I just received this nonsense from our freinds at NIAC...

http://www.niacouncil.org/open-letter-let-rumi-played-middle-easterner/

Trita the Sweed writes the below:

"We believe that casting actors of European descent in these roles will, unfortunately, do little to break the stereotypes you aim to dispel. Rather, by failing to cast actors with a Middle Eastern background in these roles, the film risks sending the message that Middle Easterners cannot tell their own stories, and the only roles deemed worthy for them are those of terrorists and villains."

Really?

Can "Middle Easteners" tell their own stories? For example, Does the IRI even care? Rumi was a Sunni. Arabs don't care for him as he wrote mostly in Persian. Also, would an Iranian movie maker in Iran have the freedom to make such a movie without undue influence from the IRI government?  Why not write about that Trita?

Then there is this gem:

"Unfortunately, such casting decisions are nothing new.

Not only are stories about people of color rarely told,but Hollywood systematically casts white actors to play minority leads. This includes Jake Gyllenhaal as Dastan in the 2010 film Prince of Persia and Christian Bale as Moses in the 2014 filmExodus: Gods and Kings. Often, these roles mock or deride those ethnicities, as in the 2006 film 300, which depicts Persians as savages. Or in the 1993 film, Not Without My Daughter, which depicts Iranians as violent, backward and controlling. This “white-washing” is not only inaccurate, it has lasting detrimental effects, both with respect to how minorities are viewed by others and withrespect to how minorities view themselves. Iranian-American and other Middle Eastern-American children grow up without media figures or images to whom they can relate, in a culture saturated with only negative images

of people who look like them."

Really? This is "White Washing" ? 

Why as Middle Easterners, we have to go back 700 years to find a positive

role modle for Iranian Americans?

Why should the main actor be "middle eastern"

for Iranian kids to be able to relate to?

How does Trita know what Rumi looked like anyway?

I think Leaonardo will look just fine as a middle easterner with a turban on his head. Don't worry Trita!