people will have BLM in their bios and yet be the first to resort to racist and anti black behavior the moment a black person tries to correct them. we’ll get branded as aggressive and uneducated. and there’s this assumption that we can’t be angry. that we have to be nice and hold non-blacks’ hands or some shit. it’s all very annoying
[This post originally tagged several people I was directly addressing, as I was expecting it to mostly be reblogged by them and their followers, with maybe a small handful of people I asked to take a look at this post even bothering to read this behemoth, let alone share it. However, a lot more people than I expected paid attention to and shared this post, including a blog that dedicates itself to highlighting racism in fandom. In the interests of preventing “raiding”/dogpiling behavior against the people I addressed this post to, I have removed their handles.]
tl;dr - I don’t actually believe any of you are racists, no more than I am, than we all are by virtue of being raised in a white-centric culture, internalizing the attitudes expressed by our media and community, and carrying those attitudes with us into fandom. But that is all the more reason we need to address bigotry in our communities, no matter how passive or benign or minor, because that is the only way to engender change in this fandom, in fandom in general, and in ourselves. I take issue with your guys’ posts and meta not because I think everyone should worship Scott - hey, he’s not my #1 fave either - or because I think he is perfect (no one is, perfect characters are boring). I take issue with the fact a lot of your logic, meta, and analyses rely on the same racist arguments that permeate mainstream media. I object to the casual dismissal of canonical events, and the way headcanons and assumptions are treated as canon when analyzing the show (especially when they are overwhelmingly skewed a certain direction). And I object to the fact every attempt by myself and many, many others to point all of this out is often met with little more than dismissing everything with the vague claim that we’re “too sensitive” and “see racism everywhere” and “are only using buzzwords”. I don’t think any of you are racists, but I think all of you have utilized or enabled racist rhetoric when talking about Scott (and several other characters, but primarily Scott, for reasons I explain down below).
I’m temporarily disabling anon - either one of you, or one of your followers, constantly fills my inbox with misogynistic slurs every time I speak up against bigotry in fandom, and I just do not have the time to IP block each one. I just got this lovely one just yesterday:
(I and everyone else who talk about racism in Teen Wolf fandom are accused of “using buzzwords”, while I’m getting anons who accuse me of misogyny while calling me a cunt. Yay irony.)
If you want to yell at me, do it under your own name. And yes, out of all the people circle-jerking on the original post, I blocked the one who used name-calling now, and has demonstrated some remarkably immature behavior in the past. If bhadpodcast is going to act and post like I blocked them, I might as well actually block them and save myself the headache. They can still relay messages to me through one of you. The rest of you have demonstrated yourself to be open-minded and willing to listen to logical arguments in the past (or I don’t know you well enough to assume that you’ll ignore my words and skip straight to the name-calling) which is why I’ve tagged you.
This is a rodeo I’ve ridden before, and while I can always hope for change, the reality is that I have already expressed all of this in meta before, and that I’ve spoken to most of you directly about all of this. I’m familiar with the arguments you make, and I’m tired. So it’s going to take pretty much all of my self-control to do this, but no matter what you reblog, I am not going to respond. I’m not going to get caught up in the tactics of deflection and distraction, I’m not going to let you draw me into petty arguments on isolated comments and use that as an excuse to ignore the overwhelming majority of this post, and I’m not interested in rehashing arguments I’ve already had a dozen times over with almost all of you at one point or another.
If you actually read this entire thing and have an honest rebuttal to something I stated below, and its something that is based in the canonical source material, is not contradicted by other canonical source material, and is not contingent on a headcanon, my Messenger is open. Otherwise, it’s been good talking to you, and I’m sure we’ll be talking about all of this again, soon enough. But I am stating my piece and peacing out, because I need to save up my energy for the next time this wank comes around - and given the way fandom has shown itself to act in the past (and the fact racism has been around far, far longer than television, letalone fandom), that is not an ‘if’, but a ‘when’.
Below the cut:
1.) Yes, Scott is a character of color, I don’t care what country you’re in.
2.) The fact that most of the racism in Teen Wolf fandom comes in microaggressions does not make it less racist.
3.) Actors and characters are held to tremendously disparate double standards and this is a huge problem, probably the biggest one.
4.) Racism of Teen Wolf fandom is highly reflective of racism offline/in the “real world”.
When characters of color are distanced from their triumphs and relationships in canon via headcanon, photo manipulations/edits, or simply not being written or drawn into fanworks, it’s an attempt to minimize the importance of the character. Whether or not it’s a subconscious or conscious distancing, the fact of the matter is that fandom does this on the regular and it usually only benefits white characters (and largely white fans) because it takes importance away from the few characters of color that the canon gives us.
idk why my poorly written off-the-cuff essay is making a comeback. I largely still stand by what I wrote, even if not how I wrote it/if I wish I’d written it better.
Please note that Abuela Alma also faces immediate trauma. Immediate.Her children and grandchildren face generational trauma, but her trauma is immediate. Not passed down. It’s trauma she experienced in the moment and was never, ever given a chance to fully recover.
That impacts everything she does.
This isn’t an excuse as everyone has said, but her actions aren’t worth hating her, at all. Not like some people have done. Not when she works to correct herself directly afterwards. She owns up to her mistakes, and burdens the brunt of what she did.
