The show has received a lot of criticism for featuring no characters of color.
There was no diversity and almost no accuracy among the characters of color at all".
"We've been trained on television to watch characters of color discuss their race incessantly," she said.
In the New York Times, Christopher Myers laments the lack of characters of color in children's literature.
It's hard to say how much of the credit for last night's unusually tight sketches, and sharp handling of characters of color, can be given specifically to them.
Both "The Nest" and "Ease and Plenty" serve as good reminders that even stories with few characters of color are, in their own way, very much "about race".
Grassroots campaigns, such as #WeNeedDiverseBooks, have worked to draw attention to the dearth of characters of color in children's books, but the gap persists.
The difference is that these are characters of color -- three African-American men (Seth Gilliam, Dwight Ewell and the transvestite performer who goes by the name Jazzmun) and a Latino (Renoly Santiago).
Mainstream producers have largely avoided characters of color for fear of offending minority groups, although black producers have been creating cartoons featuring stereotyped characters since the days of "Fat Albert".
And, while the books continue to be read (SYLE will be releasing a new U.K. paperback edition of "The White Mountains" in August), one significant obstacle to a broader cultural resurgence for the trilogy is the dearth of any characters of color and the near total lack of important female characters.
On television, less than 10percentt of entertainment programs aimed at children feature main characters of color, according to kids' entertainment company RainbowMe's research.
