ironyismybestfriend

[ironyismybestfriend]

First year, Class T, Leonardo sensei!

More anime parody. The original audio is from Gintama : Third year, Class Z Ginpachi-sensei!

[ironyismybestfriend]

I ship Meljay and Skyvik cuz I think black women should get whatever they want

[ironyismybestfriend]

Child someone just spent time out their day to say Mel abused Jayce and I’m like…just throw the internet away. Get a hobby, read a book. Volunteer. Leave the think pieces in 2024 cuz you sound stupid and pretentious.

[ironyismybestfriend]

Omg my ovaries

Waiting for Santa...

This is part of the Mutant Christmas 2024 art challenge

Almost didn't make it today

[ironyismybestfriend]

There's a pattern I've noticed with mixed-race fictional characters - the Black parent is almost invariably the dad. If this isn't selection bias on the part of the media I'm familiar with, I'm guessing this is tied to gendered stereotypes about Black people?

I mean, if you want my honest answer about the combination in general, it's because Black women are not deemed equivalently valuable partners, if valuable humans. That intersection between "Black" and "woman" drives home that this is the least desirable combination in our society.

Yes, there are plenty of stereotypes of the types of mothers and wives that we make, despite the fact that people then turn around and want us to solve the world's problems. Everyone wants us to fix, but no one wants to love us for the fixing and the doing. Everyone wants to mock us for being "ghetto welfare queens" or "loud and mean", to the point that the idea that we're normal ass people capable of love is unbelievable to some.

And be honest- how many times have we watched media where the Black girl or woman was the romantic interest of a white man, and it got extreme hate? Entire shows have been affected by fans' vitriol towards a Black woman on screen being loved by a white man (Merlin, Sleepy Hollow, The Flash, Arcane). People don't want to see Black women in that role; it's not "relatable" or "exciting". In order to see more Black women in these roles, people would have to see Black women as worth loving, as good parents, as good wives. As valuable characters.

And yes, the history of white women's vitriol and resentment towards the status of Black women in particular is longstanding, centuries before "fandom" as we know it today.

[ironyismybestfriend]

No, That’s Not ‘How Color Works’. - Whitewashing

Whitewashing, as defined by Merriam-Webster:

"to alter (something) in a way that favors, features, or caters to white people: such as a) to portray (the past) in a way that increases the prominence, relevance, or impact of white people and minimizes or misrepresents that of nonwhite people and B) to alter (an original story) by casting a white performer in a role based on a nonwhite person or fictional character"

In fandom context, we know it to include:

Making someone’s skin lighter

Making someone’s hair a thinner texture

Changing someone’s nose to be thinner

Shrinking their lips

Changing the character in their entirety to be someone else

The Normalization of Whitewashing

Remember how I mentioned last lesson that despite the nature of poorly drawn Black characters, most audiences are not turned off enough to discourage the action in professional works? Similar idea with whitewashing. Not the same- unlike the Ambiguously Brown Character, which claims to have plausible deniability, overt whitewashing is usually enough to make fans speak up! But that’s the key word here- overt! It has to be “bad enough” to make enough people speak up, but as we’ve seen many a time, “bad enough” seems to have a much higher threshold for nonblack viewership (sometimes the limit doesn’t exist!)

Some visual examples

This is a link to my personal thread on a Netflix show I was watching- Worst Ex Ever. Now, while the show itself was quite enlightening, there was something I could not get over. I thought I was going crazy. And that was that no matter how dark the person of color would be in real life, the animated portions would draw this light pinkish-brown. Every. Single. Time. It's like they couldn't fathom scrolling down the color wheel. And this is a Netflix original! Netflix has plenty of money for someone to have caught this in creation. But... it was produced. And put out. And they're making more of it.

I asked all of the Dragon Age fans about the series, and uh… I didn’t know things were this bad, guys! Apparently this is a man of color, but it doesn't seem like the creators want you to know that 🤣. Jokes aside, as I’ve discussed before, the noticeable whitewashing- and that was one of many racist things I was told- was not enough to prevent sales... so why would they stop? I can only hope this new game, with all the updates, is enough to turn the tide. But the series has gone on for a while now, that if they’d chosen to do ye same olde… there clearly would not be a lack of financial support to prevent it.

