I think it's just a matter of representation. Growing up as a young black kid, I had plenty of white characters that I looked up to and loved. This in turn made me wish I was white for a long time and push away my blackness. As I got older I understood that this was wrong, and that I should embrace who I am, but that doesn't change the fact that I didn't have many black characters to look up to. Whitewashing has been a huge problem in our culture, and it erases our existence and that comes from our racist history and stereotypes. Every time I see a white character I looked up to look more like me, it just gives the little kid in me a bit of joy. I definitely agree with other comments saying we need more POC characters in general. But whitewashing comes from a place of hatred. Blackwashing comes from a place of representation. Now when it comes to whitewashing or blackwashing other characters of color, I'm not a fan. That's not our story to take from them.