Because his face is canonical to the Superman universe.
Also that setting is boring (not many are watching those movies and as a result no one was upset).

Because in a muticultural country it is important to create an atmosphere, where living ethnicities will not feel strangled, will not feel themselves second-class citizens, etc.
In USSR there were a lot of actors from eastern Europe, for example. And very little actors from Asian part of USSR. Why? Because... politics!

Won't mind for the same reason if Kenyan character would be played by Nigerian.

did anyone stop to consider that BME is not the same as black? it could just as wll be... Welsh.... or something.

The most likely thing is that if Ciri ends up being played by an Asian actress, then maybe Cintra will be given an oriental style in the architecture of the city and the ethnic groups that populate it.

did anyone stop to consider that people are going ballistic about a television show based on a computer game? :P

It's not even on real TV, it's Netflix. Where I live, even if I wanted to, I can't watch it.

(the show is not based on the games, but on the books...)

Just curious: how much of this Ciri background stuff does the game series go into? Because let's face it: most folks' exposure to the The Witcher world will come from the games and not from the books.

why do I get the feeling I'm going to be crucified for making that mistake? :P

Disappointing... Oh well.

This went from "mildly interested" to "maybe if there is nothing else to watch". These decisions are so stupid. Sometimes it works, but the vast majority of the time it is a distraction, especially when you know it's done to push a political agenda.

Having a minority character is fine when you use the source material to introduce a new character that makes sense. A lot of good movies, etc have been great this way. A lot of bad movies are simply lazy as fuck and force diversity for the hell of it by changing established characters and completely destroy the source material and the experience.

One of best examples of this that comes to mind recently, that does it correctly, is the movie "Creed". They used the source material to logically introduce a new black character and it was a great movie in my opinion. Had they simply rebooted Rocky and made him a black kid it would have been stupid and rightly critized. To me that is how you make a diverse movie based on the source material that feels organic and not politically motivated.

No surprise here. It has been predicted by many people.

But don't worry, you can watch this instead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL83966CF606D760F4&v=Mi4x8EOMHRM