Did any of you catch Friday's episode of the Oprah show? It was titled "Children Ashamed of the Way They Look" and included interviews with: Kiri Davis, the young filmmaker who created the phenomenal short film A Girl Like Me Grey's Anatomy star Chandra Wilson about her own views on beauty growing up and how she's raising her daughters A black woman who prayed that her son wouldn't come out as dark-skinned as her. The son, not surprisingly, has developed quite a complex about colorism. Korean-American MTV host SuChin Pak, about beauty ideals in the Asian and Asian-American communities.

"Diversity training." What comes to your mind when you read those words? a) Listening to boring speakers who use meaningless buzzwords like "cultural competence" and "tolerance." b) Participating in awkward workshop exercises. Privilege walk, anyone? c) Learning painfully obvious things, like "racism is bad." As if you didn't already know that. d) All of the above. It's no wonder diversity fatigue is sweeping across America.

I've been following the media's handling of race in its coverage of Barack Obama's presidential bid very closely over the last few months. But right now I'm particularly riveted by the media coverage of his wife, Michelle Obama. Race, gender, and feminism are intersecting in fascinating ways. Here are some highlights.

The other day I was watching "The Agency," an addictive new reality show on VH1 about the agents and models who work for Wilhelmina Models. The agents were pitching a new client, Bongo Jeans, and brought a few different models to the client to be considered for a new ad campaign. I was struck by how many times the phrase "all-American" was used. The client kept saying that they were looking for a guy and a girl, both of whom had an "all-American look." You can pretty much imagine what kind of phenotype they meant by "all-American." (And if you can't imagine, you can watch the episode here.)

I recently came across a trailer of the excellent documentary Mickey Mouse Monopoly (hat tip to Yolanda and Kai): Mickey Mouse Monopoly takes a close and critical look at the world these films create and the stories they tell about race, gender and class and reaches disturbing conclusions about the values propagated under the guise of innocence and fun. This daring new video insightfully analyzes Disney's cultural pedagogy, examines its corporate power, and explores its vast influence on our global culture. Including interviews with cultural critics, media scholars, child psychologists, kindergarten teachers, multicultural educators, college students and children, Mickey Mouse Monopoly will provoke audiences to confront comfortable assumptions about an American institution that is virtually synonymous with childhood pleasure.