"I heard that there are new, nonracist signs for Korean, Chinese, and Japanese that dont involve reference to slanting eyes. Would you please describe these, and any other new signs regarding ethnicity or nationality that come to mind?"
Sign language is not the only language that classifies different groups of people by using some distinct word, sign, or description to point out unique characteristics. The original signs for Korean, Chinese, and Japanese could easily be taken as racist and offensive. However, I do not believe that these were intended to be taken in an prejudice way. Sign language is characterized by the same sort of sexist, racist, ethnic and religious bias tht marks other languages. For example, "female" signs indicate on the femiine gender such as: woman, girl, wife, mother, daughter, etc. are made on the cheek bone near the chin and mouth. Reflecting the old-fashioned gesture of tapping a hat. Same goes with "male" signs which are done in the masculine zone. Signs like "think" "intelligent" "briliant" and "genius" are made in the "masculine zone". If people think a reference to a phyiscal characteristic of another race is offensive, how is the masculine zone any less biased torwards women?
Some signs could be taken offensive to a foreign person and I do believe that there is always room for updates and changing signs that are more up to date with this generation.
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