Colorism as a Tool

Even when actors of color are cast, colorism often plays a role in normalizing whitewashing to audiences, even to Black audiences! People think “oh well at least they’re Black!” as if that is the only important part. It is not.

While Aaron Pierre, the actor cast for John Stewart of Green Lantern fame, is a GORGEOUS, STUNNING man, he is not the dark-skinned man that John Stewart is supposed to be and should not have been cast! To me, this is overt colorism, but clearly for many people this is not “enough” to warrant concern or even prevent the casting itself- including the studio behind the movie! Black fans have plead for years for the character of Storm to be played by a dark-skinned, preferably African, woman, and it has never happened.

It naturally happens in fan spaces as well, which is another indicator that colorism as a tool for whitewashing is quite effective for audiences. If I see one more Zendaya fan cast for Kida from Atlantis, I will scream. It’s been happening for years, and I don’t think any of the people who just want to see her and Tom on screen either understand or care that Kida is a dark-skinned character. Zendaya doesn’t look anything like Kida- it doesn’t matter if she’s Black too! Just because someone is Black does not mean they can play every single Black character! I’ve even seen people fancast Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones fame, to which… I don’t have the words. I can’t fathom what would cause these decisions other than racism.

The Common Excuses

I must be honest. I don’t really feel like re-iterating how certain things are not okay and how to fix them, because I’ve already discussed these things in massive detail. So I’m just going to direct the excuses I regularly hear to my lessons, where you can read up on them.

“Their hair/eyes are like that because they’re biracial so-”

Relevant Lessons: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 8, 9, 10

There is nothing wrong with having biracial characters with a range of features. I am not saying that! Because yeah, genetics do happen!

But I mentioned this in my last lesson, and I will re-emphasize here, that using biracial identity as a way to whitewash is a sinister form of racism. The intention here- the real intention- is the issue here! The idea that somehow this character can only look the way you want them to look by "diluting" their Blackness… I don’t know how you can explain yourselves out of that one.

You don’t get to use us as an excuse for diversity while still trying to maintain your preference for Eurocentric beauty standards. Black biracial people don’t always look light skinned, thin-haired and ambiguous, and even the ones that do don’t deserve to be treated as your fetish for pretend antiracism. If you just want to draw a white person with a tan, do that. But don’t change a character’s entire look just so you can work in some whiteness. If you want to claim that canon Black character’s mother was white, then I guess they inherited some of her personality because their features should not change.

“It’s my style/It’s the color-”

Relevant Lessons: 3, 4, 10

I hate all excuses for whitewashing, but I’ve grown to despise, hate, abhor and loathe this one the most as I’ve become an artist. I wish there were stronger words to describe just how much I hate the “style” and “color” excuse.

Are style and use of color oft intertwined? Absolutely. I’m not saying they aren’t. But out of everything, there are two things I want artists to understand:

1. Style does not cancel out racism! No style forces you to choose ashy greys and to change peoples’ features. That’s you! If you look at something, and it looks offensive, you change the style. You grow as an artist!

2. “Everyone who is brown will look ashy so I just-” if you recognize that your Black characters look strange in comparison to your nonblack characters, then it’s time to try something else! I don’t understand this sudden need for “realism” when it comes to color and lighting, but not when it comes to hair, for example. No one cares about realism when giving every and all Black characters wavy tresses they probably wouldn’t have, but suddenly milquetoast watercolor attempts at brown and off-putting lighting is “how it works”. That’s not fair.

The color picker is an available tool! I use it often!

Dead giveaway of purposeful whitewashing: if someone gets the outfit color palette right via color picking, but the skin color is multiple shades lighter. That means they were looking at that character and chose not to proceed.

Dead giveaway of purposeful whitewashing: if the white characters in the show are completely correct in their palettes. Again, that means they cared enough to look at everyone else… and not the Black characters.

If you use the color picker and the color picked is… disrespectful, you do not have to use that! You can simply choose a better color that is still similar to the brown that ought to be depicted!

“It’s the lighting-”

Relevant Lessons: 4, 5

If your white characters do not shine like snow in the sunlight because of your lighting, then your lighting does not make your Black characters suddenly light tan.

If your Black characters look bad in your lighting of choice- for example, putting a very dark-skinned character in electric white lighting can be ghastly- try changing the intensity or the color of the lighting. DON’T change your character’s skin color!