Not even Triton did that in the Little Mermaid, not until the end.
Y’all are being way to fucking harsh on her.
These mfs: Give us female characters with flaws!!
Flawed female character: *Is not young and pretty*
this has probably been said elsewhere and better but i miss the days in star wars when the oppressive empire was made up of white men with british accents. that wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t a trivial decision, like they are the face and voice of power and oppression both in the past and today. giving these roles to women and people of color feels like… idk obfuscating or something? like don’t get me wrong i very much want more diversity in star wars, but the empire being a monolithic sea of white men with imperial accents, and the good guys being a diverse crowd of allies from all demographics, it implicitly communicated something important.
wait op are you talking about the poc inquisitor
yeah i made this post after watching the kenobi trailer and seeing reva, but i was also thinking about moff gideon in the mandalorian, trilla in the jfo game, and the character design choices of the bad batch tv show. i was thinking about how there’s a pattern in making the empire and the villains more diverse, but the leads are somehow still white, and how the implications of that are bad.
God okay I’m just. So fucking tired. So here’s a list of resources to educate yourself on issues within Star Wars. In light of the Bad Batch Finale and the announcement of the second season, it’s vital that you educate yourself about the racism and other issues present.
Reminder that you cannot be in the middle. You are either racist or anti-racist. If you do not practice anti-racism and choose to stay “neutral”, you are only supporting a system that constantly perpetuates racism and harms people.
And if for some reason, you think I’m overreacting; for some reason, you think I’m sensitive; for some reason, your first instinct is to get defensive and lash out; you really need to do some thinking as to why you want to scream at POC who just want the right to be recognized and seen. Who just want the right to not be erased.
And if you think this is “not good enough” because they’re “just blog posts” or whatever - don’t bullshit me. Even if I posted a shit ton of scholarly articles you wouldn’t have read them anyway if you’re coming at me with excuses for why you think the discrimination is okay. These posts are accessible, and well-written, and straight from the lived experiences of the many minorities and the allies that want to amplify their voices. I’m not asking you to take everything at face value. I’m asking you to do your own research and engage in some critical thinking instead of blindly accepting what you’re given.
*Disclaimer:while I have read these sources, i read some a while ago and if there’s an issue you have with some of them let me know!
(If your post is listed and you want me to take it off the list please dm me and let me know!)
The Bad Batch
#unwhitewashtbb carrd - with extensive resources here that speak about the Māori people, their culture, and the current issues they face. If you care about them, then read these resources and amplify their voices.
What I’ve listed above is only a single drop in a massive ocean. There are so, so many other minority groups who are also suffering that I haven’t listed. I haven’t even touched on homophobia, on transphobia, and I’ve barely touched on ableism, not to mention that there’s so many other issues out there. I haven’t talked about the issues with how the Tuskens are portrayed, or how Watto is portrayed, or how Jar Jar Binks was portrayed, or how Kelly Marie Tran was treated, or how Trace and Rafa Martez were treated, or how the fandom hates Mace Windu, or how Poe’s backstory was butchered, or much, much more. If you have more resources, please please please share them in the reblogs. It is impossible to encompass everything in a single post, but we sure as hell can try.
Alright. I’ve given you the resources. I’ve given you my time and energy. It’s up to you now to educate yourself. It’s ok to make mistakes - we’re constantly learning and unlearning. It’s ok to need to take breaks, and to save this for later because you’re tired and the world is going to shit. We are human.
But it’s not okay to stay willfully ignorant. It’s not okay to constantly try and belittle the trauma and struggles of minorities just because you’ve been okay living in a system that’s built on oppression. Educate yourself.
One more tip: when reblogging or sharing your own resources, flood your tags with everything to do with Star Wars. Flood the Crosshair tag. Flood the Hunter and Omega tag. Flood the tags, because this is relevant to their characters and to the entire saga, and fans need to know.
Including tags of the people I posted resources from under the cut!
John Boyega went from thinking he wouldn’t have a career after fighting racism to a Golden Globe Winner
I’ve talked on what happened with John Boyega andDisney Lucasfilm a lot. Maybe because even for myself, I’m not over it either, but because I want to make sure everyone knows this story. They know what happened. It’s why I’ve basically dedicated most of my Tumblr, YouTubeChannel, and Twitter to talking about this.
This may be the last time though just because unless more comes out publicly, I think there’s not much else I can say on this and I’d like to start covering what happening with Ray Fisherat Warner Bros
But one last time, let me explain what happened with John Boyega and how a this Golden Globe win something so earned and proof that being a good man who fights for what’s right and a great actor who never stops, is what has given John the career he deserves.
Back in 2014, it was announced that John Boyega would be the male lead of the Sequel Trilogy
John Boyega had been announced as the male lead of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy after the IP had been purchased by Disney. The casting process was a hard one for John Boyega since Disney Lucasfilm wanted to cast a white actor, but JJ Abrams had fought against Disney Lucasfilm and after 8 different auditions, John was finally cast as Finn. A big part of what got John the role, beyond his powerhouse acting chops and JJ Abrams fighting for him, was that his chemistry test with Daisy Ridley, the actress that been chosen to pay Rey, had been the only one that Daisy herself had liked. Daisy, being cast after her first audition. Meanwhile Adam Driver, who would go on to play the sequel trilogy’s antagonist had been hand picked by Kathleen Kennedy.
