Discussed to death but girls want the character they like to like them (a reflection of themselves). Boys like to pretend to BE the character regardless of the main character's appearance. To this degree is why it's so easy to get a reaction of "Blariel" looking "like me" to little girls.
It's also the LAZIEST way to represent a character and to approve of this means minorities cannot get a good character unless it was originally white. The easiest solution is to make (for example) an original mermaid NOT called Ariel. You can STILL call it The Little Mermaid because it doesn't directly refer to Ariel. Heck let's take it a step further, let's give Black NOT ariel a new BFF and make her a latina to appeal to that audience, OH WAIT it has been done!
https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Gabriella
She was deaf too so there you go, brownie points for that community. Point is, race-swapping is lazy. Do better Disney, do better everyone else.