See also: refusing to cast non-white extras as extras in The Hobbit as "We are looking for light-skinned people. I'm not trying to be -- whatever. It's just the brief. You've got to look like a hobbit."
Where could the casting director have gotten the idea that Hobbits were exclusively white? Had he seen the Lord of the Rings films where there are almost zero black people in the billion hours of film?
Peter Jackson reacted quickly at least by firing the casting director and then making the Hobbit films with zero black people anyway.
Oh wait.