison—
    Group: [gasp] — Oooooh! — Damn!
• This exchange from Corner Gas:
  Davis: [after losing the Grey Cup tickets] Well, I'll have to go to a scalper.
  Karen: Isn't it weird for you to go to a scalper?
  Davis: Why? Because I'm a Cree man? I resent that!
  Karen: Because you're a police officer and scalping tickets is illegal.
  Davis: Oh yeah.
• In Coronation Street in 2013, Paul Kershaw is mistaken for a racist when he utters the phrase "play the white man" to Steve McDonald during a game of darts; Lloyd Mullaney and daughter Jenna overhear him. Paul is reluctant to apologize to Lloyd since he doesn't believe the phrase is offensive, and him feeling that if he did apologize it would confirm Lloyd's accusation of racism.
• Criminal Minds:
  • Pretty much the point of "Fear and Loathing." The episode features a serial killer targeting black girls (and one of the girls' white boyfriend) which is assumed to be a hate crime. The last victim also received a note warning her away from said white boyfriend which was likewise assumed to be because of their races. The killer and the note writer each turn out to be non-racially motivated. The note was written by the boy's black ex-girlfriend, who wanted him back, while the killer was a black sexual predator simply targeting his own race, though the killer did play up the racial angle when the media picked up on it. The BAU itself is accused of racism since they don't get involved until a white person is killed (which is a coincidence), and the (white) mayor refuses to allow them to release a profile targeting black men because he knows the trope will come into effect and do nothing but anger the black community (who they're relying on for information).
  • One episode features a witness who clams up around the black female army officer assisting the BAU with their investigation. Hotchner asks her to sit out of the next interview, noting the suspect's discomfort, and she asks "My race or my gender?" prompting Hotchner to admit "Probably both." While it doesn't clarify whether the man really is racist and/or sexist, it turns out that he actually has a problem with military personnel, who he believes are responsible for the crime in question, thus had a perfectly logical reason not to want to speak in front of her.
  • Subverted in the twelfth season finale. Two black agents question a gun shop owner who sold firearms to the serial killer they are looking for. Noticing his reluctance, one agent tells the man he doesn't think he wants to talk to people like them, and the gun shop owner starts denying that he is racist. The agent clarifies that he was talking about FBI agents, not black people.
• In an episode of Detroiters, Sheila jokingly assures her bosses that she and Lea aren't lesbians despite going out for a meal together. After finding out Lea actually is a lesbian, Sheila spends the rest of the episode trying to show off how open minded and accepting she supposedly is out of fear that her joke might have come off as homophobic.
• Doctor Who: In "Oxygen", Bill (who, for the record, is a black lesbian) gets this due to her surprised reaction upon meeting a blue-skinned alien. When she tells him that normally she is the victim of prejudice, he doesn't know what she's talking about.
  Dahh'Ren: Great. We rescued a racist.
• On The Drew Carey Show, Mimi tells Drew that the Hispanic corporate executive he's going to interview is just the guy applying to be a janitor. Among other unfortunate things Drew says about "his kind" (by which he means janitors) is that they have to come into the store through the back entrance so that the customers don't see them.
  • Another episode had a retiring executive give a speech that he credited Drew with helping him write. The speech proceeded to explain his extremely racist hiring policies, such as "I like to keep all the blacks in security because they know how to get the stolen stuff back. They just go over to their cousin's house and there it is!". All of the minority co-workers angrily confront Drew at his desk afterward, except one who defends him by saying "Come on people, Drew's no racist. He's asked out and been rejected by women of every race, color, and creed!".
• In an episode of ER, when a young black man is brought into the ER with a gunshot wound, Mark assumes he's a gangbanger (an unfortunate assumption, but one no doubt gleaned from years of experience as an inner-city emergency room doctor). His incensed brother informs him that the kid is, in fact, a straight-A high school student and that it's the white guy who was also brought in who's the drug dealer (his brother had gotten caught in the crossfire of a sale gone bad). When the kid subsequently dies from his injuries, his brother is completely convinced that Mark deliberately failed to save him.
• The Father Ted episode where Ted manages to offend Craggy Island's surprisingly large Chinese community. Somewhat subverted in that the presentation intended to prove that he's not racist is actually pretty racist in its own right, as is the incident that angered them in the first place.
