Book Expo America has finished and Memorial Day is almost here, but in between, here’s your weekly batch of diversity reading!
Looking back to the era of Civil Rights protests and Civil Rights legislation, Breach of Peace presents some amazing portraits of some of the 1961 Freedom Riders—with their mugshots, recent interviews, and recent photos. Some amazing stories here. Meanwhile, an editorial at the Washington Post looks at the 1964 Civil Rights act and government support of private segregation.
Moving into the present, a Muslim-oriented community center is being planned near Ground Zero, and RaceWire brings us some of the predictable negative reactions.
The latest scientific study on racial bias has an interesting twist—a bright purple twist, in fact. It reinforced earlier studies showing that we empathize more with the pain of people who share our skin tone, but it also showed that we respond empathetically to pain experienced by people with bright purple skin. Not Exactly Rocket Science explains how this study, though presenting a situation unlikely to come up outside the lab, points to racial bias being learned, not innate.
Lastly, cartoonist Gene Luen Yang explains why he won’t be going to see the movie The Last Airbender:
Make sure you click through to read the whole thing.
Enjoy the long weekend!
