Disney's Black mermaid is no breakthrough – just look at the literary subgenre of Black mermaid fiction

A coffin made to resemble a mermaid at a Ga funeral. The Ga people live along the southeast coast of Ghana. Eye Ubiquitous/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Mermaids have become a cultural phenomenon, and clashes about mermaids and race have spilled out into the open. This is most pointedly apparent in the backlash over Disney’s much-anticipated “The Little Mermaid.”

After Disney unveiled its trailer for the film, which will be released in May 2023, social media captured the faces of gleeful young Black girls seeing Black mermaids onscreen for the first time. Less inspiring was the racism that simultaneously occurred, with hashtags like #NotMyMermaid and #MakeMermaidsWhiteAgain circulating on Twitter.