Super anecdotal, but a lot of my friends are getting more liberal as they age, so hopefully the tide will turn. Bush, McConnell, and Trump have made it really difficult for an intelligent, empathetic person not to move further to the left.

Did Lin-Manuel Miranda make “Crazy, Rich Asians?” Because I think we’re talking about two different people.

It’ very nit-picky. We scream about representation, and when someone does it, it still isn’t good enough and then we shit on the people who are on our side. 

“For centuries darker-skinned Afro-Latinx people have been erased from Latinidad, but we will be forgotten no more. We are tired of being maids and background dancers and will continue to push back until we are seen and heard. Indeed, Lin Manuel Miranda ‘fell short.’”

So are Afro Latinx, especially Cubans going to have that long overdue internal conversation about some of their people’s desire to be white adjacent when it suits them? I think it is amazing you have all the smoke in the world for Lin Manuel Miranda but none for the politicians that are GOP that are all too willing to…

When one apologizes, one is not entitled to forgiveness or absolution.

Yeah, I don’t get it (and I don’t think I’m supposed to get it, and that’s fine).

As for Léon, who has rightly been credited with sparking this very necessary conversation, in response to Manuel’s apology, she simply stated: “For centuries darker-skinned Afro-Latinx people have been erased from Latinidad, but we will be forgotten no more. We are tired of being maids and background dancers and will…

I swear Americans don’t have enough real issues in their lives.

LMM has done more to promote minorities on stage and screen than anyone else in the last dozen years or so. Too fucking bad if there’s not enough of a particular minority featured in “In the Heights” - he shouldn’t have to apologize for shit.

This reminds me of the whole “Hamilton doesn’t address slavery the right way” mess. At some point, these questions become self-defeating.

From the video interview it does sound like the creative team wanted a blend of people and we should see that in the dancers and the background characters. It sounds like the hope is to see that in the leads of these stories. Heights has 4 leads and 1 is light skinned Afro Latinx. In my opinion (which obviously should…

Colorism is definitely an issue worth discussing but it was kinda weird to see the title next to the movie poster with a prominently-featured Black actor.

On. Broadway. I played Claudius with Hamlet still being white off Broadway. IT’S DIFFERENT. I’m talking about Hollywood. I’m Hollywood, Brad Pitt isn’t producing it, That paper bag test will always pop up when you need funding.

Here’s my take on all this. It’s okay for other people to want to see people that look like them, even if those same people don’t look like YOU. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say LMM probably didn’t see a lot of people who looked like him in media. So when he made some media of his own, he wanted to center it…

I completely agree with you. I also find it odd that the frame here appears to be that Lin Manuel Miranda must be taken to task. If you were going to assemble a list of the Top 5 creators working today who have been instrumental in moving the ball substantially down the field with regards to advancing BIPOC…

I feel like there is a difference between “this movie needs more dark-skinned afro-latinx characters to truly represent the diversity of the latinx experience in Washington Heights” vs “this movie purposely excluded dark-skinned latinx to push an intentional colorist agenda”.

What they don’t want to admit is the actual answer to this question: “ Well.... We wanted the movie actually to be made.”

Okay, I’ll bite. Out of a cast of four leads: 1 lead, or 25% of the main cast, is a dark-skinned black man (Corey Hawkins). He’s not Latinx - but this is still a film where non-light-skinned, black folks are represented. 1 lead, or another 25%, identifies as Afro-Latinx (Leslie Grace), and is Dominican. Yes, she is…

I knew it wouldn’t be long before this movie got criticized for not being all things to all people. I’m glad it happened before it was even released.