Black Best Friend

"Can I keep him? I'll feed him!"

All my black friends have a bunch of white friends, and all my white friends have one black friend!

—Chris Rock

"Some of my best friends are sassy black people!"

So, you're hip. You're smart. You've got class. And when you say "Some of My Best Friends Are X", you want people to know that there is credibility behind that statement. What's the best way to show it? By having a black best friend!

Your black best friend is sassy. She's never too busy to lend an ear, or come along on your wacky schemes. She is flawless to the point of being unreal. (Unless there's the occasional situation of either having a problem with her race or her relationship with you.) Is it because she has no love life, no apartment, and no family? It's hard to say, but there's one thing for sure. She has a cell phone, and never ignores your calls.

See also Magical Negro, Token Minority, Satellite Character, and Gay Best Friend. May also be Black and Nerdy.

Examples of Black Best Friend include:

Anime and Manga

  • A rare anime example is Tapp Oceano from Metal Armor Dragonar. In a strange twist, he is a rather grounded individual who came from a childhood of relative poverty living in New York, compared to his friends Kaine Wakaba, the somewhat overzealous hero who grew up in a strangely traditional Japanese village, and Light Newman, The Smart Guy who happens to be a certified British nobleman (he doesn't like to talk about it).
  • Misa Hayase's Cool Big Sis Claudia LaSalle /Grant from Macross / Robotech. In Robotech continuity, there's also Dana Sterling's childhood friend (and Claudia's nephew), Bowie Grant.
  • Bob Makihara from Tenjou Tenge.
  • Kennedy/Kenichi is black in the 2003 Astro Boy adaptation; he seems to serve as The Lancer when the kids as a group are in focus and gets more development than any of Astro's friends save Reno.
  • Ojamajo Doremi gives us Beth, Momoko's best friend from back in the USA who pops up a few times as if to say, "Momoko lived in America, and there were black people there!"
  • Inverted in Eyeshield 21. We actually know quite a bit about Patrick "Panther" Spencer, but as for his best friend Homer, well... He's white. And nice. That's about it. Of course, it can be argued that Panther is Sena's black friend.


Comic Books

  • Jim Rhodes: friend and employee of Tony Stark aka Iron Man. The personal pilot of the billionaire who became the second Iron Man and then got his own armor as War Machine. Even before he got the suit, he still managed quite well as a Badass Normal in Stark's adventures.
  • Davida Kirby, from Spider-Girl: Sure, she's a great friend who's hip and always willing to lend an ear, but also... almost lost her friends due to anger and jealousy, strings boyfriends along, and is a little insensitive and pushy sometimes. Plus she's getting suspicious of her best friend's lame excuses.
  • John Stewart of the Green Lantern Corps is sort of this for Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner, but he's come into his own thanks to his role on Justice League. For one thing, he is now Jordan's regular duty partner Lantern for their sector of space.
    • John Stewart received a fair amount of Character Development during Kyle Rayner's tenure on Green Lantern before he got a new Green Lantern Ring or Kyle was forced out into space to let John be the Green Lantern in the Justice League.
    • John Stewart actually received a fair amount of character development during the late 80s and early 90s when he replaced Hal Jordan full time and got married, then subsequently lost his wife and accidentally caused the destruction of a planet, driving him insane. These experiences made him a more down-to-earth, intellectual Green Lantern than his predecessors, but were all forgotten post-Emerald Twilight when they basically made him his cartoon counterpart.
  • Subverted in Captain Atom with Sgt. Jeff "Goz" Goslin. Goz is black, and is Cap's best friend, but he is a fully realized character, and he certainly has a love life. At one point, in fact, he was involved with Cap's daughter, a plot-line the writers used to explore Cap's attitudes about race.
  • The heroine of the western manga Rhysmith has one of these.
  • Machiste who, despite being king of his own land, spends most of his time as the loyal companion to Travis Morgan in The Warlord.
  • Captain America (comics) had the black hero, The Falcon. They were so tight in the 1970s that Cap's series was retitled as Captain America and the Falcon for years.
    • As revealed by artist/writer John Byrne on his message board: It was the habit in the [Marvel] Office to refer to CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE FALCON as Captain America and the Fowl Coon.
    • When Cap quit being Cap and a new one was appointed by the US government, the replacement John Walker, in that brief interlude before he started getting evil, also had a black best friend, Lemar Hoskins, who was given the costume of and codename of Bucky, Original Cap's World War Two sidekick. The comics people rapidly realized that there were Unfortunate Implications, and in an unusual move addressed these within the comic, as the Lemar explained to Walker that 'Bucky' was an unfortunate slang term for black men, and there was something demeaning about a grown man being named after a dead white teenager, so he'd like to pick a new codename. Walker agreed and Lemar became Battlestar.
  • In the Mysti comic books, Mysti has a black best friend named Peaseblossom (though for the first few volumes, she is a white best friend).
  • The Badger's best friend, Riley Thorpe, hits on most cylinders of this description, but he is given a good bit more personality and independence than the average black best friend.
  • Subverted in Horndog, where the main character, Bob's best friend, Leonard, happens to be black, but in addition to the fact that Bob actually dates a black woman (Charlene), both Charlene and Leonard are portrayed realistically and with fully developed characterization.
  • J. Jonah Jameson has Joe "Robbie" Robertson. True to form, Robbie is the more mellow and approachable of the two (not that that's hard), generally acting as Jonah's Lancer / Morality Chain.


