No, Thatās Not āHow Color Worksā. - Whitewashing
Whitewashing, as defined by Merriam-Webster:
"to alter (something) in a way that favors, features, or caters to white people: such as a) to portray (the past) in a way that increases the prominence, relevance, or impact of white people and minimizes or misrepresents that of nonwhite people and B) to alter (an original story) by casting a white performer in a role based on a nonwhite person or fictional character"
In fandom context, we know it to include:
Making someoneās skin lighter
Making someoneās hair a thinner texture
Changing someoneās nose to be thinner
Changing the character in their entirety to be someone else
The Normalization of Whitewashing
Remember how I mentioned last lesson that despite the nature of poorly drawn Black characters, most audiences are not turned off enough to discourage the action in professional works? Similar idea with whitewashing. Not the same- unlike the Ambiguously Brown Character, which claims to have plausible deniability, overt whitewashing is usually enough to make fans speak up! But thatās the key word here- overt! It has to be ābad enoughā to make enough people speak up, but as weāve seen many a time, ābad enoughā seems to have a much higher threshold for nonblack viewership (sometimes the limit doesnāt exist!)
This is a link to my personal thread on a Netflix show I was watching- Worst Ex Ever. Now, while the show itself was quite enlightening, there was something I could not get over. I thought I was going crazy. And that was that no matter how dark the person of color would be in real life, the animated portions would draw this light pinkish-brown. Every. Single. Time. It's like they couldn't fathom scrolling down the color wheel. And this is a Netflix original! Netflix has plenty of money for someone to have caught this in creation. But... it was produced. And put out. And they're making more of it.
I asked all of the Dragon Age fans about the series, and uhā¦ I didnāt know things were this bad, guys! Apparently this is a man of color, but it doesn't seem like the creators want you to know that š¤£. Jokes aside, as Iāve discussed before, the noticeable whitewashing- and that was one of many racist things I was told- was not enough to prevent sales... so why would they stop? I can only hope this new game, with all the updates, is enough to turn the tide. But the series has gone on for a while now, that if theyād chosen to do ye same oldeā¦ there clearly would not be a lack of financial support to prevent it.
Even when actors of color are cast, colorism often plays a role in normalizing whitewashing to audiences, even to Black audiences! People think āoh well at least theyāre Black!ā as if that is the only important part. It is not.
While Aaron Pierre, the actor cast for John Stewart of Green Lantern fame, is a GORGEOUS, STUNNING man, he is not the dark-skinned man that John Stewart is supposed to be and should not have been cast! To me, this is overt colorism, but clearly for many people this is not āenoughā to warrant concern or even prevent the casting itself- including the studio behind the movie! Black fans have plead for years for the character of Storm to be played by a dark-skinned, preferably African, woman, and it has never happened.
It naturally happens in fan spaces as well, which is another indicator that colorism as a tool for whitewashing is quite effective for audiences. If I see one more Zendaya fan cast for Kida from Atlantis, I will scream. Itās been happening for years, and I donāt think any of the people who just want to see her and Tom on screen either understand or care that Kida is a dark-skinned character. Zendaya doesnāt look anything like Kida- it doesnāt matter if sheās Black too! Just because someone is Black does not mean they can play every single Black character! Iāve even seen people fancast Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones fame, to whichā¦ I donāt have the words. I canāt fathom what would cause these decisions other than racism.
I must be honest. I donāt really feel like re-iterating how certain things are not okay and how to fix them, because Iāve already discussed these things in massive detail. So Iām just going to direct the excuses I regularly hear to my lessons, where you can read up on them.
āTheir hair/eyes are like that because theyāre biracial so-ā
Relevant Lessons: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 8, 9, 10
There is nothing wrong with having biracial characters with a range of features. I am not saying that! Because yeah, genetics do happen!
But I mentioned this in my last lesson, and I will re-emphasize here, that using biracial identity as a way to whitewash is a sinister form of racism. The intention here- the real intention- is the issue here! The idea that somehow this character can only look the way you want them to look by "diluting" their Blacknessā¦ I donāt know how you can explain yourselves out of that one.
You donāt get to use us as an excuse for diversity while still trying to maintain your preference for Eurocentric beauty standards. Black biracial people donāt always look light skinned, thin-haired and ambiguous, and even the ones that do donāt deserve to be treated as your fetish for pretend antiracism. If you just want to draw a white person with a tan, do that. But donāt change a characterās entire look just so you can work in some whiteness. If you want to claim that canon Black characterās mother was white, then I guess they inherited some of her personality because their features should not change.
