Family Movies that Celebrate Diversity

A few summers ago when we were in the Philippines, Mateo started crying and scratching his skin off "Mama I don't want my brown skin. I want yellow skin because when I grow up, I want to be a super hero and I won't look good in my costume with brown skin." Getting a tan in the Philippines brought out those words from Mateo. There was a stark difference in the way Ben and I internalized those words. While Ben thought, "But he's just six," I felt "God, he's only six!" We are learning that as parents --especially parents of biracial children in the United States where race issues bleed into our daily lives-- we won't always feel the same way about how to approach these situations. For Ben it was an innocuous comment made by a child who has certain ideas of what "matched" a preferred costume. To me it's a seed that can grow from benign to alarming. I never fully understood the importance of images and representation in the media until then. I’ve made a compilation of entertaining movies and shows that celebrate diversity and a link to Common Sense Media for further details.