Advent, explained

Most Christmas customs in the US share two characteristics .
First , it ’ s usually hard to pin down their origins to a single source .
And second , their roots almost always reach back to religious custom — Christmas being the second most important feast day ( behind Easter ) on the Christian calendar — but have since been adapted and , in some cases , scrubbed of religious content to make them more broadly palatable .
The celebration of Advent , whether with wreaths in church or calendars at home , is among these customs .
On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of the major seasons celebrated by most Christian churches in the Western tradition : Roman Catholics , Anglicans , Episcopalians , Lutherans , and many additional Protestant churches mark the roughly month-long period with special observance .
But the word Advent comes from the Latin word for “ arrival ” — adventus — which means non-Christians can celebrate it simply as a fun countdown to Christmas .
In that respect , it ’ s also become a marketing opportunity for retailers , mostly through Advent calendars , which have been around since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grown steadily more , shall we say , creative .
Most modern Advent calendars don ’ t technically cover the season of Advent Most Advent calendars start on December 1 .
But the actual first day of the Advent season changes every year .
In 2020 , that day is November 29 .
In 2021 , it will be November 28 .
The final day is the same every year : December 24 , Christmas Eve — though many calendars run through Christmas Day .
The reason for the shifting start date is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ churches in the Western tradition ( as opposed to Eastern Orthodox churches , which keep a different calendar ) , the season of Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and is celebrated on each successive Sunday leading up to Christmas .
There are always four Sundays during Advent prior to Christmas , but Christmas could be any day of the week — which means the distance between the fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Day varies .
So the length of the season shifts from year to year : In 2016 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which means the season stretched over a total of 28 days .
Last year , it was 24 days long .
This year , it ’ s 26 days long .
Advent calendars , though , are more consistent .
They ’ re all set up for a 24- or 25-day season , beginning December 1 and ending on Christmas Eve or , sometimes , Christmas Day .
The reason for this is practical : Since the length of the Advent season changes from year to year , it ’ s easier to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a calendar that can be reproduced or reused every season .
And Advent calendars are reused all the time .
When I was growing up , the Advent calendar in our house had a picture of Mary , Joseph , and the baby Jesus in the manger , with little windows that we opened and read aloud — each contained a verse from the Christmas story .
Other people had Advent calendars that held a piece of chocolate to be eaten each day .
Since the mid-19th century , Advent calendars have morphed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in one form or another ) were adapted some time in the 19th century by German Lutherans as a way to mark the days of the season leading up to Christmas .
By the early 20th century , calendars were being manufactured and published in Germany , aimed at delighting kids during the holidays .
In a chilling development , when Nazi Germany attempted to change Christmas from a religious holiday to an occasion to praise the fatherland ( Jesus ’ s Jewish origins being troublesome for Nazis ’ racist ideology ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a way of inculcating loyalty into children .
In 1943 , a full-color calendar was produced by the Third Reich for distribution to German mothers ; it included , among other things , designs that incorporated swastikas and other Nazi symbols .
On one day , it has pictures that appear to tell the traditional Christmas story — Mary , Joseph , and the baby Jesus in the manger — but the text that accompanies the images is about a woodcutter , a soldier , and a king who get lost in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ baby who has wise words for them .
Following the war , with cardboard no longer rationed , Christian-themed Advent calendars made their way stateside thanks to the boom in production and the GIs who sent them home to their families .
They got a boost in popularity when Newsweek published a photograph of President Dwight D. Eisenhower ’ s grandchildren with an Advent calendar in 1953 : Advent calendars have remained popular in the years since , often marketed with the suggestion that they help children count down the days to Christmas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their parents every day about how many days are left until they can open presents .
Sometimes pockets in the calendar can be filled by parents with toys or treats , small gifts to satiate the excited child .
( One can detect some commonality between this and traditions around gift giving during Hanukkah . )
As such , Advent calendars aimed at children abound .
Parents can help children put together a charm bracelet , or let them discover the art of Norman Rockwell .
There are chocolate Advent calendars in all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with puffy , soft shapes that slowly form a nativity scene or depict the adventures of Olaf from Frozen .
There ’ s a Funko Fortnite Advent calendar , a Lego Star Wars Advent calendar , and a whole bunch of Playmobil Advent Calendars .
A specifically Christian variation called a “ Jesse Tree ” combines the Christmas tree with an Advent calendar , taking its cues from Isaiah 11:1 , which many Christians take to be a prophecy about Jesus : “ There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ roots will bear fruit.
” Jesse was the father of King David , who is said to be an ancestor of Jesus , and a tree depicting this lineage was often the subject of stained-glass windows in churches .
Ornaments with symbols that tell the Christmas story are placed on the Jesse Tree each day until , by Christmas , it ’ s full .
Participants can buy all kinds of Jesse Tree ornament sets , from rustic wooden ones to whimsical felt ones , or just make their own .
While Advent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( and the Third Reich ) for much of their history , they ’ ve now expanded to include non-ideological and adult audiences .
Today , Advent calendars are available for virtually any taste , interest , or price point .
Many Advent calendars serve as a way for brands to deliver 24 samples of their products into the hands of potential customers — not a bad marketing move in a month typically associated with spending money .
If customers like the sample , the reasoning goes , they ’ ll be inclined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Christmas money .
( This is in keeping with custom : The first chocolate Advent calendar was produced by Cadbury in 1958 . )
Among the Advent calendars aimed at disposable-income-laden adults , there are calendars for Godiva chocolate , Diptyque scents , Sephora beauty products , Bonne Maman jams and honeys , and dog treats .
Pop culture fans can indulge their love of TV shows like Friends or The Office or films including The Nightmare Before Christmas or the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe ( by way of Funko Pops ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ themed products : jerky , whisky , gin , scotch , rum , craft beer , cheese , and candles .
Advent calendars don ’ t necessarily have to be physical objects , however .
Music lovers can download a musical Advent calendar app from Naxos , and web design geeks can indulge in the digital 24 Ways Advent calendar , which dispenses design and coding advice over the 24 days leading up to Christmas .
Some towns — like the English city of Henley-on-Thames — create living Advent calendars .
In a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ought to adopt immediately , some Nordic countries traditionally show an Advent television series , called a Julekalender , beginning on December 1 and running until Christmas Eve — think of it as a limited miniseries .
The tradition started on radio in 1957 and first ran on Swedish television in 1960 .
Sometimes the show ties into a paper calendar that can be purchased in stores , and each day what ’ s behind the day ’ s calendar flap ties into the show .
( An American radio show called The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1930s and early 1940s , and was similarly arranged — six times a week from Thanksgiving to Christmas . )
But though Advent customs differ , they all circle back to adventus : the anticipation of something .
Advent calendars are designed for anticipating the arrival of Christmas Day , in both its explicitly religious and more secularized versions .
The roots of Advent celebration , though , predate 19th-century Germany — stretching way back into the traditional Western Christian tradition , before Advent calendars were invented .
That celebration has its own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and it ’ s still carried out in churches all over the world to this day .
Advent ’ s roots in Christian tradition persist to this day Nobody seems to know precisely when the Western Christian church started marking Advent as a season on its calendar .
But it seems to have popped up early in church history , and has stayed remarkably stable since about the Middle Ages .
The easiest way to understand the Christian church ’ s calendar is as a sort of live immersive theater , designed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ every year from Christmas ( birth ) to Easter ( resurrection ) , with readings in traditional churches that revisit stories from the gospels each year during that time .
Advent — adventus — is the part of the calendar that ’ s all about anticipation .
In Christian teaching , there are two events being anticipated .
Part of the observance of Advent , celebrated for the four Sundays before Christmas , is reenacting the centuries of anticipation of the birth of Jesus as written about by prophets like Isaiah in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during the season have lines recalling this waiting period , such as “ O Holy Night ” ( “ Long lay the world in sin and error pining / ’ Til he appeared and the soul felt its worth ” ) .
That ’ s also why the early parts of Handel ’ s Messiah quote the prophet Isaiah before they get to the more familiar Christmas parts : The lyrics for “ Comfort Ye My People ” and “ Every Valley Shall Be Exalted , ” for instance , correspond directly to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person might hear in a church pew during Advent .
But Christian theology also contains a belief that at the end of days , Jesus will return to set things right in the world , erasing death and suffering — a concept usually called the Second Coming .
So in addition to being about the anticipation of Jesus ’ s birth ( the first coming ) , Advent is also set aside as a time of quietness and austerity , meant to keep Christians from glossing over the brokenness of the world and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Coming .
“ Joy to the World ” — which , in traditional Christian practice , should only be sung at the conclusion of Advent — contains a verse summarizing this side of the celebration : “ No more let sins and sorrows grow / Nor thorns infest the ground / He comes to make His blessings flow / Far as the curse is found.
” Religious observance of Advent comes with its own set of symbols In churches that celebrate Advent , the most common factor across denominations is the Advent wreath @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ages .
