about tyler blackburn. iām gonna preface this by saying that iām not native american and i urge native americans who have spoken about this to send us a message so we can reblog their posts/or for others to recommend posts written by native americans.
honestly, tyler blackburnās entire career has been built on stealing roles for native americans. and sure, he said he had a reasonable doubt on whether he was native american or not, i mean, who is going to doubt their grandmother?
but letās think about it, and first let me show you guys a picture from a pilot shot in 2011 (i assume after he was cast in pll and they boasted about having native american rep)
if you look up tyler blackburn plus brave new world, iām pretty sure there are some articles written by native americans criticizng the casting. they speak about the fact he looks very white + they canāt find any records of him being enrolled with any tribe (iāll come back to this later because itās important).
okay so. when he was being casted in pll, they called tyler and asked if he was ethnic and he talked to his grandmother who saidĀ āHarold, was my, my grandfatherās name, Haroldās great grandmother was Cherokee, Indian.ā okay so, letās do the math (which yes i know itās wrong but i need to bring up another thing tyler saidĀ
ok: his grandfatherās great grandmother was cherokee.Ā
greatgrandmother: 100%, grandmother: 50%, mother: 25%, harold: 12.5%, tylerās parent: 6.25, tyler: 3%
now, perhaps the grandmother didnāt marry a white man, maybe she married someone who was already mixed or another native american, but either way, tyler is going to be between 3% and 12.5% native american.
alex was meant to be played by someone who was half native american.
now, all i just said is technically wrong, butĀ āTB: And I was like ā Ā½ Native American ā Ā and I was like, great! Like, I mean, because it, it, the pool is like, so small.ā since tyler brought up what percentage alex was meant to be, i wanted to clarify this.
moving on, why is this wrong, as the newsarticles written by native americans said, they couldnāt find him enrolled anywhere. it means that tyler was not enrolled with any tribe, he had no connection to native americans. which is incredibly important, and native americans prefer have talked about how they dislike the percentages thing (1/8th of blood) as proof of being native american.
tyler was right on one point though ā the pool is very small. and it gets even smaller by the fact native americans do not get the chance to play roles meant for them, instead it goes to white boys who lookĀ āethnic enoughā like tyler.
tyler learned about this in season 1. he could have quit. he could have saidĀ āiām not gonna take the role away from a native american.ā when season 2 introduced more of his backstory, had him visit a reservationā¦ he didnāt thinkā¦ maybe i should quit and insist they recast my role with a native american actor?? tyler has had this information but a year and he continued benefitting from the lie,Ā
iām sorryā¦ iām not comfortable with that. and iām tired of the posts that seem to justā¦ make tyler a passive figure in all of this. sure, his grandmother told him something that was incorrect. but he always knew that it was a very removed ancestry, but he still took roles meant for native americans. time and time again. in pretty little liars (technically not required for him to be native, but the role was meant to go to a poc). in brave new world. and now in roswell new mexico.
tyler has been benefitting from this. while actual native american actors are excluded from hollywood.Ā
