#but its not the root of the problem

I’m probably not the right person to talk about this, but I just had a thought and I’m physically incapable of not immediately posting whatever comes to mind, so here you go. I think the tendency for fandom to fixate on white characters over people of color is not solely the fault of the fans themselves, particularly in US and western film. It’s not as simple as fans gravitating towards white characters (and by extension, white actors) when presented with a selection of equal options where the only difference is skin color, because that’s not what’s being presented. Main characters in mainstream movies have much higher odds of being white over any other race. Just look at how difficult it is for poc to find leading roles in Hollywood. They’re much more likely to end up playing a side character and as a result, a less complex character. On top of that, American studios consider making a character nonwhite to be a risk, so they might hesitate to cast more than a handful of poc and that further lowers the odds of a poc being chosen as a fan favorite. So yes, there is a bias in fandom towards white characters, but it doesn’t start at the fandom level. It can’t be blamed entirely on those stupid fangirls mooning over their white faves because in a lot of cases, the complicated roles with large amounts of screentime disproportionately go to white actors and those are the roles that fans latch onto.

You can’t separate fandom racism from racism in the movie industry or any other type of fictional media. It all feeds off each other and attacking the people at the bottom of the chain is not the answer. In the hierarchy of mass media and fandom, fans have the least power. It’s like trying to reform a corrupt company by yelling at the receptionist. Are they doing something shady? Possibly. Is making them feel bad going to change this company’s overall business practices? Nope. In my opinion, the best way to institute change in mainstream fiction is to become a creator. Obviously that’s a lot easier said than done, but it might be the only way things will actually change. You’re certainly not going to get anywhere by yelling at a stranger for having the wrong favorite characters.