A Brief History of Blackwashing

Rejoice, one and all, for Black History Month is here! Or, as we might dub it more accurately, Black Grievance Month. While October in the UK purportedly celebrates black achievements and notable black historical figures from Britain, it is more often used as a chance to attack the history of the British people and highlight the supposed evils we have inflicted upon nonwhite people since the dawn of creation. As part of this attack on our culture, activists are increasingly celebrating their own history by claiming the history of others, and co-opting historical white figures and fictional characters as their own. This practice is known as blackwashing. So, in the spirit of the season, I thought I would outline the development of blackwashing, from the 1960s to now.

Anti-Racist Ideology and Blackwashing

First, let’s consider why writers, directors, producers, and their marketers and financiers want to blackwash the media people consume. ‘Representation’ in the media is the first priority of creatives and executives. No doubt this is in part because they recognize fiction’s ability to influence the present, and their strict adherence to the ideology of anti-racism demands an esoteric praxis able to disseminate its presuppositions via more subtle means. When consuming fiction, people mistake the fictional world for their own reality, thereby handing the ownership of their minds to the writers, producers, and directors who want to manipulate people’s behaviour to become compliant anti-racists. Far from being as benign as it sounds, anti-racism is not a good-spirited attempt to create attitudes of harmony and tolerance between different races, it is, in fact, closer to the exact opposite, as we shall discover.

There are innumerable academic papers on the real-life effects of fiction which we can examine to reveal how the Left wields the power of ‘representation’. In a paper titled Turbans, Veils, and Villainy on Television: Stargate SG1 and Merlin by Katherine Bullock published in ReOrient, the abstract states, “I argue that the directors, writers, and costume designers for the US science fiction show Stargate SG1 and BBC's Merlin use orientalist tropes of the veil as exotic, oppressed or threatening as costumes for their non-Muslim characters because of the centuries-long association in Western culture between Muslim veiling and the Other, while differentiating between acceptable and unacceptable headgear and face coverings.” At the end of this abstract, she concludes: “I suggest that anti-veiling ideology in Western publics stems in part from negative connotations given to it in television shows like Stargate SG1 and Merlin.” Here we have a decisive statement of how Bullock recognizes a link between the media people consume and their understandings of reality; one enforces the other, and perhaps even creates attitudes that didn’t exist before.

Another paper is a 2021 College of Wooster thesis by Alyssa M. Smith titled Whitewashing v. Blackwashing: Structural Racism and Anti-Racist Praxis in Hollywood Cinema. The author states in the abstract: “Blackwashing will be viewed as an attempt at direct anti-racism or the act of promoting equal treatment that results in equal opportunities.” This is contrasted with the more familiar practice of whitewashing, which is “direct racism, or the act of treating people differently in a way that promotes unequal opportunities.” Again, we see here a connection between depictions of cultures and groups in media and the real-world harm done to those groups, with the assumption being self-evident that blackwashing leads to good societal outcomes while whitewashing leads to bad societal outcomes. This is the sleight of hand of anti-racist ideology. It does not prove its points; it only asserts them subconsciously, relying on white guilt and the ignorance of the masses to pervert people into agreeing with its absurdities.

There are further statements in Smith’s paper which strictly apply anti-racist ideology, asserting racism “can be perpetuated by individuals even without realising that is what they are doing,” and that this indirect racism “is when individuals of different races are treated equally, but the result still promotes unequal opportunities.” This clearly post hoc definition allows for the accusation of racism to be flung at white people whenever it is convenient. The only way to not be guilty of racism is to comply with anti-racist ideology, which “relies on the acknowledgement of racism.” This is a lose-lose situation for anyone not deemed a member of the privileged ‘oppressed’ classes, and a mechanism to guilt trip soft liberals.

