http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png http://io9.com/tag/race http://io9.com/tag/race

Toronto scholar Jessica Langer has just published a fascinating book called Postcolonialism and Science Fiction. In this excerpt from the book's introduction, she defines what that means, and explores some of the major themes in postcolonial SF. Langer currently works as an adjunct professor in the humanities, and has published widely on postcolonial theory and practice and science fiction literature, film, video games and other media. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5869841&view=rss&microfeed=true

It turns out that something as simple as the clothes you wear can have a profound effect on how people see you, right down to what ethnicity you are. A newly published study chronicled an experiment where social scientists showed subjects pictures of faces that varied between different tones and ethnicities, either paired with a business suit or a janitor's outfit. Faces in the white collar outfit were more likely to be seen as white, and those in the blue collar outfit were more often described as black. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5844687&view=rss&microfeed=true

Scientists may go to great lengths to eliminate bias from their research, but a study published today in Science is raising troubling questions about the nature of racial bias in the Ph.D. grant review process. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5832289&view=rss&microfeed=true

Being in prison could save your life - depending on your racial background. A group of epidemiologists studying patterns of death among prisoners have discovered that black men in prison die at much lower rates than black men outside. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5815042&view=rss&microfeed=true

Whether it's an alien who might as well be called a "space Jew," or an evil Asian ripping the hearts out of innocent victims in an exotic ritual, racial and ethnic stereotypes in SF often reach facepalm levels of fail. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5789501&view=rss&microfeed=true

One of the big puzzles for education researchers is why students of comparable talents fall into a "racial achievement gap." On average, white students outperform black students when it comes to grades in college classes - even when the students are equally capable. Now psychologists have discovered a simple exercise that closes the gap, boosting the grades of minority students quite dramatically. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5783244&view=rss&microfeed=true

One hundred and sixty thousand citizens of Sydney, Australia had their faces photographed in order to make one set of composite faces for the city. See the faces of the city's neighborhoods below. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5680931&view=rss&microfeed=true

Science fiction and fantasy books for younger audiences are booming — but they still mostly feature white heroes and are aimed at white audiences. So Stacy Whitman is launching Tu Books, a new publisher of multicultural children's and young-adult SF. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5682953&view=rss&microfeed=true

An infamous concept in psychology is the 'Other Race Effect.' People are able to differentiate between faces of their own race better than between the faces of other races. A new study probes the mechanics of the phenomenon. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5679623&view=rss&microfeed=true

How do nerds of color like me fit in, and how do we deal with fellow nerds who don't want to talk about things like race and class in comic books, video games, role playing games, and movies? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5604617&view=rss&microfeed=true

Used to be that to succeed in business, you needed a combination of a tight resume, an arsenal of skills, and the right connections. Now, Chinese corporations will pay handsomely if you're Caucasian and look good in a suit. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5564620&view=rss&microfeed=true

It seems like everyone and their mother has an opinion on Donald Glover's campaign to become The Webbed One, so why shouldn't one of Spidey's creators bandy about his opinion? In this video, Stan "The Man" Lee gives his verdict. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5559655&view=rss&microfeed=true

Late last week, we wrote about the idea of Sony casting a non-white Peter Parker for their Spider-Man reboot. Then...a thing happened. And suddenly, Community actor Donald Glover has rallied the internet to his cause: getting him an audition. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5552684&view=rss&microfeed=true

We just ran down the five bland white guys that are, reportedly, in the running to play Peter Parker in Sony's Spider-Man reboot. Yawn. In this day and age, why does Spidey have to be a white guy? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5549613&view=rss&microfeed=true

People with Williams Syndrome lack 26 genes found in a typical human genome. As a result they are inordinately friendly, and experience no social anxiety. Now a new study reveals that they may also be free of racial bias. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5515317&view=rss&microfeed=true

After fans got a hold of a Last Airbender casting call demanding actors who were "Caucasian and any other ethnicities," the movie's producer, genre legend Frank Marshall was forced to respond, producing his own original casting calls. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5512941&view=rss&microfeed=true

We sat down with The Last Airbender's twist-obsessed director, M. Night Shyamalan, and grilled him about everything you wanted to know about. The comedy, the characters, whether Momo's in it — and most importantly, the controversial casting decisions. Spoilers ahead... More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5504967&view=rss&microfeed=true