  Father Ted: The Chinese: A great bunch of lads!
• Played for Drama on Friday Night Lights. Mac McGill, the Dillon Panthers' offensive coach, uses a poor choice of words about Smash, claiming that players like him are like "junkyard dogs" and that players like Matt Saracen(who is incidentally white) are born to lead. This results in an ensuing media circus that Mac issues a public apology because of, but his refusal to back down to Smash in private and admit it was a mistake leads to Smash and the other black players going on strike until Mac is fired. Later on it's revealed that Mac grew up in a segregationist household and still has some of that stuff rattling around his head, and he admits he made a colossal screw-up and is willing to resign if it means Smash will play. However, this cements Coach Taylor's decision to not fire Mac and Smash and the missing players rejoin the team anyway after Smash gets a lecture from his mom. Mac finally regains Smash's respect at the end of the episode when he stops some actually racist cops from arresting him on trumped-up charges.
• An episode of House had a boy whose father disapproved of him dating the black Girl Next Door, seemingly due to racism. The real reason is because he had cheated on his wife with the girl's mother, and the girl is his daughter. Naturally, this information is vital in solving the medical emergency of the week.
• In How I Met Your Mother, Proud Casanova Barney drops one of these upon discovering that his gay brother James is engaged:
  Barney: I don't support this.
  James: Gay Marriage?
  Barney: Not gay marriage. Marriage!
• There's an episode of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret in which Margaret, an American in Britain, is convinced to show his love of British culture by wearing a shirt promoting the British National Party.
• The IT Crowd: In "The Internet is Coming", a strange chain of events conspire to make the internet brand Jen as a female misogynist who hates the homeless, and Roy as bigoted against little people. Their attempts to fix matters only makes things worse. Roy does not help by continually pointing that he cannot be racist against little people as little people are not a race.
• The Inbetweeners: In "The Gig and the Girlfriend", A drug dealer accuses Jay and Neil of racism when they asked him if they can buy some marijuana, assuming that they guessed he was dealing drugs only because he's black. In fact, they know he's a drug dealer because they actually saw him selling marijuana.
• The first episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, "The Gang Gets Racist", hilariously centers around this trope.
• JAG: Commander Sturgis Turner is accused of racism against Koreans in the season nine episode "Close Quarters", when investigating rescued North Koreans, by a Lieutenant of Korean origin in Naval Intelligence, who himself has issues with black people. The charges are eventually dropped.
• One of the more recent Jonathan Creek episodes has this happen to his American friend as a running gag. Helped along the way by his assistant digitally editing (or possibly just making sure that it's easy to edit) his various acts and apology videos.
• On Jury Duty, after a mishap when the jury tours the shirt press, Todd is forced to change into one of the defective misprinted "Jorf" shirts. When the jury visits Margaritaville later that night, a table actually leaves their seat early and offers it to the group because they support Todd's shirt. It turns out that "Jorf" is a white supremacist dogwhistle and they have to get Todd a new shirt from the Margaritaville gift shop so they aren't kicked out for his offensive clothing.
• On Just Shoot Me!, Elliott mistakes a Japanese-American client as the Chinese food delivery guy. Jack's attempt to set things right backfires when the person he thinks is the returning client is actually a Chinese-American Blush employee of several years. To cap it off, Elliott is drinking a Slushie and gets brain freeze. Holding his temples so tightly his eyes slant, he bows back and forth saying "Ah, so cold!" - just as the client returns to then be insulted a second time. In the elevator later, the employee snarks to the client "Must be the Year of the Jackass".
• In an episode of The King of Queens, Doug and Carrie want to sell their house, but decide against it at the very last moment. The problem is that two potential buyers, who happen to be a black couple, are already inspecting the house, and like what they see. After a while, they notice that Doug and Carrie are suddenly very reluctant to sell them their house, think this is because of their race, and are of course quite offended.
• In an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, a suspect intentionally sets his mentally ill brother up to look like a neo-Nazi. It turned out the brother just had some strong opinions on people of any race changing their appearance, and he's horrified when he realizes what his brother had made him out to be.
