Member-only story
NotMyAriel: White Cultural Appropriation Is Not Real
It’s likely not a coincidence that the 4th of July in the U.S. was heralded online by racist hashtags/words trending, such as the use of the word “colored” in a Global Times tweet.
The other trending hashtag had to do with what Global Times was using the word “colored” to tweet about — Disney casting a Black girl, Halle Bailey, as Ariel in their live-action adapatation of their animated hit “The Little Mermaid”.
Those same people who shrug when articles discuss children in cages, unarmed Black men gunned down by authorities, and other destructive racially motivated acts, lost their collective minds at learning a Black girl was going to play a fictional character.
Their responses centered around two connected, main points. The depiction is “inaccurate” and destroying their childhood and if the situation was reversed and BIPOC characters were portrayed by white people it would not be acceptable, so those of us espousing diversity are hypocrites.