Film

  • Bennet from The Sorcerer's Apprentice is one of the greatest offenders. He only has a couple of scenes, usually for a bit of Comic Relief, where he shares the bedroom with the hero and seems to be the only person who talks to him and when he does is to say that Dave has to get a girlfriend and introduce a Chekhov's Gun that is going to be used by the Big Bad. Then, when he's having a date, Dave calls him for help and he leaves in the same instant, meets the hero, he says he's willing to do anything to help him and then he VANISHES without any explanation whatsoever. The point that ANYONE seems to remember this character makes it even more obvious.
  • Michael, for SJ, in The Blind Side.
  • Lily, Andy's best friend in the movie The Devil Wears Prada.
  • Lynette from the film version of The Nanny Diaries.
  • Annie from the Sandra Bullock vehicle Premonition.
  • Bob Parr & Lucius Best from The Incredibles.
  • Sithandra from Aeon Flux, who unfortunately has monkey-like hands/feet.
  • Trey in Superhero Movie.
  • Brenda Meeks from the Scary Movie series is a send-up of this trope.
  • In The Proposition, the only cop other to be trusted by Cpt. Stanley is Jacko, an Australian Aborigine. On the other side of the law, Arthur Burns' right-hand man is another Aborigine named Two-Bob. Two-Bob considers Jacko to be a sellout, and knifes him to death.
  • The High School Musical TV and big screen movies have Chad as Troy's Black Best Friend and Taylor as Gabriella's.
  • Gina, Honey's best friend in the movie Honey.
  • In District 9, they are not exactly friends, but Wikus' black bureaucratic co-worker got along well enough with him. Furthermore, that co-worker is so inspired by Wikus' sacrifice that he investigated and exposed MNU's evil scientific experiments on the aliens to the world to strike his own blow and willingly pays the price doing so.
  • Ella's Asian Best Friend in Ella Enchanted. The character is played by Parminder Nagra (of E.R. fame), which makes her painfully obvious sidelining all the more so.
  • Hallie, new BFF to Sidney Prescott in Scream 2.
  • General Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams, who manages to ooze almost as much charm and charisma as his old pal Han Solo himself. In Real Life, Williams had been considered for the role of Solo and he and Harrison Ford (at least at the time) were actually best friends.
  • The Skeleton Key: Actually serves the plot as she introduces the protagonist to the Hoodoo that was practiced in her family. (And at the end it's how we know she's going to be the next victim of body-snatching Mama Cecile who had said earlier that she wants a black woman to inhabit.)
  • Bo Peep to Snow White From Happily N'Ever After 2. Also, Little Red Riding Hood seems to be Snow White's Arab Best Friend, complete with headscarf-esque hood.
  • Tosh Nicole seems to be the Spice Girls' only friend in Spice World. Her newborn baby is still "white and smegaless", though.
  • Inverted in the 2010 Karate Kid in that as soon as Dre moves to China a local blonde starts being his friend but barely has a line in the film.
  • Jason is the Black Best Friend of Charlie and Duncan in Mystery Team. Slightly averted in that he's the protagonist, and doesn't have the same characteristics as most examples of these tropes.
  • Matilda had a black best friend by the name of Lavender, one of the many changes from Roald Dahl's novel.
  • In one of the earliest examples in film, Sam is this to Rick in Casablanca.
  • A rare inversion in Independence Day. The hero is a black fighter pilot and his white best friend is the wise-cracking comic relief who's also one of the first to die.
  • In the film Chronicle, Steve is the Black Best Friend of the two white protagonists who also develop superpowers. He's done a bit more justice than the typical Black Best Friend, though - he's the most popular, sociable and outgoing member of the trio (and is suggested to be a positive influence on both of them), is a well-rounded character who doesn't exhibit any particularly stereotypical attitudes or behaviors, and the development of the friendship between the members of the trio is treated as a meaningful plot arc.