Such militant anti-racism, when combined with the leftist understanding of media representation, leads to only one solution: the flipping of the ‘harmful representation’ to benefit marginalised groups, which are always defined a priori as non-white people. The abstract concludes: “The results show that blackwashing is a stepping-stone to quality Black representation in the Hollywood film industry. However, it is not a perfect solution to the issues of Black underrepresentation and misrepresentation in the long run.” As ever with leftist academia, a problem is dubiously identified which necessitates a vaguely constructed and never-ending crusade to remedy. Inevitably, the solutions are a transfer of wealth and influence from white people to non-white people, the creation of laws and compliance departments that employ activists, and the commissioning of more films by ‘underrepresented’ black filmmakers.

Outside the realm of the academy are the candid statements of Steven Moffatt, former writer and showrunner of the BBC’s Doctor Who. In its tenth series—Moffat’s last—Moffat cast a nonwhite actor as the companion because the producers felt “we need to do better on that. We just have to.” Moffat also failed in casting a black actor as the eponymous Doctor, although returning showrunner Russell T. Davies has made good on this aim, casting Rwandan transgender actor Ncuti Gatwa as the time-travelling adventurer. Already, publications like NPR are salivating over the show’s new chances to “explore gender or race on screen.”

How will all this help tell fun sci-fi stories for kids? The answer remains unclear, but that’s hardly the aim of such casting decisions. The intention of the creators, in line with the academic analysis, is to influence perceptions of reality and infect audiences with the progressive mind virus. Moffat, speaking in 2016 on why the show adds uncharacteristically diverse crowds into historical settings like Victorian London, admitted “We’ve kind of got to tell a lie: we’ll go back into history and there will be black people where, historically, there wouldn’t have been, and we won’t dwell on that. We’ll say, ‘To hell with it, this is the imaginary, better version of the world. By believing in it, we’ll summon it forth.” In line with this commitment to lie about the past, in an episode co-written by Moffatt, series 10’s "Thin Ice" sees the Doctor respond to companion Bill’s query on Regency England being more black than she expected “So was Jesus. History’s a whitewash.” All this is not the rambling of an obscure academic; it is the ideology of anti-racism, taken from the academy and applied practically.

There is evidence to suggest that the leftist understanding of the symbiotic connection between media and reality has merit. As recently as March 2022, a poll was released by YouGov U.S. that collected estimates of demographic group sizes within the US from 1,000 respondents answering in January of 2022. The results were remarkable: among the figures less relevant to this article, it was found that respondents estimated the transgender population of the US was a staggering 12 per cent, as opposed to the real 1 per cent figure, and that Jews made up 25 per cent of Americans instead of the real 2 per cent. Additionally, respondents estimated that the black population of the US was 40 per cent, more than three times the actual 12 per cent. Where are they getting these impressions? Why was their impression of population sizes within the US so skewed against reality? YouGov suggests that when people are asked to estimate a figure they are unfamiliar with, they tend to exaggerate, but I would hazard a guess that the vast overrepresentation of ethnic minorities within contemporary fiction has more of an effect than people would like to admit to themselves. Certainly, this is how the producers of the shows and films themselves understand it.

But What About Whitewashing?

The problem of blackwashing is nowhere near as prevalent within mainstream thought as whitewashing, which can prompt hysterical backlash and demands for Hollywood to ‘check’ its representation. There are many examples of whitewashing throughout Hollywood; a quick Google search will bring up any number of articles complaining about white actors portraying non-white characters, whether Asian, black, Hispanic, or otherwise. Indiewire, for example, has this handy list of twenty Hollywood whitewashing offences—memorable examples include Laurence Olivier as Othello in the 1965 Shakespeare adaptation, John Wayne as Genghis Khan, and Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

But this highlights a big difference between historical whitewashing in fiction and blackwashing as it exists now. It seems that whenever a complaint is brought up around whitewashing, as in the above paper from Alyssa M. Smith, it is because of a white actor portraying a nonwhite character, probably wearing unconvincing makeup to do so. This supposedly causes real-world harm. Rarely, if ever, does it seem that a character was whitewashed to give the audience the impression he was white, especially if he was a historically important figure. Often it was a result of practical considerations; “who will best play this character?” or “Who will make us the most money?” Sometimes it is just a problem of the lack of minority actors for a role.

