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{{examples}}
== Comic Books ==
* One arc of ''[[Justice Society of America|JSA]]'' saw some of the team sent into the 50s to the time of the original Justice Society. The black Mr. Terrific had some unpleasant experiences in the pre-Civil Rights era, like being forced to change train cars, but took it rather stoically. And then, just to rub it in, he fights a KKK chapter who manages to get a noose around his throat.
* In ''[[Yoko Tsuno]]'' last story involving time travel, Monya points out that it's easier to walk unnoticed in medieval China without Yoko's European friends. A little odd, because usually the whole gang traveled, but now they have so many extra members that there is a sufficient team without them.
== Film ==
* ''[[Timeline]]'': An intra-Caucasian example: In the movie adaption of [[Michael Crichton]]'s novel, one of the time travellers gets killed by 14th century Englishmen (who are at war with France), after they forced him to confess his French nationality, which they already did guess based on his accent.<ref>* [[You Fail History Forever|Which doesn't make any sense]], since in the 14th century, the English ruling class was itself still French-speaking. It was only over the course of the Hundred Years' War that the English ruling class became Anglicized.</ref>
* Variation in ''[[Planet of the Apes|Escape From The Planet Of The Apes]]'' Zira and Corenlius are talking apes from the future, where their kind rule the planet. When they travel back in time, they're in 1970s USA, where humans rule and apes are wild animals, resulting in them being taken to a zoo and assumed to be animals until they reveal their secret.
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{{quote|'''J''': Just because you see a black man driving a nice car does ''not'' mean it's stolen! [[Broken Aesop|Well, this one is]]...}}
** J gets the car in the first place by exploiting this in a [[Bavarian Fire Drill]] where he lets the owner of the car believe that the black guy in a suit must be the valet.
== Literature ==
* [[Octavia Butler]] covers the perils of time traveling while black in the 1979 novel ''Kindred'' - the black protagonist goes to 19th-century Maryland to meet her ancestors, one of whom is a white slave owner. Drama ensues.
* In ''[[To Say Nothing of the Dog]]'' by Connie Willis, the time-travel research division at Oxford contains a black student and a South Indian professor, who can't do much actual time-traveling (all of the work at Oxford seems to do with England, for some reason) for safety reasons. It works to their advantage, as the plot of the book involves everyone else in the department being forced to do far too much time travel for their own health.
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* In [[Time Scout]], Women cannot be scouts. Period. Until Margo insists. They can be guides. Guiding and scouting are wildly different professions. The race issue is never brought up.
=== Magazines ===
* ''Contact'' magazine, based on the ''[[3-2-1 Contact]]'' TV show, had a recurring segment involving two time-traveling teenagers. One installment had the (presumably white) American kids get in trouble when they ended up in Japan during [[World War II]]. In Hiroshima just before the bomb was dropped, no less.▼
==
* Martha Jones on ''[[Doctor Who]]'' tends to get away with this for the most part, though her trips are rarely to the distant past and when it is, the issue will be addressed. "The Shakespeare Code" had Martha worried about being sold as a slave, but the Doctor assured her this wasn't actually an issue. In reality, there actually were some black people in England, none of whom were slaves, and the dialog was actually meant to teach kids that England wasn't entirely white in the 17th century. Furthermore, the Doctor apparently covered Martha's background as Shakespeare later asked her to tell
▲* Martha Jones on ''[[Doctor Who]]'' tends to get away with this for the most part, though her trips are rarely to the distant past and when it is, the issue will be addressed. "The Shakespeare Code" had Martha worried about being sold as a slave, but the Doctor assured her this wasn't actually an issue. In reality, there actually were some black people in England, none of whom were slaves, and the dialog was actually meant to teach kids that England wasn't entirely white in the 17th century. Furthermore, the Doctor apparently covered Martha's background as Shakespeare later asked her tell her about a country where women could be doctors. The later "Family of Blood" two-parter had Martha's race subtly addressed as nobody believed a woman, let alone a poor woman (Martha had to pose as a maid), let alone a ''minority'' was capable of being a doctor. Martha got a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] proving her extensive medical knowledge to one such doubter.
** Donna, while not a minority, has some issues in ancient Pompeii due to her blunt personality.
** For a series of the [[Big Finish]] Eighth Doctor line, the Doctor's companion C'rizz is a [[Rubber Forehead Alien]] whose skin changes color like a chameleon. The most attention this attracts is when he's lured into becoming a sideshow attraction in a Victorian-era circus.
