Thanks for the thoughtful comments. But there's not really much to unpack at all. In a nutshell, any type of view that encourages someone to see themselves solely through a racial or ethnic lens is limiting and ultimately pointless when taken to the granular level. Not to mention takes away from what makes an individual special and unique.

Little children crying over cartoon images they're seeing on screen do not justify or validate an ideology. Just as many little girls cried over the original little mermaid, or anthropomorphic animals in Zootopia, or the minions. It's the job of responsible parents to teach children that what makes them special is their character, values, abilities, and accomplishments. If parents and society are propagating this idea that seeing someone who vaguely shares your skin tone in a movie produced by a conglomerate media company equals you having value, that's a poisonous and self-destructive lesson to impart.

And the idea that just because the actress in LM is black means she represents all little black girls is ridiculous as it would be if she were white and somehow representing all little white girls. There is a good article on Medium a person wrote about how Moana doesn't represent their culture and about the fact that she's too white and therefore post-Colonial. Check it out here:

https://medium.com/@k.m.strohl/moana-is-trash-abf2da99904b

Then there's the whole dark skinned/light-skinned debate many actors of color often suffer through sadly., i.e. not being "black enough." I recall even Obama went through that due to his biracial heritage.

It is a mischaracterization for you to say that I have a problem with POC actors playing "outside their race." Would it have been nice if Vasquez were played by a "legit Latina?" Of course. Preferable, to be honest. But Ms. Goldstein did just fine.