{"id":42163,"date":"2015-08-08T18:16:14","date_gmt":"2015-08-08T18:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=42163"},"modified":"2015-08-08T18:16:14","modified_gmt":"2015-08-08T18:16:14","slug":"my-interracial-family-needs-its-own-action-figures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=42163","title":{"rendered":"My interracial family needs its own action figures"},"content":{"rendered":"

My interracial family needs its own action figures<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a>
\n2015-08-06<\/p>\n

Nevin Martell<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n(Courtesy of the author)<\/small><\/p>\n

Growing up, I can recall owning only two black action figures in a massive collection that spanned movies, television and comic book characters. There was Lando Calrissian<\/a> \u2013 the smooth talking, caped czar of Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back<\/a><\/em> \u2013 and Roadblock<\/a>, G.I. Joe\u2019s<\/a> muscle-bound machine gunner. All of the others were white, aliens or costume clad villains of indeterminate race.<\/p>\n

At the time, the absence of racial diversity didn\u2019t register. I was more concerned with having an equitable mix of good guys and bad guys for the elaborate imaginary battles I orchestrated on my bedroom floor and in the backyard.<\/p>\n

Now that I have an interracial son, my perspective has changed. I\u2019d love for him to have toys that serve as a jumping off point for his imagination. When I played with a Luke Skywalker<\/a> action figure, I wasn\u2019t a 5-year-old boy sitting in the sandbox. I was a future hero of the Rebel Alliance, staring across the dunes at Tatooine\u2019s<\/a> twin sunset. Back then I had blonde hair. So in my mind\u2019s eye, I looked exactly like Skywalker…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My interracial family needs its own action figures The Washington Post 2015-08-06 Nevin Martell (Courtesy of the author) Growing up, I can recall owning only two black action figures in a massive collection that spanned movies, television and comic book characters. There was Lando Calrissian \u2013 the smooth talking, caped czar of Cloud City in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,414,8,20],"tags":[19127,2875,2581],"class_list":["post-42163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-family","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-nevin-martell","tag-the-washington-post","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42164,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42163\/revisions\/42164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}