Racebending

Do y'all know that my husband works as a cartoonist?  He's very funny.

Being married to a cartoonist means that our life and home swim with superheroes, comics and pop culture.  All of this being mostly foreign to me, I have learned over the years to enjoy and embrace quite a bit of it.

One of the scandals in the community right now comes from the release of The Last Airbender movie.  Turns out the cartoon features Asian and Inuit characters but Paramount chose to cast white actors for the roles.  After serious public outcry, they did manage to pick one non-white person as a main character.  In the role of the bad guy, of course.

People outraged by this whitening of their beloved heros mobilized online - and very cleverly named their site Racebending. Go check it out to learn more about the specifics of The Last Airbender, but also prejudice casting behaviors and how Hollywood's racist practices affect us all, especially our kids looking for heros that look like them.

I'm really impressed by the work by the Racebender crew. Seems like every in real life (IRL) discussion and virtual discussion group should all agree to follow the guidelines outlining racism discussion policies.