Anyone who thinks race does not exist in Arthur did not watch Arthur correctly/doesn’t remember enough. All of the characters hint at nationalities, at traditions from their grandparents etc. who lived in other countries, and even religions. Meaning, yes, race exists in Arthur-BUT NO ONE IS FIGHTING OVER RACES IN THE SERIES WHICH IS FUCKING BEAUTIFUL.
Brain has African roots-and African cousins. According to Wiki, those roots come from the Senegalese area of Africa. They even did a song about Africa when said cousin visited.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYh-zW3UkS8
Francine Frensky was Hebrew, or at least Jewish.
You could even argue that Francine is black, based on the makeover episode where rich white girl Muffy tries to change her style to make her girly while also criticizing everything about Francine and her poor lifestyle. In that episode, Francine’s Bad Hair Day, you can very clearly tell they are making a hint that Francine has hair that is much different than Muffy’s. Sound familiar? Black hair and white hair are not the same. Hair is hair, but depending on your race, your hair tends to be much different than others.
The Reeds neighbors are Mexican
Binky Barnes family adopted a Chinese baby Mei Lin Barnes.
And you can’t go off their colors alone on the show. You have to know them as a person before you get the hints of what race the characters are meant to represent. In some cases yes, you can very clearly see what race someone is meant to represent but in an animal form-like Emily, DW’s friend, but in some cases, like when Celebrities were on the show, they either had the characters colors look like the person skin or changed it up to fit the series. Examples:
Mr. Rogers was one of the whitest old men around on TV, and we all loved him, but in Arthur he’s a dark tan/light brown
The same goes for Jack Prelutsky
Yo-Yo Ma -because no one on earth is a silvery gray
Alex Trebeck played himself but with a different last name
Then we have some very clear examples of characters fitting color schemes of their real life counterparts races.
Joshua Reedman (Aka Francine's canon uncle)
Michelle Kwan (a little paler in her Arthur appearance but it still works)
Race, nationalities, religion and all of that stuff exist in Arthur no matter how you try to water it down or deny it. The big difference between Arthur and our world is that in Arthur- I state again that Race and Nationality were not put down, they were not even big deals to the characters, but something to learn about and find out that no matter how people may look, what they do, people are people, and you should always accept people no matter their race, nationality, traditions, etc. If you didn’t take that from the show, I don’t know what you did take out of it other than a meme.
