susanreads: People of pallor against racism: text on brown gradient (anti-racism)
Today's topic is whitewashing ... and a positive response.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a cartoon in which the various human characters are all from societies based on Asian and Inuit cultures. Late last year, the casting was announced for a live-action movie "The Last Airbender", with all four leads played by white people. Later it was changed so that the "villain" is to be played by Dev Patel. This is not an improvement.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words: racebending.com has photos that make the point instantly.
The fannish response can be found at [livejournal.com profile] aang_aint_white and in the racebending community on LJ.

Justine Larbalestier's recent book Liar is about a black teenager with natural (kinky) hair. The cover for the forthcoming US edition shows a white girl with straight hair. I first read about this some time last week; here it is discussed by Alaya Dawn Johnson on the angryblackwoman blog.

I've seen several other posts about each of these things recently (in and out of the IBARW feed). They are not two single incidents, but examples of a sustained practice in Hollywood and in publishing.

In Proposal: Open Source Book Re-Covery Project, [personal profile] coffeeandink suggests a project to create a library of alternative covers for whitewashed books and other media. Lots of people have offered support already, including web space, software skills and artwork. What a brilliant idea! The project will also take suggestions of books that need re-covering.
susanreads: People of pallor against racism: text on brown gradient (anti-racism)
It was over-ambitious to think I could do this every day: I'm not even half-way through the links from yesterday on [syndicated profile] ibarw_lj_feed. Here, though, are some entries I did take notice of:

Ecominded POC, in which [livejournal.com profile] unusualmusic talks about environmental justice, and links to a set of posts about "Environmentalism rooted in social justice";

a little less patience, a little more attitude, in which [livejournal.com profile] tielan talks about the racial profiling of Henry Louis Gates;

Specifying your ‘others’, in which Narsus is annoyed at white people's obsession with guessing people's ethnic origins.

Now to do some more reading!
susanreads: People of pallor against racism: text on brown gradient (anti-racism)
This week is the fourth annual International Blog Against Racism Week, and this time I have a journal. I'm not qualified to post anything substantive, but here are some links:
the IBARW community on Livejournal
the roundup posts, which will accumulate all the submitted entries

and, in no particular order, some links from yesterday:
Daddy, don't you know that everything moves in cycles? in which [personal profile] yeloson calls for PoC voices to be heard
Ok, that's it. I'm done. in which Dhobi Ki Kutti loses patience with misrepresentation on TV
IBARW, Carl Brandon's Open Letter, and the cost of anger in which Nora writes about the interaction between racism, activism, and her writing career
Internalized racism (the silent face of bigotry) by [personal profile] karnythia

The plan is to post some more links tomorrow, but you know what happens to plans.
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