abstract
| - This Troper hopes that this doesn't offend anyone; it was originally written in response to a locked Live Journal post where someone jokingly postulated a segregated Stone Age community "across the tracks" from Bedrock. Now, that was offensive.
* Yes, Somewhere a Palaeontologist Is Crying, but the anthropologists, not so much. Fred and Barney are the quintessential pop-culture "cavemen", which means that they were probably Neanderthals. Bedrock is almost certainly a prehistoric European settlement; at this (pseudo)historical juncture, if there are any ethnic divisions in Bedrock at all, they're going to be between Neanderthals (who were probably pale-skinned) and Cro-Magnons (who'd probably also developed pale skin at this juncture). Rather than berate The Flintstones for its lack of ethnic diversity, we should instead laud its impressive, forward-thinking stance for the mixed marriages that take front and center: just as Fred and Barney's robust build mark them as Neanderthals, Wilma and Betty share the gracile physique of the Cro-Magnon.
* The question only applies to the original series; later incarnations almost certainly did have Token Minority characters, which, despite the above logic, make as much or more sense than the frakking dinosaurs.
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