Hollywood is making another SHAFT movie.

Sorry, but you can't dismiss suggestions that a black actor could play Bond by pointing to the inappropriateness of a white actor playing Shaft. They're not equivalent situations.

Verily I say unto thee...in my book they are so I'll carry on dismissing thanks very much.

They're not equivalent situations. How so?

Now, this is a signature gun, and that is an optical palm reader.

Verily I say unto she, how not so?

That would be a double negative. (How are the two scenarios not so not equivalent?)

But the response to that ill-formed question could suffice, regardless. Do you have one?

Now, this is a signature gun, and that is an optical palm reader.

Actually I was agreeing with you.

But a question such as "how so?" isn't something to agree with. Though you can see my two cents on the other branch, if you'd like. Really, I want to read (and write) why folks feel as they do about this old issue.

Now, this is a signature gun, and that is an optical palm reader.

We have to understand the intentions of the characters' respective creators. Ernest Tidyman saw a conspicuous absence of black heroes in popular fiction. He consciously set out to remedy that by creating a hero who was black. Casting a white actor betrays what is central to Tidyman's intention.

Ian Fleming's intention was not to create a hero who is white, but to create a hero of the British Secret Service. In 1953 (when he created Bond), such a character would have been born around 1920, and in the 1940s rose to the rank of Commander in the Royal Navy. It was not possible for a black man born in 1920 to have such a career. James Bond was white simply by default.
But James Bond today would have been born around 1980 and rose in the Royal Navy in the 21st century. A black man could have this background, so James Bond does not have to be white to remain true to Fleming's intention to create a hero of the British Secret Service.