It ’ s like a normal Christmas wreath , but presented horizontally , often on a podium at the front of the church ( though people often have them in their homes as well ) .
There are typically candleholders for tapers in the wreath .
The colors vary slightly from denomination to denomination , but the wreath always has four candles on it — typically three dark purple or blue , one rose-colored — and a white candle in the middle to light on Christmas Eve .
On each of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corresponding number of candles are lit : one on the first Sunday , two on the second , and so on .
If there ’ s a rose candle ( which is meant to symbolize joy ) , it ’ s lit on the third Sunday , which is around the midpoint of Advent , a time to celebrate that the waiting is nearing its close .
In keeping with the theme of waiting and remembering , Advent is also traditionally marked with a fast , similar to the Lenten fast that many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ marginally observant ) practice during the 40 days before Easter .
Advent is shorter than Lent , and the fast is less widely practiced , but generally people choose to give up something — a type of food , a practice or habit , and , in many recent years , social media — in order to focus on prayer and preparation for the celebration of Christmas .
Additionally , some churches change the colors of the cloths and linens used in the sanctuary during Sunday services — often to purple .
Churches @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , instead opting for Advent hymns , the most popular of which is probably “ O Come , O Come , Emmanuel , ” a translation of a Latin hymn .
Some churches make a practice of giving away more money or participating in other community-wide practices during the season of Advent .
( One newish example is the Advent Conspiracy , started by a loose affiliation of mostly evangelical churches in 2006 to combat hyperconsumerism and help fund clean water initiatives . )
As with pretty much every Christmas custom , though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Christians who celebrate it — it has expanded to include everyone who takes part in the holiday , whatever meaning they take from it .
Every Advent observance , regardless of whether it includes a religious element , touches on a need to have a bit of beauty each day during the season .
And it ’ s all in anticipation of future joy .

Most Christmas customs in the US share two characteristics. First, it’s usually hard to pin down their origins to a single source. And second, their roots almost always reach back to religious custom — Christmas being the second most important feast day (behind Easter) on the Christian calendar — but have since been adapted and, in some cases, scrubbed of religious content to make them more broadly palatable.
The celebration of Advent, whether with wreaths in church or calendars at home, is among these customs. On the one hand, it’s one of the major seasons celebrated by most Christian churches in the Western tradition: Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and many additional Protestant churches mark the roughly month-long period with special observance.
But the word Advent comes from the Latin word for “arrival” — adventus — which means non-Christians can celebrate it simply as a fun countdown to Christmas. In that respect, it’s also become a marketing opportunity for retailers, mostly through Advent calendars, which have been around since the 19th century and have of late grown steadily more, shall we say, creative.
Most modern Advent calendars don’t technically cover the season of Advent
Most Advent calendars start on December 1. But the actual first day of the Advent season changes every year. In 2020, that day is November 29. In 2021, it will be November 28. The final day is the same every year: December 24, Christmas Eve — though many calendars run through Christmas Day.
The reason for the shifting start date is somewhat straightforward. As celebrated by Christian churches in the Western tradition (as opposed to Eastern Orthodox churches, which keep a different calendar), the season of Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and is celebrated on each successive Sunday leading up to Christmas.
There are always four Sundays during Advent prior to Christmas, but Christmas could be any day of the week — which means the distance between the fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Day varies. So the length of the season shifts from year to year: In 2016, Christmas fell on a Sunday, which means the season stretched over a total of 28 days. Last year, it was 24 days long. This year, it’s 26 days long.
Advent calendars, though, are more consistent. They’re all set up for a 24- or 25-day season, beginning December 1 and ending on Christmas Eve or, sometimes, Christmas Day. The reason for this is practical: Since the length of the Advent season changes from year to year, it’s easier to pick a fixed number of days for a calendar that can be reproduced or reused every season.
And Advent calendars are reused all the time. When I was growing up, the Advent calendar in our house had a picture of Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus in the manger, with little windows that we opened and read aloud — each contained a verse from the Christmas story. Other people had Advent calendars that held a piece of chocolate to be eaten each day.
Since the mid-19th century, Advent calendars have morphed to fit their time
Advent calendars (in one form or another) were adapted some time in the 19th century by German Lutherans as a way to mark the days of the season leading up to Christmas. By the early 20th century, calendars were being manufactured and published in Germany, aimed at delighting kids during the holidays.
In a chilling development, when Nazi Germany attempted to change Christmas from a religious holiday to an occasion to praise the fatherland (Jesus’s Jewish origins being troublesome for Nazis’ racist ideology), it latched onto the Advent calendar as a way of inculcating loyalty into children. In 1943, a full-color calendar was produced by the Third Reich for distribution to German mothers; it included, among other things, designs that incorporated swastikas and other Nazi symbols. On one day, it has pictures that appear to tell the traditional Christmas story — Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus in the manger — but the text that accompanies the images is about a woodcutter, a soldier, and a king who get lost in the woods and encounter a woman with a baby who has wise words for them.
Following the war, with cardboard no longer rationed, Christian-themed Advent calendars made their way stateside thanks to the boom in production and the GIs who sent them home to their families. They got a boost in popularity when Newsweek published a photograph of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s grandchildren with an Advent calendar in 1953:
Advent calendars have remained popular in the years since, often marketed with the suggestion that they help children count down the days to Christmas, presumably to keep them from bugging their parents every day about how many days are left until they can open presents. Sometimes pockets in the calendar can be filled by parents with toys or treats, small gifts to satiate the excited child. (One can detect some commonality between this and traditions around gift giving during Hanukkah.)
As such, Advent calendars aimed at children abound. Parents can help children put together a charm bracelet, or let them discover the art of Norman Rockwell. There are chocolate Advent calendars in all shapes and sizes. There are calendars with puffy, soft shapes that slowly form a nativity scene or depict the adventures of Olaf from Frozen. There’s a Funko Fortnite Advent calendar, a Lego Star Wars Advent calendar, and a whole bunch of Playmobil Advent Calendars.
A specifically Christian variation called a “Jesse Tree” combines the Christmas tree with an Advent calendar, taking its cues from Isaiah 11:1, which many Christians take to be a prophecy about Jesus: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.” Jesse was the father of King David, who is said to be an ancestor of Jesus, and a tree depicting this lineage was often the subject of stained-glass windows in churches. Ornaments with symbols that tell the Christmas story are placed on the Jesse Tree each day until, by Christmas, it’s full. Participants can buy all kinds of Jesse Tree ornament sets, from rustic wooden ones to whimsical felt ones, or just make their own.
While Advent calendars were mainly used by religious families (and the Third Reich) for much of their history, they’ve now expanded to include non-ideological and adult audiences. Today, Advent calendars are available for virtually any taste, interest, or price point. Many Advent calendars serve as a way for brands to deliver 24 samples of their products into the hands of potential customers — not a bad marketing move in a month typically associated with spending money. If customers like the sample, the reasoning goes, they’ll be inclined to buy the full-size version with their Christmas money. (This is in keeping with custom: The first chocolate Advent calendar was produced by Cadbury in 1958.)
Among the Advent calendars aimed at disposable-income-laden adults, there are calendars for Godiva chocolate, Diptyque scents, Sephora beauty products, Bonne Maman jams and honeys, and dog treats. Pop culture fans can indulge their love of TV shows like Friends or The Office or films including The Nightmare Before Christmas or the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe (by way of Funko Pops). Or you can sample a variety of themed products: jerky, whisky, gin, scotch, rum, craft beer, cheese, and candles.
Advent calendars don’t necessarily have to be physical objects, however. Music lovers can download a musical Advent calendar app from Naxos, and web design geeks can indulge in the digital 24 Ways Advent calendar, which dispenses design and coding advice over the 24 days leading up to Christmas. Some towns — like the English city of Henley-on-Thames — create living Advent calendars.
In a very cool custom I think the US ought to adopt immediately, some Nordic countries traditionally show an Advent television series, called a Julekalender, beginning on December 1 and running until Christmas Eve — think of it as a limited miniseries. The tradition started on radio in 1957 and first ran on Swedish television in 1960. Sometimes the show ties into a paper calendar that can be purchased in stores, and each day what’s behind the day’s calendar flap ties into the show. (An American radio show called The Cinnamon Bear was broadcast in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and was similarly arranged — six times a week from Thanksgiving to Christmas.)
But though Advent customs differ, they all circle back to adventus: the anticipation of something. Advent calendars are designed for anticipating the arrival of Christmas Day, in both its explicitly religious and more secularized versions.
The roots of Advent celebration, though, predate 19th-century Germany — stretching way back into the traditional Western Christian tradition, before Advent calendars were invented. That celebration has its own symbolism tied to the Christian calendar, and it’s still carried out in churches all over the world to this day.