Some time later, the marketing for the first film in the Sequel Trilogy, The Force Awakens (2015) had started and well the internet reacted as well as you’d think it would back in the mid 2010’s
Despite the racial backlash and a call to boycott, The Force Awakens broke all box office records and to this day, still holds the record for highest grossing film in North America of all time.
Sadly though, Disney Lucasfilm chose to go a different direction…a direction that sidelined him.
The TLDR being he was Black and they didn’t want a Black male lead.
For more detailed breakdowns, here are two different videos I made on the subject.
This one is 40 mins and its a detailed breakdown of John Boyega’s experiences throughout the sequels.
But if you want a shorter breakdown that just covers why he was sidelined and how it damaged his character, here’s a shorter 23 min video
From John Boyega’s own words, Disney Lucasfilm based his experience in Star Wars off of his race and at the time of the second film in the ST, The Last Jedi (2017) it was a re-ordered character hierarchy that saw John now pushed into a supporting character role.
The trilogy ended, with a wet flop, as we all know. Months of re-shoots re-writes from Disney Lucasfilm had turned the final film, The Rise of Skywalker (2019) into a studio mess that saw John Boyega once again on the short end of the stick.
In the next following months, John Boyega would speak out against many of the creative choices made in the sequels, something that got him LOTS of backlash by angry Star Wars fans that were calling for his career to be over and him to be canceled. John responded with a video pushing back against them.
Then later in 2020, John Boyega went out to take a stand against Police brutality and systematic racism during the Black Lives Matter Protests
John would later in the year of 2020 go on to speak with GQ and speak out against Disney Lucasfilm’s racist treatment of not just him, but of how badly they treated fellow co-stars Kelly Marie Tran, Naomi Ackie, and Oscar Isaac. Further proving that it was the lives of others, other POC of color like himself, that John was fighting for.
It was during all this that John Boyega had lamented that his career could likely be over after all this. He had taken a stand against racism on two fronts, Disney, who own a good deal of the entertainment industry, and police brutality. For a Black man in the film industry, this fear is honestly a real one.
But fate has a funny way of rewarding the noble and kind hearted folks of the world. Not always, we all know that’s not always the case, but for once, it was. John Boyega didn’t lose his career. In fact, many saw his fighting spirit and saw his bravery, saw that he wasn’t going to lay down and let anyone suffer if he could fight.
The year is 2021 now and John Boyega has won the Golden Globe for his role in Small Axe, a story that ironically touches on racism and police corruption.
Its been an interesting journey for John Boyega. From a kid being able to live his dreams and be cast in Star Wars to a man fighting against racial injustice both in the world and in the entertainment industry, John’s story is one for history books of our generation.
Whatever future John Boyega has in this world, I truly wish him the best and I’m thankful that someone like him exists to be a role model for so many people, regardless of where they come from or what they look like.
Don’t mind me just dropping videos. I mean tot post this earlier but here is probably my post popular video to date about black characters in anime <3. check it out if you wanna learn some harmful portrayals of black people in anime!
Making fun of John’s supposed lack of a career, claiming he’s jealous of Adam, obsessed with Daisy, or that you can’t expect better from someone who grew up in public housing WHEW R/ylos really are saying MASK OFF today huh
I know I missed all the disk horse about the Alan Dean Foster interview but it’s honestly wild that certain parts of fandom can read that Finnrey was shitcanned for “reasons we all know” and be like yes sweaty bc they have no chemistry :))))
Tolkien’s canon supports a racially diverse portrayal of Middle-earth
I’m tired of people complaining about diversity in depictions of Tolkien’s work, and I’m tired of these people calling themselves “Tolkien purists”, as if they have canon on their side. They don’t.
People who are actually Tolkien purists: have strong feelings about what the LOTR movies changed and omitted from the books; can quote the source material with scary levels of accuracy; have extremely strong opinions on obscure topics; probably taught themselves how to read tengwar… things like that.
People who are notTolkien purists, and should never be called Tolkien purists: anyone arguing that all of Tolkien’s characters have to be portrayed by white people.
To start off with, most people already know that some characters in Tolkien’s works, like the Haradrim, are coded as people of color. But they’re generally unnamed antagonists and they appear in the story briefly. I want to talk about whether or not there are people of color among Middle-earth’s protagonists. And the answer is yes.
So-called “Tolkien purists” often dismiss the idea that people of color exist in Middle-earth because, they argue, it’s a sort of “fantasy Europe.” The problem with this argument is that Europe has never been 100% white. So, this line of faulty reasoning can be ignored completely.
Second, Tolkien never stated that all of his heroes were white. Some of them, for example some of the hobbits, are described as having brown skin, which could apply to people of a variety of ethnicities. Others, such as the Elves, are described in ambiguous ways that could also describe people of various ethnicities. Other characters have no visual descriptions at all. People who think that all of Tolkien’s heroes must be white don’t actually have any grounds to prove it, and it reveals a lot more about them than it does about LOTR.
Third, people dismiss the idea that people of color exist in Middle-earth because, they argue, Tolkien based his stories on Northern European myths and cultures—and he did, although they should refer back to my first point: Europe has never been 100% white. But if you’re one of those people who says, “There can’t be people of color in Middle-earth, because Tolkien based his stories on myths from Northern Europe, and wanted to write a mythology for England!” then you’ve just revealed that you actually know very little about Tolkien’s worldbuilding.
