Riverdale has always been "trash" when it comes to diverse representation

Cracked

Vanessa Morgan's recent diversity complaints about The CW drama shouldn't come as a surprise. "The original Archie Comics were whiter than the audience of the 700 Club, so when they converted the show to television, the Chief Creative Officer of Archie Comics, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, a gay Latinx man, vowed to make them more inclusive," says Lydia Bugg. "They changed many character's races from their original incarnation, but most of the time, when they chose to make a character a person of color, they also made them a villain. The Lodges were changed from snooty WASPS to Latinx mobsters. There are seven black male characters across the three Archie TV shows currently airing (Riverdale, Katy Keene, and The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina). Two of them are drug addicts, one starts the show in prison, and one is in the wizard version of prison, one is a dubious businessman, and one is a huge misogynist. The most positive portrayal of a black man in the Archie TV Universe is, I guess, Pop Tate, whose name is pop because he pops up once every ten episodes to give some beautiful white kids advice and then magically disappears into the basement of the diner until needed again. Chuck Clayton was the only black man in the Archie comics, and he's been a recurring character since 1971. In the comics he was an artist, a football player, and a good friend of Archie's. Riverdale made him into a misogynist pervert and then kicked him off of the show after two seasons. Chuck's longtime girlfriend, Nancy Woods, was one of only two black women who appeared consistently in the Archie Comics, and she never even made it onscreen."