"Why is Pooh black?"

Junior year of high school, we put on Winnie the Pooh as our spring play, and we performed the show at all of the local elementary schools. 

Our cast was mostly black, as is the population of our town. When we brought the play to schools that were also mostly black, the children adored us. We were big, fuzzy rock stars! 

However, when we brought it to the suburban and private elementary schools, the little kids were fearful of us. They would ask their teacher, "Why is Pooh black?"

My cast-mates were uncomfortable. The kids didn't laugh very much. Our director blamed it on low cast energy, but we knew him too well to know that he was just trying to ignore the obvious. Those kids didn't see themselves represented for probably the first time in their lives, and they didn't know how to deal with it. I learned a lot about racism and media representation that day.

Now whenever I hear someone complaining about a fictional character being non-white, I always think back to those little suburban kids, confused at their lack of representation for the first time and not knowing how to handle it. Except the people I'm referring to are grown adults with access to plenty of white characters to relate to.