I get the appeal of feeling represented by your own race, seeing as I belong to a minority race (Chinese). But there's just something off about the way we talk about race today. It's weaponized through acts of gaslighting instead of being just a positive identity shared among other racial identities in the collective community. It's becoming this tribalistic "my race is more important than your race" conversation that provokes arguments rather than having a civil discussion. Morgan Freeman said it best regarding this "race superiority mentality" when he asked the reporter, "Which month is White History Month?" It just seems to me that the most common responses to supposed "racism," especially on popular social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit (and now Medium), is by denouncing another race, specifically the "evil white people" whose ancestors' crimes are still being paid for by their descendants today. You can't fight one wrong with another wrong, in this case, fighting racism with racism. And yes, white people can face racial discrimination too (see Manveer Heir and his hatred of white folks for more info).

I also couldn't help but notice that Asians aren't often involved in the conversation when Hollywood decides to race-swap someone. I remember that there was a bit of backlash when Scarlett Johansson was cast in the adaptation of a Japanese animation, Ghost in the Shell, but the backlash was minor and didn't blow up as much as the recent Little Mermaid controversy. I admit that as an Asian, I was indeed a bit annoyed by the whitewashing, but I think the annoyance wasn't just about race, because Chinese and Japanese aren't the same race, but more about representation and what you grew up with. To have that representation dismissed in a popular Hollywood film that would receive global exposure does hurt people's feelings, no matter how logical we try to be when considering that "it's just a fictional character." That's why I didn't find white people's annoyance over the Little Mermaid's race-swap unsympathetic or unrelatable; it's the same thing, dismissing someone else's representation with your representation. Those white folks grew up with white Ariel. Heck, even a little black girl identified Ariel as white on TikTok just yesterday, shouting "But Ariel is white!" It trended on Twitter for a bit, and I've pinned it on my profile if you'd like to see the evidence. Try to imagine, for example, if someone made an all-black live action version of The Incredibles, going so far as to replace the family dynamic of an all-white family by incorporating the experience of growing up in an all-black family instead.

So what is the solution then? How do we have representation for young black girls who need a fictional icon to look up to or relate to? Original stories would be one solution, since they wouldn't be stepping on anyone's toes, but adapting stories from a long time ago seemed to work well for The Princess and the Frog, a fairy tale so old no one remembers what her original race was. Yes, The Rings of Power did receive backlash in spite of such a solution, but the general complaints I've seen were aimed towards Galadriel's Mary-Sue writing, not about race. When you do it right with good writing and sincere storytelling, it could work.

And I think people only took issue with The Little Mermaid's casting because race was placed in focus here by the corporate media, namely the Walt Disney Company; posts like yours certainly help flamed the fire further. Here's a list of examples of race-swaps where people didn't shout from the top of the mountain their supposed "racist rage." Exhibit A: Jason Momoa playing a white superhero. Exhibit B: Two recurring characters in the James Bond films, Felix Leiter and Moneypenny. Exhibit C, and here's a whitewashed example no one took issue with: Casper Van Dien playing a Filipino (from the book) in Starship Troopers. It could work when skin color isn't the focus here, because people see these characters as people, not by their skin color.

Again, I get the appeal of feeling proud of your race, but it's a thin-line between race-pride and race-supremacy. I certainly don't just identify myself as a Chinese only (in fact, I don't possess values the Chinese culture is often associated with since I grew up on American media). It really doesn't help that in conversations like this where we talk about the pride of a race, racial stereotypes get mixed into the equation, with people calling out the new Ariel's dreadlocks because she's black. There's an association of racial stereotype at play in this conversation of (supposedly) racial diversity and racial representation. It shows how problematic it can be when you only see people by their skin color - you'd slot them into convenient catalogues. To take another example that's closer to my own identity: if I'm supposed to feel proud about Shang Chi just because I'm Chinese, does that "pride" mean anything when Shang Chi's Asian American values clash with my non-American ones? I'm Chinese, but not his kind of Chinese.