Stuffies

On the topic of whitewashing in drawings

I think a lot of people don’t understand how or why it is racist, and I’m gonna to try explain it (in terms of fan-made drawings, I’ve already explained how it’s racist in terms of Hollywood casting below)

Whitewashing a character who is canonically non-white is a form of what has been termed “shadism”, which is a form of racism.

For those that don’t know, the definition of shadism is “a form of skin tone bias that identifies groups and individuals on the basis of their degree of pigmentation.It is an evaluation of people that minutely registers traits such as skin color, hair, and facial features in order to construct social hierarchies.” (Wikipedia, actual source: http://hwj.oxfordjournals.org/content/58/1/211.abstract)

If you’ve ever lived in South Africa, you’d understand Shadism first hand as a legacy of Apartheid. It was commonplace in Apartheid South Africa for black people who were light skinned enough to go to Native Affairs Commission to reclassify themselves as “Coloured” (not an offensive term in my country, btw), a racial classification primarily focused around people of mixed race. Why would black people do this, you ask? Because those who were classified as “Coloured” had better living conditions than “black” people. To be “Coloured” was desired because you were still too dark to be classified as “white” (the supreme racial classification where you got all the benefits), but you were treated better than you were as a “black” person.

So how does this apply to someone drawing a picture of a white (or lighter) Katara or Korra? It’s a form of implicit, internalized racism which automatically identifies people of a lighter skin tone as more valuable than dark. It’s like saying, “Katara is a well-rounded and amazing character. It’s a pity she’s so dark skinned, since a dark skinned person couldn’t possibly act as wondrously as Katara does. She must actually be tan or something, because she couldn’t possibly be brown.”

And it’s especially infuriating if the artist gets all the other details right. Her clothing is accurate, her hair is accurate, her eyes are accurate. It’s just that pesky skin tone that had to be changed. Why?

I’ve noticed a lot of artists blaming it on the fact that they can’t colour brown people. Bull. Shit. As an artist myself, I can safely say that you use the same techniques to colour skin tone no matter what skin tone you’re trying to portray. It doesn’t take two seconds to go to the colour-picker tool and choose “brown” instead of “pink” or “peach”. But Aura, you say, I draw traditionally! I can’t use a colour-picker tool!

Well then, what about your brown pencil? In a pack of 12 - 24 colouring pencils there will always be a brown pencil and if you’re serious as an artist (i.e. not a six year old), you really shouldn’t be using anything less than a 12 - 24 set! Even if you’re not serious as an artist, I’m pretty sure that even a 6 set of colour pencils has a brown or reddish brown pencil in there. Haven’t bought those in a while so I’m not 100% sure, but all that this proves is that there is NO EXCUSE for whitewashing.

But, you cry, I already made her hair brown with the brown pencil, if I make her skin the same colour that’s going to look weird! This is why we blend, my child, I reply. If you’re making the hair brown, use black to colour in the darker shades of the hair (such as the roots and to help differentiate the strands). When you’re colouring skin tone, use reds and yellows and oranges to make it closer to the colour you’re aiming for. I noticed that a lot of the white-washing fan artists are guilty of only using one colour to do the skin tone, and that’s where they go wrong. People are not just one colour, they have light areas and dark areas caused by lighting and shadows respectively. Even drawings of white people require a varying colour palette of reds, pinks and peaches.

For all the tl;dr people:

In summary, whitewashing a character who is canonically brown is racist because it is pandering to the ideas of “shadism” which state that lighter skinned people are more valuable than darker skinned people. If you’re an artist, I’ve given some tips on how to avoid whitewashing characters in digital and traditional works. Stay cool folks, I love you no matter what you draw, but if drawing an established character please make sure you keep ALL their traits. It wouldn’t do to make Naruto’s hair black, now would it? ;)