I'm going to show you some pictures of South Sudanese model Nyakim Gatwech. Pay attention to the choices of light, color, and makeup.

Look how BEAUTIFUL she is! Look at the choices of intensity and color of light, and how they make her look different in each image.

Now look at this image in comparison:

In this image, whoever did her makeup and took this picture did not take into consideration her skin tone. She's also under this really intense lighting. This is an example of "increasing the lighting does NOT make an image "better"". She didn't need to have lighter skin or "more lighting" to look good. She needed BETTER lighting, lighting that worked with HER.

To see this as an example in drawn art, @dsm7 makes an excellent argument for proper lighting and color, why it is an issue to use it as an excuse, and how to solve that problem.

‼️DISCLAIMER FOR NEXT EXAMPLE‼️

Okay. I am about to show y’all a fan-created example from my personal experience. It is a TEACHING EXPERIENCE ONLY. I am not including the artist’s name in this image. It happened a couple years ago, and it’s over- they’ve chosen to be who they are despite me kindly confronting them about it. The only reason I’m including it at all is because I feel like it would be remiss to have such a clear-cut, multi-level example, and not teach with it. That said, no, I am not telling anyone to act out towards them. Again, that is not what I’m telling you to do. The last thing I need is a literal lynch mob of angry nonblack viewership for trying to teach you all, and y’all sitting there watching it happen to me. Every example of whitewashing is not going to be so obvious, but I hope you learn how to spot the examples in the art you see and share.

I'm obviously a Hades fan, particularly of Patroclus- despite my disdain for the lack of effort in his canon character design. So I've seen a lot of things. That said:

“Well it’s just MY design of them-”

Relevant Lessons: ALL

The sepia coloring did not do this. The lighting did not do this. The design is the exact same as the Hades version, even down to the shape of the hair curling in the back. The only thing that is different… is the man himself.

Y'all. Y'all! You CANNOT take a pre-existing Black character and say “oh well this is my design of them” …and the design is of a whole white person. Because if the rest of the fit is the same, and the only thing that changed is the Blackness… Racism. If you’re going to “make up your own design”, then do that!

“Blackwashing”

Speaking of: I’m sure someone edgy out there thinks they’re so smart as they retort to the screen: “but if that’s not okay, then why is Blackwashing okay?” To which I say- shut up. 😐

The “definition” by fandom: making a nonblack character Black, usually an anime character, but characters in general.

Funny enough, the actual definition in the dictionary (or closest to) is “to defame”, in contrast with whitewash (as in whitewashing history). Maybe racist fans ARE using it correctly when they say you’re blackwashing their characters, when they mean you’re making them “less likable because they’re Black now”. 🤔

Anyway: Blackwashing is not real for the same reason reverse racism is not real.

Me painting these characters brown is not going to take away from the fact that there are far more of you in media than there is of me. Me saying that I ‘headcanon a character as Black with 4C hair’ is not going to make the studio go “oh! Well they must be Black with 4C hair now!” Me saying “oh I think I’d like this character better if they were Black” as a beta tester (less overtly, obviously, because I’m not racist!) will never make a studio change that character. Black viewers have minimal value in comparison to the power of the white viewer’s dollar. I could draw white characters Black every single day of every single game media… and they would still produce majority white characters. There has not been centuries- if not millennia, when we consider Jesus Christ himself, even- of purposeful “Blackwashing” with the intent of removing the original ethnicity- and thus importance- of white people. No one has ever been allowed to forget when someone is white. No one has ever been allowed to forget or not acknowledge white people.

How it could be "solved"

Personally, I love Black edits and I welcome them here. I find them creative and fun. But if you really, REALLY didn’t want us to make those edits, then naturally, we need more Black characters in all of our media!

I wouldn’t have to make edits if I saw more of me to begin with in the things I like to watch- but when we have those characters, racists act an ass about them. We’re not allowed to even be present! I’ve seen too many gamer bros mocking the existence of Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed, and he was a real ass man. But if we made a game about African peoples in African societies, how many of the gamer bros would actually play those games? Do you think there’d be as much support, when we hear so much about Black characters that are treated so abhorrently? How many games do we have where people would love their faves just as much if they were Black? I even learned that Solas was apparently supposed to be a man of color. IMAGINE how many people would not have liked that man, with the same exact plot and characterization.

