Racebending.com

Carmen Moore is a veteran Vancouver film and television actress. Growing up in Coquitlam British Columbia she began acting in high school and at the Spirit Song Native Theatre Company. Over the last ten years, Moore has become a “sci-fi girl” appearing in such series as Stargate S-G1, Lost in Space, Flash Gordon, Andromeda, Wolf Lake, and in all three of SciFi Channel’s Battlest...

2002 to mid-2008: Origin of the Animated Series August 2008: Casting Heroes: “Caucasian or Any Other Ethnicity” December 2008: The Protest Gets Organized January 2009: Extras and Villains Wanted, Seeking Actors of Color February 2009: Advocacy Groups Become Involved Summer 2009: Former A:TLA staff members speak out! Fall 2009: Paramount’s film The Goods Outrages the Asian Americ...

Actor and activist Chaske Spencer was born of the Lakota Sioux tribe, and raised on Indian Reservations in Montana and Idaho. He broke into the off-Broadway theater scene playing the title role in Dracula and is best known for playing werewolf alpha Sam Uley in the Twilight saga. Racebending.com contributor Gabriel Canada interviewed Chaske Spencer over the phone on August 17th, 2010. NOTE: T...

Tantoo Cardinal is a Canadian Métis film and television actress. She is one of the most recognizable Native American actresses in the world, and has appeared in over 50 films, including Dances With Wolves and Smoke Signals. Métis are Canadians of mixed Native American and European descent; Cardinal can trace her heritage back to Cree, Chipweyan, Lakota culture. In 1971, She discovered acting...

UGO has released the first look at The Last Airbender movie’s Super Bowl ad. The Super Bowl spot reminds us of what the movie could have meant. A large budget film portraying heroes of color in a positive light. Instead, it shows the continuing Hollywood tradition of whitewashing – which is itself a direct descendant of practices of blackface and yellowface. The bottom-line is that...

Henry Jenkins is the Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. This blog highlights some research he has done with Anna Van Someren and Sangita Shresthova on fan activism and participatory culture. Lori Kido Lopez, Vice President of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans and doctoral student on this research team...

Want to protest The Last Airbender film in style? You’re in luck – Racebending.com is launching a brand new line of Carolina-blue street team shirts. U.S. manufactured, union-made, sweatshop-free! The new shirts are on-sale at BlackLava.net. Today, January 27th ONLY, our shirt is available for just $15 – no tax, no shipping! The sale is OVER but the shirts are still available...

Over the past few months, Bloomsbury has been under scrutiny for using racebending tactics for the cover images of their young adult genre novels. What blogs across the web have been discovering, this practice is not uncommon. Various other publishers make the decision to whitewash characters of colour for the cover images of teenaged- and adolescent-themed books. Bloomsbury’s first faux p...

A new video series on how to talk about Racebending. Having trouble explaining to people why you feel so passionately about The Last Airbender film? Frustrated by the people you meet who mean well but don’t understand? Watch this series – it’s less than five minutes altogether. We hope it helps! (Now with subtitle/transcripts provided by Racebending.com volunteer Maddy!) Introdu...

Every Monday, we’ll be spotlighting media that celebrates the contribution of diverse faces, traditions, or talents to the American cultural landscape. In the future we’ll be letting you know about films, shows, and music that resonates with the mission of Racebending.com, with a focus on Asian American and Native American culture. For our very first media spotlight, we look to Avat...