Ignorance is rampant across the globe:
President Obama's arrival in China on Sunday is being eagerly awaited by many people, especially one young woman in Shanghai. Lou Jing is of mixed race, with a Chinese mother and an African-American father. She became famous nationally after her participation in an American Idol-type program sparked a spate of vitriolic online racist abuse.
For Lou, the reality television show turned out to be a lesson in brutal reality. The talent contest is called Go! Oriental Angel, and the 20-year-old made it through preliminary rounds to become one of 30 contestants.
Lou is studying for a degree in television anchoring at Shanghai's prestigious Theater Academy, and her teachers thought it would be a good opportunity. But from the very first, the focus was on her skin color.
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Lou sees Obama as a motivational figure and hopes his visit to China will be televised live. The parallels haven't gone unnoticed: One well-known blogger and magazine publisher, Hong Huang, remarked that even as the U.S. was welcoming Obama to the White House, Chinese people were unable to accept a girl whose skin color was different.
China's economic progress has been astounding, but Lou Jing's cautionary tale exposes the fact that social attitudes still lag far behind. Read more at NPR
