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New York • Robert Galinsky is skeptical about claims by producers of ABC's "The Bachelor" that they've had a hard time finding black singles willing to be on the show.

Back when he was an acting teacher, Galinsky's students were predominantly white. But now that he tries to help people break into show business as operator of the New York Reality TV School, about half of his students are racial minorities.

The nearly all-white racial makeup of "The Bachelor" (and its spinoff, "The Bachelorette") has simmered as an issue for years. Now it's the focus of a lawsuit filed last week by two black men from Nashville, Tenn., who say they were given little consideration when they tried to get on the show.

Through 16 seasons, all of the men given star billing to search for a mate were white. Same with the women in the seven seasons of "The Bachelorette." Two Hispanic contestants have been selected winners; the rest were all white.

The pattern extends to the pool of would-be mates, even when producers were aware critics were talking about the issue. None of the women vying for the bachelor's hand during the past four seasons was black, but there was one in Season 12. That's one black woman out of 130, according to a review of the casts posted online.

"These shows have been very intentional in the gender and race stereotypes that they've created," said Jennifer Pozner, author of Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV.

One of the Nashville men who sued, 26-year-old teacher Christopher Johnson, said he was stopped immediately when he went to a casting call for "The Bachelor" and asked what he was doing there. He said he was told to hand in materials, and never got a call-back or tryout.

Warner Horizon Television, which produces the series, called the complaint "baseless and without merit."

The lawsuit quotes Michael Fleiss, creator of the series, telling Entertainment Weekly that "we always want to cast for ethnic diversity. It's just that for whatever reason, they don't come forward. I wish they would." —

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