RightHandOfIkaros , 5 hours ago (edited 5 hours ago)

It’s not woke if all the characters are black. Can you provide some examples of this?

It can feel “woke” if the characters were white and are now black, or if the character’s skin color is paraded around as some virtue signal or trophy. If the skin color of a character breaks an already established rule of the story world (for example, black skinned dwarves or elves in Lord of the Rings), that can also contribute to a “woke” feeling. The established rules of the world or story should not bend around or break just to ensure a diverse skin color of every race in the story.

Nobody complains about Mr. T in the A-Team, Denzel Washington as Robert McCall in The Equalizer, or Samuel L Jackson playing Mace Windu in Star Wars, because the color of their skin is not their only defining quality. They are well written and highly beloved characters that are important to their story, have equally as good acting and dialogue as the other characters in their stories, and are played by actors that are well qualified. Their characters feel like they were always meant to be there, and when they were written into their story, their skin color didn’t matter.