Advent’s roots in Christian tradition persist to this day
Nobody seems to know precisely when the Western Christian church started marking Advent as a season on its calendar. But it seems to have popped up early in church history, and has stayed remarkably stable since about the Middle Ages.
The easiest way to understand the Christian church’s calendar is as a sort of live immersive theater, designed by tradition to reenact the life of Jesus every year from Christmas (birth) to Easter (resurrection), with readings in traditional churches that revisit stories from the gospels each year during that time. Advent — adventus — is the part of the calendar that’s all about anticipation. In Christian teaching, there are two events being anticipated.
Part of the observance of Advent, celebrated for the four Sundays before Christmas, is reenacting the centuries of anticipation of the birth of Jesus as written about by prophets like Isaiah in the Old Testament. Many songs traditionally sung during the season have lines recalling this waiting period, such as “O Holy Night” (“Long lay the world in sin and error pining / ’Til he appeared and the soul felt its worth”). That’s also why the early parts of Handel’s Messiah quote the prophet Isaiah before they get to the more familiar Christmas parts: The lyrics for “Comfort Ye My People” and “Every Valley Shall Be Exalted,” for instance, correspond directly to the readings from Isaiah 40 that a person might hear in a church pew during Advent.
But Christian theology also contains a belief that at the end of days, Jesus will return to set things right in the world, erasing death and suffering — a concept usually called the Second Coming. So in addition to being about the anticipation of Jesus’s birth (the first coming), Advent is also set aside as a time of quietness and austerity, meant to keep Christians from glossing over the brokenness of the world and to encourage them to anticipate the Second Coming.
“Joy to the World” — which, in traditional Christian practice, should only be sung at the conclusion of Advent — contains a verse summarizing this side of the celebration: “No more let sins and sorrows grow / Nor thorns infest the ground / He comes to make His blessings flow / Far as the curse is found.”
Religious observance of Advent comes with its own set of symbols
In churches that celebrate Advent, the most common factor across denominations is the Advent wreath, which was adopted around the Middle Ages. It’s like a normal Christmas wreath, but presented horizontally, often on a podium at the front of the church (though people often have them in their homes as well). There are typically candleholders for tapers in the wreath. The colors vary slightly from denomination to denomination, but the wreath always has four candles on it — typically three dark purple or blue, one rose-colored — and a white candle in the middle to light on Christmas Eve.
On each of the four Sundays of Advent, the corresponding number of candles are lit: one on the first Sunday, two on the second, and so on. If there’s a rose candle (which is meant to symbolize joy), it’s lit on the third Sunday, which is around the midpoint of Advent, a time to celebrate that the waiting is nearing its close.
In keeping with the theme of waiting and remembering, Advent is also traditionally marked with a fast, similar to the Lenten fast that many people (even those who are only marginally observant) practice during the 40 days before Easter. Advent is shorter than Lent, and the fast is less widely practiced, but generally people choose to give up something — a type of food, a practice or habit, and, in many recent years, social media — in order to focus on prayer and preparation for the celebration of Christmas.
Additionally, some churches change the colors of the cloths and linens used in the sanctuary during Sunday services — often to purple. Churches hold off on singing jubilant Christmas songs, instead opting for Advent hymns, the most popular of which is probably “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” a translation of a Latin hymn. Some churches make a practice of giving away more money or participating in other community-wide practices during the season of Advent. (One newish example is the Advent Conspiracy, started by a loose affiliation of mostly evangelical churches in 2006 to combat hyperconsumerism and help fund clean water initiatives.)
As with pretty much every Christmas custom, though, Advent doesn’t just belong to Christians who celebrate it — it has expanded to include everyone who takes part in the holiday, whatever meaning they take from it. Every Advent observance, regardless of whether it includes a religious element, touches on a need to have a bit of beauty each day during the season. And it’s all in anticipation of future joy.


vox--2020-12-01--Is the pandemic making people more generous — or more selfish?

Today is Giving Tuesday , a day that encourages everyone to refocus on doing good after the annual post-Thanksgiving shopping blitz .
People have donated millions to charity through Giving Tuesday fundraisers every year since the movement kicked off in 2012 .
But what does generosity look like in 2020 ?
Has the Covid-19 pandemic — and its attendant recession — made us more or less generous this year ?
Has it changed the way we give ?
We won ’ t fully know until 2020 is behind us because around 30 percent of total annual giving happens in December @ @ @ @ @ @ @ donations on the very last days of the year .
But we ’ ve already got some telling data about how much people are giving .
“ As far as we can tell , the overall trend line is up , ” Victoria Vrana , a deputy director at the Gates Foundation , told me .
She cited a study from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project , which collects real-time data from several online fundraising platforms .
“ They ’ re showing an overall increase in the whole first half of the year .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ increase in small gifts and new donors.
” While you ’ d expect high-net-worth donors to give more during a crisis , you wouldn ’ t necessarily expect similar behavior from average people hurting from an economic downturn .
Yet 56 percent of US households gave to charity or volunteered in response to the pandemic , and the first half of 2020 saw a 12.6 percent increase in the number of new donors to charity compared to one year ago .
The causes that are faring especially well are the ones with an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hunger relief and health care .
According to a Harris Poll survey conducted for Fast Company , “ hunger relief has seen the most charitable giving — 34 percent , among those who have given to charity during the pandemic — followed by religious organizations ( 31 percent ) and health and medical organizations ( 29 percent ) .
” That tracks with what Charity Navigator saw from March to October : Donations to Feeding America increased 1,980 percent year over year , and donations to Doctors Without Borders increased 131 percent year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ great that donors are trying to make sure people get food and health care during a pandemic .
But while nonprofits focused on Covid-19 relief are getting substantial funding in every US state — including rapid-response grants from community foundations that have raised more than $ 1 billion for the purpose — nonprofits doing crucial non-pandemic-related work are getting left out .
“ You ’ re seeing some cause areas get a tremendous influx , and others that are just drying up , ” Vrana told me .
“ It ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reported in August that even as Covid-19 donations were soaring , other charities were taking a big hit ; with galas , auctions , and fundraisers canceled , nonprofits were really struggling to raise the funds they rely on .
A sobering reflection of this is that some 1 million nonprofit workers in the US have lost their jobs because of the pandemic .
On the plus side , the global nature of the pandemic has prompted some donors to think beyond their own backyards and to embrace direct cash transfers as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world .
“ A super-interesting , huge new trend we ’ ve been seeing is this interest in directly giving to individuals , ” Vrana said , noting that the Gates Foundation ’ s recently created site PowerOf.org , which aggregates vetted donation opportunities for helping people through the pandemic , includes more than 40 funds that direct cash to individuals in need .
She added that trusted nonprofits like GiveDirectly , a charity with over a decade of experience distributing cash transfers , have come out in a huge way during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emergency responses : one in the US , for which it has raised $ 118 million , and one in African countries , for which it has raised $ 76 million .
The charity has sent cash relief to 116,000 families in the US and 342,000 families across Kenya , Liberia , Malawi , and Rwanda .
“ There ’ s something unique about how central cash has been to people ’ s response to this crisis .
It feels different from prior crises , ” Joe Huston , managing director at GiveDirectly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re seeing a ton of cash relief funds spin up , including people giving out cash themselves on Twitter .
I haven ’ t seen a period like this where so many people from so many different types of philanthropy have started with cash transfers as a primary tool in their toolbox.
” This year has also seen increased support for cash transfers in the form of a universal basic income ( UBI ) .
With the pandemic generating so much financial loss and uncertainty , and with federal stimulus packages failing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ argued that citizens desperately need some sort of guaranteed income .
Spain ’ s government seemed to listen , offering payments of up to 1,015 euros ( $ 1,145 ) to the poorest families in the country , and Germany started a new basic income experiment in August .
On both sides of the Atlantic , public support for UBI is higher than usual .
When cognitive scientists Daniel Nettle and Rebecca Saxe surveyed people in the US and UK in April , May , and September , they found that the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
However , they also found some preliminary indications that people believe others will act more selfishly than cooperatively in a pandemic .
When disasters strike , do people behave more generously or more selfishly ?
As the Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki has documented , there are two basic stories people like to tell about how human beings behave in times of crisis .
According to one story , individuals panic , flout social norms , and behave selfishly .
The crisis unleashes an amoral free-for-all as each person gives in to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for their own interests — to hell with everyone else .
The other story holds just the opposite : People are wonderfully generous in the wake of disaster !
They donate money , they volunteer , they try to help their neighbors .
We see more altruism and prosocial behavior during a crisis than we do in normal times .
The first narrative is often seen reflected in media coverage .
For example , after Hurricane Katrina , the New York Times described New Orleans as a “ snake pit of anarchy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thugs.
” And partly because of media portrayals , this lawless behavior is what many people have come to expect in times of crisis .
In one study , people generally agreed with statements like “ When there is an emergency , crowd members act selfishly ” and “ When there is an emergency , social order breaks down.