Literature

  • Fred and George from Harry Potter have Lee Jordan.
    • Blaise Zabini is indicated to be the only person that Draco respects/sees as an equal. Subverting the usual implication of the character being broad-minded, both Draco and Blaise are pretty big fantastic racists.
  • The Silence of the Lambs features two of these—Clarice's roommate Ardelia and the orderly Barney, who appears to be one of the few people Hannibal Lecter respects.
  • The Stephanie Plum novels have Stephanie teamed with black ex-hooker Lula.
  • Somewhat parodied in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy with Yo-less, who is "technically black".
    • Yo-less was once asked if it was racist for him to be Baron Samedi for Halloween. He says no, it can't be racist if it's him doing it.
    • The nickname, incidentally, is because he is so chronically unhip that it goes far beyond not conforming to stereotypes; he's actually "whiter" than his aggressively Anglo friends.
  • Jim from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn might be the original Black Best Friend, from way before it was cool. Older Than Radio, of course.
    • On the other hand, Jim and Huck don't always see eye-to-eye on some issues, such as their discussions over the wives of Henry the Eighth, the many different languages in the world, or the Solomon's decision to cut a child in half.
  • Jessica, from the Undead and... vampire series. She is undeniably sassy, and despite having no supernatural powers (unlike many other characters in the series), she is something of a Magical Negro, due to her stupendous (inherited) wealth.
  • Hawk in Robert B. Parker's Spenser (a/k/a Spenser For Hire) detective series. (The novels were also the basis for a TV series in the mid-'80's. Robert Urich played Spenser; Avery Brooks played Hawk.
  • Melanie is this to April in The Egypt Game, providing an early example from The Sixties. The Sympathetic POV is actually assigned to them about equally, although April still registers more strongly as a protagonist. On the other hand, April is definitely the sassier of the two, which would have been an Inverted Trope had the stereotype been codified.
  • Melody in Bailey School Kids
  • Josh to Kevin in The Eyes of Kid Midas.
  • Becky to Sara in A Little Princess.
    • Only black in some versions, but always lower-class and desperately grateful for the chance to be in Sara's company, even as her servant.
  • In the Dear America book Look to the Hills: The Diary of Lozette Moreau, a French Slave Girl the main character Zettie, though six years younger, is her mistress's loved and trusted companion.
  • Animorphs Cassie and Rachel, Jake and Cassie.
  • The premise of the American Girl series with Marie-Grace and Cecille


