It’s probably just a personal preference thing, which I can respect. I know the “n” word is a terrible example but a bunch, I mean, a BUNCH of people in my family use it and I absolutely hate it.  Like, I can feel myself twitch when I hear it.  And, to them, it’s not bad to say because “I’m black and I can use it,” and that’s how they think.  And we can argue until the sun comes up as to why it’s a terrible word choice, but in their mind, they’ve turned the negative into a positive, and… yeah, extreme example, but you get it  ^^  

I sort of thought that, overall, “bend” was a… I dunno how to phrase it.  Kind of like how when the black Sailor Moon fanart was going around it was “racebend” which I didn’t take as offensive, it was just the artist’s interpretation of the character.  The artist made her black, they changed her skin color, so they “racebent.”  

I kind of think of it like this.  When I was a kid, I really wanted more main character strong ladies, or more black main characters, so I’d think, “Wouldn’t it be cool if this male character were female?”  I mean, growing up, playing games like Street Fighter there was 1 lady out of 12 characters (Street Fighter II, at least, the original just had Ryu and Ken).  And while I loved Chun-Li to bits it was like, “… I want more ladies,” or, “It would be cool if Ryu was a girl,” or something like that.    

Same with racebending.  Though I think racebending is something I thought of more, like, all of the shows I watched had barely any black characters, as far as anime/cartoons went.  There were plenty of sitcoms (Fresh Prince, Living Single, A Different World, ect.) but for those cool, geeky things it was like, “… all right there’s Storm and… uh… Storm…”  or, “hey there’s random, big lipped general #5 in this anime.”  So my brain would be like, “Wouldn’t it be cool to have more black characters,” or, “Wouldn’t it be cool if Sailor Moon was a black girl?”  Or even, as dumb as this might sound, “Her name is Black Cat… wouldn’t it be cool if…”  

I can think of maybe three cartoons with a bunch of black people: Fat Albert, the MC Hammer cartoon (not even kidding), and this weird sports cartoon that had Michael Jackson, Bo Jackson, and Wayne Gretzy.  Or, you know, the few times in Tom and Jerry when Tom had a black owner and you’d see her legs and nothing else.  

So long story short, I guess… back then I didn’t know it had a name (it probably didn’t), but now we use “bend,” and to some people that may be offensive.  Which, that’s not what I’m trying to do.  I honestly really love seeing what people come up with for characters, and sometimes, there’s this 10 year old little girl voice that goes, “EEE BLACK SAILOR MOON!!!”  Obviously the artist isn’t being offensive, they’re not like, “Doing black Sailor Moon because fuck white Sailor Moon,” it’s just, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if this character I love looked more like me?”