” But when you look at the historical record , it actually offers a lot of support for the second narrative .
“ Catastrophe compassion , ” Zaki writes , “ is widespread and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , terrorist attacks , hurricanes , and tsunamis , and — now — a pandemic.
” For example , as Covid-19 spread , volunteers around the world began creating mutual aid Google docs .
In these shared spreadsheets , they jotted down their contact information and offers to bring groceries or medications to vulnerable neighbors .
( Likewise , in the wake of Katrina , most people in New Orleans were peaceful and helpful to each other . )
Yet people in general still tend to believe the more pessimistic story about human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Arizona State University , told me that ’ s partly because people have internalized work from the annals of psychology , behavioral economics , and evolutionary biology ( think The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins ) to mean that we generally look out for No .
1 when faced with adversity .
But recent work in psychology , including Aktipis ’ s own research with the Human Generosity Project , complicates that picture .
It ’ s convinced her that times of crisis can bring out the best in us , so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that others will take advantage of our willingness to cooperate .
In early March , she and her colleagues started asking people around the world questions meant to gauge their feelings of cooperativeness .
As the pandemic spread , they found that people increasingly agreed with statements like “ My neighborhood and I rise and fall together ” and “ All of humanity and I rise and fall together.
” In other words , people ’ s perceived interdependence with others generally increased .
In fact , people ’ s ratings of interdependence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than with their own neighborhoods .
And the survey respondents ’ willingness to help citizens of other countries increased .
So the surge in pandemic-related generosity hasn ’ t come as a surprise to Aktipis .
As she told me , “ When people are most in need , that ’ s when most of the giving happens.
” Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter and we ’ ll send you a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling the world ’ s biggest challenges — and how to get better at @ @ @

Today is Giving Tuesday, a day that encourages everyone to refocus on doing good after the annual post-Thanksgiving shopping blitz. People have donated millions to charity through Giving Tuesday fundraisers every year since the movement kicked off in 2012. But what does generosity look like in 2020?
Has the Covid-19 pandemic — and its attendant recession — made us more or less generous this year? Has it changed the way we give?
We won’t fully know until 2020 is behind us because around 30 percent of total annual giving happens in December, with many people making their tax-deductible donations on the very last days of the year. But we’ve already got some telling data about how much people are giving.
“As far as we can tell, the overall trend line is up,” Victoria Vrana, a deputy director at the Gates Foundation, told me. She cited a study from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, which collects real-time data from several online fundraising platforms. “They’re showing an overall increase in the whole first half of the year. And the exciting part is really the increase in small gifts and new donors.”
While you’d expect high-net-worth donors to give more during a crisis, you wouldn’t necessarily expect similar behavior from average people hurting from an economic downturn. Yet 56 percent of US households gave to charity or volunteered in response to the pandemic, and the first half of 2020 saw a 12.6 percent increase in the number of new donors to charity compared to one year ago.
The causes that are faring especially well are the ones with an obvious connection to the pandemic, like hunger relief and health care. According to a Harris Poll survey conducted for Fast Company, “hunger relief has seen the most charitable giving — 34 percent, among those who have given to charity during the pandemic — followed by religious organizations (31 percent) and health and medical organizations (29 percent).”
That tracks with what Charity Navigator saw from March to October: Donations to Feeding America increased 1,980 percent year over year, and donations to Doctors Without Borders increased 131 percent year over year.
It’s obviously great that donors are trying to make sure people get food and health care during a pandemic. But while nonprofits focused on Covid-19 relief are getting substantial funding in every US state — including rapid-response grants from community foundations that have raised more than $1 billion for the purpose — nonprofits doing crucial non-pandemic-related work are getting left out.
“You’re seeing some cause areas get a tremendous influx, and others that are just drying up,” Vrana told me. “It’s a huge concern.”
The Wall Street Journal reported in August that even as Covid-19 donations were soaring, other charities were taking a big hit; with galas, auctions, and fundraisers canceled, nonprofits were really struggling to raise the funds they rely on. A sobering reflection of this is that some 1 million nonprofit workers in the US have lost their jobs because of the pandemic.
A banner year for direct cash transfers
On the plus side, the global nature of the pandemic has prompted some donors to think beyond their own backyards and to embrace direct cash transfers as a way of offering relief to people across the world.
“A super-interesting, huge new trend we’ve been seeing is this interest in directly giving to individuals,” Vrana said, noting that the Gates Foundation’s recently created site PowerOf.org, which aggregates vetted donation opportunities for helping people through the pandemic, includes more than 40 funds that direct cash to individuals in need. She added that trusted nonprofits like GiveDirectly, a charity with over a decade of experience distributing cash transfers, have come out in a huge way during the pandemic.
GiveDirectly set up two emergency responses: one in the US, for which it has raised $118 million, and one in African countries, for which it has raised $76 million. The charity has sent cash relief to 116,000 families in the US and 342,000 families across Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, and Rwanda.
“There’s something unique about how central cash has been to people’s response to this crisis. It feels different from prior crises,” Joe Huston, managing director at GiveDirectly, told me. “You’re seeing a ton of cash relief funds spin up, including people giving out cash themselves on Twitter. I haven’t seen a period like this where so many people from so many different types of philanthropy have started with cash transfers as a primary tool in their toolbox.”
This year has also seen increased support for cash transfers in the form of a universal basic income (UBI). With the pandemic generating so much financial loss and uncertainty, and with federal stimulus packages failing to meet the needs of millions, advocates argued that citizens desperately need some sort of guaranteed income. Spain’s government seemed to listen, offering payments of up to 1,015 euros ($1,145) to the poorest families in the country, and Germany started a new basic income experiment in August.
On both sides of the Atlantic, public support for UBI is higher than usual. When cognitive scientists Daniel Nettle and Rebecca Saxe surveyed people in the US and UK in April, May, and September, they found that the pandemic boosted support for UBI in both places.
However, they also found some preliminary indications that people believe others will act more selfishly than cooperatively in a pandemic.
When disasters strike, do people behave more generously or more selfishly?
As the Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki has documented, there are two basic stories people like to tell about how human beings behave in times of crisis.
According to one story, individuals panic, flout social norms, and behave selfishly. The crisis unleashes an amoral free-for-all as each person gives in to a scarcity mentality and decides to look out for their own interests — to hell with everyone else.
The other story holds just the opposite: People are wonderfully generous in the wake of disaster! They donate money, they volunteer, they try to help their neighbors. We see more altruism and prosocial behavior during a crisis than we do in normal times.
The first narrative is often seen reflected in media coverage. For example, after Hurricane Katrina, the New York Times described New Orleans as a “snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs.” And partly because of media portrayals, this lawless behavior is what many people have come to expect in times of crisis. In one study, people generally agreed with statements like “When there is an emergency, crowd members act selfishly” and “When there is an emergency, social order breaks down.”
But when you look at the historical record, it actually offers a lot of support for the second narrative. “Catastrophe compassion,” Zaki writes, “is widespread and consistent; it follows earthquakes, war, terrorist attacks, hurricanes, and tsunamis, and — now — a pandemic.” For example, as Covid-19 spread, volunteers around the world began creating mutual aid Google docs. In these shared spreadsheets, they jotted down their contact information and offers to bring groceries or medications to vulnerable neighbors. (Likewise, in the wake of Katrina, most people in New Orleans were peaceful and helpful to each other.)
Related The surprising altruism of babies
Yet people in general still tend to believe the more pessimistic story about human nature. Athena Aktipis, a psychologist at Arizona State University, told me that’s partly because people have internalized work from the annals of psychology, behavioral economics, and evolutionary biology (think The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins) to mean that we generally look out for No. 1 when faced with adversity.
But recent work in psychology, including Aktipis’s own research with the Human Generosity Project, complicates that picture. It’s convinced her that times of crisis can bring out the best in us, so long as we’re not worried that others will take advantage of our willingness to cooperate.
In early March, she and her colleagues started asking people around the world questions meant to gauge their feelings of cooperativeness. As the pandemic spread, they found that people increasingly agreed with statements like “My neighborhood and I rise and fall together” and “All of humanity and I rise and fall together.” In other words, people’s perceived interdependence with others generally increased. In fact, people’s ratings of interdependence with all of humanity were actually higher than with their own neighborhoods. And the survey respondents’ willingness to help citizens of other countries increased.
So the surge in pandemic-related generosity hasn’t come as a surprise to Aktipis. As she told me, “When people are most in need, that’s when most of the giving happens.”
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vox--2020-12-01--How voice actors are fighting to change an industry that renders them invisible

In the wake of nationwide protests against police brutality , calls for change have reached far into the corners of pop culture , from old comedy shows removing blackface episodes to an infamously named football team finally ditching its racist moniker to surprising upheavals within the TV voice acting industry .