Live Action TV

  • Francie, Sydney Bristow's best friend, on Alias. She had her own plot about a cheating fiance that only served to show Sydney had a normal non-spy-related friend. In the second season, she had a restaurant startup subplot, and even interacted with people Sydney knew outside of their mutual friend Will. But then, she ends up killed and replaced by someone who's been genetically altered to look like her.
  • Ally McBeal: Renee, until they Brother Chucked her.
  • Wes and Gunn on Angel for a while.
  • This was actually the plot, or at least part of it, of the Lifetime original series Any Day Now. Despite their racial differences, Mary Elizabeth (Annie Potts) and Renee (Lorraise Toussaint) became best friends while growing up in 1960's Alabama, and the show jumped between their present-day lives and flashbacks to their childhoods.
  • The classic Battlestar Galactica
    • Tigh to Adama
    • Boomer to Apollo and Starbuck
  • Boy Meets World had two at different points in the show's run: Angela Moore for Topanga Lawrence and Eli Williams for Jonathan Turner. However, in Angela's case, her primary role was as Shawn's girlfriend and her friendship with Topanga grew out of her relationship with Shawn.
  • Forrest to Riley on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
    • Although he could hardly be considered friendly.
  • Subverted by Cirilo in Carrusel. He is friends with practically everyone- but not the sidekick of anyone in particular.
  • Clueless: Dionne "Dee" Davenport in the sitcom version (and the movie).
  • The Colbert Report: Parodied. When discussing racial matters, Stephen would frequently show a single picture of him with a black staff member named Alan. (After Colbert saw Alan participating in an anti-war protest, he was demoted to a "black acquaintance", and Colbert is now searching for a new black friend.)
    • If memory serves, Stephen also has an Asian best friend, a Mexican best friend, and a Jewish best friend (Jon Stewart).
      • There was a montage. He has a lot of these. In all cases, the "friends" are wearing the same resigned expressions in the picture at the top of the page.
    • Some minor irony: they actually had to hire an actor to portray a black staff member, since the Colbert Report didn't have one. The man in question, Jordan Carlos, wrote an article for the Washington Post about the situation. Executive summary: He doesn't seem angry, but he wrote an article for the Washington Post about the situation.
      • What, Larry Wilmore wasn't available?
      • It might have needed to be taken prior to Wilmore's upgrade to correspondent.
        • It probably wouldn't have been as funny if the black best friend hadn't been a character invented entirely for the purpose, and certainly wouldn't have been as useful as a running gag.
  • Community: One thing that gets Pierce out of his suicidal funk is that he has "a young African-American friend"
  • The Cosby Show, which has a predominantly black cast, inverts this trope with Cliff's white best friend, Jeffrey, played by Wallace Shawn.
  • Nick and Warrick on CSI.
  • Original Cindy from Dark Angel; she's also a lesbian, giving you a twofer.
    • Subverted in that Original Cindy has a healthy and acknowledged sex life and frequent subplots involving her life and relationships.
    • On the other hand, since Max herself is both Latina and a cyborg "cat-girl", wouldn't she be the Twofer Best Friend?
  • The first episode that Hazel is the main character in Degrassi the Next Generation leaves her usual part of being an extention of the queen bee Paig and goes to her claiming that she's black because she's from Jamaica, not the Muslim African nation that she is from.
  • Avoided in Eureka: Henry is Carter's best friend, but he has his own subplots, his own agenda, and his own secrets. A typed BBF would never erase memories from the white protagonist.
    • And considering that the woman that Carter is in love with is black, uh, yeah. Henry's as far from a token as can be.
  • Not a perfect example, but the trope is played for laughs in Father Ted where, in an attempt to appeal to the Chinese people of Craggy Island when they all start to believe he is a racist, Ted organizes an event to celebrate their culture. A slide-show is the main event where, before he gets to a cringe-worthy display of examples of "Chinese culture" (including Ted claiming that you can see the Great Wall of China "from anywhere in the world" and Mr. Miyagi) he shows a picture of himself with his arm around a black man and the pair smiling. To this he says "I forget his name now, but I got on very well with him..." before moving on.
  • Felicity: Elena Tyler
  • Nick on the 2007 Flash Gordon, though thus far he's functioned mostly as a Butt Monkey.
    • If you count Dale Arden's cameraman/confidant, there are two of these.
  • Andrea Moreno is the black best friend of Melinda Gordon in Ghost Whisperer.
  • In Glee, Mercedes is this to Kurt.
  • Ivy Wentz on Good Luck Charlie is Teddy's black best friend. Also P.J.'s best friend Emmett is Black and Nerdy.
  • Averted in Homicide: Life on the Street as Frank often shoots down any attempts at Friendship Tim shows despite Tim calling Frank His best Friend. This is more to do with Pembleton's Characterisation as a self-assigned Loner.
  • Honest features Reza, a South Asian Best Friend. Subverted in that he's not all that smart.
  • How I Met Your Mother: Lily's best friend from high school in the episode "Sand Castles in the Sand".
    • Her friend also has an extremely thick, stereotypical "black" accent...and when Lily is talking to her, so does she. At one point, Lily leaves her friend alone with the main cast, and it turns out she doesn't normally have that accent either—they just bring out that side of each other.
  • Deacon on The King of Queens.
  • Satirized in The L.A. Complex when Raquel goes out for the role of the protagonist's best friend in a new TV show and is told that they're looking for a Black Best Friend.
  • On Las Vegas, we have Mike Cannon, who is pretty much cool personified, and frequently chases tail. He's also an MIT graduate, idolizes Stephen Hawking, and is one of the smartest guys on the show. (James Lesure and Josh Duhamel are actually real-life friends.) There's also Detta, who was Delinda's British BBF, and Sam Marquez, a sassy Hispanic woman(And I use the word "sassy" generously).
  • Ramona Platt in Less Than Perfect.
  • The Walking Dead: Beth becomes friends with Noah when she's sent to Grady Memorial Hospital. Unlike other examples, they're not the same gender. She doesn't take it well when she finds out Dawn beat him up.
  • Malcolm's best friend in Malcolm in the Middle is Stevie, who is also Black and Nerdy.
  • For the first eight or so seasons of Married... with Children, Al worked alone in the shoe store. Starting in season 9, his friend and fellow NO-MAAMer Griff became his co-worker. In many respects, Griff was a black version of Al, with a bad car and an even worse job, their major difference being that Griff was divorced. Al would probably consider him better off, but as Griff told Bud in one episode, she got the car, the dog and the money. I got the right to remain silent.
    • He actually worked with a white guy in the first season of the show, then went a couple of of seasons working alone, before hiring a kid that was from Polk High named Aaron. Then he got a intern named Dexter (played by Chi McBride) for one episode. Then Griff came along. Plus, the only cop in Chicago who seems to like Al is Officer Dan.
  • Steven Matrix has Billy Hicks.
  • In My Boys, uh, this happens. Somewhat subverted because the main character is the hip one and her black best friend is overly feminine.
  • The Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode that features the movie Werewolf mocks this when the only black person in the film, seen for a few seconds, is introduced at a party as "my good friend Elgin."

