CMV: To a large extent, frustration with "raceswapping" (such as in THE ODYSSEY) originates from racism whether you're conscious of it or not

When I was a white kid living in the suburbs I read a book called Maniac Macgee. I remember that, despite knowing the characters were black, I had a very difficult time imagining them in my head that way. I didn't dislike black people, but I didn't know any and in my 10 year old brain there was a strange discomfort to accepting that my mental image of these characters should reflect something so unfamiliar to me. Maybe I was a uniquely racist kid, but I can't help but think that this experience is universal and that some people don't grow out of it. This is the crux of my view: that some people never really develop comfort with seeing and relating to black people.

Because I had this experience as a child, the idea of representation in media makes a great deal of sense to me. Children need prominent black characters in media or need to see black people as human in order to overcome this feeling. There is also the idea of "internalized racism" which could mean that even black kids struggle with seeing Hollywood or book characters as being like them.

When people talk about discomfort with black Ariel from THE LITTLE MERMAID or Helen of Troy, I can't help but remember my relationship with Maniac Macgee. It doesn't help that twitter is a cesspool of people not only frustrated with Lupita Ny'ongo's casting but also outright calling her ugly (and many more racist insults). Suffice to say it's not controversial that much of the blacklash IS racist.

But I would go as far as to say that even people who don't think that they are racist or who object to Lupita for what they perceive as non-racist reasons have this discomfort in the back of their heads: this subconscious disappointment that they have to see a black person in an unexpected place. I feel this is problematic. I'm a bit disturbed how many people accept this idea that you can feel weird seeing a black person on screen and that's somehow the movie's fault. "Historical accuracy" is just an excuse and to me not a compelling argument because we accept inaccuracy in other aspects.

tl;dr I feel disturbed how many people are comfortable admitting they don't like seeing unexpected or unwanted black people on-screen.

An argument that won't work: "Well I like/don't care about black people when they're where they belong!" yeah... I hope that the way I phrased that speaks for itself.