Because, yes, Tolkien did draw inspiration from many Northern European myths, cultures, and languages, but he had other inspirations as well. According to one of his maps, Tolkien envisioned Gondor lying at about the latitude of Italy. Do you really think there’s no one of African or Middle-eastern descent in Italy? And that’s just the beginning. Tolkien also based the crown of Gondor on the crown of the Pharaohs of Egypt, and likened its architecture to Egyptian architecture—that means Gondor canonically takes aesthetic and cultural inspiration from an African kingdom. In a letter, Tolkien also identified Minas Tirith with the Byzantine Empire, which at one time included parts of modern-day Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Crimea, Turkey, Cyprus, Crete, Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria—if I haven’t missed any. He also drew inspiration for Adûnaic and Khuzdul from Hebrew.
You can’t have it both ways: if you believe that Tolkien’s inspiration from Northern European myths, cultures, and languages means his characters have to be white, then you are forced to concede that if he alsodrew inspiration from North African and Middle-eastern civilizations, cultures, and languages, then some of his characters have to be people of color, too. You can’t use canon to prove that all of Tolkien’s protagonists were white, because he never said they were, and if you do some research, you’ll just find more and more evidence that actually fully supports a diverse Middle-earth. There is an undeniable influence on Tolkien’s worldbuilding from places outside of Northern Europe, and all of this would suggest that he envisioned at least some of his protagonists to be North African and Middle-eastern. Not only that, but people move around; the Byzantine Empire traded with China and India, and was most likely full of people from all over the place.
I want to add that, although this post was sparked by the discussion going on about The Rings of Power, don’t mistake this for a gesture of support for the show. While I’m strongly in favor of more diversity in portrayals of Middle-earth, Amazon systematically discriminates against people of color and has sold racist material on their website for years, so they shouldn’t receive praise for doing the bare minimum to create a diverse cast. They’re selling the aesthetic of diversity in a fantasy world while remaining hostile to it in reality.
And I’ve said a lot about Amazon elsewhere, but the main point of this post is that people have no right to call themselves Tolkien purists if they think all the heroes of his stories have to be white. I will also note that so-called Tolkien purists are up in arms over the very idea of a Black Elf, but they don’tseem very concerned with Amazon’s significant changes to Tolkien’s actual stories—compressing the timeline of the Second Age, for instance, which is an extreme departure from canon. Anyone who’s more upset about people of color playing Elves and Dwarves than they are about changes to actual canon is not a Tolkien purist at all, and they don’t know very much about the canon they claim to respect.
As a final addition, I don’t think readers need permission from the source material to interpret the characters the way they want to. If you want to draw Tolkien’s characters as people of color, you don’t need to write a dissertation with footnotes proving that it’s exactly what he intended. But I do see a lot of people creating diverse fan art and saying, basically, “I don’t care if this contradicts canon!”—and there’s nothing wrong with that approach, but are you sure it contradicts canon? Or is canon actually quite vague and open to interpretation when it comes to characters’ ethnicities? It’s important for Tolkien fans to remember that the actual source material here is way more friendly to these interpretations than a lot of people believe, and we need to reject the exclusionist rhetoric of the so-called “purists” who think canon is on their side when they claim that Middle-earth is exclusively white. They’re wrong. Canon is noton their side.
The Old Guard fandom has its own HIVliving, MedievalPOC, Rose Christo, white girl who is totally a Cherokee Princess because she did a test and found that she’s 1% Native American, and the charade has been going on for too long.
This post is about Len (better known as LGBTmazight, romiosini, figure8, junmotions). The information compiled here has been found and organized by people of many ethnicities, including those she pretends to be (namely two Moroccans, one of whom is Amazigh, who were raised in Morocco and speak the language), who are now exhausted by her uncontrolled racism. This post is not an invitation to send her hate: it’s a compilation of her unbridled racefaking for internet points, and comes with the invite of blocking her and not using her as a reference when it comes to information regarding MENA countries. 99% of what she says, she copies from Google and often attributes to the wrong country.
As of summer 2021, Len is claiming to be a brown Maghrebi-Greek woman who comes from poverty and whose parents weren’t able to afford to give her an adequate education, works in manual labor, was raised between Greece and Morocco for the first seven years of her life, is dark-skinned enough to get harassed by the police everywhere she goes, and has learned pride in her heritage from her Muslim Moroccan father. She claims to be able to speak, among other languages, Darija, Arabic, and Tmazight.
However, in her internet career Len has also identified as being: white, white-passing, brown, Muslim, Orthodox Christian, animist from a family of shamans and in line to become the next “Darwisa”, French, Spanish, Peloponnesian/Pontic/Anatolian Greek, Sephardic Jewish, Jewish with family “in Europe during WW2", partly Romani, Moroccan, specifically Riffian Moroccan with solely Amazigh descent, and with “close ties to Asia Minor”. Her economic status has shifted from being able to live in the world’s most expensive neighborhoods and attending fancy private schools during the Global Recession to having to ask her followers for change. According to her stories, her family has been at the center of every tragedy that happened in North Africa and Europe since the beginning of the 1900s.
