There Should B A White Woman Equivalent Of Toxic Masculinity Bc The Amnt Of Times White Women Have Used

How to stan the white guy with minimal contribution to fandom's racism problem

Look, I get it. You're obsessed with the white guy. Maybe two of them together. And maybe your series has one or more main Black characters or Asian characters or a brown Latino star. You're here because of the irresistible pull of that white guy (or two), who is fascinating beyond belief. His acting is above anything anyone has ever seen. When you write about him, the words just pour out.

This is a fan-centered space so I feel confident in saying — we've all been there. I'm not going to lie and say I've never been invested in white characters. There's nothing innately wrong with liking white characters (that would be silly).

But when it comes to the characters of color in your chosen media, you have a choice. 

You're unmoved by the Black major characters and find them unrelatable? Ok. If you're not able to keep that to yourself, prepare for a discussion about the empathy gap. Because we literally do not need content about your inability to relate to CoC if the intention is for it to stand as some kind of undebatable truth about the inferiority of CoC.

And then there are the deflections. At the first mention of sidelining CoC it comes like clockwork: They're poorly written! The acting is sub par! The character is just not interesting! It's got nothing to do with race!

Except when it happens over and over and over again, it does. It just does.

I can't count how many times a conversation on Reddit or the Jedi Council Forum (or anywhere, really) started out about Finn and became all about Kylo Ren five replies in. Just today I saw the same thing on Tumblr, a post about the poor treatment of Lucas from Stranger Things, and in the comments people were talking about Billy and his trauma. 

If you stan the white guy(s) and don't want to be perceived as part of fandom's racism problem, do not hijack threads about CoC. Not every conversation has to center your guy. Conversations that center Black characters, and I can't stress this enough, do not take anything away from your white fave(s). Nothing at all. It's not a competition.

Stop making excuses about why you don't like the Black character. No one really cares until you start tearing them down with excuses. Don't come up with meta about how the Black hero is a villain, actually, and the white bad guy is a tortured sweet baby who represents all of the forgotten children of the world. It's not clever, it's not good or interesting meta, it's transparent empathy gap racism. 

And, again, that will be discuseed. You can't believe in "maximum inclusion" and draw the line at discussing racism. Responding to racism is not breaking the fandom social contract. It's a long established part of fandom by now.

It really shouldn't bother white guy stans so much to see a Black character in a major role in genre media to the point where they feel the need to aggressively dismiss them and their fans. Not doing that, at least, should be easy. Not doing that means that maybe that fandom critical post about racism isn't about you.

It's not about white guy characters or even their inevitable popularity. It's about fan behavior toward characters and fans of color, whether it's on Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit or AO3.

stryfewood week day 1: accidental meeting

my worst enemies are people who say the inosaku fight was about sasuke. like truly why would kishimoto write all of this purely to elevate sasuke. there are better and simpler ways of doing that. the whole point is sakura framing her goals to be more palatable to the patriarchal society they live in (to the point where she's constructed a separate identity around it). it's not subtle !!!!!

sakura has plenty of merits as a character, as do the majority of female characters in naruto, but some of you use "misogynistic mangaka" as an excuse -- subconsciously or otherwise -- not to engage with them (and at worst gleefully deride them). i do not love it

Scott as Little Red Riding Hood narrative getting stolen by St*les stans will never NOT piss me the fuck off

Rebloggable for anyone interested.

Stitch's Media Mix

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: The Problem With Preferences

Outside of the fandoms for Japanese media (anime and manga primarily) or the powerhouse Korean pop music Real Person Fiction (RPF) fandoms,

Stitch lays it out thoroughly, as usual, so there's no commentary I could add that would be better than just quoting what she says. I definitely recommend reading the whole thing, but here are a couple excerpts to give you an idea of the gist.

Excerpt 1:

Let’s return to the myth of preference. In fandom, as with online dating, folks think “preference” is a neutral word that shields them from the mere potential of having to interrogate why they seem to “prefer” white people as their faves. The thing is that this “preference” for white dudes isn’t all that neutral. A “preference” for white men is tied into centuries of racist propaganda that portrays whiteness as an ideal to the point where even people of color have trouble finding themselves or other people of color attractive.

[...]

Of course, that translates to fandom because fandom isn’t born in a vacuum. We don’t leave our ingrained prejudices in “the real world” when we log on to Tumblr or go for a scroll on the AO3. In fact, because many people in fandom curate their timelines to only show them their like-minded faves, they’re more likely to surround themselves with fans who think like they do and fanworks that reinforce the validity of their interests.

Excerpt 2:

Fantasies are just that – fantasies. On their own and in our heads, they can’t directly hurt people, and they provide the pleasure of partaking in the forbidden or the denied. For many people – especially marginalized people in unsafe or unhealthy positions in their daily lives – fantasies are all they have, and that’s important. However, in fandom spaces, fantasies don’t stay in people’s head, and they’re never on their own no matter what nonsense we fed about fandom and fiction not influencing/being influenced by reality. These fantasies come loaded with expectations, prior knowledge, stereotypes, trauma, politics, and a whole bunch of other stuff from the person fantasizing as well as other people who are aware of the fantasy. They get turned into fanworks that get thousands of views and hundreds of readers. After all, nothing we do or like or create is formed in a vacuum. In fandom spaces, fantasies that either exclude people of color entirely or reformat them as stereotypes for easy consumption (erotic and otherwise), are harmful because they are put forward without any awareness to a potential audience of thousands.

“I’m sorry Scott. I’m sorry. It’s not supposed to be like this. The bite is meant to be a gift. I can’t fix this, but you’re strong, and I’ll be here to help you get through it.”

What's that bro? You began interacting with a media from a different country than yours and/or was made in time period different than the recent present day? Haha that's sick bro! Keep expanding your horizons bro! You're remembering to take into account that sociocultural norms, gender roles and genre expectations are different from what you are used to and meeting the story halfway, instead of forcibly superimposing your ideals into the story, right bro? Right? Right?

There’s no hope.

Undertaker + professional cat holder

Requited.