Buddy cop is a film and television genre with plots involving two people of very different and conflicting personalities who are forced to work together to solve a crime and/or defeat criminals, sometimes learning from each other in the process.
However, regardless of ethnicity, the central difference is normally that one is "wilder" than the other: a hot-tempered iconoclast is paired with a more even-tempered partner.
These films sometimes also contain a variation on the good cop/bad cop motif, in which one partner is kinder and law-abiding, while the other is a streetwise, "old school" police officer who tends to break (or at least bend) the rules.
Another frequent plot device of this genre is placing one of the partners in an unfamiliar setting (like a different city or foreign country) or role (like requiring police field work of a non-cop, rookie, or office-bound "desk jockey").
The genre was revisited multiple times by Lethal Weapon creator Shane Black, who went on to write The Last Boy Scout, Last Action Hero, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and The Nice Guys, all of which play off the mismatched-partners (if not always specifically cops) theme.