We Need to Talk About White Actors Voicing POC Characters

This ain’t it chief! This isn’t what we have been marching in the streets for! We’ve been asking for social and police reform, to be treated as humans and to be able to walk down the street without the fear of being gunned down. But it seems that we have been given a bunch of “symbolic” changes. Changing street names and tearing down racist statues is cool and all but without real social change it’s just a bunch of fluff. But since this is where we are, let’s talk about it.

There has been a big point that has been missed with the surge of white actors stepping down from voicing Black characters and other characters of color. In case this is new to you dear reader, many white actors recently have chosen to no longer voice characters they have been voicing who are Black or a Person of Color. From Jenny Slate on Big Mouth voice Missy to Kristen Bell on Central Park voicing Molly Tillerman to Mike Henry on Family Guy voicing Cleveland Brown, these and other actors have stepped down from their roles and are advocating for People of Color voicing characters of color. And yeah, sure it’s a nice gesture, but this isn’t about having the actor and the characters match. That’s missing the forest for the trees, often purposely so. None of these characters are voiced by a Person of Color What casting directors want to do is find the right voice to match their character, and I’d like to think that most put in a concerted effort to this this. Yet many times it comes down to who they kno…