HOW TO NOT WHITEWASH AMBER GRAY
the other day, i made a post about fanartists and gifmakers contributing to fandom racism by whitewashing characters of color, and it occurred to me that some people might not know exactly what i’m talking about. i’ve seen posts akin to the one i made posted by content creators that make this exact mistake, and i just want everyone to be clear on what i’m talking about, and how to correct it.
for as long as i’ve been in the hadestown fandom, i’ve seen people whitewash persephone. they make her pale and then defend themselves by saying that it’s “difficult” to get her skin color right. well, now it isn’t! i’ve compiled six skin tone palettes from six different pictures of amber. granted, a couple of these pictures are in different lighting, or have a filter on them, but even if you look at those, none of the colors that i picked from those pictures are even CLOSE to white. you no longer have an excuse to whitewash persephone. well, you never did, but now you have even LESS of an excuse to whitewash her.
amber identifies as mixed, or a biracial Black woman. this is no invitation to make her skin as light as you want. as seen above, her skin has lovely red/pink undertones to it, and her palettes are all very warm. each color on these palettes is color-dropped directly from the pictures. i encourage you to use these palettes when you draw persephone, or any character that amber has played.
you don’t have to give credit when using these palettes. all i ask in return is that you stop doing the beautiful ms. amber gray dirty by whitewashing her! i better not see any of that shit anymore! this has gone on long enough and i’m not afraid to call you out. thank you.