Something I’ve noticed recently: apparently "Blackwashing" is not a thing when White fans “allow” it. Take this recent trend with Miku. International Miku was beloved! But if you draw any other character as Black on any other day, there will be people that are horrid about it. Ask any artist, Black artists and Black cosplayers especially, who’s ever done it what their comments are like. I’ve read entire missives akin to white supremacist drivel on how it’s somehow morally wrong to make characters Black. Meanwhile no amount of “hey maybe you shouldn’t do this” prevented the movie Gods of Egypt from being created, with a cast full of British White people.

Solutions to Avoiding Whitewashing!

1) Using References!!

Do I think you should know what Black people look like? Yes. We’re humans. It’s 2024. Everyone knows what we look like when it’s time to hate and discriminate against us, so you know what we look like when it’s time to love and depict us. If you’re on Tumblr, you have access to the Internet. ESPECIALLY if you’re in the U.S., as Black people are the source of damn near every piece of online pop culture. If you can find my dialect to make my jokes, you can find pictures of me.

Would I rather you use a reference every single time so that you can only strengthen your depiction of my people? ABSOLUTELY.

Anyone on the Internet telling you not to use a reference or that you shouldn’t need a reference? Unfollow them. You don’t need that negativity in your life. Why would you deprive yourself of a tool to create? The greatest portrait painters in history had to look at their subjects! You are not getting paid nearly as much to do this as Hans Holbein, and he had to stare at Henry VIII correct else lose his head- you can pull up multiple references. I’d far rather be judged for using hella references than be judged for being a racist!

Part of the issue is people draw what they’re used to, what they’re comfortable with (thus last lesson). But if what you’re used to is not what someone will look like… That’s not okay. Their features are not the issue, your skills are the issue. Learn! Practice! There is no rush. No one is rushing you to be perfect at drawing Black characters, and no one is rushing you to post them. You can just practice! If you’re not a professional, you can take as long as you need to draw! If you need to draw that piece of hair over and over until you feel like you have down the shape, you do that! If you need to use a tool that would draw the hair for you, you get that tool!

If you want to post, you can say you are practicing! If you make clear you are practicing, then be willing to accept that people may have feedback. I’d far rather deal with someone saying they’re unconfident and practicing, than someone posting a whitewashed caricature and closing their ears because “well at least I’m trying!”

2) Empathize! Care about actual Black people when you create a Black character!

Imagine, if you will, in the Twilight Zone: you went to an artist, and you asked for a white character (I typed in “regular looking white dude” on google). There’s hardly ever any white characters, you’re so super excited about this one! You paid good money, because you’ve seen just how amazing this artist creates! They’re so good at drawing characters of color! But no matter how many times you ask, they send you back an image of… Assad Zaman.

That man might be fine as hell! Gorgeous! Beautifully done! Chef’s kiss. Stunning! But… He’s not white. That’s not what you asked or paid for. You can’t even fathom how they mixed this up, they don’t even look alike! And when you confront them, they gaslight you, they call YOU the issue for not understanding how you can’t tell that this is a white man! They would never get this wrong! They have white friends, you’re the racist! But you’re not stupid, and you have functioning eyes- you can SEE what this drawing looks like! And… It’s not you.

It’s dehumanizing. It’s being told that there’s a “better way” to look like you, and that’s by… Not looking like you. You, as you exist, are what’s incorrect. Your identity is incorrect, not their drawing. It’s better to have thinner hair instead of an afro or locs, it’s better to have lighter skin, it’s better to have a straighter, thinner nose over a round one, and smaller lips.

And what makes it worse is knowing that people who don’t look like you? Probably won’t care. They won’t be willing to see- not unable, but unwilling- that playing with this caricature is harmful, that they’re propagating harm by not acknowledging it. They’re letting you know that your humanity means less to them than the clout received with a whitewashed or half-assed Black character, and that people will applaud them for that ‘attempt at inclusion’. And people will applaud! They will be entertained by the mere performance! And that hurts.

I’m going to say this, and it’s awkward and I try not to say it directly on here, but… Having Black friends and/or being around actual, real life Black people would help. I can tell from some of the questions I receive that Black characters and their traits- especially things like our hair and our cultures- are being treated as… alien concepts. But even if, for whatever reason, you legitimately don’t know any Black people, you do not need to know us individually to care about our humanity as a whole! Even if you do not know we’re there, we are, and we could possibly see your work!