This to say: Len, LGBTmazight, is a racefaker on the same level as HIVliving, a parasite who latches onto racial stereotypes and applies them to her person to give herself, as well as her followers, the right to harass, abuse, and send death threats to people who do not follow or support her narrative. It will be brought up later, but the Moroccan Amazigh person who participated in writing the post, as well as other MENA individuals, were appalled by the blatant racism, Orientalism, antiblackness, fetishization, and White Savior Syndrome displayed by Len, as well as her open disrespect for actual Moroccan traditions, people, and culture. Although this began as a light-hearted research, it soon became clear that Len’s racism, xenophobia especially against Italians and Ukrainians, antisemitism, and downright disgusting behavior are incredibly serious issues, to the point that one of the MENA individuals behind this post became physically ill from seeing what she puts online.
None of the information compiled here is a product of doxxing: it is a collection of what Len herself has put online over the years, and let it be known that we were gracious enough to not post her, her parents’, and her sister’s full and legal names and faces despite the fact that Len has shared them multiple times.
As an appetizer, here’s the face of the “racialized” brown woman who claims to be constantly abused and racially profiled because of her dark skin and North African features:
Although in the past she identified as they/them or he/him, on her current Twitter her pronouns are she/her. This account will do the same.
And here is what she thinks of Black and Jewish people: they are obstacles to the attentions she should, in her opinion, receive for the made-up abuse she rants about online. Her platforms were never about defending, representing, and protecting minorities; it was always a stage for her to grab the attention of well-meaning people. About actual minorities, she couldn’t care less and considers them a nuisance:
(In these tweets she is talking about xenophobia, something she has said is only ever brought up as a way to shift the conversation away from racism. How the tables have turned, Len.)
A summary of the contents of the post: Len is 25% Moroccan at most, was born and raised in Europe, never lived in the Maghreb, doesn’t speak the language, didn’t learn about Islam from her father, never suffered any racially-charged abuse, and never lived in poverty. Her father is a tenured professor and has been one since the 1990s, and her mother is also an extremely well-respected professor; they have dozens of publications between them, and her mother seems to have written the text for her field. Although we have no certainties regarding their monthly income, it is easy to say they are wealthy: both Len and her sister were sent to private schools all their lives, her family could afford to own/rent multiple residencies at the same time, drive around in expensive cars, go on vacation often, and buy Apple products immediately after release. Everything she has said since she started looking for fandom clout is a lie and she has used your desire to be good people to her advantage. Extensive proof is below the cut, and mind that this is only the tip of the iceberg: we have more and it only gets worse.
Hélène, we were initially open to dialogue, but after seeing that you’re a genocide denier who keeps inventing stories of abuse to get pity from people while you spend your time harassing actual PoC and other minorities, as well as being someone who has no problems calling Marwan Kenzari the French version of the insult “sand-ni**er”, we realized you are not redeemable in any way.
We already know she’s going to screenshot this and whine about it on Twitter, because even if she likes to portray herself as a great debater, she has never been able to hold a single online conversation without first victimizing herself and crying about being abused, then screenshotting and asking her followers to harass the people who disagreed with her. We are not doing this for her; she’s neither important nor special enough for that. We are doing this to get rid of the racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, and fetishization of MENA people that she has spent a yearaiding.
Episode #053: Everyone Likes Problematic Things with StitchMediaMix
Think before you tweet! This week, Maggie and V are joined by Stitch of Teen Vogue and Stitch’s Media Mix to discuss the current state of fandom, cyberbullying and harassment in fandom spaces, Loki, A/B/O, BTS, and so much more. It’s an episode that’s been requested by more than just our Patrons, and we’re so excited to be able to share it with you!
This Episode Covers…
fandom • fanfiction • fandom racism • cyberbullying • harassment in fandom spaces • proshipping & antishipping • voltron • star wars sequel trilogy • kylo ren & reylo • loki (tv 2021) • sylki • croki • a/b/o (omegaverse) • bdsm, monsterfucking, and kink, oh my! • the falcon & the winter soldier • sarah wilson & sarah/bucky • hatsune miku • hamilton • the social network • twitter fandom • the green knight (2021) • bts • l.e.j. • teen vogue
LISTENandSUBSCRIBE wherever you get your podcasts!
Make sure to follow I Met You On LJ on your favorite social media:
Pause before posting that meta! This week, Maggie and V are joined by Violeta @morethanonepage, winner of 2021′s Fandom March Madness, to talk about coding. Why do so many Black characters in scifi have purple or blue skin? What’s the difference between queerbaiting and queer-coding? Is Kylo Ren really a femme? Does Loki represent white supremacy or transracial adoption narratives? Plus, Violeta joins in on “What Are You Into This Week” with a rec of her own!
This Episode Covers…
fandom • fanfiction • star wars • marvel cinematic universe • x-men • monster high • sesame street • loki (mcu’s thor) • harry potter • rita skeeter • gamora (guardians of the galaxy) • avatar (2009) • steven universe • the benefits of coding in children’s media • the negatives of coding in scifi and fantasy • lord of the rings • dungeons & dragons • fantasy races versus fantasy species • j.r.r. tolkien’s intentions • queer-coding versus queerbaiting • only murders in the building • halloween baking championship • mayans m.c. • sons of anarchy
LISTENandSUBSCRIBE wherever you get your podcasts!
