With all this talk of Africans and Zulu warriors going around, I thought I'd put in my two cents.
Let me start by saying that I fully back this idea! I think it would be epic for SC to represent more of the world beyond Europe. But the reason why it isn't happening atm is probably because of the image SC is trying to portray.
Look at our European and Japanese reps, respectively knights and samurai. The whole world accepts these as cool, badass, awesome etc. etc. Probably, a Zulu doesn't have the kind of... how to put it... appeal that the others do.
This is not the fault of the culture or anything, it's just that people aren't used to it.
The problems are probably 2
-in european and japanese case probably the thing is about feel and recognize the characters as "your".
As italian i'm epic glad about Ezio, a german probably can be greatest fan of Sieg and we all know how japanese love theyr samurai & ninjas. You recognize your country culture in it,and you like it even more
The SC black audience is probably nearly all from USA,Europe and around the world,but i don't think many africans.
Maybe still many of them are anyway fan of a badass tribal warrior idea,and maybe recognize in it theyr ancestors.
But maybe others refuse it for reason that i don't want analyze, i remembers epic bs discussion about it a couple of months ago,with some epic nonsense in it
-Namco probably want just avoid as possible accusation of racism,even the bs nonsense ones.
Plus watching theyr media (anime/manga/VG) japanese are'nt exactly best fans of black people
Basically they don't feel so much the need of them+they know that at the first "error" creating one they can activate a shitstorm of accuses,flame,bad image and so on. This is why they're hesitant about it.
Personally i hope they take whining nonsense for what it is and put in a badass tribal warrior (female or male).
It will bring in more etnic variety in a cast nearly totally european-asian,and i think that if cool and charismatic i don't see why the "black audience" can't like it... sure,somebody will ever be against something(in this case recognize african tribes as legit cultures),but if they must care about every complain they will do nothing. Plus will be coherent with SC style and age,and can offer many nice chara design choices and an unique style,different from usual european warriors or asian martial arts. And last but not last,imho african,middle-east and indian culture deserve a place in SC,are the biggest etnic lack of SC cast,big pieces of world culture out without a reason
But i end here,last time the nonsense discussion about this lasted 3 days :D