Good morning, welcome to another episode of our series Hard Truths, examining systemic

racism in the U.S. Today, the push to diversify kids' movies and TV shows.

Earlier this week, Sesame Workshop announced the newest Muppet resident of Sesame Street,

G-Young.

Actually, there's something really cool about my name, so in Korean, traditionally,

the two syllables that each mean something different.

And she means, like, a smart or wise, and young means, like, a brave or courageous or strong,

yeah. But we were looking it up, and guess what?

What, she also means sesame.

Oh, about that.

A seven-year-old Korean American, G-Young, is the first Asian American Muppet on Sesame Street.

She's also part of a renewed push to diversify kids' content,

spurred by George Floyd's death and the rise of anti-Asian hate incidents since 2020.

Networks like PBS, Nickelodeon, and Disney have also introduced more diverse characters

in their programming in the last few years. But despite these efforts, new research shows,

characters and TV shows and movies for kids significantly under-represent people of color.

Here's what this looks like by the numbers.

In the most watch shows for kids aged 2 to 13, white characters make up almost three-quarters

of all the characters. About 15% are black. Asians comprise 4% of the roles, and Latinos make up

about 8%. 1.2% are Southeast Asian, and less than 1% are Middle Eastern or Native American.

Axios' Ariana Gonzales has been tracking the recent push to diversify children's programming.

She's here now to tell us what's happening and why this all matters.

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