Make sure to follow I Met You On LJ on your favorite social media:
The grass is green, the sky is blue, and Alya constantly makes decisions for Marinette other people even when she’s they’re not comfortable with/ready for it.
Idk how people can both ignore Alya’s role as the Black Best Friend trope and how that directly plays into why she’s “pushy” when interpreting her actions and totally reject the narrative’s perspective in favor of their own.
Every day y’all prove if Alya was a Black Best Friend trope who matched your specifications, you wouldn’t see a problem with it.
white ppl on here and white fans in general need to realize how frustrating it can be for poc in fandom spaces. when we call out racism in these shows/movies don’t ignore it and don’t add your own white guilt on top of it. we don’t care if you’re “not like other white ppl” or whatever your bs rationalization is. same goes for when we call out racism directly in the fandom. y’all rlly stay defending your white favs like your life depends on it lmfao. just shut up and listen
Y’all gotta stop talking over us. Y’all gotta listen when we speak, y’all gotta boost our voices, y’all gotta stop brushing us off as insignificant because we are small in number. Stop trying to tell us what is and isn’t racism; y’all have not experienced racism a DAY in your life, you do not get to tell me if something is racist when I’m pushed aside for the color of my skin or the slant of my eyes. You don’t get to tell the Māori fans that the clones aren’t whitewashed, you don’t get to tell the black and Asian fans that Finn and Rose Tico weren’t shafted. And y’all don’t get to pretend that half of this crap doesn’t come from fandom racism, because y’all get mad every single fucking time there’s a non white character on screen.
And no. It is not all white Star Wars fans. You don’t need to remind me of that, I’m well aware and I’m not in the mood to hear “but not all white people!” You know what? It might not be all white people, but all POC are affected, so maybe rethink that argument if you were getting ready to type that into my replies. Not to mention, racism is embedded so deep within this fandom that if you are not using your platforms to spread the word, you are contributing. POC cannot be the only ones doing this. There aren’t enough of us, and you know why? Because every time y’all see a POC make valid points about fandom or in-show/in-movie racism, y’all ignore them and harass them out of the fandom. Y’all talk over then, tell them that they’re just being over dramatic, that no, they couldn’t possibly know what whitewashing is, because god forbid someone point out flaws in the media you’re interested in.
I’m tired of it. And I know a lot of other POC in this fandom are tired of it too.
I can do whatever I want and face no consequences because I’m white
being white gives me special secret services like a vip club
white privilege IS:
my life is not made any more difficult because of my skin color
so people with white fragility saying “well my life is hard too”: no one is saying it isn’t. it’s just that your life is not negatively impacted by the color of your skin. saying “white privilege doesn’t exist” because you can’t see what your privilege does for you or see the hardships others go through that you don’t experience is ignorant and false.
While I firmly believe that videogames cause violence bs should be left in the 90′s in the garbage where it belongs, it was a little wild to see #GamersAreGood spurn out of it for a second cuz it’s like..”gamers” you mean the demo where a huge swatch of it thinks that being able to change your skin color to brown in a funny animal sim is “too political”? Them? lol
going off of that post, but i made it an actual rule in my star wars server that users are not allowed to share artwork that features whitewashed clones or other characters of colour, even if the art isn’t theirs.
1. the art is racist and i don’t tolerate racism in my server or anywhere else 2. we have people of colour in the server and i prioritize their wellbeing over white people’s feelings 3. because it’s fucking racist
it’s not that hard to make public spaces safe for people of colour and target racists for who they are and make them feel unwelcome or even just get rid of them entirely. uplift people of colour, don’t give any room or platform to racists.
having now been vaguely involved in star wars fandom for the last few months it has become increasingly obvious that many people don’t know how to draw clones (or any Māori characters for that matter) without wildly whitewashing them. I don’t want to assume that everyone is aware that a lot of the things they’re drawing are racist, many artists just seem to be uneducated and change how they draw the characters when kindly called out on it, so I figure the best way to address the problem is to make a masterpost of things artists should be avoiding, or adding in when making art of these characters (made with loads of help from Lucky @transfetts, who did all of the art for this post!
Should go without saying that this all applies to the Bad Batch, since the show isn’t too far away. Just because canon has come up with excuses for whitewashing the characters, that doesn’t make it fine for you to whitewash them too. Please actively try to make them look more accurate to how Temuera Morrison looks when you draw them.
1. Hair
One of the key issues is the way that people often draw the hair for the clones. remember, they are all Māori! this means their hair is not going to be naturally straight! in some instances, straight hair can be okay but only if there is a specific reason for it, eg. it was straightened artificially for a purpose like a costume or disguise. one of the two worst offenders for the hair being the wrong texture is the classic flat top and when the hair is tied up in a manbun style. the clone wars might have their hair sticking straight up but that doesn’t make it okay for you to draw it that way. Temuera Morrison has curly hair, when his hair is short there should be clear lumps showing it is curly. The drawing just below has some examples from Lucky, first of the mistake most people make is having the hair sticking straight up, and a couple of examples of better methods of drawing that style and the tied up style! the key to accuracy is just making the hair lumpy, and ideally adding a few little curls sticking out for longer styles
Long hair should also not be straight, rather it should be relatively curly. Curly does not just mean giving it a few waves! There’s a huge difference between making the hair vaguely wavy and making it truly curly
2. General Face Shape
The Clone Wars biggest crime is the way they fucked up the clones face shape. if you look at the gif linked below, you can see just how much they thinned out the clones faces and lengthened their chins. the best advice if you’re struggling with the face shape is start off tracing Temuera Morrison! when in doubt, go straight to the source.
