Swimming While Black

 I wish I could say I was surprised by this by I am not. People perpetually live down to my lowest expectations.   

When Disney provided every one a first ever glimpse of 2023 live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, the reaction has been disheartening to say the list.

No, people are not distressed that Disney is once again going to the well of turning an animated feature to a live action movie. Disney's lack of originality is not an issue here.  

The bug up a lot of ignorant butts is that the part of Ariel the Mermaid is being portrayed by Halle Bailey who is black.

Super racist fuckers are working overtime to come up with reasons why Ariel can't be black.  

For example, ‘The Little Mermaid’ is a Danish story, therefore Ariel should be White.  Yes, the story was written by Hans Christian Anderson of Denmark and first published in 1837. The same story that describes  Ariel and the rest of her mermaid kin as living “far out in the ocean” at the “bottom of the sea.”

In other words, not Denmark. 

Get a load of this damn argument: Mermaids are a European mythological figure and therefore Ariel should be White.  

Europeans do not have a god damn monopoly on mermaids. East Asian and Oceanic folklore has a lot of stories of underwater kingdoms and merpeople. 

So Mermaid does not equal European. 

Also not all Europeans are white.    

OK, apparently casting Halle Bailey as Ariel will cause all your copies of the animated Little Mermaid to be erased? 

Making Ariel Black is ruining childhoods and changing the character. 

Your copy of The Little Mermaid still exists. Geez! 

Our racists fuckturds also bring science into this. Or try to.  

Mermaids live under the sea and therefore would not have dark skin.

Let's have  far-right pundit Matt Walsh do the heavy lifting on this bullshit. "From a scientific perspective, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have someone with darker skin who lives deep in the ocean.” 

So undersea creatures can only have pale skin? 

Nobody mention that to the manatee which decidedly does not have pale skin. I mention the manatee because a lot of mermaid myths arose from ancient sailors spotting manatees and describing them as mermaids. 

Also of overriding importance to all these arguments: 

The Little Mermaid isn't real.