I'm with Wilson on this one. I think what we're seeing now is Blackface 2.0. Putting Black actors into white roles to placate the sensibilities of a middle class hand-wringing liberal elite deprives the ability to tell different stories.

Stories in theatre and in film are still selected and funded by white folks. What most execs seem to be unable to see is that THEY are the problem, the people doing the selecting not the people who are squeezed into an end product.

I wrote about it in relation to the Black Mermaid saga unfolding. There are wonderful other stories to tell from around the world about mermaids, why on earth would we want to colourblind cast a Scandinavian story and pretend it's progress.

The story is here if you're interested. https://medium.com/p/d64a3f8e48b8