Racebending.com

Welcome to this week’s supporter spotlight!

Every Wednesday, we’ll be spotlighting a different member of the community. We all believe in working to cure ignorance and celebrate the many faces of America – and the world. Now each week, you’ll have the opportunity to learn about other people in our network of supporters, who hail from all over the United States and across over fifty countries.

This week, we meet Kerry O’Reilly-Dekker – an American mother living in the Netherlands, with her husband and their adopted son, Minh.

1. Who are you?

Kerry O’Reilly-Dekker. American of Irish-Italian decent, Caucasian, married to Hans, Dutch, Caucasian, mother to Minh Sao, Vietnamese.

2. What’s your story?

Living in the Netherlands with my husband and our son. He was born in Viet Nam and we completed his adoption in 2008. I am a self employed artist working 2 days per week in my studio and a stay at home mother. That is by far the best job in the world.

3. Why do you support Racebending.com and how did you learn about us?

I found racebending.com after seeing it cited in an article posted on another blog called, How I Became an Anime Fan- Not a Racebender, by Martha Nichols. It interested me because she is also a mother to a Vietnamese son.

Since becoming parents to a non-Caucasian child, we are trying to find our balance in terms of dealing with racism, stereotypes, and ensuring that our son has positive Asian role models (both live and media wise). I find racebending.com to be a fantastic resource for opinion by/from/about Asian actors, authors, etc.

4. What makes you passionate about The Last Airbender film controversy and similar Hollywood choices?

Honestly, I had never heard of the Last Airbender. However, once I got up to speed on what occurred with the casting of this film, I was pretty angry. We want our son to see that films and television have personalities who look like him. Not occasionally, but regularly.

We actively seek out films, books, music, etc. by Asian artists/authors. It’s disturbing when Hollywood casts Caucasian actors for roles that are clearly not suited for them. To me it says: ‘Yeah, we think this is a really cool story, but there’s no way we could find a decent (Asian) actor’. That is definitely not a message I want my son exposed to. Plus it reinforces the idea that being white is still ‘better’ & haven’t we had enough of that already?

5. What other issues interest you?

I actually do have a number of other interests, particularly American politics, but right now the biggest would be trying to figure out how to make vegetables more appealing to my son.

6. What are your hopes for the future of American media?

That what we see on television and in theaters is a true reflection of the diversity of our country. Living in Europe, I can say that this is true outside of the United States as well; including issues of racial stereotyping and racism in general.