on the surface, yes, whitewashing and “blackwashing” seem the same. but they are very different when considering the historical context of black people/poc in media and representation (in the usa especially)
minorities having any kind of representation is a luxury, while for white people, it’s just the norm to see themselves. poc often have roles taken from them because they’re seen as undesirable, not marketable and not worth representing. that’s not to say there isn’t representation for poc, but it is considerably less than white people.
for example if you can think of a character trope, there are probably several white characters out there that fit the description. but for poc, they’re a lot of the time no more than just side characters or a stereotype. it’s getting better now but we’re still no where close to where we need to be (especially when it comes to animated content).
so, when poc consume largely white media, it’s normal for them to grow attached to said characters and maybe want interpret them in a way that reflects them. when poc racebend it’s usually from a place of just wanting to see themselves as a type of character they really like. it’s harmless!
however, when a character that is established as a minority is whitewashed, it does NOT come from that place, seeing how there is an endless amount of proper representation of white people anywhere else. I have not seen an instance of whitewashing that wasn’t malicious. It’s always to actively piss people off or to change ethnic features and dark skin to something “prettier” which is incredibly racist. like the nessa situation. people whitewashed her saying, white skin is prettier and she looked less ugly with it and the same redraws of her quickly devolved into people just drawing racist caricatures of her (someone straight up drawing her as a monkey).
some people will argue, “well then go make your own show with black people and poc then” and what they don’t understand is that people are CONSTANTLY. TRYING. but like i said before, a lot of people don’t see black characters or characters of color as marketable enough so their ideas are either shut down or whitewashed to hell in order to make them more “appealing”.
this doesn’t just go for racebending either. this goes for any minority or underrepresented group. making LGB people straight, making trans people cis, making disabled people abled, making fat people skinny, making dark skinned black people light skinned black people etc. all are harmful and put out the message that these groups are undesirable and should be “fixed” which is just not true. “well wouldn’t this make white people feel the same way?” No. because they are very clearly desirable given that they have been “the standard” for centuries, they have been respectfully represented for centuries and still are.
if we lived in a world where white people didn’t decide to create the concept of race, didn’t use that concept to portray themselves as superior than others and didn’t reinforce racism, we might be having a different conversation. maybe we’d have equal representation if that was the case. but we very much do not.