Mike: Elgin is my black friend.

  • Ned's Declassified has Simon 'Cookie' Cook, who is Ned's nerdy black best friend. Should be noted that a lot of kids' shows tend to have this geeky Urkel type of black friend. Other examples include Tucker from Danny Phantom or AJ from Fairly Oddparents.
  • Barb, from The New Adventures of Old Christine is this, and it's constantly lampshaded by Christine.
  • One of Michael Scott's quirks from the US version of The Office is his bizarre belief, in the face of all evidence, that sales rep Stanley Hudson is a stereotypical "sassy black mentor" and that Stanley is therefore one of his best friends from work (since Michael is, of course, the protagonist of his little pop-culture fantasy world). Michael has a magical ability to completely ignore all of Stanley's real personality traits while imagining him as a Black Best Friend, imagining him as a wisecracking happy-go-lucky athletic "urban" man with working-class roots , when Stanley is in fact sedentary and out of shape, laconic to the point of catatonia, frequently depressed, raised in a small town and just as if not more solidly upper-middle-class as anyone else in the office.
    • Bizarrely, this is why Michael, despite his blatant racism, seems to genuinely like Stanley to the point of being willing to fight Corporate to keep him as an employee, even though everyone else sees Stanley as one of the less likable (or even memorable) people there, and Stanley himself has nothing but disdain for everyone around him.
    • The thing about Michael is, he's not a racist out of bigotry—he's a racist because he's an idiot. This is frequently the type of racism that is common today - people have generally racist mentality out of ignorance and not out of bigotry. The Office just takes it to the extreme with Michael.
  • The titular Jimmy of Out of Jimmy's Head has a Black Best Friend.
  • Gus on Psych, though he exerts a lot of effort into not getting involved in Shawn's latest case. He's also probably a subversion, considering his general dorkiness, especially when compared to Shawn. What's his normal day-job when he's not helping Shawn solve crimes? He's a pharmaceutical sales rep.
  • Rita Rocks: Patti
  • Sabrina the Teenage Witch: Dreama from (Also a Token Black.)
  • Spoofed in The Sarah Silverman Program episode "Batteries" when Sarah meets God depicted as an African-American man and she asks him "Are you God's black friend?"
  • Scrubs: Parodied with J.D. and Turk. J.D. is a total dork whose best friend is a black guy, but Turk is only slightly less, if not equally, dorky despite also possessing several jock characteristics. Generally said, Scrubs is one of the rare shows that handles the topic "racism" openly, and isn't afraid to do so. Examples are jokes about the white, geeky stereotype or the black Surfer Dude stereotype. They are very, very aware of this trope, frankly. Their nicknames for each other are 'chocolate bear' and 'vanilla bear'. In another episode they went to a frat party with J.D. in blackface and Turk in whiteface, J.D. obviously more worried about the implications than Turk was. Turk got caught up elsewhere and J.D. was left to the mercy of the black fraternity leaders.
  • Alex Mack from The Secret World of Alex Mack has Raymond as her black best friend.
  • Parodied in an episode of Seinfeld in which George offends his black boss when he says he resembled Sugar Ray Leonard(He really did). He goes as far as trying to find any black person he's had contact with recently to prove to his boss he's not a racist. He ends up inviting Jerry's black plumber exterminator to a dinner with his boss and pretending they're old high school buddies. Obviously, it blows up in his face.
  • The Hamiltons of 7th Heaven, an entire family with a black best friend for every Camden family member.
  • Pete in the early seasons of Smallville. The first character outside the Kent family in whom Clark confided about his powers.
    • Made all the more transparent by the fact that Pete Ross was a blond, blue-eyed white boy in the comics.
