Being Black or any POC and having White friends is fucking difficult. We have to make so many concessions for even the racially aware and accepting of the bunch.
Because I should NOT have to go line for line to defend why I don't like any White-washed Heathcliff and I shouldn't have to educate people about history and prove that it's possible for Heathcliff, who is treated the way he is for his race, to NOT BE WHITE, that him being a White man RUINS the entire story while simultaneously ignoring it.
Nor why I didn't support the Hunger Games when it was in theaters and am still annoyed whenever Rue comes up because she was ALWAYS Black the same way Katniss and Gale and HAYMITCH were NEVER White. That my issue with Amandla as Rue was that she wasn't DARK ENOUGH because she is DARK in the books, the same shade as Thresh. And Katniss and Gale, most of D12 in fact, should've been played by NATIVE AMERICANS or someone who wasn't pale skinned White when the Hunger Games is ABOUT CLASS and their skin color and features are IMPORTANT TO THE STORY!
Nor why I don't like vampires made Confederates for the sole purpose of being a fucking Confederate and then treated by the narrative that it's just FINE, that no one questions them ok their past and those that do are admonished or condemned for it!
Nor why I stopped watching anything MCU and have given up on MANY live action adaptations of comic books because Magneto, the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Nightwing, Talia al Ghul, Hellboy, DOOM, none of these characters are WHITE. Why should I just be fine a White person is playing them, erasing them!? Ed Skrein backed out of playing Hellboy BECAUSE he knew it was whitewashing! Why the actual FUCK do people just accept White Dick Grayson as if him being Roma isn't part if his story, like it doesn't influence EVERYTHING ABOUT HIS BACKSTORY (because yes, it DOES)
Nor why I HATE all the adaptations of Frances Hodgson Burnett's "A Little Princess" because Sara Crewe is legit described as having a "little brown hand" and a "small dark face," she becomes insecure and finds herself unattractive because the White girls around her are fair skinned with lighter hair and eye colors - and these adaptations strip that away and make her White when she SHOULD BE INDIAN!
Nor why a Black, dark skinned Green Lantern being played by a lighter Black man is still a problem because when we get ANY representation, it gets filtered through all the systematic racism and colorism enforced by society at large. Because yes, I'm happy for Aaron - but I'm also pissed that a character created for the sole purpose of showcasing a dark skinned character in a time where every non-White character was lighter than a brown paper bag AND KEPT DARK DESPITE BACKLASH THE WHITE CREATOR FACED is being lightened up.
Having to explain shit like this over and over, having to hear "but there's a lot representation" is pissing me off. Why the fuck are people allowed to be upset about characters they decided to imagine as White in their heads when THEY'RE NOT, why are people allowed to claim they can't recognize with Rue's death because "oh no, she's a Black girl, I imagined her as pale and blonde" and they're appeased by the masses, but I can't complain about color erasure!?
