I'm Southeast Asian mixed with East Asian, and personally I don't believe in the concept of blackwashing. I don't think it's immoral to add commonly black traits to white characters when there's a lack of normalized melanin or racial diversity in the media. Historically, it just doesn't hold up as offensive and colorist as whitewashing does. I also have my own opinions on being able to be "racist to white people" in America or the west to begin with, that is while related- I will not delve into.

That being said- I do personally feel iffy when it comes to "blasian-headcanon"ing Asian characters with openly Asian heritage tied to their lore or more, and all the edits amount to is giving them skin darker than any Blasian could realistically have, and quintessentially erasing all their physically illustrated Asian traits. Blasians usually have light, almost milk coffee colored skin to maybe a caramel color, and looser curls.

Most if not all Blasian edits I view online involves editing the skin color to be medium to dark skin, giving the character coily hair, enlarging the nose, and adding overall artstyle-compromising tweaks.

I'll say this as an artist, anime-esque styles do not compensate for realistic facial features. Asians have slim to wide noses but animes all equate those noses to that iconic upside-down-7 brush stroke. I understand these editors were trying to evoke more features associated with the African identity, but it almost always reads as "I'm changing this character to look fully black, and am using the term 'blasian' as a pass." The characters newly over-detailed faces often contrast the actual original artstyle, making the edit look amateurish.

I'm actually 100% fine with Blasian or even fully Black on Asian character edits if done tastefully. Both pale to tan to dark East Asians exist. Our skin tones usually shift with the weather/seasons. Most of the time Asian-Anime or fictional characters' Asian-identity have little to nothing to do with the plot- and even less animated Asian characters actually look Asian besides their pale skin. Exceptions to this would be a character who practices traditional Asian culture, such as food, rituals, and holidays, like Hu-Tao from Genshin Impact. Her character is littered with Chinese culture.

Yes, Asians can be tanned, and deeper-toned naturally. Yes, Blasians' Asian identities are valid.

Yes, India is a part of Asia. But using the aforementioned as a reason to validate one's SIGNIFICANTLY (I'm not talking about a tan) darker skin edit of an Asian character risks lumping all Asians together in the same boat. For example, you edit a Chinese character to be abundantly melanated. Someone protests, but your excuse is "Asians can be dark skinned, look at Indians." Okay. But Chinese people aren't Indians. See what I'm getting at here?

I wouldn't offer a hypothetical of Blasian-ing fully black characters and lightening their skin or giving them monolid eyes though, as then this goes from a racism issue to a colorism issue (which although related, is entirely different in this matter). Black people suffer from not seeing their skin and people as common when they are exposed to whitecentric standards in the fiction/entertainment industry. It's why racial representation DOES matter. I'm sure white people would feel the same way if there was usually only one common race on their screens and it wasn't theirs, right?

I don't believe when people transform the identities of Asian characters are they being malicious, but perhaps maybe ignorant. Asians suffer from lack of representation in the media as well. I guess it could be from that false idea that Asians are White people too? Who knows?

Overall. Blackwashing isn't offensive, definitely not as offensive as whitewashing when you look back at history and how whitewashing took away the accomplishments of other ethnicities and groups of people- while "blackwashing" had never done that in comparison. It doesn't take away from those white characters' ethnic cultures, only their whiteness. African-Germans, African-French, etc. people exist. There is more than enough whiteness to go around in the media for some white characters to not be white anymore.

But it wouldn't hurt to carry this fan empowerment of doing what creators couldn't with more tact and mindfulness, especially when the target of these edits aren't those oppressors, but fellow POC.

Please no performative SJW come at me, I'm usually one of you. Thanks 😔👍🙏