Whitewashing, therefore, is not an attempt to diminish the cultural importance of the historical or mythological figures it represents. This cannot be said for blackwashing. Blackwashing advocates explicitly for reducing the cultural influence of white people within their own societies. Yes, there are bad examples: no one is jumping to the defence of Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. But still, whitewashing is relatively innocent when compared to modern blackwashing. It is naked political propaganda, especially when we consider the attempts to insert non-white people, particularly sub-Saharan Africans, into European history.

Black is the New Cat

A useful case study to illuminate the past and future of race-swapping is Catwoman. Within the realms of television and film, it is a well-worn tradition for Catwoman to be swapped at random between white and black actresses, with the original example of this being the (in)famous 1966 Batman series casting of Eartha Kitt in the role for its third series. Given the civil mood of the US at the time, it’s no surprise to find that the producers of the show thought of it as ‘a very provocative idea’. It was consciously breaking a taboo in the same cultural environment where Star Trek two years later would portray a utopian post-racial future and showed the first on-screen interracial kiss only a year after interracial marriage had become legal in the US. Whatever you make of this, it was an era of purposefully pushing boundaries, although, unlike our current era, it was pushing towards a unified, post-racial world, instead of a racially polarised one. Catwoman marks a very early example of blackwashing, and far from being race-blind, it was a deliberate political choice from the creators behind the show; even something as campy and lighthearted as ‘66 Batman was still a frontline combatant in the culture wars.

Continuing this tradition in 2004, Halle Berry was cast as the feline female in the ill-fated cinematic bomb Catwoman. I doubt anyone is clamouring to endorse this failure as a great example of representation, for which its principal actor won a Razzie for Worst Actress. Berry’s role in the film seems a relic of its time; any taboo about casting a black woman as Catwoman was well and truly smashed in the 1960s, so no one had any issue doing it again, especially with an actress as prestigious as Berry was at the time.

Attitudes have shifted again since the relative innocence of the mid-2000s. The 2022 adaption of the Caped Crusader, The Batman, cast mixed-race Zoe Kravitz in the role. While she did a good enough job, this was the first time that a blackwashed Catwoman felt the need to highlight her blackness by bemoaning the positions of power occupied by the “white and privileged.” Increasingly, blackwashing is not done only to transgressively promote diversity through means that can be plausibly denied, but instead to explicitly highlight social issues that the writers care about and want the audience to care about. Kravitz herself has stated it was ‘important’ to highlight white privilege within the narrative. She expanded in the same interview that this “wasn’t heavy-handed,” and that it “didn’t feel like it was there to check some kind of inclusivity box. It’s just real.” This goes to show how far those creating our entertainment media have gone in submerging themselves in the intersectional anti-racist kool-aid. Hollywood’s new role in the culture wars is not to entertain but to educate everyone about this new thought regime.

Barmy British Blackwashing

As well as being ideologically driven, blackwashing and representation is a top-down imposition via state-mandated regulators. Ofcom, the British television and radio regulator, has guideline documents for how broadcasters must meet their equality duties through the representation they display on screen. In the Annex of their Equity, Diversity and Inclusion guidance for broadcasters document, Ofcom lays out their “legal duties to promote equality of opportunity in the broadcasting sector, set out in sections 27 and 337 of the Communications Act 2003.” Section 337 of this act “requires Ofcom to include conditions in radio and television broadcasters’ licences obliging licensees to make arrangements to promote equal opportunities in employment on the basis of sex, racial group and disability.” Section 27 further mandates that Ofcom must keep track of broadcasters hiring practices, to ensure that discrimination is not denying appropriately diverse applicants from being hired.