Critics have called alien epic Avatar a version of Dances With Wolves because it's about a white guy going native and becoming a great leader. But Avatar is just the latest scifi rehash of an old white guilt fantasy. Spoilers... More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5422666&view=rss&microfeed=true Over on Angry Black Woman, there's a great post from Alaya Dawn Johnson about the basic problems with how blacks are represented on terrific American horror show Supernatural. It's written as an open letter to showrunner Eric Kripke, and Johnson does a great job laying out exactly why it's a problem that every black character on the show is either evil or killed instantly. I touched on these issues in an essay I wrote about Supernatural a few months ago, where I pointed out the extreme whiteness of the cast, and I'm glad to see Johnson exploring in detail why this is a problem. The best part is that Johnson is a fan of the show, so she's thought about every episode and has a nuanced analysis. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5356640&view=rss&microfeed=true

Welcome back to MangoBot, a biweekly column about Asian futurism by TokyoMango blogger Lisa Katayama. Back in the 1920s and 30s, when Asian immigration to the US and Europe was picking up steam, prominent science fiction writers like Philip Nowlan and H.P. Lovecraft created speculative scenarios starring massive hordes of horrible, slanty-eyed, intelligent Asians who were either taking over or destroying the world. Yellow peril science fiction was never large enough to be a genre in and of itself, but I decided it was worth traveling back in time to revisit the trend in its historical context. To kick off this topic, let me introduce you to a character you may already know. Fu Manchu, the Chinese master criminal with the infamous long sinister mustache, was created by British author Sax Rohmer around 1912. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5043319&view=rss&microfeed=true

In an effort to create "personalized drugs" that work for specific, targeted groups of people, many medical researchers have suggested the adoption of "race-based" medicine. Race-based meds like BiDil, aimed at African Americans with heart disease, are already on the market. But in a fascinating commentary in today's issue of Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, infamous genomics maverick Craig Venter contributes to an article which proves that race-based medicine is doomed to fail. Why? Because "race" as most people understand it has almost nothing to do with genetics — and therefore makes a bad target for tailored medicines. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5039142&view=rss&microfeed=true

Everybody is YouTubing Barack Obama's March 18 speech about racial politics partly because it was one of the most nuanced political speeches in recent memory, but also because he played the futurist card. He talked about his own racially-mixed family, and speculated about how mixed-race community and people represent the future of the United States. He described several ways that racial reconciliation of the future could begin on a foundation of mixed-race identity. What do you think of this style of futurism? By answering, you can help an undergrad at the University of Arkansas, who wrote in to pose a question about Afrofuturism. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=370425&view=rss&microfeed=true

Antigrav will give us flying cars, but more importantly it'll reinvent jetski technology. These seacraft hoverpods look sexier than those pod racers in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Plus you could zip up onto the beach and spray sand in the face of the jock who bullied you during high school. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=342277&view=rss&microfeed=true

A remake of the 1975 cult classic that inspired Grand Theft Auto, Death Race 2000, is on the way next year. But this version has all the testosterone drained out. Gone are the point systems for running over pedestrians, gone is the entire revenge plot that had David Carradine after the President, and gone is the fact the "Death Race" was shown on national television. What does that leave you with? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=324654&view=rss&microfeed=true An uneven but evocative standout in the small subgenre of science fiction movies about race is the alternate history White Man's Burden, directed by Desmond Nakano and hitting screens in 1995 with high-wattage stars Harry Belafonte and John Travolta. Set in a contemporary America where blacks are the ruling class and whites live in ghettos, the movie begins with two fascinating scenes: magnate Belafonte tells a high-society dinner party that whites are inferior, then we cut to our working-class white protagonist Travolta driving through the white ghetto. Notice that there's a quick shot of two black cops arresting a white guy, and when we see Travolta's son channel-surfing, nearly every face on TV is black. Also, I love that the white gangsters are listening to bad metal. The movie sank without a trace, partly because Nakano neglected to engage meaningfully with the social world he's created, instead quickly turning the movie into a standard hostage flick with angry, out-of-work Travolta kidnapping Belafonte and everybody yelling and sweating a lot. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=309957&view=rss&microfeed=true