    • Regrettably, the writers never gave him anything to do, even after he learnt about Clark's powers, and the role of Clark's best friend was quickly assumed by the much more interestingly written and acted Chloe Sullivan. Pete Ross became an achingly obvious Token Minority and was eventually Put on a Bus.
    • Unlike everyone else Pete never had a place (barn, talon, torch office, kitchen) and his only problem was living in Clark's shadow so he left for good reason.
  • The worst offender is the extremely WASPy and nationalist and hateful family from Small Wonder where the jerkass protagonist kid has a black best friend in Jerry.
  • La Donna Frediricks of Square Pegs was valley girl Jennifer Di Nuccio's best friend and shared the "most popular girl" mantle with her. In spite of her cliché sassy blackness, she thankfully never fell prey to the more boring Positive Discrimination laws of the day that would've castrated her Mean Girl evil. While proving marginally smarter and more accomplished than the other popular kids, La Donna was a bully at heart, and was just as cruel, selfish, and shallow as the rest of her clique—La Donna's catchphrase was an always uncalled for "I hate that," and she routinely referred to the two protagonists derisively as "that fat girl" and "that fat girl's friend".
  • Huggy Bear to Starsky and Hutch.
  • Summerland; had Susannah, the black best friend of Ava.
  • Owen on Supah Ninjas.
  • That's So Raven: Inverted with Chelsea who's the Best White Friend
  • Lampshaded in Thirty Rock. When Liz tries to make friends with Tracey's wife, Angie, she asks "Are you looking for a sassy black friend?" When Liz stumbles for words, Angie continues: "Because you just found one, girlfriend!"
  • Kenny on 'Til Death.
  • Jay Leno of The Tonight Show regularly exchanged banter with Kevin Eubanks.
    • Eubanks was the replacement for original music director Branford Marsalis. The awkward and vaguely hostile relationship between Marsalis and Leno subverted this trope pretty effectively.
  • Tara and Lafayette (who is gay and black, so he gets the twofer label), Sookie's best friends on True Blood, though Tara falls more into the catagory.
    • This is almost a subversion, as Tara not only gets substantial characterization, but her own, season-long plot arcs that sometimes barely intersect sookie's at all. Same with La Fayette.
  • Bonnie to Elena and Caroline on The Vampire Diaries. She's not a perfect example because she's a fleshed-out character with plotlines of her own, is more aware of and capable of handling what's going on in the Town with a Dark Secret than many characters, and is even a Magical Negro, but she's sassy, black, and a good friend, so it's still worth mentioning.
  • Wallace on Veronica Mars. He gets his own story in season 2...which results in him leaving the show for several episodes...and is promptly written into the background of season 3. Weevil might also count as a sassy latino associate, but he's got enough of his own motivations that he might count as independent of Veronica...except he needs her help frequently to get him out of jail.
    • Wallace got a few storylines in Season 3. I think the show tried a little harder than most shows to make the minority best friend more three-dimensional.
    • (Also, Neptune, the town where the show takes place, is divided into classes which look at the money you make and frequently also the colour of your skin (some exceptions, but as a rule the white kids are on top) - Wallace wasn't so much the black best friend to give the main character a black best friend, rather he was black because she wouldn't be able to make friends with someone who wasn't also spurned as a social outcast to some degree, and with the town being a little racist as well as money obsessed, it made sense for it to be the black boy she felt sympathy for.)
  • Wonderfalls has an odd case with Mahandra, who, unlike other examples, has a love life and the occasional wacky subplot.
  • Wayne Brady on Whose Line Is It Anyway, with Phil LeMarr filling in that role in the English version.


