Reconstructing identity based on modern Projections

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I notice on the internet there is a massive backlash against so called casting of non-white actors in historic and fictional roles that are perceived to be traditionally "white", Some podcasts with almost a million followers are virtually dedicated to this one topic. A somewhat bizarre claim is that this will begin to lead to the end of "white" civilisation. Just google on youtube and there's hundreds of podcasters bemoaning this "race swapping" which they label wokeness

However what is new to me is how much people living in regions that are traditionally non-European buying into the same weird fantasies. Countries in South America and the middle east and India also apparently concerned about the colour and depiction of people in ancient world being representative of modern populations.

It is one thing to claim civilisations post-Roman/Greek times as "white" but it becomes strange when people living in non-white countries project the same "eurocentric" yard stick on civilisations that existed in the land they now occupy thousands of years earlier as being "theirs"?? This is factually and intellectually wrong, In my view civilisations that are long extinct are the intellectual property of all human beings not just the people who occupy the land where they once flourished.

In my view eurocentricism has contaminated the minds of people all over the world to the extent that they are also projecting eurocentric concepts such as "white adjacency" onto long lost civilisations that (coincidentally) existed on land they now occupy, Case in point. The casting of Namor or the feathered serpent in the Hollywood sequel to Black Panther. Mexican people objected to the casting of the actor Tenoch Huerta Mejía he was too dark and not representative of modern Mexicans. To me this is utterly bizarre given modern Mexicans are the descendants of Spaniards (foreigners) who in modern times have zero connection to Mayan culture or to the people who called themselves Mayan.

The actor, Tenoch Huerta Mejía, on the other hand is indigenous and is culturally and spiritually closer to Mayans than the Spanish speaking Spanish descended Mexicans.

There is has been at least 4 centuries of whitewashing world history and the consequences of this indocrination is far more insidious and detrimental to world history than some random netflix show having a biracial woman play a Greek/Macedonian queen in ancient Egypt who is also erroneously claimed by modern day Arab identifying Egpytians who (in my view) are equally not connected to Cleopatra anymore than the actress who played the character.

(Unless it is a serious documentary) The producers will use whatever/whoever will bring in the biggest bucks.
Simples.

That takes wokeness back to the 1960s, there was also a lot of "blackxploitation" movies which continued the minstrel tradition of caricaturing black actors into objects of ridicule and comedy which continued to the late 1970s. Mel Brooks and Chevy Chase carried that tradition (appropriated?) in their early 1980s productions but removed all the black actors.

Most "Mexicans" are NOT "Spaniards".

Most Mexicans are Spanish speaking Mestizo (mixed Indian and European descent).

Mexican history did not "work" the same way as Anglo North American and Australian history.

The White Europeans did not replace the natives and create a "settler society" the way they did in the US, Canada, and Australia.

The White Europeans conquered the natives. Thats why they were called that. "Conquistadors", and not "pioneers", or "setters".

The natives had a large population with cities. The Spanish came in with all male bands of soldiers (who had no choice but to marry into the native population). This resulted in the modern Mexican people who are largely White only at the aristocracy level (but have some Indian blood even at that level), a middle bulk of the population that almost entirely Mestizo, and a peasantry that in some regions is still largely Indian (they still speak Zapotec, Mayan, or Nautl, in rural regions). Modern Mexicans have every right to "claim" Teotihucan (for example) as "their own" if thats their choice (and they do) because modern Mexicans ARE largely descended from the builders.

In contrast the Indigenous peoples of Canada and the US (like the aboriginies of Australia) were a small population, and the British sent whole families (like the Jamestowners, and the Pilgrims) who ended up just pushing the natives aside, or killing them (rather than conquering them), and replaced the natives with a new, White (mostly purely White) population. And even when there was intermarriage the Whites outnumbered the surviving natives by a huge ratio and watered down their DNA more than happened in Mexico.

I just view substituting black characters for white as a fashion thing. I don't think it changes anything much politically or socially. Usually I don't much mind, but occasionally I feel a bit of disdain and boredom if I think they're just jumping on the bandwagon for the sake of it. I marvel that some people take it very seriously.