Black Cosplay of White Characters? Cool or Nah?

So NY Comic-con is slowly creeping toward us and I have the slightest idea of who I should cosplay this year. Last year I chose to be Ash's Squirtle Pokemon and my sister and I rolled deep as Squirtle Squad! (FYI, this was Bryce's awesome idea. Can't take all the credit.) We loved it, the fans loved it. Literally, we were celebrities for a day. Check us out...

Since last year was such a success, I've got to start preparing my costume and getting things ready. It took ALOT of time to make that Squirtle shell (Yes, we made them from scratch!) and I'm no Martha S. Also, the glasses alone took 3 weeks to come in from Etsy. Crazy! If you want to look good, you can't do anything last minute.

Shout out to the professional cosplayers who do this stuff a year in advance!

I believe this was made at a makeup school. Impressive!

I've been thinking about who I should be for several months now (actually ever since the Comic-con gods blessed us with 3-day passes) and I'm still stuck. Partly because I feel forced to play a black fiction character. 

Is it me, or do many of us blerds have a dilemma with this? In my head, the nerd in me totally wants to represent the character as they should be. Whites play whites, blacks play blacks, asian plays asian. But then I'm also like, "Who the hell cares??? Let love live and play who you want!"

I feel like I struggle with this every year.  Mind you, I did play Batgirl one year, although, technically, it felt more like playing dress-up for Halloween since the effort for it was minimal. 

I remember going to a Heroes of Color panel at NY Comic-con a couple years ago to discuss this same topic and a plethora of other topics pertaining to the lack of diversity among superheroes. From the cosplay aspect, what came out of it was that people should be who they want, how they want without the negativity or the nerd bashing. People need to be less judgmental and more open-minded. It starts with you. 

This is all true, but yet I still struggle and feel inclined to cosplay a black character. I'm curious what other people's takes are on this? Are my feelings based on nerd character loyalty or purely my own prejudice?

While you think on that, let me tell you about the characters I've been thinking about. I haven't made any final decisions, these but have been floating around my head:

Yoruichi - Bleach

At first I was like, no, she is waaay out of my league, but I've been looking at pics and I think I can pull it off. (If I play her fully clothed. Ha!) 

Bumble Bee - DC Universe/Teen Titans

Bumble Bee is so easy for me to do. Wings? Easy, just go to my nearest Halloween store. Leggings? Got'em. At most, I'll need the shirt, yellow sunglasses and golden wrist-lets. I'll also have to lose about 10lbs for that shirt, though. Lol!

 Vixen - DC Universe

I haven't thought about Vixen until recently when The CW released the Vixen trailer at SDCC. It was so dope. Haven't seen it yet? Click here. I was thinking of probably doing the Justice League version as well. The other version might work out better for my hair, though.

All in all, I'm still deciding on what to do. I need to make a decision soon since I'm running out of prep time. 

As far as my racial dilemma with white characters, I'm not completely against cosplaying a white character, but like I said, I'd just rather not. Fiction characters of color don't get enough play as it is, so why not represent? Who else will?