BTW upon demand of LBO kibbutzers, there were a number of black people in the crowd scenes in last night's episode, although the general white bread nature of Sunnyvale remains the same. That the head of evil in town is apparently a nice-nice glad-handing white corporate-type politician is a bit of a counter to the "vampires as black" metaphor. Blacks may, as in Faith's predecessor, be junior partners in evil -- metaphor for buppie capitalism serving the boss, anyone? -- but evil in Buffy's world seems to be the odd alliance of white corporatist power and fundamentalist religion that others have noted.
--Nathan Newman