Several white voice actors from popular TV shows , who were originally cast to play characters of color , have stepped away from their roles in order to encourage the show ’ s producers to recast them authentically .
In doing so , they ’ ve acknowledged the long-standing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ industry , and the detrimental effect it ’ s had on actors of color and the quest for meaningful representation in Hollywood .
The trend arguably ignited in late June , when actor Jenny Slate decided to step away from her role as a biracial character on the popular Netflix animated comedy Big Mouth .
She ’ s since been replaced by comedian Ayo Edebiri .
Slate ’ s decision — inspired by the racial tensions provoked by the police killing of George Floyd nearly a month before — opened the floodgates .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of similar decisions by white actors like Kristen Bell and production teams like The Simpsons to recast their characters of color made headlines .
With them have come questions about whether the trend of race-conscious recasting should extend to include any role , whom it impacts , and whether it ’ s anything more than a cosmetic change in the long term .
But then there ’ s the biggest question of all : How does the animation industry give Black , Indigenous , and other actors of color a better shot at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exist to begin with ?
White actors have been walking away from roles they now say were miscast all along Creators in the animation industry have for years hand-waved away any problematic implications of having white characters play nonwhite ones .
From the minstrelsy-inspired Mickey Mouse to the Latin-accented Speedy Gonzales to characters of color on more modern shows like King of the Hill , Bob ’ s Burgers , and BoJack Horseman , white voice actors have been the de facto choice for decades , no matter the character .
“ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issue and that was a problem .
But if you look at animation , the precedence feels a little different , ” BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg told IndieWire in 2018 .
One of the Netflix show ’ s major characters , Diane Nguyen , was voiced by the white actress Alison Brie .
“ Part of the issue is , when it comes to animation you convince yourself , ‘ Anybody can play anything so it doesn ’ t matter.
’ ” Even as recently as this past January , Bob ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ what can you do ?
” approach , telling Variety that he “ needed ” to cast white actress Kristen Bell as a biracial character on his upcoming Apple TV+ cartoon Central Park .
“ Kristen needed to be Molly ; we couldn ’ t not make her Molly , ” he said .
“ But then we couldn ’ t make Molly white and we couldn ’ t make Kristen mixed race , so we just had to go forward.
” The nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in late May forced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ virtually overnight .
Jenny Slate ’ s decision to walk away from her Big Mouth role reflects how the surge in anti-racist rhetoric throughout society came to bear on the voice acting industry .
“ I have come to the decision today that I can no longer play the character , ” Slate posted June 24 on Instagram .
She went on to say that while she believed her Jewish identity made it okay for her to play the character of Missy , whose mom is Jewish , she now understood that “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be played by Black people ...
I was engaging in an act of erasure.
” Now prepping the show ’ s fourth season , the show ’ s co-creators , Nick Kroll , Andrew Goldberg , Mark Levin , and Jennifer Flackett supported Slate ’ s decision .
In a follow-up post made to Kroll ’ s Instagram , they apologized for “ our original decision to cast a white actor to play a biracial character , ” and vowed to recast her .
Slate ’ s decision was surprising news , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ producers issued for her decision .
It was also precedent-setting : Shortly after Slate encouraged her Big Mouth producers to appropriately recast her biracial character , Bell followed suit .
The same day Slate announced her decision , Bell tweeted that she ’ d be leaving her Central Park role .
“ This is a time to acknowledge our acts of complicity , ” Bell tweeted .
“ Playing the Molly in Central Park shows a lack of awareness of my pervasive privilege .
Casting a mixed race character w/a white actress undermines @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black American experience.
” She accompanied her post with a message of support from the show ’ s core creative team .
“ We profoundly regret that we might have contributed to anyone ’ s feelings of exclusion or erasure , ” the team wrote .
“ Our show will be better for respecting the nuances and complexity around the issue of representation and trying to get it right.
” Bell will remain with the show , voicing a new character .
Other actors and shows quickly followed , On June 26 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that “ moving forward , The Simpsons will no longer have white actors voice nonwhite characters.
” The show , which enters its 32nd season this fall , first made headlines because of its non-diverse voice casting as far back as in 2017 .
Indian American comedian Hari Kondabolu criticized the show that year in his documentary The Problem With Apu , which argued that the Indian convenience storeowner Apu is a troubling racist stereotype .
A 2018 episode of The Simpsons offered a begrudging response to Kondabolu ’ s critique , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continued .
It culminated this past January , when cast member Hank Azaria announced he would no longer voice the character .
It ’ s still unclear whether The Simpsons will completely retire the popular character , but if they recast him , it won ’ t be with another white actor .
Actor Mike Henry , who played the Black character Cleveland Brown on Family Guy , announced that same day that he , too , would be vacating the role for a Black actor to take over instead .
Henry , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s debut in 1999 , said on Twitter that while “ It ’ s been an honor to play Cleveland ... persons of color should play characters of color .
Therefore , I will be stepping down from the role.
” The impetus for these changes seems to be the nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd and subsequent calls to examine underlying problems of racism in many industries , including Hollywood .
Speaking in more detail about her decision to pass on the role of Missy to a Black actor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it was “ something that needed to happen .
...
I looked around my life and I could see very clearly where my reasoning was flawed and racist.
” For an increasing number of white voice actors , it ’ s time to share a responsibility to pass the microphone to actors of color .
“ For the time being , ” voice actor Allegra Clark ( Sailor Moon , Fortnite ) told me in an email , “ it ’ s important for white actors to take a step back and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , so that those opportunities are going to the right people to begin with.
” Those opportunities , however , have been vanishingly rare .
Animated storytelling in Hollywood has been non-diverse in the extreme , and ethnic and racial stereotypes are seen across the long history of children ’ s animation , from Song of the South to Looney Tunes .
Cartoon villains overwhelmingly had foreign accents throughout the early days of TV animation — and they still do today .
When actors of color were hired to work on cartoons , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stereotypes ; for instance , Disney cast Black voice actors to perform broadly racist minstrel caricatures throughout the 1940s , like the crows in Dumbo or the aforementioned Song of the South .
The racism inherent in these roles made actors of color increasingly reluctant to play them .
So rather than write better parts for the actors , Hollywood grew more reluctant to write parts for people of color at all .
This ugly cycle increased the rarity of diverse parts for diverse actors .
In children ’ s animation , however @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t visible , the stereotypes persisted — just often with white actors voicing the parts , as if that were enough to ward off complaints of prejudice .
Additionally , animation studios tend to hire a small sample of character actors to voice multiple parts , including any ethnic roles a show may need filled .
The prevalence of this practice has led to a hugely whitewashed profession that continues today .
Longtime screen and voice actor Dante Basco ( Hook , Avatar : The Last Airbender ) told me it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be taken as seriously as onscreen casting when it comes to racial diversity .
“ The reality is , it wasn ’ t seen as something important for many years , ’ cause , you know , you ’ re [ just ] doing a cartoon , ” Basco told me .
But the Filipino American actor , well known for starring ethnic roles in animated series including Avatar and American Dragon : Jake Long , explained that his career has benefited from race-conscious casting , in those rare instances when it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sometimes like they brought me in , like , ‘ Oh , Dante , you ’ re an Asian celebrity , you can play this Asian role , ’ ” he said .
“ And so I was probably one of the earliest ones [ to get hired when productions ] were accurately trying to cast the character close to ” their ethnicity .
Still , he said , diversifying roles and opportunities for actors in the animation industry isn ’ t as simple as giving everyone a part matching their ethnic heritage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” he said .
“ I don ’ t know if [ racially conscious casting ] is necessarily important on every single thing ...
I always tell people that if I had to wait around for a Filipino American role , I would not have a career.
” Basco ’ s pragmatism underscores just how hard it is to find any diverse characters in TV animation .
When diverse parts are hard to come by , it can be prohibitive to silo a group of actors of color into their ethnic or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lack of diverse roles makes it much harder for voice actors of color to sustain their careers .
“ There ’ s too much historical baggage , and too few opportunities for actors of color ( who are seldom given a fair shot to read for white roles in the first place ) , ” she said .
Their concerns that an attempt to move to strictly race-accurate casting could hurt actors of color more than help them point to larger issues within the industry .
After all , the current high-profile movement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moving away from whitewashed casting , has also highlighted just how overwhelmingly non-diverse the voice acting industry has been .
The voice acting industry is diversifying — but at a frustratingly slow pace We rarely see the people behind the mic of an animated character .
Which means you might not realize just how stacked the deck is against voice actors of color .
“ It took seven years of pushing , seven years of going to auditions and stealing the audition documents for all of the characters that I wasn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Toronto-based voice actor Deven Mack told Vox .
While Mack has found success in the Toronto animation industry , he says he had a wake-up call when he moved from doing voice acting on the internet to doing professional studio work .
“ I started out doing things online on websites , like Newgrounds and YouTube .
