There’s too many stories of mermaids within black cultures for them to be only depicted as white

Like, let’s take Mami Wata on the coastal sides of Africa. Mami Wata is the embodiment of a type of water-spirit cluster that’s venerated in these areas. Orishas like Yemoja are considered Mami Wata spirits

Even my tribe, the Urhobo people of the Delta, have consistent yearly festivals to venerate water spirits. Venerating water-beings meant safety for fishermen and abundance.

My mother has stories passed down of when our ancestors saw a woman with a white tail in the ocean.

Or even Olokun, the ocean-being that was connected to the wealth, abundance, and trade by water of the Benin Empire. The Iyoba Pendant Mask actually pulls in attributes that praise Olokun, like the ivory itself and the mudfish on her crown.

Or the njuzu water spirits of the Shona people within Zimbabwe. There many stories of the njuzu luring down folks into the water and to teach them secrets, those that re-emerge after this experience become nganga. Healers that lived between two worlds