Tag Archives: African/African American Interest

Diversity, Race, and Representation

This Week in Diversity: Words thrown and words written

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Starting off with some despiriting news: in the wake of the Health Care Reform debate, several black congressmen, including John Lewis, have been called racial slurs and one was even spat on by protesters.

At Love Isn’t Enough, there’s a great piece on DNA and identity. It adds another layer to the discussions on being biracial and multiracial we’ve been having, because it looks at how little we know about our own personal genetic and racial makeup, but how much we know about our own personal cultural makeup.

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Diversity, Race, and Representation

This Week in Diversity: Racial Identity, Reading, and Writing

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Spring is has reached New York! Here’s your weekly dose of links to ponder as you sit and bask in the sun.

Following up on last week’s links dealing with interracial writing in the speculative fiction community is Nisi Shawl, who hits home with a description of a panel on writing and racial identity at a recent convention: “Our fourth panelist had been raised as an American Indian and spent her life knowing absolutely that this was who and what she was. Then she discovered through genetic testing that her biological heritage is a mix European and Sub-Saharan African. No American Indian.” Fascinating stuff!

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Diversity, Race, and Representation

This Week in Diversity: Boys, Girls, and Government

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Yesterday we posted a video on the frustrations of biracial people being put into little boxes. Taking a very different view is Michele Elam, with a thought-provoking article about the pitfalls of “mark one or more races” on the census.

On her blog, author Shannon Hale takes a look at the lack of girls in children’s movies, the limited roles they play, and an appeal to parents: take your sons to movies with girl heroes. The same goes for books and the same goes for other types of diversity: give the children you know books with heroes who don’t look like them.

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Diversity, Race, and Representation

This Week in Diversity: Biases in a Weird Universe

Welcome back for another week of links!

Valentine’s Day can make a lot of us see red, but even more so with Time Magazine‘s looks at racial preferences—or biases—shown on online dating sites.

Meanwhile, America Ferrera—the Latina star of Ugly Betty—gave an interview in which she talked about race and casting in Hollywood. The whole interview isn’t available online, but Jezebel has some highlights.

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Diversity, Race, and Representation

This Week in Diversity: The Pervasiveness of Racism

Welcome to Black History Month!

Heritage Months have their bad sides and good sides, but we’re starting out this week’s linkup with one of the good things to come out of Black History Month: The Brown Bookshelf‘s Twenty-Eight Days Later project, highlighting a Black children’s book author or illustrator every day in February. Check their blog for great contributors to the field. Today they’re talking with one of our own authors, Natasha Anastasia Tarpley. Shadra Strickalnd, Tony Medina, and Christine Taylor-Butler will be featured later in the month.

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