But can she dance?

Has George Floyd seen The Fast and the Furious 9, and is it any good?

Random men setting a black woman on fire in Wisconsin?

WTF...

Whole bunch of white actors announced they will stop voicing minority characters this weekend.

Hank Azaria - Apu, Carl Carlson, Lou, Bumblebee Man, Simpsons
Harry Shearer - Dr. Hibbert, Simpsons
Tress MacNeille - Majula, Simpsons
Mike Henry - Cleveland Brown, Family Guy
Alison Brie - Diane Nguyen, BoJack Horseman
Jenny Slate - Missy Foreman-Greenwald, Big Mouth
Kristen Bell - Molly Tillerman, Central Park

Wow. I'm in awe. So woke

THE LEFT: "You should stop doing that racist thing!"
CORPORATION/CELEBRITY: "OK. We're going to stop doing that."
THE LEFT: "Fuck you! You just want to look woke!"

I'm sorry I don't give a fuck about bougie actors and cartoon voices?

Kind of a strawman, no? Certainly the left is heterogeneous but I don't think "hire black actors to voice black cartoons" was anywhere near the top of the list, and it smacks of the kind of empty, corporate symbolic representation that doesn't really address the structure of power--certainly when we're talking about voice actors, whose racial identities are, by and large, unknown to the general public.

It's like McDonalds changing their Twitter handle to "Centering Black Voices." Okay, cool, but as a corporation you're primarily known for using high-fat foods to extract wealth (both in terms of profits and labor) from poor POC communities which are often, coincidentally, food deserts, so.

Some of this stuff is sort of insulting really. Does anyone really think George Floyd's family is sitting around thinking: "I know we lost George, but Uncle Ben is finally off the rice box so maybe something good came of all of this pain?" People want real change.

have you guys read those actors statements on why they are stepping down? Hilariously awful.

But this is part of the change.

This is implicit bias.

Its ingrained in our psyches as a culture here. Why, when growing up, did you think twice about the black person walking towards you down the street? And dont act like you didn't.

because of the way black people have been depicted in media and all across the cultural spectrum from before we were born.

No, this isn't going to solve it, but its hopefully beginning to steer the ship in a better direction.

I figure members of George Floyd's family could, even before his death, list of a lot of things that piss them off. White actors taking jobs from blacks and slave imagery on packaging probably wasn't #1, but I'm sure they came up in conversation from time to time.

I think we can hold multiple thoughts at once:

1) Reducing the number of images of black people in subservient positions in mass food advertising is good, insofar as yes, as Strat says, these images do play into systemic bias, expectations of labor, etc.

2) These changes in themselves will not address the roots of racial inequality, which are first and foremost material, though they might ameliorate certain cultural manifestations of it.

3) Most of the corporations engaging in these changes are primarily trying to cover their own asses and/or bottom-line.

4) As usual, the media sphere changes (the black actors for black cartoons movement) primarily helps already-privileged people and is, again, symbolic, not material.

Or, a shorter way to say it would be: symbolic shifts are insufficient but not unimportant.

I'm sure they will be devastated to hear this.

This.

There’s no mass organized pressure to change voice actors, or to bury episodes of Scrubs or whatever...and there’s been no broad celebration after the fact to suggest anyone cares.

The changes people want are so much bigger and more significant than “dude, Dwight from the Office did a thing.” But I think that a lot of the actors and creative types are just trying to reassess the nature of their work in a way that lets them be more of an ally going forward, with basically good intentions. And I’m sure Dwight from the Office seems like a much bigger and more important cultural detail to you if you played Dwight from the Office, or copy-pasted created The Office.

Carl Winslow voicing Cleveland is not going to change a fucking thing.