• Law & Order: SVU
  • Referenced in an one episode where the victim of the week tells police that she went out of her way to avoid looking racist when a black man got into the elevator with her and offered to help her with her groceries. He then promptly pulled a gun and raped her.
  • Exploited by the defense in at least one case. A woman is raped in her home by a black man. She initially identifies one man before realizing her mistake and identifying another. The second man's lawyer has the first man brought into the courtroom to point out that the two look nothing alike beyond being black, implying that the woman's racism leads her to either think all black people look alike or simply want to blame a black man. The woman points out that the room was dark, so the one trait the men have in common (their height and build) was all she could see.
  • In the episode "Fight", a frat boy mentions that the only real reason there's an African American in their fraternity is because the Dean forced them to accept "the brothers". Fin is less than pleased, but the guy clarifies he means it was a pair of actual brothers. The Confederate flag on the wall and the guy proudly saying their founder is a descendant of Jefferson Davis didn't exactly portray them as non racist either.
• Law & Order: UK. The attorney for Matt Devlin's killer, a black man, insinuates that Matt was this by virtue of him being a white police officer and further suggests that Alesha Philips, herself a black woman, is a Category Traitor for prosecuting his murderer, who is also black. Incensed at the suggestion that she should sympathize with someone who murdered her friend simply because they're the same race, Alesha tearfully and angrily declares, "this man was no racist!"
• Lucifer: In the pilot, when Lucifer meets a rapper who may have killed one of Lucifer's friends.
  Lucifer: My name is Lucifer Morningstar.
  2Vile: Lucifer Morningstar? That's a gay hip-hop name.
  Lucifer: Well, that offends me.
  2Vile: You have a problem with black people?
  Lucifer: No, not in the slightest. I just hate your music. And when I say "your music", I mean your music, not the music made by other black people. Without the blues, there would be no Devil's music whatsoever. There are of course many giants in the field. Just not you. Am I being clear?
• In episode 2 Midnight Mass (2021), Sarah sees Father Paul staring at her and comes to the conclusion that he's doing so because he disapproves of her being a lesbian. In the final episode, it's revealed that he was actually staring because he's her biological father.
• Modern Family:
  • Cameron is talking about how two of his acquaintances never shut up about how they went to Columbia Law School and Brown University respectively. Gloria, his Colombian stepmother-in-law, walks in with her son just in time to hear, "I wish that tart would go back to Columbia and take her little Brown friend with her." He then digs himself deeper when he tries to explain that he meant people who go to college, not "her people", and subsequently realizes his statement would imply that Latinos are too dumb to get into Ivy League schools.
  • Phil inadvertently pisses off a black cab driver when, after representing the White team at Family Camp, sports a t-shirt that reads "If You Ain't White, You Ain't Right" in a flashback.
  • Inverted in the episode "Door to Door":
    Phil: Okay, huddle up everybody. Your mother's right. She's the quarterback of this family and we need to protect her like Blind Side did.
    Luke: She just said that mom was Blind Side.
    Phil: She's confused. Blind Side was the black kid who played Tight End.
    Alex: Offensive line.
    Phil: Sorry, African-American kid.
  • In one episode, a beautiful Black woman hires Phil to find her a new home. There's a house in the Dunphy's neighbourhood which meets all her requirements, but Phil tries to prevent her knowing about it because he has a "thing" for Black women and he's worried Claire will be angry and jealous if she lives near them. His client learns about the house anyway and fires him, believing he is racist and doesn't want Black people in his neighbourhood. He and Claire meet with her and explain why he didn't show her the house and she understands, as her husband has the same problem with white women, including Claire.
  • Jay has security cameras installed, coincidentally the same day a Black family moves in across the street. He's worried they'll think he's a racist old white man and put in the cameras because of them, and gets his Black friend to stand in the front yard with him to prove he's not racist. The dad of the family tells Jay not to worry about it and he knows the cameras were a coincidence. "This isn't my first time moving into a white neighbourhood."