Newspaper Comics

  • Marcus in FoxTrot is both Jason's Black Best Friend and Black and Nerdy.
  • Franklin in Peanuts, although he's depicted as Shermy's best friend, rather than the protagonist Charlie Brown's.
    • Originally, Franklin was a kid from the next neighborhood over who apparently knew Charlie Brown from school and was visiting the Peanuts Gang. He proceeded to become the Only Sane Man when he realized that all the kids in the neighborhood were so eccentric that he could never possibly be friends with them. (He obviously changed his mind later, though.)
    • Being in the same class as Peppermint Patty with all her silliness helps.
  • Prince Lothar from Mandrake the Magician. He became an Ensemble Darkhorse and got more Character Development than usual, though.
  • Lawrence is Michael's Brazilian (and gay) friend in For Better or For Worse. Usually he's pulled out to show how tolerant the Pattersons are.


Radio

  • Subverted with Robin Quivers. She's been the news anchor and a co-host of The Howard Stern Show since 1981, although originally she was only given the job of newsanchor by executives in the hopes that she would calm Stern down and fulfill the normal role of Black Best Friend. As common with Stern, this only served to increase his wild tendencies, and he interacted and involved Quivers with the show so much through the years that it's obvious she's a fully realized person with flaws, likes, and dislikes... and sometimes she's the only person to take a stand against Stern.


Video Games

  • Barret from Final Fantasy VII is arguably this to Cloud. You can see them having a man-talk moment if you choose him for the tram ride cut-scene.
  • Big Bo to Dan Marshall in Binary Domain.
  • Nakili Abuto in the Purple Moon verse hits every note of this, save for not being your best friend—instead, she's part of a social clique that the player character wants to join. You know, girl?
  • 8-Ball, Lance Vance, and Little Jacob in Grand Theft Auto. 8-Ball is probably the least stereotypical of the three, unfortunate since he's the oldest character (they first appear in GTAIII, Vice City, and GTAIV respectively).
    • Little Jacob is Jamaican, so whilst he is black he comes from a totally different culture to a black American.
    • Dwayne from GTAIV (provided you let him live), who is one of the nicest characters in the game. He isn't directly a stereotype, but if you take him to Cluckin' Bell (KFC) he admits that it may be a stereotype but he still loves the food.
  • Anthony Higgs in Metroid Other M.


Web Comics


Web Original

  • In The Gamers Alliance, Ismail is Belial's best friend. They met each other for the first time when Belial began spending time with Sultana Razia whom Ismail served as the captain of the guard in Vanna. The two men instantly got along and actually began teaching each other about their respective cultures, gaining mutual respect over the years which turned into a lasting friendship. When Razia's twin sister Adela usurped the throne, Ismail was sent into exile. Belial immediately offered him and the other exiled people a sanctuary in his Maar Sulais home, and Ismail returned the favour by becoming Belial's bodyguard as well as the mentor of Belial's son.
  • At the start of the Zero Punctuation review of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, Yahtzee explains that he's not a racist. This photograph flashes up for just one frame.
  • Theatrica: Vivian
  • When talking about the "sensitive issue of race" The Nostalgia Chick parodies this by saying that its okay, because her best friend is black. Cut to the definitely white Nella:

Nella: I'm adopted. Fo' shizzle.

  • In the Whateley Universe, Jericho is this to Diamondback and Razorback. Given that Diamondback looks like a naga and Razorback looks like he's mostly velociraptor, not a lot of people want to be their friend.


Western Animation

  • Happens a lot in animated shows. The rich white girl always has a black friend, either straight out sassay or the more bookish type.
    • And of course in most animated shows, especially ones set in a school environment, the main character and his/her two best friends will make up a Token Trio: the (white) protagonist, their platonic white friend of the opposite sex, and their black best pal of the same sex. The black friend is usually the smart one or the voice-of-reason character.
  • Carver in The Weekenders.
  • Monique from Kim Possible.
  • Libby Folfax from The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius to Cindy Vortex.
  • And let's not even get started with Trixie of American Dragon: Jake Long. Hell, if the race wasn't off, Jake himself would qualify.
  • All-around cool kid Gerald Johanssen in Hey Arnold!. Though unlike most examples, it didn't consume his entire character.
    • Arguably, Nadine counts too as she's Rhonda's best friend.
  • Danny Phantom has this as part of a typical Token Trio set-up; Tucker is a Techno-Geek, and they're all Cool Losers.
  • Daria subverts this a bit too. Although Daria gets along better with the two major black kids, Jodie and Mack, than almost anyone else besides Jane, they are much more mainstream than the lead characters, although they envy Daria and Jane's iconoclastic manner.
  • Abby in The Replacements.
  • Possibly parodied with The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, where Billy's Black Best Friend Irwin tries to be cool, but is a complete and almost hopeless dweeb with an obsessive crush on Mandy.
    • His relatives are even worse. His dad is even more of a nerd then he, but fails to realize it. His Grandma is a Sassy Black Woman who can out funk anyone. One of his Grandpas is...well, a senile old Blacula. His other Grandpa is a Jewish Mummy which doesn't quite work out. His mom is a hideous corpse mummy, about which nobody needs to ask any questions.
  • Terry McGinnis' friend Max in Batman Beyond, one of the few besides him and Old Man Wayne who know his secret identity.
  • Played in Family Guy in its parody of The Shawshank Redemption:

Andy: Oh, we've only had one conversation, but I can tell we're gonna be life-long friends. And since you're black, and I'm white, that makes it more a-special for the audience!

