It's just an excuse, as with many other reasons.
They want to replace anything significant with people who look like them because they can only engage in cultural appropriation and replacement. The reason whites get accused of this so often is because it is a form of projection - the racist, underhanded tactics that you get accused of come straight out of the playbook that usurpers are using.
The problem is that relatability has become entirely superficial where it's now, "Does this people look like me?" and has regressed into a tribal mentality.
A basic example would be Black Panther is, "Finally, a black superhero little black kids can look up to!". Ignoring the fact that black kids have a plethora of real and fictional people of their skin color to look up to, if we go by this logic, then Black Panther is ONLY a hero to little black boys. Shouldn't the mentality just be "Black Panther is a superhero any kid will look up to, even white kids!". I don't think 6-year old black kids give a shit if Captain America looks like them, only that he's cool.
I can’t think of any characters who I really couldn’t relate to, except maybe tommy wiseau, but I can still even relate to him. All you need is some empathy I suppose.
I think you're getting tripped up by your inability to recognize marketing, pandering, and the use of racial representation as a criticism shield.
I'm a white male married to a latina and I asked her about this one time. she says that needing a character to "look" like her has literally never occurred to her, and actually prefers white cast cause we're the "default people" in her mind. making random characters niggers or whatever is immersion breaking
they would only need empathy for kids for that
Women are only good at faking it to gain security and attention for themselves. Women being somehow these gentle caretakers is an absolute meme. There's a reason why it's the mother who kills their infant kid in the majority of the cases.
That's just internalized racism. If she wasn't married to you she would be saying different.
I hope you understand drowning can be a metaphor right? For feelings of distress, feeling, helplessness, inevitability, and so on.
Or wait, the issue is the skin color? Damn.
I'm drunk and I write gibberish lol.