But there are visible mechanisms and invisible ones, conscious and unconscious ones, deliberate and accidental ones. We live less than ever in a simple world of "these over here, those over there". De-racializing our diverse environment means showing and treating racist elements that were hidden in common sense logic. For instance, the sense of normality and otherness. And those who don't realise these issues (don't realise, for instance, that we here have been living in a cultural environment where all representations of humans in media and fictions were based on some everybody-is-white normality with the rare other types standing out, and don't realise how it affects the image that society has of itself) are shocked by implicit factors being made explicit. Those who don't realise that our past and present folklore play an artificial, non-neutral, role in the inertia of our society's views are shoked that folklore is being consciously updated. For everyone, racial representations now exist, are being discussed and dealt with. It's analogous to the fact that we all have kidneys, but aren't conscious of them until they require our attention. And suddenly we live in very kidney times. In this case, it's the realisation that our societies are more diverse than what our traditional medias mirror, and that this has an effect on our senses of normality and identifications. It's a moral issue, it's a pragmatic social issue, it's a scientifc issue, and it's a commercial, marketing issue. And it's exactly as annoying as correcting invisible bad habits, suddenly having to pay attention to things that you used to do naturally without thinking about it.

I'm not sure about the increment in global racism (because DAMN, the 60s were something else, and I don't even mention the 30s). But there's an increment in its visibility, and in the visibility of the "racial" factor (where it used to play an invisible role). And as antiracism is, basically, the deconstruction and irrelevance of that factor, there is a paradox in antiracism forcing us to pay attention to it in order to neutralise its "subterranean" mechanisms. This leads to denials being called out, to cross-accusations ("no YOU are the racist"), and also to genuine racism being expressed in defensive terms ("oh no, our majority is being oppressed"), and to dangerous reactionary reflexes ("vote for simpler times were we're all amongst ourselves, and by ourselves you know what I mean").

But if you look at the arguments, almost all of them (naive or thoughtful, simple or complex, honest or manipulative) are based on the "racism is bad" premise (with even blatant racists usually denying that they are, or truly wanting not to be the racist ones). The fact that the antagonisms usually play out at another level ("what is antiracism", "does this practice reinforce or undermines racism", etc) makes me hopeful. In that I see a global decrease of racism. Or else, self-identifying in racism would be deemed more "respectable", and the nature of the arguments would be very different.

Also :

I pretty much disagree with that. I think that most succesfull tv series have a public distinct, broader, wider than their original sources'. The fans of "Game of Thrones" have, in their majority, not read the book, or read it because of the series. Same for "The Expanse", for "The handsmaid's tale", etc. The fans of the novels are a tiny subcategory of the tv series' public. And the series' success is independant from them. That's why the series operate on a different logic, and feels free to re-create its source's world. To adapt it for tv viewers.

Same as in cinema. Faithfulness to a book never played any role on the success of a classic movie. Many blockbusters are very very hollywood-ized novels (even when the book iself is a classic).