āItās my style/Itās the color-ā
Relevant Lessons: 3, 4, 10
I hate all excuses for whitewashing, but Iāve grown to despise, hate, abhor and loathe this one the most as Iāve become an artist. I wish there were stronger words to describe just how much I hate the āstyleā and ācolorā excuse.
Are style and use of color oft intertwined? Absolutely. Iām not saying they arenāt. But out of everything, there are two things I want artists to understand:
1. Style does not cancel out racism! No style forces you to choose ashy greys and to change peoplesā features. Thatās you! If you look at something, and it looks offensive, you change the style. You grow as an artist!
2. āEveryone who is brown will look ashy so I just-ā if you recognize that your Black characters look strange in comparison to your nonblack characters, then itās time to try something else! I donāt understand this sudden need for ārealismā when it comes to color and lighting, but not when it comes to hair, for example. No one cares about realism when giving every and all Black characters wavy tresses they probably wouldnāt have, but suddenly milquetoast watercolor attempts at brown and off-putting lighting is āhow it worksā. Thatās not fair.
The color picker is an available tool! I use it often!
Dead giveaway of purposeful whitewashing: if someone gets the outfit color palette right via color picking, but the skin color is multiple shades lighter. That means they were looking at that character and chose not to proceed.
Dead giveaway of purposeful whitewashing: if the white characters in the show are completely correct in their palettes. Again, that means they cared enough to look at everyone elseā¦ and not the Black characters.
If you use the color picker and the color picked isā¦ disrespectful, you do not have to use that! You can simply choose a better color that is still similar to the brown that ought to be depicted!
āItās the lighting-ā
If your white characters do not shine like snow in the sunlight because of your lighting, then your lighting does not make your Black characters suddenly light tan.
If your Black characters look bad in your lighting of choice- for example, putting a very dark-skinned character in electric white lighting can be ghastly- try changing the intensity or the color of the lighting. DONāT change your characterās skin color!
I'm going to show you some pictures of South Sudanese model Nyakim Gatwech. Pay attention to the choices of light, color, and makeup.
Look how BEAUTIFUL she is! Look at the choices of intensity and color of light, and how they make her look different in each image.
Now look at this image in comparison:
In this image, whoever did her makeup and took this picture did not take into consideration her skin tone. She's also under this really intense lighting. This is an example of "increasing the lighting does NOT make an image "better"". She didn't need to have lighter skin or "more lighting" to look good. She needed BETTER lighting, lighting that worked with HER.
To see this as an example in drawn art, @dsm7 makes an excellent argument for proper lighting and color, why it is an issue to use it as an excuse, and how to solve that problem.
ā¼ļøDISCLAIMER FOR NEXT EXAMPLEā¼ļø
Okay. I am about to show yāall a fan-created example from my personal experience. It is a TEACHING EXPERIENCE ONLY. I am not including the artistās name in this image. It happened a couple years ago, and itās over- theyāve chosen to be who they are despite me kindly confronting them about it. The only reason Iām including it at all is because I feel like it would be remiss to have such a clear-cut, multi-level example, and not teach with it. That said, no, I am not telling anyone to act out towards them. Again, that is not what Iām telling you to do. The last thing I need is a literal lynch mob of angry nonblack viewership for trying to teach you all, and yāall sitting there watching it happen to me. Every example of whitewashing is not going to be so obvious, but I hope you learn how to spot the examples in the art you see and share.
I'm obviously a Hades fan, particularly of Patroclus- despite my disdain for the lack of effort in his canon character design. So I've seen a lot of things. That said:
āWell itās just MY design of them-ā
The sepia coloring did not do this. The lighting did not do this. The design is the exact same as the Hades version, even down to the shape of the hair curling in the back. The only thing that is differentā¦ is the man himself.
Y'all. Y'all! You CANNOT take a pre-existing Black character and say āoh well this is my design of themā ā¦and the design is of a whole white person. Because if the rest of the fit is the same, and the only thing that changed is the Blacknessā¦ Racism. If youāre going to āmake up your own designā, then do that!
Speaking of: Iām sure someone edgy out there thinks theyāre so smart as they retort to the screen: ābut if thatās not okay, then why is Blackwashing okay?ā To which I say- shut up. š
The ādefinitionā by fandom: making a nonblack character Black, usually an anime character, but characters in general.