  • One episode has Lily tell Gloria she's gay (out of misunderstanding the term; her friend’s parents are Italian, so that makes him Italian, so if her parents are gay, that makes her gay). Cameron and Mitchell try to explain to her, but it comes out as "You're not gay, you're just confused." A lesbian couple passing by shoots them angry looks, leading Cameron to apologize by saying "Some of our best friends are lesbians," which doesn't help. Mitchell has to point out the better solution would have been pointing out that they are, in fact, a gay couple. Gloria then decides that she should take Manny to visit their home country so he can keep in touch with his roots. Cameron agrees, but unfortunately, it comes out as, "The world would be better off if everyone just went back to where they came from." The other patrons in the Vietnamese restaurant they're in seem none too happy at his remark.
• In Monk, the titular character's OCD manifests, among other ways, as needing to be germ-free, so he always uses a disinfecting wipe after shaking hands with someone. In "Mr. Monk and the Marathon Man," this becomes a problem when his assistant Sharona can't get the wipes out in time, and he's forced to shake hands with three people one right after the other (ordinarily he would clean up between each greeting). The first two are white women, and the third is a Black man—and it's after Monk shakes his hand that Sharona gets the wipes ready, making Monk look like he only felt the need to clean up after touching someone of a different race. He tries to explain, but it doesn't go over well.
  • A similar occurrence happened in the episode where he went to Mexico.
  • Thankfully avoided in the first part of the series finale — after shaking hands with a Black physician, Monk does his normal wiping thing... and is complimented by the doctor, who notes that if more people did that, he'd have a much easier job. Almost as if they were referencing the earlier jokes.
• A Moody Christmas. In the first episode, an unfortunate comment about boat people^note refugees leads many to believe that Dan is racist.
• Murphy's Law: A rather dark variant of this crops up when Murphy gets seconded to Professional Standards after an allegation is made that a South Asian detective who committed suicide might have been subjected to racist bullying by his superior. The good news is, the officer in question isn't a racist. The bad news? He and his narcotics taskforce are under-reporting the amounts of drugs they seize in raids and selling the extra themselves, and the dead cop was murdered and the scene staged to look like a suicide to silence him because he refused to go along with it.
• In an episode of My Name Is Earl, one misdeed of the week involved making a man so obsessed with golf that his girlfriend left him. To win her back, he gets the golfer to hold up a radio playing a silly love song as his golf clubs burn in front of her apartment. The man who lives below her is black and thinks they're burning a cross on his lawn because of the way the clubs have accidentally been arranged. Earl kicks the bag of golf clubs over when he realizes this, and this happens:
  Katie: What are you doing?
  Scott: I'm proving my love for you!
  Katie: By burning a Swastika on my lawn?
  • And then when Earl goes to stamp out the fire, his boot catches fire, and he kicks it off, right into the black neighbor's window.
    "We're not moving!"
  • Similar to the House example above, one episode has Joy make Earl pretend he's still her husband when her parents visit, having not told them she's now married to Darnell out of a belief that her father is racist, since he had once chased off a black boyfriend of hers and forbade her from dating any black guys. This turns out to be because he had numerous affairs with black women over the years and didn't want Joy to date anyone who could very well have been her half-brother. Once he confirms that Darnell isn't from anywhere near the area where Joy grew up, and thus has zero chance of being his kid, he's fine with them being together.
• Never Have I Ever: Ben. Devi and her best friends are all girls of color (of Indian, Afro-Latina, and Chinese descent, respectively), and so they think that the nickname "UN" that Ben started is a racist term alluding to the United Nations. It actually means "Unfuckable Nerds." (Still not much better.)
• No Tomorrow: Deirdre tries to back off from her relationship with Hank (who's black) while they're at work, and her boss perceives it wrongly. She's ordered to go into sensitivity training with Hank, but they can't stop themselves from making out right in front of the HR trainer.
  This is a whole different set of paperwork.
• October Faction: Basil's dad flatly orders Deloris out of his store, with her family thinking this is because she's black. It turns out to be because he blames her for Basil doing time in prison.
• Orange Is the New Black:
  • In addition to characters who actually are racist or homophobic, which makes it seem that much likelier to be racist, there is this exchange:
    Healy: Which lesbian is that?
    Pennsatucky: With the fat stomach and the haircut.
    Healy: Black? She’s, like, the worst one.
    Pennsatucky: No, she’s white. You know you can’t say that shit around here. Trust me—
    Healy: No, no, no, no. You’re talking about Boo. ‘Black’ is her last name.
