So, in case you haven’t heard since it was announced in August, Mary Jane Watson is going to be black in the upcoming re-re-boot “Spiderman: Homecoming.”

I personally could not have been more excited about the new movie (and Marvel’s chance to finally polish off what has become a bit of a cinematic turd in the hands of the execs at Sony); but when the news hit the public, the internet… did what the internet does best.

In the same pattern that followed Michael B. Jordan’s casting as the Human Torch, the still-pimply, 40 year-old fanboys crawled out of their dank basements and dusted the CostCo-brand Cheeto dust off of their fingers to unleash their virginity-fueled rage. (Did I get enough stereotypes in there for ya?)

The recurring theme to the complaints were boo-hoo cries of “forcing” diversity, with the preamble “I’m not racist but…” or “I’m just saying…”

“It doesn’t make SENSE to change the character’s race!”

“How would you feel if we made Martin Luther King Jr. a white guy?” (Yes, this has actually been said, though the minority historical figure often changes.)

“It isn’t fair! You would cry racism if we made Black Panther black!”

Since all of these arguments are dumb as hell, but dumb in their own special ways, I’ll address each of them separately.

1. To change a character’s race is nonsensical.

So this one is pulled out pretty often, but the places in which it’s utilized lack sense. For instance: The Human Torch. Just a reminder that these fans are readily willing to accept that a group of kids got their powers from being unprotected in a space radiation shower. (FYI, you just get cancer, not the ability to shoot flames or fly).

However, when the possibility is raised that either Sue or Johnny Storm (side note: the f**k is that last name?) is adopted, THAT’S when we’ve crossed into absurdity.

Then, with Spiderman and Mary Jane, there is LEGITIMATELY no effect that the character’s race has on the story. Not unless you think that somehow black people are inherently different than whites and thus can’t play the role of “awkward kid” or “damsel in distress.” In which case, psst, you're racist.

There are characters whose race is inherent to their identity, such as Black Panther. He is the King of a Near-Saharan civilization. Those kind of tend to be black, but even if you want to pull that “there are white Africans!” argument, please feel free to skip directly to point 3.

2: What if we changed a minority historical figure’s race?

Are… is this really an argument? Y’all realize that these are f**king fictional characters, right? If there’s a movie about MLK, then yeah I expect him to be black, but if there’s a movie about FDR I expect him to be white because — and I can’t stress this enough — THEY. AREN’T. FICTIONAL. F**KING. CHARACTERS.

If you’ve ever thought that this was a legitimate argument, please have multiple seats.

3: Why isn’t it acceptable to change comic book characters to white people then?

*Sigh* I tire of trying to explain institutional racism to people who choose to be obtuse to it, but I’ll try to make it as simple as possible. As this site shows, straight, white males are over-represented in comic books already. I’m not mad about that, it’s a side-effect of the fact that when comic books became widely recognized as a legitimate medium, those were the only people reading them.

But that’s not the case anymore.

A more diverse group is reading comics now, and comics are still lagging behind in that sense.

To make it clear: the site sampled the most popular comic book teams, resulting in 158 heroes (though some were repeats). Out of those, 74 of the heroes were white, straight, cis-gendered males. The remaining 84 accounts for EVERYTHING ELSE: all other genders, all other sexualities, and all other races. That’s not representative of society.

Furthermore, only 15 of those were black superheroes, and this is after some of them have already had their races changed to black (such as Nick Fury). Meaning that if you change one hero, you’ve reduced the population of black heroes by 6.6 percent. If you change one straight, white male, you are reducing the population by only 1.3 percent.

So no, it isn’t equal. And no, you “aren’t just saying” either. You're talking down to people who want to have the same joy of looking on screen and seeing someone who looks like them doing something fantastical.

You're either doing that because you’re racist or you’re a douche.

So... which one is it?