By acknowledging Blackness and making room to understand what it means- and that includes how we can look- you are doing the bare minimum of acknowledging our personhood. If you cannot do even that, you don’t need to be drawing us.

Conclusion

Here’s the thing: if you want to draw a white man with tanned skin, do that. Just do it! You do NOT have to erase me to have more of you! There is not a single fandom where the majority of the white fans ever said “gee, not another white guy!” It simply doesn’t happen. God knows we wish it did sometimes. You will always have an audience for white characters. There’s no danger to any of you of “being erased”.

(Without putting on my political hat, I will say that a lot of white people who consider themselves to be far from white supremacist will express beliefs in line with great replacement theory if you push them hard enough. It is unfortunately not as uncommon an idea as you might think. I would do some self-evaluation.)

People are going to notice that you only ever draw white people, but… To be frank, that has never stopped anybody from being successful. Again, Jen Zee, at Supergiant with the terrible dark-skinned characters… Still has a job. at Supergiant. A professional studio. Dragon Age. Multiple games of consistent whitewashing and racist writing. Still going. If racism prevented creation and popularity, I wouldn’t have to have this blog. Alas, that is the society we currently live in.

But if you ACTUALLY want to depict Black characters, if you ACTUALLY want to do right and be respectful- not because you want the clout, but because it’s the right damn thing to do- then you need to commit! This means drawing them as they are meant to be! Accept that you’ll likely lose some fan base, who was there (whether they were aware of it or not) for the white and lighter skinned characters. Accept that this means that trying to appeal to those people by whitewashing characters is 1) wrong, 2) racist, which is 3) something you chose to do when you could simply have just… Drawn more white people.

I’ll say it again: antiracism is hard. It’s hard doing the right thing in a society that rewards racism so easily. It’s really hard knowing that people will stop supporting you or caring as much about your work when you start including Black characters as actively as you do white ones, especially if you start talking about the importance of it. But in my honest opinion, I’d far rather be someone that cared about others, with genuine fans, than someone that was racist for the fleeting internet clout of strangers. And that may be less ‘hopeful’ than I normally am in these lessons, but… People make choices. And people who have been informed- as you are now- are aware of the choices they are making. It’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers- let’s choose better actions.

[ironyismybestfriend]

I’m so excited for Mutant Mayhem.

[ironyismybestfriend]

Enough time has passed and I’m drunk enough to admit: Jayce is fine as fuck with a beard. #beardsupremacy#thatsallimgivinghim #hedisrespectedmyqueen #fucknigga #heisfinethough

[ironyismybestfriend]

Mel protecting Jayce with her powers, and Jayce coming to her aid.

⸻   JAYCE TALIS & MEL MEDARDA, Arcane Season 2

[ironyismybestfriend]

[ironyismybestfriend]

I’m gonna need anyone who isn’t a black woman/femme to not speak on discrimination that black women and femmes experience because y’all really don’t know what you’re talking about and every explanation you give is just a slap in the face. That includes tv tropes.

[ironyismybestfriend]

Just saw that very fucking disgusting video featuring 2 Arcane animators talking about Mel and Jayce's relationship. I really hate how they snuck that fanfic ship into the last Act and the complete nasty way they talked about Mel's character truly is pissing me the fuck off. I couldn't enjoy Jayvik as gay man even if it was my ship(it isn't)with how dirty Mel was done as the disposable black girl. Those motherfuckers better not be anywhere near her spin-off show about Noxus.

[ironyismybestfriend]

[ironyismybestfriend]

So Mel Medarda

Watched her own mother behead a woman when she was a child

Was exiled from her own family for not being ruthless enough

Still managed to make herself prominent enough to become a member of the Piltover council

Helped two young inventors pursue their project even though it seemed like what they were doing is madness—This brought incredible profit and technological advancements to the city. And then it also turned out this stuff was causing crazy magic polution, which she couldn't have known but now can blame herself for, since she supported the project.

She was there for the bombing of her workplace which killed half of her colleagues, crippled one and almost killed her at-the-time lover's partner. Then she learned why she was unscathed was dormant magic powers, so now she gets to grapple with the reality that she could've saved them all if she just knew about this stuff and how to control it. At the same time, if she didn't subconsciously activate that shield, she would've been dead. Like. Wow. Oh my God.