  • In season 4, Piper tries to start a task force to end troublemaking in the prison, and inadvertently ends up attracting a bunch of white supremacists, who think that when she refers to "gangs" she means the new influx of Dominican inmates.
• On Party Down, at Constance's wedding to a Jewish man, Kyle's band performs a song he wrote for Constance. He sings about how he and Constance, with their blond hair and blue eyes, are special and should rule the world, but a conspiracy of money-grubbers tries to hold them down. Then the song ostensibly describes the path to stardom as "a midnight train" to a place where they "brand you with a star" and "give with a number". Does This Remind You of Anything?? The song is also called "My Struggle". Constance has to interrupt him and force him off stage as the Jewish guests are horrified.
• Played for Drama in Amazon's 2018 adaptation of Picnic at Hanging Rock. Marion has been racelifted to be half Aboriginal and also given an explicit crush on her geography teacher. When Miss McCraw rebuffs Marion's Valentine, she does so on the grounds that such a student-teacher relationship would be wrong, but unfortunately also makes the mistake of telling Marion to leave "before anyone sees you". As the headmistress had just made Marion a job offer but said she would have to stay out of sight of parents because of her race, this comes across to Marion as Miss McCraw rejecting her for the same reason and trying to put a fig leaf over it, rather than genuinely trying to avoid a bad power dynamic.
• Powerless (2017): Van compliments Emily's ability to whip all her coworkers into shape, to which she responds by making a whipping motion at Ron, who is black. She regrets it immediately.
  • In the very next episode, it's revealed that Ron is from Atlantis ("I thought he was from Atlanta,"), and therefore gets upset by lines such as "We got them hooked, now let's reel 'em in."
• In a Saturday Night Live skit, Keith Olbermann (played by Ben Affleck) "proves" that George W. Bush is racist by playing a clip of him in which he says "to find those folks". When it's pointed out that Bush was referring to Al-Qaeda, "whose members are entirely Middle-Eastern", Olbermann replies "so we have a president who is not only a racist but also an imbecile".
  • The phrase "that one" briefly became the focus of attention during the 2008 election when John McCain used it to refer to Barack Obama (although the people who objected were divided on whether they thought it was racist or just kind of weird and rude). Facebook instantly picked up on this with "I'm Voting For That One" groups.
• Subverted in an episode of The Sarah Silverman Program: Sarah and Laura are thrift shopping when Laura points out a pair of knickers, as in short pants, on one of the racks - Sarah exclaims "ugh, I hate knickers!", leading a black customer in the same aisle to turn around in disgust. However, as Sarah haltingly tries to explain, she looks down and sees the woman is wearing knickers herself - thus she probably understood Sarah correctly, but was offended anyway because she thought her fashion sense was being mocked.
• Scrubs:
  • There's an episode where the Janitor tricks JD into looking racist by positioning himself between JD and an Asian doctor in order to block the doctor from JD's view, then asking for help with his Crossword Puzzle.
  Janitor: 5 letters. "Showing vulnerability. A 'blank' in one's armor".
  JD: Chink.
  Janitor: What?
  JD: Chink!
  [Janitor steps to the side to reveal shocked Asian doctor]
  • Another episode contains a flashback to JD and Turk's college days, where Turk is introducing JD to his (all-black) fraternity, with JD in blackface and himself in whiteface. JD is worried about offending them, but Turk assures him that as long as the two of them are together, his frat brothers will find it funny... and then immediately abandons him to go flirt with a hot girl he saw walking by, leaving him all alone when the frat answers the door.
  • In one episode Dr. Cox tells Turk he doesn't approve of "you people". Turk has just enough time to get offended before Dr. Cox finishes his blanket insult, declaring, in his own special Dr. Coxy way, his endless disdain... for surgeons. Another episode has a patient say something very similar.
    • Of course, there's also the fact that Dr. Cox doesn't really consider Turk to be black in the first place.
  • This is how Carla's brother Marco's beef with Turk started. At Carla's mother's funeral, Turk immediately assumed Marco, a Latino man, was the valet and tossed him his car keys. Turk insists it was Marco's waistcoat and not his ethnicity that gave him the wrong idea.