And that was a world where absolutely nobody knew what I looked like , ” he said .
“ Over the years , I probably voiced Super Mario and Luigi for at least 50 different fan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m a white guy on the internet.
” With professional studios , however , he found that he could rarely book auditions , and , when he did , was rarely asked to read for any part except that of “ the Black kid.
” “ Once I [ got ] an agent , I realized [ that ] I ’ m now auditioning only once every six months .
Online , I ’ m playing everything .
I ’ m playing cats , dogs , white characters , Black characters , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ studios ] , it ’ s just the Black kid .
And if there is no ‘ the Black kid , ’ then I ’ m just sitting at home.
” Even when Mack did eventually book his first studio role — as the character Lab Rat in a 2006 series called Grossology — the wake-up calls about the realities of the industry kept coming .
“ There were lots of good people there , but the assumption still the whole time [ was ] , ‘ Oh , he ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me .
“ ‘ The only thing he can play is the Black kid .
He can ’ t lose his accent .
We just assume that .
So we ’ re not even going to give him other stuff to do.
’ So everybody else on the show was playing additional voices ... and making more money than me as a result , because they just assumed I couldn ’ t do it.
” Mack was running into a lack of diversity that affects nearly every aspect of both the animation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Annenberg Institute survey of gender in animation found that only 3 percent of all animation roles ( including both films and television series ) go to women of color , across the broad spectrum of racial diversity .
On the other side of the reel , that stat is even worse : Just 1 percent of producers are women of color .
In 2017 , another Annenberg study found that while 27 percent of animated films had Asian directors , between 2007 and 2016 , only one animated film had a Black director @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lack of diversity on the production side of things manifests in a lack of diversity in the kinds of TV shows , films , and games that are made .
The question of whose stories get told and who gets to tell them is left up to a production that often lacks a plethora of viewpoints from the start .
And because voice acting is often considered to be “ invisible , ” it ’ s all too easy for a white actor to take the rare role that does feature a character @ @ @ @ @ @ @ help that producers are often reluctant to look beyond established actors .
“ Voice acting requires significant technical acting abilities — automated dialogue replacement , timing restrictions , facial sync , battle chatter , breathing techniques — so finding qualified actors is limited to skilled and experienced talent , ” one gaming CEO told Vox sister site The Verge in February .
“ That ’ s a sad thing about our industry , but a truth , ” Bob-Waksberg told IndieWire .
“ The white actors have had the opportunity to have the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ factors can lead to serious career struggles and even psychological hurdles for voice actors of color .
At a loss for how to advance his career , Mack said he spent years attending career workshops , only to be told he was “ too good ” to be there .
“ I ’ m here because I ’ m not working .
So I don ’ t know what else to do .
There must be something wrong with me .
Maybe I ’ m not as good as I think I am @ @ @ @ @ @ @ desperation , he ’ d steal scripts and request to read parts he hadn ’ t been called in to audition for , just to show what else he could do .
When he finally did get cast in his first lead role , playing a white character , Mack said an immediate shift happened in the parts made available to him .
Mack ’ s story shares themes with that of the voice actor Bill Butts .
Butts , a Black Kansas-born actor based in Los Angeles , got his start in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ s most recently worked on popular anime like Mobile Suit Gundam and One Punch Man .
“ Unfortunately , growing up , I didn ’ t really see a lot of people of color in big roles at all , let alone at all in the business , ” he told Vox .
“ You ’ d see Caucasian folk voicing Black characters , but you hardly ever see Black actors.
” He pointed out that there tend to be more opportunities for voice actors of color in English-language animated series @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and gaming , even if the offered parts are usually just “ Black guys and monsters.
” But other voiceover industries lack even these stereotypical roles for nonwhite actors to fill .
“ When it comes to anime and video games , unfortunately the reality is that people of color are only given opportunities to read for people of color , which is extremely rare , ” he said .
Butts describes taking every acting class he could find , “ studying theater , Shakespeare , contemporary , the works , to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re so good that agents and studios couldn ’ t really even tell ... they ’ d be like , ‘ Well , what else can we use this guy for ?
’ ” And still , though he ’ s established himself in the industry , parts available for any ethnicity don ’ t always come his way .
“ There [ are ] five big shows right now [ where ] I didn ’ t get to read for a single white character , [ and ] I know it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I took all the classes , and , you know , we have similar agents , but the opportunities aren ’ t given .
...
There starts to be a bit of asking and begging to get these opportunities.
” But beyond actors resorting to reading parts they aren ’ t called to audition for , ideas for how to diversify the industry in the long term aren ’ t exactly a hot Hollywood topic .
And not everyone agrees on what the path forward should be .
Solutions for diversifying the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ roles available to actors of color are still overwhelmingly restricted to ethnic stereotypes , things are slowly moving in a positive direction .
Some industry organizations are starting to actively work toward diversifying opportunities for their members — and , as a result , the voice-acting landscape .
Butts and Clark are members of the Coalition of Dubbing Actors ( CODA ) , a union-like industry organization whose stated goal is “ to build a community , increase open communication among actors , provide actor-led industry education , and change the culture and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recently joined several other members of the voice acting community in forming Animated POC & Allies ( APOC ) , a group dedicated to pursuing equality in the industry .
“ Up until recently , ” Butts told Vox , if an actor brought up the issue of problematic casting , “ you were either ignored , yelled at , or finally you find yourself getting nothing for months.
” “ Honestly , it ’ s not a fixed system yet , but the big thing would be to have the conversations continue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s still an incredible struggle .
But the big thing right now is people are open to talk about it.
” Basco agreed .
“ That trend happening now , I think it ’ s cool .
I think it ’ s healthy , ” he said .
“ I think it speaks to a conscious industry that ’ s really trying to get it right.
” As part of the movement toward a less homogeneous industry , some voice actors of color are making choices like those of Jenny Slate and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ name recognition and thus facing more risk in doing so .
Butts told Vox he won ’ t read for parts that involve characters of other nonwhite ethnicities .
“ Nine times out of 10 , [ if a studio needs ] a Black Middle Eastern [ actor ] , they can get one .
They exist .
I ’ m not going to [ step ] on people ’ s toes.
” Butts ’ s approach has been echoed in the media by figures like # OscarsSoWhite creator April Reign , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voice casting that “ people who have the most context to play those particular characters are the ones that should get the opportunities.
” Reign , however , also felt that only white actors should play white roles ; instead , she argued , creatives should focus on diversifying the roles they write and cast .
“ People who have the most context to play those particular characters are the ones that should get the opportunities , ” she says .
“ And that also gives the opportunities for the actors and actresses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work , to get their foot in the door.
” With the present dearth of such diverse roles , however , it ’ s hard to see Reign ’ s approach working as an industry-wide prescription for change .
And Mack pointed out that since many voice actors of color don ’ t fit the industry ’ s idea of what an “ ethnic ” actor is supposed to sound like , any approach to casting that overemphasizes ethnicity could backfire .
“ Unfortunately , that ’ s really not going to fly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when you do have people [ of color ] who have a specific way of speaking — if you have a lot of Black actors right now who sound white , quote-unquote — they ’ re not going to book the Black roles as often.
” Basco agrees .
“ I think to be conscious of [ race and ethnicity ] is important , ” he said , “ but at the end of the day , you want to get good actors that are going to play and tell these stories in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way .
In the end , we ’ re not doing documentary filmmaking — we ’ re doing storytelling.
” Especially in cases where the story being told is a fantasy with fewer roots in reality , there are more opportunities for race-blind casting to be successful .
Still , Butts notes that the current push to allow Black actors to play Black roles is crucially tied to the real-world repercussions that lack of representation can bring — after all , the urgency of the Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality galvanized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with .
“ It has been now three weeks for me since an officer just gave me a dirty look for simply walking on the sidewalk , ” he said .
“ It has been a few months since I was followed for about six blocks for simply driving ...
It ’ s been literally a couple of days since I had to ask to read for a white character.
” In other words , Black actors can draw upon experiences , he said , “ that [ white ] people don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extra level of authenticity can make a story much more meaningful .
And because animated storytelling can often be highly moralistic or instructive , it ’ s even more crucial that a given production is practicing what it ’ s preaching — like equality , justice , and racial harmony .
The turbulent times we ’ re in have underscored how important those values actually are in real life , which is why it matters that people like Slate are putting them into action .
“ I think we need to come to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ audition for everything , ” Mack told Vox , “ but still taking into account who has actually lived these ethnic experiences and can bring something really , really unique and culturally relevant to a role in their performance as a result .
”

In the wake of nationwide protests against police brutality, calls for change have reached far into the corners of pop culture, from old comedy shows removing blackface episodes to an infamously named football team finally ditching its racist moniker to surprising upheavals within the TV voice acting industry. Several white voice actors from popular TV shows, who were originally cast to play characters of color, have stepped away from their roles in order to encourage the show’s producers to recast them authentically. In doing so, they’ve acknowledged the long-standing problem of whitewashing in the voice acting industry, and the detrimental effect it’s had on actors of color and the quest for meaningful representation in Hollywood.