I know everyone has talked about this but it always needs reminding that the clones are not white. stop lightening their skin. again, just copy Temuera Morrison! same goes for the eyes, the clone wars drastically lightened their eyes, the eyes should generally be a much darker brown. There is nothing inherently wrong with giving a clone blue eyes for plot reasons, but it is something that seems to happen far too much. Generally, stop looking for excuses to lighten their eyes. There’s already too many clones with light eyes.
4. Nose Shapes
Please look at the examples from Lucky below, Morrison has a much wider nose than the clones do in the animated shows. When drawing them both face on and side on, it needs to be clear that the nose hasn’t been thinned and lengthened like in the shows. This goes along with the face shape, Māori features are typically wide rather than long and thin, please stop white washing these features.
5. Moko
It has been super awesome seeing people incorporating the practice of inking the skin into clone and Mandalorian culture in their art! This is something I 100% support, but there a few things that should be noted in doing this. The most important is to never copy someone else’s moko directly. moko is a sacred practice of carving our ancestors into our skin, each is individual and should never be directly copied. absolutely take inspiration from other people’s moko! but please never come up with it directly. I would urge you to spend some time researching different designs, and spend the time designing something that is individual to the clone or Mando you are drawing. Even better would be to have an explanation of the meanings of the designs you have come up with along with the art! If this sounds too difficult I would recommend sticking with using mando'a for moko instead of traditional designs, although I personally think mando'a is the best thing to incorporate anyway.
The other important thing is not to refer to moko as tattoos, they are very much not the same thing. I would recommend doing a bit of googling to see the methods traditionally used for moko to help understand this.
TLDR: when in doubt, just use Temuera Morrison (or one of the actors of the younger clones) as a reference, rather than the Clone Wars models. just because the animated shows whitewashed the characters, that doesn’t make it okay for you to do it.
In an ideal world, if we as fans can reject the whitewashing done by Disney, the people designing the characters would follow suit and start representing Māori more accurately. At the very least, actively portraying clones without whitewashing them will make people of colour feel far more welcome and comfortable interacting with clone artists.
“Curate your space” is also a statement at odds with the immediate negative response to people of color who do curate their space because of racism we are witnessing or experiencing.
When people of color curate our fandom spaces with the same sharp pruning that other people apply to us (usually for talking about racism), we are punished. There’s never actually a point where curation works for us.
Our boundaries are ignored or trampled over. Our inboxes are inundated with hate. Our friends are harassed for interacting with us, or worse, for defending us. We’re subjected to years of harassment from people we probably haven’t ever spoken to.
And –
We are told outright that fandom would be better without us (specifically and in the general sense of being “mouthy” people of color) and that we should leave (and create our own archive/fandom spaces) since we don’t like fandom as-is/”can’t” deal with the racism and racist harassment.
cross posted from my insta but here i am ranting about the tuskens again
also, disclaimer, some arabic sources i was reading mentioned only bedouin inspiration, while others in english mentioned both bedouin and imazighen inspiration
(tags via @withdrawnheart)
ok yes, this is such an important point???
like, these people literally invited the them onto their lands, let them stay in and film inside their family homes, and lost business and were economically impacted due to filming, but still extended the most gracious hospitality imaginable - only to be treated like trash and depicted in such a disgusting way
that, to me, is unforgivable
adding this too because it’s another good point
every single time i see jokes or memes making fun of the Tuskens or making jokes that rely on portraying them as savages or barbarians, it just feels like another slap to the face.
like that type of casual humor, when it’s at the expense of an entire cultural group, just isn’t funny and feeds in to a very long history of oppression, racism, and colonialism
fandom: if your jokes and memes are building off of real world racist stereotypes? they aren’t worth sharing
Escapism isn’t actually possible for everyone because of the nature of both fandom and the world around us. The best-worst example of the limits of fandom escapism? Racism.
Racism is global, and it infiltrates everything that we do; it’s close to inescapable offline, and it’s just as common online. Fandom is no exception.
So as the Witcher fandom does within fucking seconds people are being racist shit heads under the guise of “book accuracy” so as always go show the new actors some love and continue to support diversity in The Witcher!
Let’s show these shitheads that actually diversity in fantasy is pretty fucking awesome.
It’s happening again :(
So two lovely actresses have been cast for S3
Rochelle Rose for Margarita Laux-Antille
And Safiyya Ingar for Keira Metz
Already under Redanian Intelligence’s tweet there is racial harassment occurring
I would like to ask people to go to the tweet, and if you have an account leave a nice positive comment about being excited for the casting, saying the actresses are great picks, etc. One of the things we can do is try and drown out the hate with appreciation for more amazing woc joining the cast!!
Rick Riordan just released a Statement on the casting of Leah Jeffries, a black actress, as Annabeth Chase, a character traditionally scene as a blond white girl. I recommend reading the full statement here.
A few parts really stood out to me, this first part where Rick Riordan is making it clear these are not only his thoughts but also that Disney has yet to release a statement (they fucking should!!)
