Network television says brown people don't exist. It's not just network television. Cable says it. Movies say it. Either we don't exist, or we're psychotic, godless fiends.

By brown people, I'm referring to South Asians and South Asian-Americans. There are plenty of other groups that don't exist either, according to the much-venerated tube, but South Asians and South Asian-Americans happen to be my particular field of expertise.

I happen to be South Asian-American--Sri Lankan Tamil-American, to be exact. And I never see anything even remotely related to myself on television.

Envision, if you will, a normally dressed person of South Asian origin. Without a pocket protector. Without an accent. Have you ever seen that on TV? Of course not. And 35 percent of the world's population is South Asian or of South Asian origin. Now, I have nothing against either pocket protectors or accents. But I don't think that absolutely every person of South Asian origin has them.

I heartily agree with Kweisi Mfume, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), who this summer declared television was "whitewashed." Quicker than you can say "tokenism," television honchos scrambled to add color to their casts.

A study by TN Media shows that while some networks such as United Paramount Network have a large percentage of African-American characters, only 3 percemt of prime-time characters are minorities other than black, even though Hispanics alone make up 9 percent of America's population.

The New York Times, in a Sept. 20 article, quoted respected television writer-producer Steven Bochco (responsible for such integrated shows as "NYPD Blue") as saying, "It doesn't matter to me if you hire as an afterthought... It doesn't matter if you hire me for the wrong reasons. At least you've done it."

Perhaps if Bochco were the "token" in question, he would feel differently. I'm not an actor, and I don't pretend to understand that craft in particular, but my guess is that just as in any other line of work, actors like to think they've been chosen for their merits, not to offset someone's guilt or cover their bases.

Bochco also said he thought any prejudice on television was "unthinking."