Well it depends. Your argument about too few white players is a little misleading. Lots of white athletes go into other professional sports (football, baseball, hockey, soccer).
On the flipside, it's pretty hard for Latin American, African American, and Asian Americans to be full-time actors as most American shows/movies cast Caucasian Americans. Doesn't matter how good an actor the individual is if they are excluded purely because of their race.
that is a real problem however, and sometime made worse by the instance of the public that the actor ethnicity matches the character. That's stupid, considering most of the traditional stories have very few non whites (ok, there's Othello, but that's a bit short!)
It's not just racism - more like a weird expectation that's hard to understand. I remember reading something (about Rhianna IIRC) not being black enough to portrait some civil rights leader.
WTF??? We live in a diverse society. I couldn't care less whether the actor of ethnicity A should be supposed to play a character I know or suppose to be of ethnicity B - as long as he's good, who cares?
It might even make a better story (ex: Romeo must Die vs Romeo & Juliet)
On the flipside, it's pretty hard for Latin American, African American, and Asian Americans to be full-time actors as most American shows/movies cast Caucasian Americans. Doesn't matter how good an actor the individual is if they are excluded purely because of their race.