Then she got attacked again, directly had a gun pointed at her and when she tried to escape, she got trapped in a carriage that toppled over.

Then she got kidnapped and watched as her kidnapper brutally murdered her friend. Then said kidnapper took the form of her late brother and tried to play with her emotionally and she bashed that bitch's head in.

Then this kidnapper tried to manipulate her into betraying her own mom.

It's revealed she has crazy magic powers which have been kept from her her whole life, her mom basically traded her brother's life for hers to hide her away and now she has to grapple with the fact that this is what she is, and God knows what other people might think of her if they learn.

She saved Jayce's ungrateful ass from the Viktor robot, after he literally had the worst fucking reaction to the previous point.

She saved Caitlin's life.

She killed her kidnapper.

She held her own mother and watched her die.

And now she basically has to return home to take over as the new head of the family, despite all the connections and the life she built in Piltover, not to mention that place also got fucked and she can't even be there to help rebuild, because she has all this other shit going on and God knows when will all this finally emotionally break her.

Did I miss anything?

Like, holy shit, Mel Medarda the character you are. The shit you've been through that nobody gives you enough credit for.

I want more of this woman. I want her to finally be actually happy, not just on top of things or in control. I want her to experience good things to make up for all this crap and then I want to see her do cool magic stuff, while still being the intelligent ruler that she is.

[ironyismybestfriend]

The MCU fandom has had a problem with misogynoir from the moment Black women were cast in the main franchise — a decision that in itself took too long considering how Thor: Ragnarok was the first MCU film to even have a Black woman onscreen in a major role without her skin tone being hidden under makeup or via CGI. It began with fans who wanted Lupita to be cast as a “strong Black woman that didn’t need a man” in Black Panther, and moved on to Shuri being written off as a Mary Sue right before the film was released. It’s now present in the way fans are able to clock the ableism in Bucky’s arm being deactivated as a shocking, fight-ending move, but not the misogynoir present in how they refuse to extend understanding towards Ayo and the Dora Milaje. It’s a contradiction MCU fans seldom seem to acknowledge: extreme empathy for white characters (even villains) runs right alongside a refusal to empathize with Black and brown characters in the same films or shows.

At the end of the day, there are two conversations we need to be having at once. We need to be talking about how the MCU has heaped ableism onto how Bucky is written, and how fandom is prepared to believe the worst about Black women characters to the point where they ignore context in a scene.

So check your emotions. Appreciate context. And take some time to figure out if your negative response to scenes like what we got between Ayo and Bucky is an honest reaction, or if you’re being fueled by misogynoir without even realizing it.

[ironyismybestfriend]

Black fans and Black culture writers who specialize in complex fandom and media circles have been talking about all of these different dustups and racefails for years –

But no one listens.

No one ever listens to Black people in a given fandom until it’s too late – like when a celebrity like John or Candice finally gets the room to speak up about the harm they’ve been suffering. They only listen to – and deign to even cite us – when something catastrophic keeps folks from pretending that fandoms are utopias – like with the direct aftermath of the first wave of BLM protests and fandom diving into donations back at the start of June.

Major outlets and academic fields devoted to fandom and nerddom only care when finally, the thing Black fans been talking about for years is actually and officially a thing that’ll get them clicks, views, hits on their CVs and celebration for being “brave enough” to tackle these tough topics.

But until then?

Radio silence.

[ironyismybestfriend]

ok i promised myself up and down i wouldn’t make posts like this anymore for my own mental health but i’ve been seeing a lot of, uh, takes in regards to the potential of sarah and bucky dating and a lot of confusion to why these takes are racist, insulting and hurtful, especially to black people. and for me? well, i won't lie, it's personal.

what non-black people need to understand is that positive portrayals of interracial romantic relationships between dark-skinned black women (yes, dark skinned) and non-black men are extremely uncommon in media. for example, can you think about any recent fictional portrayals of relationships of this kind? maybe rick and michonne from the walking dead? or abbie and ichabod from sleepy hollow? great, because those are the only two that i can think of off the top of my head.

okay, now how many of those relationships ended happily?

right.

as a next point, why do i highlight ‘dark-skinned’? because of colorism. you’ve probably seen that word thrown around a lot more in the past year. colorism is the discrimination within ethnic groups between those with lighter colored skin (and more eurocentric features and hair texture, i’m folding in featurism and texturism for ease) and those with darker skin.

