The Associated Press has an article about how many people of color are getting tired of stereotypical and demeaning portrayals of racial/ethnic minorities in many video games and as a result, are recruiting and training people to write video games that offer a more realistic and balanced image of Blacks and other people of color.

A growing number of people in the booming industry believe there should be more black and Hispanic heroes and heroines instead of hoods and hoodlums. “Not everybody goes outside with bling-bling and listens to rap music all day,” says Amil Tomlin, a black 15-year-old from Baltimore who plays hours of video games each day.

Among those trying to paint a different racial picture is Mario Armstrong, who hosts a weekly National Public Radio program on technology. He and two fellow Black colleagues have started the Urban Video Game Academy, a virtual programming boot camp for minorities. “The problem with a bunch of nerdy white guys creating the games is that the story isn’t being created with balance,” Armstrong said.

Roughly 80 percent of video game programmers are white, according to preliminary results of an International Game Developers Association survey. About four percent of designers are Hispanic, and less than three percent are black. The academy is holding summer workshops in Atlanta, Baltimore and Washington to give minority students like Tomlin an opportunity to learn the basics of making video games. Organizers hope this early exposure will inspire a new generation to make minority video game characters that go beyond typecast racial roles.

This is a perfect example of what I teach my students of color -- if we don’t raise our voices and assert our own identity and images, others are free to portray us however they want to, and as demeaning and stereotypical as they want to. Kudos to Mario Amstrong and his colleagues for their efforts to be proactive and assertive!