First, let me be clear I am speaking here only for myself. These thoughts are mine alone. They do not necessarily reflect or represent the opinions of any part of Disney, the TV show, the production team, or the Jeffries family.
This next part is so true because I feel like conspiracy theorists always try and claim some big bad is forcing their ✨ fav ✨ creator to support diversity.
You have decided that I couldn’t possibly mean what I have always said: That the true nature of the character lies in their personality. You feel I must have been coerced, brainwashed, bribed, threatened, whatever, or I as a white male author never would have chosen a Black actor for the part of this canonically white girl.
This part near the end to me really hit home because it’s talking about how you can’t even genuinely engage with the media you are claiming to protect if you are a racist dick towards the casting.
The core message of Percy Jackson has always been that difference is strength. There is power in plurality. The things that distinguish us from one another are often our marks of individual greatness. You should never judge someone by how well they fit your preconceived notions. That neurodivergent kid who has failed out of six schools, for instance, may well be the son of Poseidon. Anyone can be a hero.
If you don’t get that, if you’re still upset about the casting of this marvelous trio, then it doesn’t matter how many times you have read the books. You didn’t learn anything from them.
This is the bare minimum standard that creators of a piece of media should be setting in regards to standing up against the blatant racism that actors of color face, particularly when cast in roles people perceive as white.
We see across the board that anytime an actor of color, but in particular black female actresses, are cast in a role that is traditionally white there is massive backlash and racism. We saw this with Zendaya as MJ in Spider-Man, Anna Diop as Starfire, Halle Bailey as Ariel, and even with Catwoman despite 3 black women - Halle Berry, Eartha Kitt, and Zoë Kravitz having played her over the years. The Witcher fandom got a sampling of this too with the casting for Mistle with Christelle Elwin.
Racism in fandom will always exist. It’s important for creators to stand against it. And it’s important for fans to stand against it. Boost up creators and characters of color and drown out the hatred. It takes collective action to make fandom a safe space but together we can do it.
It’s pretty interesting how the “top post” in the “Fire Island” tags is a gifset featuring a secondary white guy. I should remind you that “Fire Island” is movie about gay “Pride and Prejudice” romance between two Asian male leads written and directed by Asian men, a movie that points out how Asian men face discrimination and racism within the community…
Granted the movie just came out yesterday, the situation may change, but still. People out here watched this movie and thought that a secondary white guy is the hottest thing that should be centered above the two Asian leads.
(for the record this post is about the pattern in fandom that exists)
This whole thread by Dr. Pande (“Squee from the Margins”) is on point, and it doesn’t let anyone off. It’s not just other corners of the fandom, as much as people love to say that they never see racism so they must be doing something right. If you never see it, you probably don’t see it when it happens.
It’s of course fair to criticize a performer’s performance and the writers’ writing of a character but where you tell on yourself is when you sandwich that ‘valid criticism’ between remarks about Moses’s race. Comments like, “Inclusion was more important than finding a good actress”, is just racism. The fact that her being Black was so profoundly remarkable to you that it led your critique implies you were always set out to be hypercritical of her performance and character. You’ve invalidated your criticism and you’ve exposed your racism and your bias.
Context: There is a big Tweet going around that appears to be a pro-Finn tweet. I almost clicked like, then I looked at the thread. The point of the post was – “DLF is accusing the fandom that wanted Finn to be the lead in the Sequel Trilogy of racism!?”
FALSE.
The StarWars twitter said don’t be racist about Reva in the Kenobi series. A lot of fans took that personally, which is a tell. Hit dogs holler, etc.
Don’t use Finn as a deflection. The SW fandom has been fucking horrible about Finn since 2014.
“With fandom the kind of racism that you most commonly see isn’t things like racial slurs and hate speech and white hoods. What you really see is a constant communal prioritization of white people and white characters, even when there are non-white characters in major roles. This is a trend across almost all fandoms.”
“Taika finally gave the world a show with canonically queer vampires!”
Icannotbe the only person on this website who remembers True Blood.
It premiered on HBO the year after tumblr launched.
It ran for 7 seasons.
True Blood was never a tumblr darling. I don’t even think it was a mainstream darling all that much (even with all the awards, the decent popularity, critical acclaim and an openly gay showrunner at the helm). To be fair, it also focused too much on an extremely boring white straight heroine and her numerous heterosexual love triangles. Fans liked Lafayette, but he was never the fandom favorite due to the fandom racism and antiblackness there was never much fan content made for him, aside from memes and quotes.
Speaking of antiblackness, I’d also want to remind about the horrible misogynoir that Tara Thornton faced both from the fans and the show itself. The way the canon treated Tara is still one of the grossest things in TV history of modern times, imo. So, not really sad that no one here remembers True Blood. Though, there’s a reboot coming our way. Let’s hope it does things better than its predecessor.
gods, this.
ALL POC suffered in that show, but Lafayette and Tara suffered the MOST. Especially from Magical Negro for the white heroine, the BBF syndrome. The “We need to be saving this idiot white girl from her Bad Life CHOICES”
and what do any of them get in return but hell?
And then the absolute hatred the fans gave because Tara had the audacity to be near any of their fave white dudes.
Was utterly disgusting.
And that ending was horrific and I hated everything when it premiered.
So, yeah, It IS better that no one remembers it because it was a fucking trainwreck after three seasons.