From this requirement, Ofcom lays out the guidelines on how broadcasters can best meet their equality duties, lest they be stripped of their licence and ruined. When faced with demands like “​​Broadcasters must make arrangements to promote equal opportunities in employment between men and women, between people of different racial groups and for disabled people” alongside ‘suggestions’ that “broadcasters proactively look at where there is underrepresentation in their workforce, whether at certain levels of seniority, job functions or in certain regions in which they operate” there is typically only one way to comply; quotas. Quotas are how you end up with the BBC advertising for positions which ban white applicants. Ofcom themselves mandate that targets must be set that comply with that other great boogeyman of ancient English liberties; the Equality Act 2010.

Inevitably, hitting diversity means less ‘equal representation’, and more ‘don’t hire white people’. This is because underrepresented groups are defined as anyone nonwhite, and they are always deemed to be suffering from underrepresentation a priori. Therefore, the only solution is to discriminate in the opposite direction. Bloomberg highlighted this phenomenon in a recent article titled Corporate America Promised to Hire a Lot More People of Color. It Actually Did. The article revealed that post-George Floyd, the S&P 100 added over 300,000 new jobs, 94 per cent of which went to nonwhite applicants. The article featured no celebration of record profits or increased productivity as a result of this recruitment drive: it was solely devoted to praising diversity hiring as a good thing in and of itself.

Returning to Ofcom, their guidelines demand that broadcasters commission “content with diverse stories and voices.” This order is behind the deluge of dross currently featured all over British television, and influences the widespread blackwashing of shows like Doctor Who, although ‘talent’ like Moffatt would likely have forced diversity into his stories anyway. Dictats like “Broadcasters without diversity commissioning policies could consider putting in place an EDI commissioning template or process to ensure their production partners know what is expected of them to deliver a diverse production” mean that even production companies are forced to comply if they want to get work from large broadcasters. This is how we end up with absurdities like black Anne Boleyn. Apparently, complaints about casting a black woman to play a real historical white woman carried “racist overtones.” According to the creators of the show, they adopted an “identity-conscious” approach to casting rather than a colour-blind one. How unsurprising.

Despite being mandated via behind-the-scenes regulations and laws that many are unlikely to be aware of, let alone read, the general public has become highly aware of forced diversity being shoved down their throats by every media product of the past five years. Entire communities have sprung up to air their complaints about the diminishing quality of fiction that has resulted from the overriding priority being the colour of characters' skin over the quality of the stories. As much as I wish I could switch off from the culture wars and enjoy well-written propaganda, complaining solely about the lack of quality misses the point.

The BBC programme Merlin was an updated retelling of the Arthurian legend from the perspective of a young wizard Merlin. It was a typical reimagining for teenage audiences of the mid-2000s. But along with its trendy villain of the week format and Doctor Who production quality, it featured a greater diversity in its cast than would be expected of a story set in Britain in the sixth century. Most notably, mixed ancestry actress Angel Coulby was cast in the prominent role of Guinevere. While this may have been race-blind casting at the time—it is very difficult to find any statements from the creators and actors that address the show’s diversity—it has certainly gone on to be viewed in a different light. In a report for Ofcom titled Rapid Evidence Assessment of Diversity in Public Service Broadcasting by Professor Lee Edwards, it is remarked that 

Merlin … draws parallels between the difficulties faced by Uther in his war on magic, and the ways in which arguments about multiculturalism have not changed the reality that Britain is more diverse than it used to be. The use of colourblind casting (where the race/ethnicity of the character is not relevant to the narrative or to their identity), effects a parallel with the perceived value of integration as part of multiculturalism, and allows Arthur to represent tolerance and integration.

Whether this was the show’s original intention or not, the use of diverse casting serves a propagandistic function of promoting the multicultural society: of situating people of diverse backgrounds in a historical setting in which they would not have been found. Similarly, Angel Coulby has said in more recent years that her casting in Merlin was “undoubtedly a step in the right direction,” although she is sure to maintain that “I’m not saying the battle has been won.” Just like the conclusions to be found in academic writings, the battle is never truly over. The crusade has no endpoint, the revolution must march on. 