  • Averted in one episode with Elliot: she just happens to lock her car door at the same time a black guy walks by. She then proceeds to freak out, thinking he mistook her for a racist. Her boyfriend asks the guy, who says he just thought she was locking her door.
  • In another episode, Elliot responds to an overt public display of affection between Turk and Carla by saying she's "a little sick of the Turks". Cue a Turkish colleague, Omar, leaning over from the next table, causing her to clarify.
    • Later in the same scene, JD arrives. When Turk and Carla turn the conversation round to Elliot's social skills at her new job, JD notes "the Turks are sneaky". Turns out he's talking about Omar, who's stolen his pudding cup.
  • Elliot got accused of racism by two black men she had difficulty telling apart from one another, who assumed it was because she thinks all black people look alike and not because they are identical twins. Turk, who was angry with Elliot over something that happened earlier in the episode, refused to back her up.
  • Subverted in an episode where Kelso refers to Elliot's boyfriend as a "nagger". A black intern then comes by and angrily asks what he said, to which he clarifies things and the issue is quickly dropped.
    Kelso: Heh, you nagger!
    "Snoop Dogg Intern": What did you just call him, you punkass?!
    Kelso: A nagger.
    "Snoop Dogg Intern": ... OK, we cool (pounds chest).
• Seinfeld:
  • In "The Diplomat's Club", George notes his new boss's resemblance to boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, only for him to accuse George of thinking all black people look alike. George spends the episode unsuccessfully trying to prove to his boss that he is not racist. In the end, George is vindicated somewhat when a black guy actually mistakes his boss for Sugar Ray... except that his boss had just left a second ago and didn't hear it.
  • In "The Puerto Rican Day", Kramer accidentally sets fire to a Puerto Rican flag during the Puerto Rican Day parade, and then desperately tries to put it out using the only means currently at his disposal: by stomping on it. A man then spots him violently stomping on a burning flag, and makes the obvious assumption. This unfortunately gets the attention of Cedric and Bob. The irony is that Kramer was the only one out of the main cast who was actually having fun at the parade, while everyone else was annoyed that it was holding up traffic and preventing them from going home to watch TV.
  • In "The Cigar Store Indian", Jerry gives Elaine the titular Indian as a gift while she is with a group of her female friends, only to learn that one of the group (who Jerry had a crush on) was Native American. Jerry manages to apologize enough to get a date with her, but ends up continually digging himself deeper by unintentionally doing or saying things that seem racist. Ultimately, he ends up asking a mailman (who is currently facing away from him) for directions to a nearby Chinese restaurant. The mailman turns around and reveals himself to be a very offended Chinese man who assumes he was asked because of his race and not, as Jerry tries to explain, because a mailman would be very familiar with the neighborhood.
    Jerry: You know, I don't get it. Not allowed to ask a Chinese person where the Chinese restaurant is? Aren't we all getting a little too sensitive? I mean, if someone asks me "which way is Israel?", I don't fly off the handle!
  • In "The Wizard", Elaine desperately tries to avoid this trope when she's dating a man who she thinks might be black (darker skin tone, curly hair, apartment decorated with African wood carvings, left South Africa for "obvious reasons"), but could just as easily be white. She figures a good compromise is to take him to a bunch of Spanish restaurants. He seemingly confirms that he is black when he says the two of them are an interracial couple, but it turns out that he thought she was Hispanic (thick curly hair, last name "Benes", she kept taking him to Spanish restaurants). When they realize that they're just two white people, they decide to go to the Gap.
  • In "The Opposite", Elaine's company was critically dependent on a deal with a Japanese conglomerate. Her boss had a terrible cold, forgot his handkerchief on her desk, and sneezed all over his hands. When he meets with the Japanese businessmen, he refuses to shake their hands "because of germs". They think he's accusing them of having germs and are so insulted that they cancel the deal.
  • In "The Limo", George and Jerry can't get a cab at the airport and pretend to be the people a limo driver is waiting for. Turns out the person George is impersonating is a notorious neo-Nazi. Hilarity Ensues as they have to keep up the act out of fear that the two actual neo-Nazis in the car with them would kill them if they found out they were faking. It's even more awkward because Jerry is Jewish and George is half-Jewish (George's mother even refuses to get into a German-made car).
