Before I had to do my assignment on Black superheroes, I was convinced that WordGirl was of color. When I first started watching it, I thought she was White, because... well, 99.9% of people and characters on televison are. She looks like a grown up version of Dora the Explorer, so I say she's Latina/Hispanic (pick whichever term you prefer). Yes, her name is BECKY BOTSFORD, lol, which really screams American White girl, but after looking at her family more closely I saw that they were of a noticeably darker shade than everyone else on the show (except for the Black people of course).
I wonder why the creator made this conscious decision to color them this way? Is it supposed to be progressive? Usually in cartoons, it is clearly laid out, when a character is not White. For example, the guy Wordgirl has a crush on is Asian, and they gave him a stereotypical Asian last name. On Clifford The Big Red Dog, they make sure we know that the Black kid is West Indian: they give his father the accent, make references to Trinidad. Whatever the reason I think it's good for children's shows to have colorful casts that better reflect society.
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