The trend arguably ignited in late June, when actor Jenny Slate decided to step away from her role as a biracial character on the popular Netflix animated comedy Big Mouth. She’s since been replaced by comedian Ayo Edebiri. Slate’s decision — inspired by the racial tensions provoked by the police killing of George Floyd nearly a month before — opened the floodgates. In the intervening weeks, a wave of similar decisions by white actors like Kristen Bell and production teams like The Simpsons to recast their characters of color made headlines. With them have come questions about whether the trend of race-conscious recasting should extend to include any role, whom it impacts, and whether it’s anything more than a cosmetic change in the long term. But then there’s the biggest question of all: How does the animation industry give Black, Indigenous, and other actors of color a better shot at landing diverse roles when those roles barely exist to begin with?
White actors have been walking away from roles they now say were miscast all along
Creators in the animation industry have for years hand-waved away any problematic implications of having white characters play nonwhite ones. From the minstrelsy-inspired Mickey Mouse to the Latin-accented Speedy Gonzales to characters of color on more modern shows like King of the Hill, Bob’s Burgers, and BoJack Horseman, white voice actors have been the de facto choice for decades, no matter the character.
“I was definitely aware that that was an issue and that was a problem. But if you look at animation, the precedence feels a little different,” BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg told IndieWire in 2018. One of the Netflix show’s major characters, Diane Nguyen, was voiced by the white actress Alison Brie. “Part of the issue is, when it comes to animation you convince yourself, ‘Anybody can play anything so it doesn’t matter.’”
Even as recently as this past January, Bob’s Burgers creator Loren Bouchard took a “what can you do?” approach, telling Variety that he “needed” to cast white actress Kristen Bell as a biracial character on his upcoming Apple TV+ cartoon Central Park. “Kristen needed to be Molly; we couldn’t not make her Molly,” he said. “But then we couldn’t make Molly white and we couldn’t make Kristen mixed race, so we just had to go forward.”
The nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in late May forced people throughout Hollywood to reconsider that attitude virtually overnight. Jenny Slate’s decision to walk away from her Big Mouth role reflects how the surge in anti-racist rhetoric throughout society came to bear on the voice acting industry. “I have come to the decision today that I can no longer play the character,” Slate posted June 24 on Instagram. She went on to say that while she believed her Jewish identity made it okay for her to play the character of Missy, whose mom is Jewish, she now understood that “Black characters on an animated show should be played by Black people ... I was engaging in an act of erasure.”
Now prepping the show’s fourth season, the show’s co-creators, Nick Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Mark Levin, and Jennifer Flackett supported Slate’s decision. In a follow-up post made to Kroll’s Instagram, they apologized for “our original decision to cast a white actor to play a biracial character,” and vowed to recast her.
Slate’s decision was surprising news, as was the support her show’s producers issued for her decision. It was also precedent-setting: Shortly after Slate encouraged her Big Mouth producers to appropriately recast her biracial character, Bell followed suit. The same day Slate announced her decision, Bell tweeted that she’d be leaving her Central Park role.
“This is a time to acknowledge our acts of complicity,” Bell tweeted. “Playing the Molly in Central Park shows a lack of awareness of my pervasive privilege. Casting a mixed race character w/a white actress undermines the specificity of the mixed race & Black American experience.”
She accompanied her post with a message of support from the show’s core creative team.
This is a time to acknowledge our acts of complicity. Heres 1 of mine. Playing the Molly in Central Park shows a lack of awareness of my pervasive privilege. Casting a mixed race character w/a white actress undermines the specificity of the mixed race & Black American experience. pic.twitter.com/8AL8m4K7Uk — Kristen Bell (@KristenBell) June 25, 2020
“We profoundly regret that we might have contributed to anyone’s feelings of exclusion or erasure,” the team wrote. “Our show will be better for respecting the nuances and complexity around the issue of representation and trying to get it right.” Bell will remain with the show, voicing a new character.
Other actors and shows quickly followed, On June 26, The Simpsons, released a statement announcing that “moving forward, The Simpsons will no longer have white actors voice nonwhite characters.”
The show, which enters its 32nd season this fall, first made headlines because of its non-diverse voice casting as far back as in 2017. Indian American comedian Hari Kondabolu criticized the show that year in his documentary The Problem With Apu, which argued that the Indian convenience storeowner Apu is a troubling racist stereotype. A 2018 episode of The Simpsons offered a begrudging response to Kondabolu’s critique, and the debate over whether Apu was offensive continued. It culminated this past January, when cast member Hank Azaria announced he would no longer voice the character. It’s still unclear whether The Simpsons will completely retire the popular character, but if they recast him, it won’t be with another white actor.
Actor Mike Henry, who played the Black character Cleveland Brown on Family Guy, announced that same day that he, too, would be vacating the role for a Black actor to take over instead.
Henry, who had voiced Brown since the show’s debut in 1999, said on Twitter that while “It’s been an honor to play Cleveland ... persons of color should play characters of color. Therefore, I will be stepping down from the role.”
The impetus for these changes seems to be the nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd and subsequent calls to examine underlying problems of racism in many industries, including Hollywood. Speaking in more detail about her decision to pass on the role of Missy to a Black actor, Slate told BuzzFeed on July 2 that it was “something that needed to happen. ... I looked around my life and I could see very clearly where my reasoning was flawed and racist.”
For an increasing number of white voice actors, it’s time to share a responsibility to pass the microphone to actors of color. “For the time being,” voice actor Allegra Clark (Sailor Moon, Fortnite) told me in an email, “it’s important for white actors to take a step back and pass on auditions for characters of color, so that those opportunities are going to the right people to begin with.”
Those opportunities, however, have been vanishingly rare. Animated storytelling in Hollywood has been non-diverse in the extreme, and ethnic and racial stereotypes are seen across the long history of children’s animation, from Song of the South to Looney Tunes. Cartoon villains overwhelmingly had foreign accents throughout the early days of TV animation — and they still do today. When actors of color were hired to work on cartoons, they often had to perform those demeaning stereotypes; for instance, Disney cast Black voice actors to perform broadly racist minstrel caricatures throughout the 1940s, like the crows in Dumbo or the aforementioned Song of the South.
The racism inherent in these roles made actors of color increasingly reluctant to play them. So rather than write better parts for the actors, Hollywood grew more reluctant to write parts for people of color at all. This ugly cycle increased the rarity of diverse parts for diverse actors. In children’s animation, however, because the voice actors weren’t visible, the stereotypes persisted — just often with white actors voicing the parts, as if that were enough to ward off complaints of prejudice.
Additionally, animation studios tend to hire a small sample of character actors to voice multiple parts, including any ethnic roles a show may need filled. The prevalence of this practice has led to a hugely whitewashed profession that continues today.
Longtime screen and voice actor Dante Basco (Hook, Avatar: The Last Airbender) told me it’s taken a long time for voice casting to be taken as seriously as onscreen casting when it comes to racial diversity. “The reality is, it wasn’t seen as something important for many years, ’cause, you know, you’re [just] doing a cartoon,” Basco told me. But the Filipino American actor, well known for starring ethnic roles in animated series including Avatar and American Dragon: Jake Long, explained that his career has benefited from race-conscious casting, in those rare instances when it is prioritized.
“I always felt sometimes like they brought me in, like, ‘Oh, Dante, you’re an Asian celebrity, you can play this Asian role,’” he said. “And so I was probably one of the earliest ones [to get hired when productions] were accurately trying to cast the character close to” their ethnicity.
Still, he said, diversifying roles and opportunities for actors in the animation industry isn’t as simple as giving everyone a part matching their ethnic heritage.
“The pendulum swings both ways,” he said. “I don’t know if [racially conscious casting] is necessarily important on every single thing ... I always tell people that if I had to wait around for a Filipino American role, I would not have a career.”
Basco’s pragmatism underscores just how hard it is to find any diverse characters in TV animation. When diverse parts are hard to come by, it can be prohibitive to silo a group of actors of color into their ethnic or racial niches.
Clark agrees that the lack of diverse roles makes it much harder for voice actors of color to sustain their careers. “There’s too much historical baggage, and too few opportunities for actors of color (who are seldom given a fair shot to read for white roles in the first place),” she said.
Their concerns that an attempt to move to strictly race-accurate casting could hurt actors of color more than help them point to larger issues within the industry. After all, the current high-profile movement to diversify all of Hollywood, including moving away from whitewashed casting, has also highlighted just how overwhelmingly non-diverse the voice acting industry has been.
The voice acting industry is diversifying — but at a frustratingly slow pace
We rarely see the people behind the mic of an animated character. Which means you might not realize just how stacked the deck is against voice actors of color.
