I totally agree with you that it's often the case that we tend to view characters as white, male and heterosexual, and I also agree with you that it's understandable. I would take a bit more exception with the idea that it's therefore okay. I'm pretty sure that white women and black men and gay people also assume that a character is a white male unless they hear otherwise. And I'm pretty sure that does in fact reflect the environments we grew up in and the assumptions that we had about jobs and race and gender. It seems reasonable to me to say that we should challenge these assumptions and be a bit ashamed of ourselves when we assume people are white men in books. We should also be aware that whether a character is black or not may not matter much to us, but actually may matter a hell of a lot to other people, and that a lot of women, gay people and black people are a bit concerned about the idea that they're being—understandable as it might be—airbrushed out of books and—in fact—out of people's assumption of how the world works.

For example, a book where a woman called Lesley is in charge of a law firm is a big deal for a lot of disenfranchised women across the world. There are also men called Lesley, and if a lot of people just assume that character is male, then that statement that was made is missed. It's a big deal. It also compounds the idea that men are heads of law firms and women aren't.

Now, I don't want to make a huge thing of this. I just think it's reasonable to suggest that people *should* make a bit more of an effort to visualize characters, particularly when the text indicates that they're non-white.

I'd also point out that there's clearly a reason why people were complaining about the girl being black. And that's not just because they visualized her in their heads as white. It's because they thought that the film makers had decided to make some kind of point by *not* making her white. In many of these comments, the sense is that people are complaining that she's black in the film because of 'political correctness' or something like that. Whereas if, as you say, the race is genuinely not of importance to the audience, why would her being black be even worthy of comment. There is something prejudicial about the way people responded, even if it's not racist. There's some undercurrent of politics underneath that suggests that people change characters to appeal to the black lobby or something - that minorities are pushing their way into places unnecessarily. And I actually do think that kind of reaction is a problem...