“Thank you, thank you. We’ll be in touch.”

The two men sank deep into their armchairs as the door closed on the final audition. The first man breathed a long sigh and snatched his coffee cup from the trestle table in front of him. The second man flicked through a sheaf of papers.

  “Long day,” said the first man, draining his coffee.

  The second man grunted in agreement.
  
“Huh. Tell me about it. I was planning to be back at home by at least seven-thirty. I don’t think we’ll be back till gone nine.”

The first man leaned back in his chair, took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt.
  
“Some good auditions though.” He said.
  
“What’d you think of the last one?” The second man asked, setting his papers down of the table.
  
“She was alright” said the first man, putting his glasses back on. “She seemed pretty fit.”
  
“Don’t know about her acting, though.”

The first man murmured an agreement.

“But I guess you can’t have everything.”

The two men were both working for the same studio, the first man as Creative Director, and the second as Casting Director. They had been watching the audition for a part in a new Hollywood film.

“So. Do we know what we’re looking for in our actor?” The second man asked.
  
The first man thought for a moment.
  “We want personality and charm. We want a lively one too, one that’ll appeal to our audience.”
  
“That’s a given”
  
“What about gender?”

“Not an issue at this point. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “Which auditions did you like?”

“The first one was terrible” said the second man.
  
“Really? I didn’t think so. She looked great on camera. She was beautiful, and that’s what we need for this film.”.

“She was stupid. She had no idea what she was doing. No experience.”
  
“Ok, we need someone who can play the part. But we need someone who looks good on camera.”
  
“So what looks good on camera…?”

They sat in silence for a minute, immersed in thought.
  
“White,” Said the second man, after a while, “The white, wavy-haired look. Blue eyes and good to look at.”
  
“You don’t say…” said the first man. “White, huh?
  
“And, just going out on a limb, here,” said the second man, “but I don’t like the black one”
  
“I’m sorry?”

“I don’t want the main actor in the film to be a black.”

The first man sat saying nothing for a moment.
  
“Why not?” he asked eventually.
  
“Oh, you know. They’re unreliable. Don’t do what they’re told. You can’t trust them.”
  
“Is that all?”
  
“Well, you can bet your bottom dollar they’ll be violent, too.”

Again, there was a long pause in which neither of the two men said anything.

“What are you judging this on?” The first man asked.
  
“Oh, come on. You always hear the same kind of story. I hear a kid, a little girl about five or six year old was attacked by one of them the other day. Saw it on the news.”
  
“That’s one story.”
  
“But it’s not just one story. You hear it all the time. Always attacking someone for some reason or another. You can’t trust them, I say.”
  
“You’re basing this on colour?”
  
“Well…colour and, I suppose…breeding.”
  
“Breeding?”
  
“Yes, breeding. You know how a lot of them started off.”

The first man groaned audibly.
  
“Ok, maybe I’m wrong. But I just feel that for the central character to be black would, for want of a better word, “darken” the whole mood of the film. We want bright and happy, we have no place for blacks in this production.”
  
“So you think “blacks” have negative connotations?” asked the first man.
  
“Oh, come on, you went to film school,” Said the second, sweat beading at his hairline, “everyone knows what black means. It’s bad. It means death.”
  
“So you think…”
  
“I think that to have a black as the main character would make people think he was violent.” The second man said sharply.
  
The first man exhaled through clenched teeth.
  
“Right.” He said.
  
“Don’t look at me like that. You know I have a point.”
  
“I just don’t think colour is something to be judging this on.”
  
“Well why not?”
  
“Can you imagine calling his agent and telling him he didn’t get the part because he was black?”
  
“We don’t need to say it like that,”
  
“No. We can just say that you thought he would be unreliable.”
  
“Oh, please. Now you’re just being dramatic.”
  
“I’m sorry, but I think that judging whether this actor gets the part or not should be decided on what we saw here today, not some prejudice about colour and “breeding”.”
  
“Ok! Ok. So do you think we should cast the black one?”
  
“Yes. I thought he was the best actor we’ve seen today.”
  
“Alright then. I’ll make the call,” said the second man, drawing his mobile phone from his jacket pocket. “Now, the black one, he was the German Shepard, right?”

“I believe he was a collie,” Said the first man.
  
“Collie…” the second man punched in the phone number. The phone was answered on the second ring.
  
“Yes, hello? This is the trainer of the black collie? Oh, hello. This is the studio. Yes, we are happy to tell you that your dog has the part of Woofy, the main character. Yes come in tomorrow to discuss it. Filming starts in May. Bye.”
  
“Ok,” said the first man, “that’s the dog out of the way, let’s open auditions for the human roles.”