Any fictional character of African-American descent that has been inconsequently inserted into the plot a movie or TV show for the express purposes of creating an image of commercially safe, politically correct, and insipid racial harmony. In
eras gone by the
token black guys would be the first characters to be killed off. This phenomena of commercial cinema and television that would sacrifice the quality of their storytelling for the sake of attempting the impossible act of offending absolutely nobody, is
succinctly satirized by the aptly named south park character, Token.
Token from south park,
Charley in the TV show Friends.
Any black character in any movie that is neither the protagonist nor antagonist, is unimportant to the plot and does not significantly contribute to it, preferably dies before the end, usually does not end up with the girl. sometimes is the sidekick if the role is unimportant enough, and is very often
comic relief (often in stereotype-enforcing manner).
