Iroh's New Voice is Offensive

For those of you who don't watch Avatar: The Last Airbender, I highly recommend it. Avatar is a kid's cartoon show on Nickelodeon with a heavy "asian mysticism" motif. I'm not going to elaborate, except to say that although the target audience is probably for children, the show is appealing to all ages from my young brother to my not so young mother. I, obviously, am also a huge fan.

The character of Uncle Iroh is a wise, hilarious and warm-hearted old man. Those of you who know the show probably love Iroh as I do. When Mako, the actor who provided Iroh's voice died, the show replaced him with Greg Baldwin. For those who don't know, Iroh is a somewhat archetypal old asian wiseman with Mako's voice. This old asian wiseman voice is now provided by Greg Baldwin, and reviews are lauding his performance, saying, "I can't even tell the difference! This is great!"

This is not great. I can't believe I haven't found an outpour of outrage. If I were to create an archetypal- hell, I'll just say in - stereotypical old black character (let's say, Boondock's Uncle Ruckus) and have him voiced by a guy named Greg Baldwin (think, middle-aged, overweight, and white) the NAACP would be all over the producers of that show like white on rice, pun intended. Are you kidding me? Why hasn't Baldwin's portrayal, which by the way, sounds NOTHING like the old Iroh to educated ears and minds, drawn parallels to black-face? Why are all you people taking this sitting down? I'm sick of the "Last Samurai" being Tom Cruise. I'm sick of Jackie Chan and Jet Li playing supporting roles to Michael Anthony Angarano. And I'm sick of Uncle Iroh being voiced by Greg Baldwin.