Funny enough, the actual definition in the dictionary (or closest to) is āto defameā, in contrast with whitewash (as in whitewashing history). Maybe racist fans ARE using it correctly when they say youāre blackwashing their characters, when they mean youāre making them āless likable because theyāre Black nowā. š¤
Anyway: Blackwashing is not real for the same reason reverse racism is not real.
Me painting these characters brown is not going to take away from the fact that there are far more of you in media than there is of me. Me saying that I āheadcanon a character as Black with 4C hairā is not going to make the studio go āoh! Well they must be Black with 4C hair now!ā Me saying āoh I think Iād like this character better if they were Blackā as a beta tester (less overtly, obviously, because Iām not racist!) will never make a studio change that character. Black viewers have minimal value in comparison to the power of the white viewerās dollar. I could draw white characters Black every single day of every single game mediaā¦ and they would still produce majority white characters. There has not been centuries- if not millennia, when we consider Jesus Christ himself, even- of purposeful āBlackwashingā with the intent of removing the original ethnicity- and thus importance- of white people. No one has ever been allowed to forget when someone is white. No one has ever been allowed to forget or not acknowledge white people.
Personally, I love Black edits and I welcome them here. I find them creative and fun. But if you really, REALLY didnāt want us to make those edits, then naturally, we need more Black characters in all of our media!
I wouldnāt have to make edits if I saw more of me to begin with in the things I like to watch- but when we have those characters, racists act an ass about them. Weāre not allowed to even be present! Iāve seen too many gamer bros mocking the existence of Yasuke in Assassinās Creed, and he was a real ass man. But if we made a game about African peoples in African societies, how many of the gamer bros would actually play those games? Do you think thereād be as much support, when we hear so much about Black characters that are treated so abhorrently? How many games do we have where people would love their faves just as much if they were Black? I even learned that Solas was apparently supposed to be a man of color. IMAGINE how many people would not have liked that man, with the same exact plot and characterization.
Something Iāve noticed recently: apparently "Blackwashing" is not a thing when White fans āallowā it. Take this recent trend with Miku. International Miku was beloved! But if you draw any other character as Black on any other day, there will be people that are horrid about it. Ask any artist, Black artists and Black cosplayers especially, whoās ever done it what their comments are like. Iāve read entire missives akin to white supremacist drivel on how itās somehow morally wrong to make characters Black. Meanwhile no amount of āhey maybe you shouldnāt do thisā prevented the movie Gods of Egypt from being created, with a cast full of British White people.
Solutions to Avoiding Whitewashing!
Do I think you should know what Black people look like? Yes. Weāre humans. Itās 2024. Everyone knows what we look like when itās time to hate and discriminate against us, so you know what we look like when itās time to love and depict us. If youāre on Tumblr, you have access to the Internet. ESPECIALLY if youāre in the U.S., as Black people are the source of damn near every piece of online pop culture. If you can find my dialect to make my jokes, you can find pictures of me.
Would I rather you use a reference every single time so that you can only strengthen your depiction of my people? ABSOLUTELY.
Anyone on the Internet telling you not to use a reference or that you shouldnāt need a reference? Unfollow them. You donāt need that negativity in your life. Why would you deprive yourself of a tool to create? The greatest portrait painters in history had to look at their subjects! You are not getting paid nearly as much to do this as Hans Holbein, and he had to stare at Henry VIII correct else lose his head- you can pull up multiple references. Iād far rather be judged for using hella references than be judged for being a racist!
Part of the issue is people draw what theyāre used to, what theyāre comfortable with (thus last lesson). But if what youāre used to is not what someone will look likeā¦ Thatās not okay. Their features are not the issue, your skills are the issue. Learn! Practice! There is no rush. No one is rushing you to be perfect at drawing Black characters, and no one is rushing you to post them. You can just practice! If youāre not a professional, you can take as long as you need to draw! If you need to draw that piece of hair over and over until you feel like you have down the shape, you do that! If you need to use a tool that would draw the hair for you, you get that tool!
If you want to post, you can say you are practicing! If you make clear you are practicing, then be willing to accept that people may have feedback. Iād far rather deal with someone saying theyāre unconfident and practicing, than someone posting a whitewashed caricature and closing their ears because āwell at least Iām trying!ā
2) Empathize! Care about actual Black people when you create a Black character!