  • Jonathan Reed is one of the earliest examples of this trope in Davey and Goliath.
  • Jamie James from Carl Squared.
  • In Static Shock there's what you could call an inversion. The protagonist is black, but there's nothing wrong with it. He's just a normal teenager kid, for whom his skin color is only an actual issue when the show is actually talking about racism. However, his best friend is Richie, who you could call... 'White Best Friend'. Richie is, perhaps deliberately, as white as a character can be. Being a geek, completely uncool and utterly... well, white.
  • Miranda on As Told by Ginger is Courtney's best friend. Miranda is extremely popular and generally very cool.
  • AJ on The Fairly OddParents is the black friend to both Timmy and Chester, though in a bit of a subversion he's probably the smartest and most level-headed of the three.
    • AJ is definitely the smartest both academically (he gets LOTS of A's while Timmy and Chester pretty much fail exclusively) and in terms of common sense, though his attempts to get Timmy to not make ridiculously bad decisions don't really work.
  • Quincy from My Dad the Rock Star is this to the male lead Willy. Unique in that he is not portrayed as cooler than the already nerdy-looking Willy. In fact, he's a subverted Jive Turkey who tries to talk in street slang and appear hip hop, but comes off as a clear poser to everyone else.
  • Discovery Kids' animated series Growing Up Creepie has Beuregard "Budge" Bentley III, though like many black characters on shows aimed at younger kids, he's not overly portrayed as black.
  • Iron Man: Armored Adventures has Rhodey, who's Tony's best friend, confidant, and moral compass for most of the series. He is by far the most calm and mature out of all the main characters. He's also the only person who calls Tony out when he does morally/intellectually questionable things and is basically the main cast's voice of reason.
  • From Total Drama Island, Leshawna, especially in regards to Gwen.
    • DJ to Geoff.
  • In Stickin' Around, Bradley is precisely this for Stacy.
  • Fillmore!: Averted. Fillmore is the main character; Ingrid is his white (and female) best friend.
  • In Futurama's Show Within a Show All My Circuits, Calculon's best friend is a human - who doesn't have a name and is only known as "human friend." Similar in spirit.
  • Despite the fact that Tiana is the heroine of The Princess and the Frog, Charlotte is so spoiled that she gets all the fairy tale dresses she wants and when her seamstress shows up she brings her black little girl to play with Charlotte.
  • Eema the Styracosaurus is probably this to Baylene the Brachiosaurus from Disney's Dinosaur, judging by her accent (Baylene has a British accent).
  • Phineas and Ferb's Stacy Hirano, though Asian, fits this trope to a T, being the sane counterbalance and voice of reason to her neurotic white best friend Candace.
  • Word of God has Skeeter from Doug as this, despite the fact he's blue in the series.
  • Voltron Force Vincent is Daniel's best friend. Unusual case in that the Black guy is the best friend of an Asian guy!


Real Life

  • A parody website called Black People Love Us. It goes on about how "well-liked [they are] by Black people," and hangin' out with their black friends.
  • Devin Freidman wrote an article called "Will You Be My Black Friend?" on how he realized at a cocktail party that most of his friends were white. He tried to remedy this by putting an ad for himself on Craigslist for a black friend. Oprah's producing a movie with Chris Rock based on it.
  • The recent case of a justice of the peace in Louisiana who refuses to perform interracial marriages (out of concern, he says, that mixed-race children have no real place in society). His justification has to be read to be believed:

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

  • Chris Rock makes fun of this in one of his standups when he says "All my black friends have a bunch of white friends, and all my white friends have one black friend!"
    • Also inverted and parodied in "How To Not Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police" with this advice: "Get A White Friend."
      • "A white friend could be the difference between a ticket--" [black driver is handed a ticket as white friend watches sympathetically; arrow caption says "Ticket"] "--and a bullet in the ass." [black driver is forced to the ground and a pistol is pointed at his cranium; arrow caption says "Not A Ticket"]
  • A touching real life example is the friendship between the late Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers, both football players. When Piccolo developed cancer and died, Sayers stood by him and encouraged him. This inspired the film Brian's Song.
  • There has also been a Dutch comedian (can't recall which) who went by things a little bit differently

No,no,no,no, you misunderstand. Some of my best blacks are friends!

  • Yasuke, a former African slave (probably from Mozambique) who became a retainer, bodyguard and close friend of the Sengoku Period Japanese daimyō Oda Nobunaga.
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