#racewashing

[lonelyvampyr]

I hate race washing

Its pointless and serves no value

We do not need to see characters with our skin color to relate to them. I like fluttershy and relate to her but I'm not a pink haired pony.

It is not "representation" and I hate how normalized it is or how if you say anything negative about you're immediately called racist.

representation is important! But not when it's recycled and only made for rage baiting or forced representation

I always hear "Well black people don't get representation" and honestly, its not an excuse to mindless just change the race of a character, especially already established ones.

Ofc theres exceptions like Miled morales, but with him he isnt just an established character turned black but has his own backstory, family, and earth. He isnt just "Peter parker turned black" But his own separate character (and not really a racewashed character but it's an example)

Truly many other black folk think the same as me, but are too afraid to say anything due to backlash but I want to make it known it is not as well accepted or appreciated as people think it is...

I know I will get attacked for my "controversial"opinion but hopefully some people would understand.

Ask yourself, Is black people just representation to you?  Is that all we are?

[sapphicconservative]

Your post on racewashing is brilliant. Honestly I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that it's always the redheads that get racewashed. April, MJ, Ariel, etc are all racewashed instead of boosting characters that already exist. Hell there is even a black and deaf mermaid in the Little Mermaid franchise that they could have made a story about. Instead they would rather change a character's identity. I would much rather see an original story about this character than a rehashing of an old one

"it's always the redheads that get racewashed."

I believe they use us because we're the easiest target. Redheads are very few in numbers and wouldn't be able to make a big fight against them for removing our representation. Which somehow makes it worse.

I was talking to a lady the other day about my red hair as her sister also has red hair. She brought up how people would always tear into her sister for having red hair. The abuse got so bad that at one point she dyed her hair a different color. It was only when having red hair became the hip new fashion trend did the elders leave me alone. But, the kids would still harass me and call me names because the damage was done and they were taught in that mindset.

People like to brush over redheads because we're usually white and already have a lot of representation in other white characters. A lot of people don't seem to understand that having natural red hair wasn't something that people accepted until fairly recently - or they don't even know people with red hair were harassed for decades! I'm 22 years old, I was still dealing with harmful names due to my hair color the day I graduated from high school 4 years ago. I want to see more redheads being treated with respect and equally with other characters regardless of their race.

But, yes. Hollywood has a huge issue with racewashing redheads to being black. It would be less bad if it was blackwashing any character, but they seem to be deliberately picking redheads who already have a history of being targeted. You can find countless of these compilation images showing all the redheads Hollywood has blackwashed.

[corythesaxon]

For the last time. Sokka is Inuit. He’s not white. Please stop generalizing Indigenous and Asian people. Take an Anthropology class. Traits do not equal race. Same race can have different looks. They don’t neatly fold. If you travel around every Asian country and visited every Indigenous culture around the world you’ll realize what you think of as Asian or Indigenous is generalizing and racist.

Also all you’re doing OP is making an Inuit person black.

[cyborgdan117]

[still-a-thot]

Controversial Opinon

though it really shouldn't he

making black characters white/asian/latino is bad. we can agree here.

making white characters black/asian/latino is bad

making asian characters white/black/latino is bad

making latino characters white/black/asian is bad

we should all be able to agree here. S H O U L D.

but apparently we can't

racewashing a character is bad full stop. it doesn't matter if "there's more white characters than the new race", because you should focus on just fucking making good characters of that race instead

it doesn't matter if "there can be dark skinned asians" because you're essentially saying that dark skinned asians are better than light skinned asians. if you want more dark skinned asians? make an original dark skinned asian.

(this applies to latino characters as well but I haven't actually seen any racewashing around them which is a small mercy)

also, drawing a character 1 or 2 shades lighter or darker than the original isn't fucking racism, especially if the rest of the colours on the outfit or whatever match the shade change

you're all so bitter

go bust a nut, it'll calm you the fuck down

[corythesaxon]

...

[sapphicconservative]

In the live-action Powerpuff girls the cw is doing one of them is now black

I bet I can already guess who it is...

[sapphicconservative]

Hey I saw your post about red heads being blackwashed, and I just wanna ask why Starfire? While she lacks the orange skin her race is known for she still has the red hair (no matter how horrendous the wig may be) and is still a alien. So I feel like that doesn't really count as blackwashing.

Other than that I do definitely understand the annoyance all my favorite dark skinned characters end up getting portrayed by lighter skin actors and if they're black they just end up mixed. It really sucks that Hollywood can't keep shit the way it is.

Ah, I included her because her hair was not red, at least to me. Magenta (or whatever shade of hot pink that is called) is more of a pinkish color than red. I don't consider her hair anything close to being a redhead, as it's not a possible natural shade of red as shown in previous versions of her.

A common misconception that was perceived on my redhead post is that I have an issue with minorities being redheads, which was absolutely false. I'm fine with minorities being redheads in films and such so long as their hair remains a natural shade of red. I see no difference between April O'Neil in the Bay movies or ROTTMNT. Both are horrible to me because they deliberately took away her red hair. It's simply just more prevalent to see cases of black people replacing white redheads in media, which was why I addressed it the way I did.

I do understand your struggle with Hollywood, though :( we need to work hard to boycott these movies and let Hollywood know exactly why. Otherwise this will continuously happen to both of us for our respective issues.