“It took seven years of pushing, seven years of going to auditions and stealing the audition documents for all of the characters that I wasn’t being invited to read for,” Toronto-based voice actor Deven Mack told Vox. While Mack has found success in the Toronto animation industry, he says he had a wake-up call when he moved from doing voice acting on the internet to doing professional studio work.
“I started out doing things online on websites, like Newgrounds and YouTube. And that was a world where absolutely nobody knew what I looked like,” he said. “Over the years, I probably voiced Super Mario and Luigi for at least 50 different fan cartoons. ... People think that I’m a white guy on the internet.” With professional studios, however, he found that he could rarely book auditions, and, when he did, was rarely asked to read for any part except that of “the Black kid.”
“Once I [got] an agent, I realized [that] I’m now auditioning only once every six months. Online, I’m playing everything. I’m playing cats, dogs, white characters, Black characters, old men. But here [in studios], it’s just the Black kid. And if there is no ‘the Black kid,’ then I’m just sitting at home.”
Even when Mack did eventually book his first studio role — as the character Lab Rat in a 2006 series called Grossology — the wake-up calls about the realities of the industry kept coming.
“There were lots of good people there, but the assumption still the whole time [was], ‘Oh, he’s a 17-year-old Black kid,’” Mack told me. “‘The only thing he can play is the Black kid. He can’t lose his accent. We just assume that. So we’re not even going to give him other stuff to do.’ So everybody else on the show was playing additional voices ... and making more money than me as a result, because they just assumed I couldn’t do it.”
Mack was running into a lack of diversity that affects nearly every aspect of both the animation and video game industries. A 2019 Annenberg Institute survey of gender in animation found that only 3 percent of all animation roles (including both films and television series) go to women of color, across the broad spectrum of racial diversity. On the other side of the reel, that stat is even worse: Just 1 percent of producers are women of color. In 2017, another Annenberg study found that while 27 percent of animated films had Asian directors, between 2007 and 2016, only one animated film had a Black director at the helm.
Such an extreme lack of diversity on the production side of things manifests in a lack of diversity in the kinds of TV shows, films, and games that are made. The question of whose stories get told and who gets to tell them is left up to a production that often lacks a plethora of viewpoints from the start. And because voice acting is often considered to be “invisible,” it’s all too easy for a white actor to take the rare role that does feature a character of color.
It doesn’t help that producers are often reluctant to look beyond established actors. “Voice acting requires significant technical acting abilities — automated dialogue replacement, timing restrictions, facial sync, battle chatter, breathing techniques — so finding qualified actors is limited to skilled and experienced talent,” one gaming CEO told Vox sister site The Verge in February.
“That’s a sad thing about our industry, but a truth,” Bob-Waksberg told IndieWire. “The white actors have had the opportunity to have the experiences over and over again.”
These factors can lead to serious career struggles and even psychological hurdles for voice actors of color. At a loss for how to advance his career, Mack said he spent years attending career workshops, only to be told he was “too good” to be there. “I’m here because I’m not working. So I don’t know what else to do. There must be something wrong with me. Maybe I’m not as good as I think I am,” he recalled thinking. In desperation, he’d steal scripts and request to read parts he hadn’t been called in to audition for, just to show what else he could do. When he finally did get cast in his first lead role, playing a white character, Mack said an immediate shift happened in the parts made available to him.
Mack’s story shares themes with that of the voice actor Bill Butts. Butts, a Black Kansas-born actor based in Los Angeles, got his start in theater before moving into voice roles; he’s most recently worked on popular anime like Mobile Suit Gundam and One Punch Man.
“Unfortunately, growing up, I didn’t really see a lot of people of color in big roles at all, let alone at all in the business,” he told Vox. “You’d see Caucasian folk voicing Black characters, but you hardly ever see Black actors.” He pointed out that there tend to be more opportunities for voice actors of color in English-language animated series than in other voice-reliant industries like anime and gaming, even if the offered parts are usually just “Black guys and monsters.” But other voiceover industries lack even these stereotypical roles for nonwhite actors to fill. “When it comes to anime and video games, unfortunately the reality is that people of color are only given opportunities to read for people of color, which is extremely rare,” he said.
Butts describes taking every acting class he could find, “studying theater, Shakespeare, contemporary, the works, to get yourself to a level where you’re so good that agents and studios couldn’t really even tell ... they’d be like, ‘Well, what else can we use this guy for?’” And still, though he’s established himself in the industry, parts available for any ethnicity don’t always come his way. “There [are] five big shows right now [where] I didn’t get to read for a single white character, [and] I know it’s not just me. I mean, I took all the classes, and, you know, we have similar agents, but the opportunities aren’t given. ... There starts to be a bit of asking and begging to get these opportunities.”
But beyond actors resorting to reading parts they aren’t called to audition for, ideas for how to diversify the industry in the long term aren’t exactly a hot Hollywood topic. And not everyone agrees on what the path forward should be.
Solutions for diversifying the industry are a mixed bag
Though the roles available to actors of color are still overwhelmingly restricted to ethnic stereotypes, things are slowly moving in a positive direction. Some industry organizations are starting to actively work toward diversifying opportunities for their members — and, as a result, the voice-acting landscape.
Butts and Clark are members of the Coalition of Dubbing Actors (CODA), a union-like industry organization whose stated goal is “to build a community, increase open communication among actors, provide actor-led industry education, and change the culture and impression of dubbing work.” Clark also recently joined several other members of the voice acting community in forming Animated POC & Allies (APOC), a group dedicated to pursuing equality in the industry. “Up until recently,” Butts told Vox, if an actor brought up the issue of problematic casting, “you were either ignored, yelled at, or finally you find yourself getting nothing for months.”
“Honestly, it’s not a fixed system yet, but the big thing would be to have the conversations continue,” Butts said. “It’s still an incredible struggle. But the big thing right now is people are open to talk about it.”
Basco agreed. “That trend happening now, I think it’s cool. I think it’s healthy,” he said. “I think it speaks to a conscious industry that’s really trying to get it right.”
As part of the movement toward a less homogeneous industry, some voice actors of color are making choices like those of Jenny Slate and Kristen Bell, despite not having similar name recognition and thus facing more risk in doing so. Butts told Vox he won’t read for parts that involve characters of other nonwhite ethnicities. “Nine times out of 10, [if a studio needs] a Black Middle Eastern [actor], they can get one. They exist. I’m not going to [step] on people’s toes.”
Butts’s approach has been echoed in the media by figures like #OscarsSoWhite creator April Reign, who argued in a recent NPR interview about voice casting that “people who have the most context to play those particular characters are the ones that should get the opportunities.” Reign, however, also felt that only white actors should play white roles; instead, she argued, creatives should focus on diversifying the roles they write and cast. “People who have the most context to play those particular characters are the ones that should get the opportunities,” she says. “And that also gives the opportunities for the actors and actresses behind the scenes, behind the voiceover work, to get their foot in the door.”
With the present dearth of such diverse roles, however, it’s hard to see Reign’s approach working as an industry-wide prescription for change. And Mack pointed out that since many voice actors of color don’t fit the industry’s idea of what an “ethnic” actor is supposed to sound like, any approach to casting that overemphasizes ethnicity could backfire.
“Unfortunately, that’s really not going to fly,” he said, “because when you do have people [of color] who have a specific way of speaking — if you have a lot of Black actors right now who sound white, quote-unquote — they’re not going to book the Black roles as often.”
Basco agrees. “I think to be conscious of [race and ethnicity] is important,” he said, “but at the end of the day, you want to get good actors that are going to play and tell these stories in a real way, in a good way. In the end, we’re not doing documentary filmmaking — we’re doing storytelling.” Especially in cases where the story being told is a fantasy with fewer roots in reality, there are more opportunities for race-blind casting to be successful.
Still, Butts notes that the current push to allow Black actors to play Black roles is crucially tied to the real-world repercussions that lack of representation can bring — after all, the urgency of the Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality galvanized the conversation about voice acting to begin with.
“It has been now three weeks for me since an officer just gave me a dirty look for simply walking on the sidewalk,” he said. “It has been a few months since I was followed for about six blocks for simply driving ... It’s been literally a couple of days since I had to ask to read for a white character.”
In other words, Black actors can draw upon experiences, he said, “that [white] people don’t have to really understand.” That extra level of authenticity can make a story much more meaningful. And because animated storytelling can often be highly moralistic or instructive, it’s even more crucial that a given production is practicing what it’s preaching — like equality, justice, and racial harmony. The turbulent times we’re in have underscored how important those values actually are in real life, which is why it matters that people like Slate are putting them into action.
“I think we need to come to a place ideally of everybody getting to audition for everything,” Mack told Vox, “but still taking into account who has actually lived these ethnic experiences and can bring something really, really unique and culturally relevant to a role in their performance as a result.”