    George: Uh, astroturf! You know who's responsible for that, don't you? The Jews!
  • In "The Wife", Kramer accidentally falls asleep in a tanning bed and stays in there way too long... right before heading over to his black girlfriend's apartment to meet her parents. When he arrives, he's been cooked so thoroughly that he appears to be wearing blackface.
• Subtle example in Star Trek: Voyager: The crew is stranded on a primitive planet without their technology, and Tuvok presents Chakotay with several weapons he'd fashioned, including a bow and arrow. Chakotay, who is of Native American descent, assumes that it's for him, and replies that his tribe never used the bow. Tuvok clarifies that he'd made the bow for himself, being a former archery instructor.
• The Strange Calls: Gregor accuses a theater worker of being racist for Black Face when she really got a bucket of black paint dumped over her at the start of episode three.
• A meta example occurs in Stranger Things. Many viewers interpreted Billy as being racist, due to his particular hatred of Lucas, the only black member of the main gang, particularly when it seems Lucas has a crush on Billy's stepsister Max. Dacre Montgomery, who plays Billy, thinks that Billy's actually just insecure.
• "Mistaken for homophobe" version shows up in Supernatural, when Dean has his first encounter with The Fair Folk, and then mistakes a (completely human) gay dwarf for one of them and beats him up while yelling about "tiny fairies".
  Officer: I'm just trying to understand just what kinda hate crime this even was.
  Dean: It wasn't a hate crime.
  Officer: I mean, if this gentleman were a full-sized homosexual, would that be okay with you?
• On The Thin Blue Line, when the Mayoress orders Raymond to arrest an illegal immigrant, she forgets to give him a description of what the man looks like, so he and his officers just arrest the man who opened the door. Unfortunately, he not only isn't the illegal alien, but he's also black and the European Commissioner for Human Rights. Learning of the man's real identity, Raymond is horrified: "A Frenchman? In my station?!"
• The Umbrella Academy (2019): Luther tells Klaus that their father Reginald is an alien. Klaus rebukes him for his language, saying he can just say Reginald is British. Luther says, no, he genuinely means Reginald is a buglike creature from another world.
• Knowledge of this trope was used in at least two plots of The West Wing, and not played for laughs either time.
  • In "The Midterms" Sam persuades a college friend and Florida DA to run for Congress. Unfortunately, it comes out later that as a DA he often dismissed black jurors from cases he was trying to win. Since this is not an uncommon tactic for DAs, this was still seen as a winnable campaign. Then it was revealed that he belonged to an all-white fraternity in college, which again is neither uncommon or embarrassing, as many frats and sororities have few-to-none black members (especially if the college has a black fraternity that attracts most black pledges). These two circumstances together were enough to staunch the promised support from the White House, as Sam, Josh, and Leo knew the DA was going to be Mistaken for Racist and didn't want the White House to be as well.
  • In "In Bartlet's Third State of The Union" a (white) Detroit police officer is cited for heroism by the President. It comes out later that the officer was once accused of excessive force, breaking the leg of a (black) suspect. It's evident from the officer's story that the suspect lied (the suspect broke his leg jumping from the building he was robbing) in order to get a several million dollar settlement out of the city. Nevertheless, CJ and Sam have to do damage-control, lest the White House be Mistaken for Racist, wondering aloud why they even let him into the State of the Union and persuading the officer to clarify the situation on TV.
• One episode of Yes, Minister is about the state visit by the new head of an African country. Sir Humphrey says "the only thing we know is that he's an enigma" - which gets him a reproachful "oh, Humphrey, I don't like that word" from the minister.
  • Later when they meet with the African leader, who happens to be an old college friend of Jim's, he plays this tactic to unsettle them during negotiations:
    Jim: Charlie, long time no see.
    Charles: You don't have to speak pidgin English to me, Jim.
  • After Charles make them an offer that basically boils down to extortion of the British government:
    Sir Humphrey: Blackmail.
    Charles: Are you describing me or my proposal?
    Jim: Your proposal obviously. [Sir Humphrey and Jim laugh] No, no not even your proposal!