

#Lighten Up – the colour of skin, in cartoons - hunglee2
https://thenib.com/lighten-up-4f7f96ca8a7e

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Nadya
Maybe this is common, part of a larger picture, but the story is presented as
a more isolated incident and I will treat it as such. There was no racism in
her words to "lighten the skin tone" \- only a misunderstanding of _who_ the
character is.

The editors own response: "I was told she was Latina and white."

The author's believes: "Mexican father and African-American mother"

Obviously the author would create a darker skin tone if the character is half-
black. But why retain that same darker skin tone if the character is half-
white?

The author then cites 3 examples of "Latina skin tones" and ignores the "and
white" part of the editor's statement about the character. He should have
clarified with the editor "by Latina do you mean Mexican? Or Dominican?
Brazilian? Latina is like saying "Asian". It's too broad." That's a failure on
the editor's part for lack of specificity.

I question his choice of darkness for Dominicans, they are not that toned
unless they have also have African roots. I feel he only did that to try and
stress "darker skin tones" to justify his usage of a "darker latina".

The editor and author both have different viewpoints on this specific
characters ethnicity. The author believes she is hispanic and black, the
editor believes she is latina (probably hispanic) and white. Due to the
"characters changing over the years". So now the issue of lightening up the
skin comes down to who's view on the character is the "right" view.

If the editor is _wrong_ and the character is hispanic+african - then don't
lighten the character. If the editor is _right_ and the character is
hispanic+caucasian then it might make sense to lighten the character.

No racism. Simply a misunderstanding of "who" this character is.

