Little signs of progress

In the course of reviewing the silly action movie XXX: State of the Union, Roger Ebert notices that there's cultural progress in black liberation in action movies, at least.

Once all action heroes were white. Then they got a black chief of police, who had a big scene where he fired them. Then they got a black partner. Then they were black and had a white partner. Now they are the heroes and don't even need a white guy around, although there is one nerdy white guy in XXX who steps in when the plot requires the ineffectual delivery of a wimpy speech. So drastically have things changed that when Ice Cube offers to grab the president and jump off a train and grab a helicopter, all the president can do is look grateful. Oh, and later, in his new State of the Union speech, our nation's leader quotes Tupac, although he doesn't know he does.

Wage and education pairity it ain't, but every little bit helps.