#whitewashed out

- Linda Park, a Korean-American character, cast a mixed race half-Chinese American actress. Asians are not interchangeable and it’s frustrating when casting directors act like they are. Used as a love triangle stall to pit two WOC against each other over a white boy she isn’t canonically interested in. Not very developed beyond former LI of Barry.

- Doctor Light, a Japanese heroine named Kimiyo Hoshi, erased and portrayed as E2 Linda Park. Again, Asians are not interchangeable! Erasing a Japanese character for a Korean character played by a half-Chinese actress is so problematic. Not to mention how disrespectful it is that they made Doctor Light a villain when the female Asian version of Doctor Light is a heroine. Smh.

- Sandra Moonday Hawke, a biracial black Korean woman, erased for a white OC named Samantha.

- Connor Hawke, a mixed race (white, black, Korean) hero, had his background given to a white OC named William

And then the Connor Hawke in LoT ended up being Diggle’s future son (birth name John Diggle Jr.) instead of Oliver’s. And while I love Diggle and am not too fond of Arrow!Ollie, taking away the character’s background, giving that background to a white boy, and then shuffling off the character to the nearest black man is all kinds of problematic. They don’t mention his mother at all even though Sandra raised Connor in the comics. Does Sandra Hawke not exist? Was she replaced as Connor’s mother by Lyla, a white woman? Was Connor’s Korean ancestry erased??? I’m glad they eventually included Connor, but erasing his Korean ancestry and his black/Korean mother is so problematic.

- Ra’s al Ghul, Arab/Asian villain, played by white man. I don’t even want to get into how Arrow ruined Ra’s as a villain

- Nyssa, the child of Ra’s in the comics, is a lesbian (which, yes!) who is forced by her father to marry a white man to create a worthy successor… Because a lesbian Asian daughter isn’t worthy apparently. Denied her rightful place as head of the League of Assassins after her father’s death and forced to submit to the white man who killed him, Merlyn. She gets “revenge” by disbanding the League but still gets no focus.

- Shado, a Japanese character in the comics, becomes Chinese in the tv show. Because Asians are interchangeable to Berlanti & co. She’s Ollie’s LI, but she dies after he chooses to save his white LI instead of her… The implications of that whole scene are really disgusting.

- Tatsu Yamashiro, Japanese superheroine in the comics, had her son killed from a bioweapon virus and then had to kill her husband for becoming an assassin after their son’s death. Really angsty background that’s mostly used for Oliver’s character development. Pretty much only appears in present day to heal the white people.

- Sin, the Asian adoptive daughter of Black Canary, is whitewashed into a white girl named Cindy

- White Canary, a Chinese villain, becomes a heroine when she’s whitewashed into Sara Lance. The implications of that are so gross, especially when Berlanti changed a canon Asian hero into a (different kind but still) Asian villain with Doctor Light.

- And now Artemis Crock, whose most popular incarnation is a half-Vietnamese heroine. Her character is completely erased and her birth name is given as a vigilante codename to a (white-passing) character named Evelyn Sharp who apparently already has a codename (Starling) in the comics. It’s not whitewashing since Madison McLaughlin is mixed race (white, Latin/Hispanic, Native) but it’s still a form of erasure to take away Artemis’ Vietnamese heritage. POC are NOT interchangeable. It’s not okay for casting directors to act as if they are.

I’m so tired of Berlanti. And I’m so tired of people praising the “diversity” within his tv shows when those shows treat its characters of color so badly. This treatment is not exclusive to the Asian characters. It extends to all the characters of color within his show and it’s so disgusting.