His Milestone Comics titles were a whole generation ahead of the industry in terms of subject matter. I’m really glad to see that his company’s creations have finally been officially and totally integrated into the DC Universe. The Justice League solicits Icon for help? I’ve been waiting 15 years to see that happen. Change has come, my friends, change has come.

another dark skinned anime character. I found the anime she’s from Planetes to be interesting, as it dealt with issues of the first world vs the third world.

In another anime, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, the dark skinned character is an illegal immigrant…

I don’t really expect the japanese to have a better record on race in media than americans. I can’t wait until people of color create more games…

Sunera Thobani similarly sums up why multiculturalism is so disconcerting in this clip starting around the 2 minute mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyyoupDU-kY
I highly recommend everyone check it out! She is a wonder.

Also, @ Siguy- I too was thoroughly disappointed with those articles. I KNEW as soon as I spotted the headline that the comments were going to be incredibly hateful and blame immigration policies (it doesn’t seem to occur to white supremists that interracial dating could ever impact demographics). However, I believe that it was just an example of truly irresponsibly journalism, particularly the article in Metro News, which was titled: Whites to become visible minority by 2031. They appeared to be purposely attempting to agitate whites and implying that white purity was being threatened by a barrage of POC. Scumbags.

In fact, my sister and I were just talking about this last week. She says she remembers that the only new toys she ever got were as gifts from other people – everything else she had was a hand-me-down from me. What she apparently hadn’t known until I told her last week was that [even though I'm the oldest] the same was true for me. I remember the day that my dad came home with two big trashbags of toys from a family who had kids who I suppose had outgrown the entire set of Weebles and all the accessories. We had toys – but the new ones we had were gifts from other people. Our parents got us useful things, like clothes and shoes.

My parents – esp. my dad – stressed that investing is preferable to spending. He started buying real estate when he was young because he found it to be a dependable way to make money if you’re willing to do some (hard, sometimes) work. One thing he talked about was investing in our education. He sent us to the best elementary and prep schools he could afford because it was an investment. Thankfully, it was a truly Christian school, and we weren’t teased because of the K-Mart shoes and clothes we wore, even though everyone else was wearing Banana Republic stuff when there wasn’t even a BR in our town.

The number one thing that my dad did that helped my financial well-being more than anything else? I think it was the rule he made when I got my first job and was living at home. I was allowed to pay minimal rent as long as I put the max amount in my 401(k) [16% at that job], and saved an additional 6% divided into a car fund and a savings fund. This allowed me [the spendthrift of the family] to get used to missing that much of my paycheck, and actually develop some savings.
Eleven years later, I thank my dad probably about once every other month. It’s made a lasting impact on my life, and my retirement, and if I ever have kids, I’ll be able to pass the same thing along to them as well.

Sorry I went so long, but I could write pages and pages about this (maybe I will at my blog…hmmm) – I am so glad this discussion is taking place.

Mod Note: Not sure, since this was a cross post, but she seemed fine with it on Twitter. If she would like us to take it down (and contacts us directly), we are happy to do so. – LDP

- Being a penny-pincher (from watching my parents). I whip out my cell phone calculator to compare dollars per unit, or dollars per weight, of different packages of stuff. I buy grocery items on sale and then hoard them. If don’t need something right away, I wait until the next time I’m in the cheaper store. I try to “cook”/make my own food at home and bring lunch to work. I collect junk like plastic grocery bags and food containers and reuse them. (I’m sorry, I’m a bit of a racial stereotype because I penny-pinch, but hey, it works.) It may sound annoying to think like this all the time, but if you keep doing it, it’ll become automatic.
- Never have credit card debt. If you have other debts, pay them off as soon as possible before you buy nice things for yourself. (Learned from my parents through them stressing this to me over and over again when I was growing up, even when didn’t know what credit cards or debt were.)
- Do not gamble or play the lottery. The odds are against you, and you will end up losing money in the long term. This was really hammered into my brain when I took a course on probability.
- Never depend on a man for financial stability. When you depend on a man, he has power over you, and he can abuse you, and you can’t leave.

How can we win? Good question. Another concern is that for those of us who are unable to pay our way through post-secondary education and expect insurmountable debt upon graduation, pursuing a social justice related profession isn’t always economically viable, so what happens? We’re often compelled to work in capacities that ensure the success of this carefully calibrated system. Why? Higher salary prospects to alleviate that mass debt. Ugh. Depressing.

Yea you’re right. One Piece isn’t filled with a japanese cast nor does the story take place in Japan. I was merely pointing out how different comic artists have different artistic styles and the styles don’t change much regardless of their character’s ethnicity. There is the tendency for comic artists to draw all characters in the same style unless the character either has dark skin or is supposed to be marked as an “other” within the context of the story.

LOL! You win. You should trademark Privilege Puffs because that’s just bloody awesome. Totally agree.

“These characters are Japanese, so there!” is a rather simple but inadequate explaination. I think honestly, fandom tends to be reluctant to admit that their favorite hobby could be marred by something as unwholesome as racism.

