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The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's (GLAAD) People of Color (POC) Media Program was founded in April 2003. The program grew out of GLAAD's Cultural Interest Media Program, which for years had worked on behalf of communities of color and communities of faith.
The POC Media Program is dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate and inclusive representation of LGBT people of color and events in mainstream, POC (including Spanish-language media) and LGBT media as a means of increasing visibility of these communities and to serve as a community resource to LGBT people of color.
The POC Media Program is primarily focusing on Asian Pacific Islander communities, the Latina/o community and communities of African descent. The program also works to increase visibility of the LGBT Muslim and Native American Two-Spirit communities.
Objectives:
To provide technical assistance to LGBT communities of color
GLAAD provides weekly POC news digests with stories to watch as well as news alerts pertaining to each community of color specifically. For more information, or for a free subscription, please visit: People Of Color Media Program E-Newsletter.
GLAAD also provides API, African American, Latina/o (including Spanish-language) media training sessions in different parts of the country.
To position local and national LGBT POC voices as community leaders:
GLAAD helps increase the profile of local voices by pitching story ideas to local media and positioning these activists and organizations as community leaders.
To promote fair, accurate and inclusive representation of LGBT people of color in all media: mainstream, POC and LGBT.
GLAAD provides community members and allies with opportunities to call upon mainstream, POC and LGBT media outlets to increase visibility of POC voices in all types of media.
GLAAD crafts POC-specific media manuals and kits (including Spanish-language media materials) for media professionals to cover POC communities' issues with relevant cultural perspectives.
GLAAD conducted the first academic study to analyze coverage of LGBT people, groups and events in Spanish language news media that also provided recommendations journalists might consider in an effort to offer more diverse LGBT representations.
To encourage LGBT people of color to advocate for fair, accurate and inclusive representation
A key to GLAAD's success has been in involving volunteers to help us monitor the media. GLAAD is working with LGBT communities of color to encourage and inspire action. Through specialized and POC focused media activism training and our LGBT people of color media e-mail alerts and news, we hope that the community will become more involved with our work.
GLAAD has also hosted several community forums on current topics to begin a dialogue. For example, GLAAD hosted community forums in New York, NY and Oakland, CA on the intersections of race, class, gender and sexual orientation in hip-hop and other forums on LGBT images in Spanish-language media. Together we can help change stereotypes in the media.
To report defamation or fair, accurate and inclusive portrayals of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of color in the media, please report it to us by visiting: Report an Incident.
For more in-depth media and grass roots information on each specific community, please click on the following links:
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