Whitewashedtbb - Tumblr Posts

so i was watching some echo video clips and i have to say that i'm so incredibly frustrated with how he's been animated in tbb and season 7 of tcw.

obviously, the hashtag #unwhitewashtbb focuses on how tbb have been subjected to whitewashing and racism (and ableism when it comes to echo), but i just wanted to add on something specific. the point i'm about to delve into may have been brought up already in other similar posts, but i'm still going to talk about it in an effort to bring more attention to it.

as a poc, it pisses me off that echo is not just pale, but LITERALLY as white as a sheet of paper. the explanation is that bc he wasn't exposed to sunlight and didn't have proper nutrition, his skin color faded away. well let me tell you that this "explanation" is absolute bullshit.

i'll give you an example of why. this past year bc of the pandemic and everything going virtual, i have rarely gone outside. as in i maybe would go outside for like 5 mins once a week to throw out the trash and then come back inside, even during the summer. and just to be clear, i have brown skin. despite my lack of sunlight, i did NOT lose the melanin in my skin completely. i don't look white. yes, i did lose a tiny bit of color because that's just natural, but it's obvious that i'm still as brown as the day i was born. nothing will ever EVER change that.

this is why echo being so white literally doesn't make sense. you can't just lose your melanin to the point where all the color from your skin has been drained. and since the clones are all based on temuera morrison, someone of maori descent who clearly has brown skin, it is just so infuriating to have echo (and the rest of tbb) portrayed so inaccurately.

what i've said is just about skin color. don't even get me started on the other inaccuracy problems with the animation and plot.

this post only scratches the surface of how deeply rooted racism and other such discriminatory "isms" are rooted in star wars and its fandom. please be aware of that and support the fans of color who call out these major issues!

edit: i forgot to mention something about the malnutrition part of the "explanation". because the separatists/the techno union wanted to get republic info from echo, they needed him alive. not conscious, just alive. and to do that, they put him stasis. news flash! to keep someone alive (even if they're in a vegetative state), you literally HAVE to give them nutrition, otherwise they will die. this means echo wasn't malnourished. so, as you can see, both parts of the canonical explanation just do not make any sense in the slightest, biologically or otherwise.