Tag Archives: Science Fiction/Fantasy

This Week in Diversity: Boys, Girls, and Government

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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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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This Week in Diversity

Every week, we’re going to be bringing you a roundup of interesting articles, commentary, and projects dealing with diversity—race, gender, immigration issues, discrimination, and people bridging cultural barriers.

Drumroll, please!

From the New York Times, a California hospital is working with Hmong shamans to improve care—body and soul—of the town’s Hmong immigrant population.

From Genreville, Josh Jasper discusses the problem of lazy sexism and racism, when women and minorities are excluded not due to conscious bias, but due to a lack of awareness and thought. “Oh, it just happens that all the good stories we found were written by men/white people/middle-class people.” That sort of thing. Also see a follow-up post and this bingo card of excuses for racism. It’s talking specifically about fantasy, but the same excuses get used in many other genres.

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