by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Head on over to Taking Place to check out the sixth edition of the Erase Racism Carnival. vegankid has collected posts covering a variety of topics; american vernacular to childrens books, team mascots to team players. A couple posts from our new blogs Anti-Racist Parent and Race Changers are also included. Thanks […]

Milwaukee police beating accuser sues - Yahoo! News
Thanks Kimberly! “A biracial man who accused a group of current and former police officers of beating him outside a house party two years ago sued the officers and the city of Milwaukee in federal court Monday, alleging that his civil rights were violated
(tags: africanamerican black mixedrace hatecrime […]

by Michael Park, originally published at Tripmaster Monkey
After decades of racist characterizations, World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly the World Wrestling Federation) has finally broken its own mold—by merging two stereotypes into one. Meet one of the WWE’s newest faces, Jimmy Wang Yang, the Asian Redneck, played by real-life Georgia boy James Yun.
“He may look ‘Asian,’ […]

by guest contributor HighJive, originally posted at MultiCultClassics
Is the new Chevrolet Silverado commercial patriotic — or patronizing and potentially racist? As John Mellencamp belts out his original tune (which he probably spent half an hour to conceive and produce), there are images of Muhammad Ali, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Oddly enough, few […]

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
As you might have noticed, this site and basically all our other sites have been down for most of the day. We’re experiencing some problems with our host. Hopefully they’ll be resolved soon, but please bear with us in the meantime. Thanks!

Can Black Rock Save Black Culture? - Marketing Pop Culture
“Since we can’t count on the school system to get them excited about playing instruments, the impetus must come from popular culture. Black musicians have to make it seem cool again. And the only ones who are in a position to do that […]

by guest contributor Rachel Sullivan, originally posted at Rachel’s Tavern
I saw this great post on the All Things Considered Blog about love scenes in the top grossing movies. The author, Steven Barnes, reviewed love scenes in the 350 films that have earned more than $100 million dollars. Barnes found that 50 of these movies […]

by Jen Chau
Aw hell. At first I thought it was cool that there was actually a category that involved rap lyrics on Jeopardy, but notice Alex Trebek’s comment to the woman who keeps getting the correct answers.
Wasted youth?! Gee, tell us how you really feel, Alex?! I think someone needs to call Trebek […]

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Oprah delivered a speech at Bennett College’s fundraising event on Friday. She talked about the stuff you’d expect from her (personal development, spirituality, etc.) but interestingly enough, according to this DiversityInc article, she also spent about a third of the time discussing hip hop. And it wasn’t a positive take, to say […]

by Jen Chau and Carmen Van Kerckhove
We’re excited to announce the launch of a new blog, Conscious Media Maker! Conscious Media Maker is a blog for entertainment, media, advertising and public relations professionals who are committed to bringing about more realistic, three-dimensional representations of people of color.
The Goal
We’ve been blogging about issues of race and […]

Hopefuls fight stereotypes for Pepper-like success - Straight.com
Thanks Phil C! “this has allowed her to play a Vietnamese hooker in Miss Saigon…a Chinese Canadian nurse in the CTV movie Plague City: SARS in Toronto, she said she feels in her gut that it’s harder for Asians to break into the largely American, large
(tags: asian actors […]

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Oh boy. First we had Burger King depicting Asian men as freaky slithery snakes who culminated their burger-stealing with a round of kung fu moves. Now along comes this Jimmy John’s commercial, featuring a Japanese office tool trying to impress his inscrutable boss in the boardroom. Are they even really speaking Japanese? […]

Inter-race adoptees say worried about Madonna child - NineMSN
Thanks Meg! “People need to understand that the losses for the adoptees are immense and lifelong…The price many of us have paid is a lifelong struggle to gain a sense of belonging, to attain some kind of identity. And that lifelong struggle is tiring..
(tags: transracialadoption internationaladoption […]

by Jen Chau and Carmen Van Kerckhove
Every Friday afternoon we sum up the week’s best posts from New Demographic’s various projects. Here we go!
Race Changers
a community of people working towards an anti-racist future, one week at a time

Assignment 3 - Stereotypes in the Media: Stereotypes are all around us. Grab a friend, a co-worker, or […]

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Growing up in Hong Kong, I watched a lot of American sitcoms. I was always fascinated by things American families had on these shows that we didn’t have. Of course, Hong Kong’s technology was always at least 5 years ahead of the U.S., but there were certain gadgets we just didn’t have […]