Imagine, if you will, in the Twilight Zone: you went to an artist, and you asked for a white character (I typed in āregular looking white dudeā on google). Thereās hardly ever any white characters, youāre so super excited about this one! You paid good money, because youāve seen just how amazing this artist creates! Theyāre so good at drawing characters of color! But no matter how many times you ask, they send you back an image ofā¦ Assad Zaman.
That man might be fine as hell! Gorgeous! Beautifully done! Chefās kiss. Stunning! Butā¦ Heās not white. Thatās not what you asked or paid for. You canāt even fathom how they mixed this up, they donāt even look alike! And when you confront them, they gaslight you, they call YOU the issue for not understanding how you canāt tell that this is a white man! They would never get this wrong! They have white friends, youāre the racist! But youāre not stupid, and you have functioning eyes- you can SEE what this drawing looks like! Andā¦ Itās not you.
Itās dehumanizing. Itās being told that thereās a ābetter wayā to look like you, and thatās byā¦ Not looking like you. You, as you exist, are whatās incorrect. Your identity is incorrect, not their drawing. Itās better to have thinner hair instead of an afro or locs, itās better to have lighter skin, itās better to have a straighter, thinner nose over a round one, and smaller lips.
And what makes it worse is knowing that people who donāt look like you? Probably wonāt care. They wonāt be willing to see- not unable, but unwilling- that playing with this caricature is harmful, that theyāre propagating harm by not acknowledging it. Theyāre letting you know that your humanity means less to them than the clout received with a whitewashed or half-assed Black character, and that people will applaud them for that āattempt at inclusionā. And people will applaud! They will be entertained by the mere performance! And that hurts.
Iām going to say this, and itās awkward and I try not to say it directly on here, butā¦ Having Black friends and/or being around actual, real life Black people would help. I can tell from some of the questions I receive that Black characters and their traits- especially things like our hair and our cultures- are being treated asā¦ alien concepts. But even if, for whatever reason, you legitimately donāt know any Black people, you do not need to know us individually to care about our humanity as a whole! Even if you do not know weāre there, we are, and we could possibly see your work!
By acknowledging Blackness and making room to understand what it means- and that includes how we can look- you are doing the bare minimum of acknowledging our personhood. If you cannot do even that, you donāt need to be drawing us.
Hereās the thing: if you want to draw a white man with tanned skin, do that. Just do it! You do NOT have to erase me to have more of you! There is not a single fandom where the majority of the white fans ever said āgee, not another white guy!ā It simply doesnāt happen. God knows we wish it did sometimes. You will always have an audience for white characters. Thereās no danger to any of you of ābeing erasedā.
(Without putting on my political hat, I will say that a lot of white people who consider themselves to be far from white supremacist will express beliefs in line with great replacement theory if you push them hard enough. It is unfortunately not as uncommon an idea as you might think. I would do some self-evaluation.)
People are going to notice that you only ever draw white people, butā¦ To be frank, that has never stopped anybody from being successful. Again, Jen Zee, at Supergiant with the terrible dark-skinned charactersā¦ Still has a job. at Supergiant. A professional studio. Dragon Age. Multiple games of consistent whitewashing and racist writing. Still going. If racism prevented creation and popularity, I wouldnāt have to have this blog. Alas, that is the society we currently live in.
But if you ACTUALLY want to depict Black characters, if you ACTUALLY want to do right and be respectful- not because you want the clout, but because itās the right damn thing to do- then you need to commit! This means drawing them as they are meant to be! Accept that youāll likely lose some fan base, who was there (whether they were aware of it or not) for the white and lighter skinned characters. Accept that this means that trying to appeal to those people by whitewashing characters is 1) wrong, 2) racist, which is 3) something you chose to do when you could simply have justā¦ Drawn more white people.
Iāll say it again: antiracism is hard. Itās hard doing the right thing in a society that rewards racism so easily. Itās really hard knowing that people will stop supporting you or caring as much about your work when you start including Black characters as actively as you do white ones, especially if you start talking about the importance of it. But in my honest opinion, Iād far rather be someone that cared about others, with genuine fans, than someone that was racist for the fleeting internet clout of strangers. And that may be less āhopefulā than I normally am in these lessons, butā¦ People make choices. And people who have been informed- as you are now- are aware of the choices they are making. Itās the thought that counts, but the action that delivers- letās choose better actions.
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