Real Black History

The blackwashing of real historical figures as well as fictional characters provides the clearest case for the shift in intention between formerly colour-blind hiring practices and our modern anti-racist blackwashing.

At first, the race-blind casting practices of the past dispelled taboos about diversity casting. Jumping ahead in time we can see the result of breaking this taboo, alongside heavy-handed legal and regulatory demands for equity and diversity, has led to such ludicrous acts as 2020’s Hamilton casting black and Hispanic people as founding fathers, and the mainstreaming of Afrocentric revisionist narratives like ‘Cleopatra was black’. If fictional media affects people’s reality, it follows that once you’ve accepted the lies then it is not too much of a stretch to start accepting rubbish about black Viking Queens, Africans building Stonehenge, and startling assertions that Anglo-Saxons never existed. All, of course, are made in the interest of making everything more “anti-racist.” Cambridge’s Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic seeks to “ dismantle the basis of myths of nationalism—that there ever was a ‘British’, ‘English’, ‘Scottish’, ‘Welsh’ or ‘Irish’ people with a coherent and ancient ethnic identity—by showing students just how constructed and contingent these identities are and always have been.” These same academics would never dream of trying to weaken the identities of their preferred minorities.

This is an attempt to radically alter history and deconstruct British identities. If this succeeds, it will undermine people’s understanding of themselves and how they fit into the world. Disconnecting people from their homelands and ethnic groups is a struggle to deny them an identity, which will paralyse them if they are called to defend themselves and their culture. Why defend something you aren’t sure is true? Why protect Britain if you’re unsure that British is a legitimate category? If it is, British people are the root of all evil due to the ‘crimes’ of Empire, and so everything that comes to them is earned. This is what the activists behind militant anti-racism and blackwashing want.

The Inevitable Backlash

As with all else political, blackwashing doesn’t happen in a vacuum and holds a role within a dialectic that is advanced by the constant push and pull of political discourse. To state it more clearly; whenever there is a backlash against a case of intersectional politics being pushed in a film, or historical characters being blackwashed, it is exactly what the creators or media pundits want. Every backlash is an opportunity to take a media tour crying about ‘white supremacists’ and ‘bigots’, which progresses the leftist cause by illuminating these subjects in the news cycle. The controversy creates its own news and generates the need for large publications to cover it sympathetically. This advances the cause by giving it the air time it so desires.

If the prominent examples of blackwashing and other intersectional agenda-pushing in media went by unremarked, there would be no need for the deluge of editorials and hit pieces decrying anyone standing against it. And yet at the same time, if no one fought back against these issues, it would be the same as giving up altogether and surrendering culture (pop or otherwise) to the left entirely.

However, this all hinges on the idea that enough of the target audience will buy into or ignore the media circus surrounding a property to still make a profit. If you chase off your entire audience, then the practice becomes unsustainable. (In theory, anyway.) The ‘get woke go broke’ thesis has startlingly few examples to back it up, but there have been two notable failures in the past year; the game studio Volition closing down after their disastrous 2022 Saints Row reboot, and umbrella corporation Anheuser-Busch experiencing a boycott of their Budweiser brand after Bud Light embarked on a controversial advertising campaign focused on the trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Perhaps the lesson to learn is that damage, even minor damage, can be done to large corporations if there is enough spirit and energy behind a boycott, most conservative campaigns amount to little more than griping, but Budweiser in particular was a concentrated effort, coordinated by media figures like Matt Walsh who ensured that it did not fizzle out after the news cycle had passed. If we can have more campaigns that replicate this, unashamedly championing the right of British and European people to protect their own heritage and its representation in the media, and not just a single session of moaning as the 24-hour news cycle whirs by, perhaps we can fight back.