K so I get part native Canadian, I’m part Native American, but like why deny that blackwashing is a thing? I watched the whole video you linked, I’m just not convinced. Like it’s not fair even if there’s a history of whitewashing. If we’re trying to go for equality, there should be actual-ass equality
Exactly, there should be actual-ass equality. Which there is not, which is why “blackwashing” is not a thing.
Take a look at this graph from this 2017 report:
This is indeed almost identical to the 2016 report:
From one Indigenous person to another, then, how does it feel to you to almost never see yourself on screen? (And I do mean never. The ‘other’ percentages of those graphs broken down further show native peoples rep is 0-1%. Which is why supporting independent film festivals is so important.) How does it feel to you when that number is decreased even further when non-native actors take native roles? That is why whitewashing is so bad on a statistical level, let alone the racism in deciding a white person is better to play a native person than an actual native, of which said roles are often either straight-up about or strongly connected to the character’s nativeness, as further discussed in the video previously linked. [Here it is again for context]This is no different when whitewashing other minorities.
Now, lets for a second pretend that Nick Fury in the MCU isn’t based on the Ultimate comic verse Nick Fury, who is Black. Since people love to use him as an example of quote, “blackwashing.” Take away Sam Jackson’s portrayal of Nick Fury in the first and second Avengers films, and you have a main cast that is entirely white. (Since Wanda and Pietro were also run through the whitewashing machine.) All white men, and one-two white women. Looking at the first film alone since with the added whitewashing things are even worse in Age of Ultron, yeah, this sure would have been accurate to the comic books, (again, pretending this is 616 Fury and not 1610,) but why would you want to be accurate to something that could instead be improved upon? Why would you look at a lack of racial diversity and decide to prioritize keeping the status quo, rather than challenge it?
TL;DR: “Blackwashing,” “brownwashing,” etc. does not exist because it is a false equivalency to whitewashing. It is a false equivalency to whitewashing because white people are not even in the slightest loosing representation when a white character is played by a racial minority, whereas when white people play minority roles, they are taking away from what is already very little representation for us. If we lived in a world where these statistics were not so drastically disproportionate, then there would be something to talk about. But if you are really wanting to support equality, you should focus on equitably supporting those who actually need it, not white people.
Wela’lioq wjit nike’ (thank you all for now).
(If you’re going to reblog anything in this discussion, please make it this. In fact I’d really like to see this reblogged.)