Popular media is a reflection of a society’s (sub)consciousness. Even something as simple as wanting lighter hair/eyes is not so innocent as what people would like to think.

We when lived on our own, we would probably be considered poor. When I got older, my mom told me how one night she crying in the bathroom about money to my grandmom over the phone. She was making very little money but had a mortgage, childcare, utilities and whatever else. I had no idea. My basic needs were covered. I got extras but it was never getting what I wanted because I wanted. It was never my mom spending money she didn’t have. (That’s where the grandparents came in who had federal jobs.)

I was taught about being smart with your money and saving in much the same way. My mom didn’t have a lot of debt. We always had food in the house. Our utilities were never cut off. We also had a nice car, nice as in good condition, nothing flashy or beyond my mom’s means. She was just smart about her money. There were hardly any talks about it until I got older.

When I got older, the talks were about how I can be smart with my money, saving period for whatever comes up and for retirement, and buying a house. My mom told me about her IRA when I was in high school. I came into some money after my dad died. My mom tells me people said to her, ‘Why don’t you spend that money? It’s yours.’ My mom always said, ‘It’s not my money.’ She put it in an IRA for me. A lot of mothers in her situation would’ve spent it whether to bill (which is unstandable) or on frivolous stuff (which totally not).

I definitely needed these talks because my grandmom hasn’t been smart with her money. If I had grown up in her house without my mom’s example and talks, I would’ve learned that it’s okay to spend on what you want when you want it even if you can’t really afford it (like buying most things on credit) or won’t use it. All that matters is you want it. (To this day she maintains, I was earning it therefore I could spend it. Her house is full of stuff she’s never worn/used. Ridiculous.) My grandmom also let my grandfather handle all the finances. You want to get my mother started on a rant, bring that up.

My mom thinks it’s the dumbest thing for any spouse to just let the other handle it but it’s especially stupid for a woman to do it. We know the stats. Both spouses should know how much money is coming in and where it’s going when it goes out. My grandfather died last year and my grandmom is floundering both won’t let anyone help her. (I also heard a story of a family friend who didn’t know her house was being foreclosed on until the last minute because her husband took care of the finances. He never volunteered info and she never asked. That was a WTF moment for me back in college.) I swore that wouldn’t be me.

So now I own a home with my husband. I have my own retirement accounts. We save at minimum 10% of our income. (Mass media influence since that’s been pounded into our heads.) I handle the finances and discuss it with him. We pay our bills on time. (That’s the other thing my mom stressed once I got older, good credit. To this day she still stresses it.) We do have debt because of college (trying to live on what financial aid and part-time jobs didn’t cover) and it wasn’t until a two years ago did we have jobs that paid enough so that we could cover our bill. (Tying living in FL where they don’t pay you anything really, during the housing bubble, rising gas prices, and lack of affordable housing due to condo conversions. Murder.) We buy mostly what we need a lot of times after we do comparison shopping. If we do get stuff we want, most of the time we comparison shop or it’s not a big purchase.

When my mom and I talk about money today, she says she’s proud of me. The next time I should tell her thank you.

Some gems:

“Is anyone concerned about the effects of mass-immigration on the environment? ….How can we ever reduce our greenhouse gas emissions if we keep growing exponentially?”

Yup…because immigrants are the cause of damage to the environment. Not the oil sands, factories, etc etc. They’re all green as green can be.

“The government is after babies, period. Since white people aren’t having them anymore, let’s bring in the people who will and whose children are likely to become white in spirit if not in colour.”

White in spirit??!! What is that??

“After all, a first or second generation immigrant always has the option of going “back home” if things are not working out here, but what about those of us where Canada is our only home?”

So as the non-white population increases white people will want to be able to leave Canada, but the poor things will have no where to go?? And since when can second generation immigrants “go back home”? That’s not even possible for many first generation immigrants. Oh yeah…that’s right. We’re not really Canadian so of course we can leave this country.

“First and foremost, it seems logical that we should be controlling and managing immigration to ensure that it suits Canadians”

Yeah, I’m Canadian and I want more people of colour in Canada so that I’m not such a minority. Oh wait, I’m not the Canadian he’s talking about. He means “real” Canadians, not fake ones like me.

“Immigrants come here because our country is a haven. Why change our country to make it more like the ones they have left?”

Not with the type of people who are commenting on this article it isn’t a haven.

“There should only be ONE culture in public and in our workplace – the one established by the British & French who founded CANADA 142 years ago.”

Um…yeah…someone needs to re-learn Canadian history.

This is from barely 10 comments. Now my head hurts.

Gonna go ahead and second (well, third) the recommendation of Matt Thorn’s The Face of the Other as a good intro; it deals with manga specifically, but the concept extends to all visual media.

It’s too bad the OP focuses on Japanese games, because the larger point still stands: there are very few (non-East-Asian) PoC in mainstream gaming overall, and in North American games in particular. It’s noticeable, and it sucks. I almost fell outta my chair with happiness when I saw all the black people (and women with clothes on!) in Fallout.

Thanks for the post–both films sound interesting.