A neighbor kid who came over to play asked if Klara is going to see “the black mermaid” at the movies. Klara looked confused, and I changed the subject. We never discussed the last version of the movie as “the white mermaid” and I don’t see why we need to refer to this one as “the black mermaid.” A movie is either good or not. And the mermaid stinks no matter what shape, color or tint she is.
It is kind of weird that it’s considered some kind of racial justice to portray black people as white wannabes instead of filming movies based on black characters. There are tons of excellent folk tales, stories, novels, etc about African characters, for instance. Why is it necessary to redo, for the millionth time, the horrid little tale by a mentally unwell European guy and have black people pose as substitute whites?
Klara loves Anansi stories, for instance. Why not film them? We’d go watch them because they are fun. But no, let’s do a black Snow White instead because we have only heard that fascinating tale a million boring times.
Clarissa's Blog 
” Why is it necessary to … have black people pose as substitute whites?”
It’s less about representing black people and erasing white people (see your comment mentioning the erasure of jews in the Soviet period).
It’s a little more complicated than that, but… not much more complicated.
It’s also why they redo formerly male figures as female – not to ’empower’ female characters (usually low burlesque versions of the originals) but to emasculate men and male values.
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