the way this plays out in visual media is that it’s much more common to see lighter skinned black women in roles than darker skinned black women. when i was growing up, this was evident in both white-produced AND black-produced media. that’s so raven. sister sister. my wife and kids. the proud family, even. and to make it worse, it wasn’t uncommon for dark skinned black women in shows like these to be portrayed as unattractive, uncultured, or straight up bullies.

this isn’t me saying that we shouldn’t see light skinned or biracial black women in media. i want to emphasize that their life experiences and the pressures they have are different from mine. but i know that, because of colorism, i grew up thinking that the absence of Eurocentric features and a non Eurocentric body meant i was not beautiful and not worthy to be seen. and these truths can coexist. this is not an uncommon wound of colorism.

i say all this to say that for bucky barnes, a white man, to flirt with sarah wilson, a dark skinned black woman, is not the same as ‘just another het ship’. it is positive representation in its own right.

now, i’ve been in fandom for years. i’ve encountered this before. and i’ve encountered this enough to know that truthfully, these kind of ships make people truly uncomfortable and sometimes these people do a bad job of hiding it. what reason, i can’t say. if you ask me, i suspect part of the discomfort comes non-black people realizing they can’t project onto the black person in the ship in the same way they’re used to. i could be wrong. but i’ve been around enough to see a lot of pretzeling and back bending to discredit these sorts of relationships that don’t seem to come up for similar pairings if that same black woman was now white. and i’m seeing it again here, so i wanted to break down the most common takes i’ve either seen or i suspect i’ll see soon and break them down to explain why exactly you’ve been getting irritated replies and why they’re hurtful.

“bucky’s flirting with sarah to make sam jealous.” without thinking about it, this is actually a funny trope. sibling rivalry and all that. and you’re right, bucky doesn’t have to be attracted to sarah, and maybe you ship sambucky instead. but what if he can still find her attractive? this take subtly discredits the idea that bucky could find sarah attractive in her own right - there has to be some ulterior motive in order to explain it, yeah?

“bucky repeated sarah’s name like that because sarah was steve’s mom’s name.” we do know bucky knows steve’s mom’s name! but again, this feels like a lot of reaching to again, rework bucky’s potential attraction to sarah in a different context so it’s not actually genuine. in this case, he doesn’t like her, she just makes him think of his dead best friend’s mom, right?

“sarah’s so strong and badass, she doesn’t need a man! she deserves better.” okay. what does ‘deserving better’ actually mean? why can’t a potentially fulfilling relationship for sarah, a hardworking widow with two children, be deserving better? this also plays into the Strong Black Woman myth, in which black women are just So Strong and Self Sufficient and Powerful they don’t need anything! not even social aid! or protection! or love! or mental health support! let me be clear, this trope is not fun for us, it’s not a positive, it’s a burden that allows society to justify not protecting black women.

“this seems kind of forced/crowbarred in to me.” maybe, but also, in the episode, they really just said 'hi' to one another. now if sam had caught them making out on the boat two seconds after they met, that would have raised my eyebrows, but they just said 'hi'. some people are interpreting that as flirtatious - i'm one of them. but again, using words like 'crowbar' and 'force' or 'shove' make it seem like bucky's attraction to sarah is irrational.

now, here’s what i’m not saying. i’m not threatening you to ship bucky and sarah Or Else. you don't have to. i do. i think it’s fun! but that’s my choice. you don’t have to make that choice. you could be shipping someone else with either sarah or bucky and you don't want something to get in the way of that, i get it. i'm also not saying that sarah needs bucky's validation to be considered beautiful, far from it. what i’m saying is it’s worth it to evaluate the ways that implicit racism is affecting and influencing your responses to interracial relationships with black people, and especially black women in the media. because even if you might not see it, there are those of us who can. why can't the prospect of a white man flirting with a dark skinned black women be taken at face value? maybe sit with that.

sources for further reading the roots of colorism, or skin tone discrimination the walking dead's new power couple: 'richonne' and fandom racism fanlore breakdown of 'what shipping richonne taught me about racism' black women and the thin line between strong and angry post on black womanhood and feminism what is featurism? black hair and mental health: a tale of texturism fandom and the intersection of feminism and race "weak black women" by robin thede (for giggles) the take's 'the strong black woman, explained' (yet to watch but the take hasn't failed me yet)