** The early Hartnell series sometimes avoided this by having the female characters dress as men. This happens in the Crusade and the Smugglers. The Massacre has no female companion in the main story.
** Also in the Doctor Who spinoff ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'' episode "The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith," when Rani goes back to the
{{quote|Rani: "Yes, I get it, ethnic person in the
**** Although this is a subversion, as after she leaves, the punchline is 'What on earth was she wearing? Can that really be the fashion in the Punjab?', implying that not only were they staring at her clothes, not her, but her ethnicity is the only reason she wasn't called on her outfit, as they assumed she was from India. While 1950 English people might be somewhat prejudiced, they would hardly be startled by someone of Indian descent simply existing in England, but would be utterly flummoxed by a girl dressing like that.
** Some of the [[Eighth Doctor Adventures]] novels have this become a bit of an issue for Anji Kapoor. In the 18th century and again in the 19th century, she's treated as exotic and mystical but not outright abused. Wearing a sari helps; too bad she hates wearing saris. Fitz Kreiner, who's white and British, gets almost as much trouble for stuff like his lower-class London accent.
* Amanda's black roommate in ''[[Lost in Austen]]'' points out that she can't go through the door because she's black.
* An third season episode of ''[[SeaQuest DSV]]'', the titular sub ends up in the 60s during the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]]. [[Number Two|Commander Jonathan Ford]] (a black man) takes a team to the surface. They "borrow" a car and take it to their destination on the shore. On the way, they pass by car full of young men. They arrive to the beach only to see the other car pull up behind them and the guys getting out with baseball bats. Ford suddenly notices a "No blacks allowed" sign and remembers his history. Plus, he was in the same car as a white woman, which only pissed off the 60s guys more. Luckily, all of the team members are military-trained, so a bunch of punks with baseball bats is not a threat.
* Averted but discussed in the ''[[Stargate SG-
* Subverted in a ''[[Chappelle's Show]]'' sketch, where "Playa Haters" go back in time and shoot a Southern plantation owner.
* Done with ''space'' travel rather than time travel on the original ''[[The Tomorrow People]]'', when the characters visit a planet of [[Human Aliens]]. As there are no dark-skinned people on that world (or at least that part of it), a black character from Earth isn't able to accompany her companions in public.
* Averted on the ''[[Star Trek: The
** Also averted in the case of Geordi (a black man from Africa), who only has to hide his anachronistic VISOR, and Guinan, a black-looking [[Human Alien]] who lives in that time and lives a high-class life.
* This trope was the center of an early ''[[Quantum Leap]]'' episode, where Sam ends up in the body of a black man, in the past. Sam nearly gets himself into hot water immediately by trying to sit down in a cafe and order a meal.
== Recorded
▲* ''Contact'' magazine, based on the ''[[3-2-1 Contact]]'' TV show, had a recurring segment involving two time-traveling teenagers. One installment had the (presumably white) American kids get in trouble when they ended up in Japan during [[World War II]]. In Hiroshima just before the bomb was dropped, no less.
* Comedian Louis CK points this out when mentioning how great it is to be a white man. A white man can get into a time machine and go just about anywhere at any time and be welcome. If you're black, you wouldn't want to go anywhere earlier than the 1980s. On the other hand, he wouldn't want to go into the future, since Karma's coming to bite the white man... ''hard''.
* One black comedian made the same point about American nostalgia.
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== Video Games ==
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' uses a [[Fantastic Racism]] variation of this trope: player races that were not a part of the Alliance prior to the Third War are given a race-lift while running certain instances in the Caverns of Time, so that they avoid attracting unwanted attention.
== Western Animation ==
* In one episode of ''[[X-Men (animation)|X-Men]]'', a few alternate-universe versions of the X-Men travel back to the 50's to save the younger Professor Xavier from a time-traveling assassin. They all talk at a cafe, and the owner gets pissy about the fact that [[Storm]] and [[Wolverine]] (an African and a Caucasian, respectively) are a couple. Naturally, this makes Wolverine completely flip out.
** What, didn't he notice that Wolverine radiates "Don't fuck with me" vibes?
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Time Travel Tropes]]
[[Category:Race Tropes]]
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