#'antiblackness'
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The state of Georgia did what with voter registrations?!
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White people are miserable, racist losers period. They’ve even been getting mad at Japanese people for correcting them about Yasuke as well.
#rambling#seen wp go ‘they’re mismembering their history is all-‘#as if they’d know more than the actual Japanese people#comments on ever post about yasuke are full of racist wp arguing with Japanese ppl and telling them that yasuke was a ‘nobody slave’#while Japanese ppl are just like ‘well anyway-‘ on their asses it’s kind of embarrassing#the guy is literally an historical figure bro#how are you mad that everyone from a country that you have such an unhealthy interest in isn’t as racist as you are??? that’s what it’s#giving#I’m sure there are lots of Japanese ppl being racist af too#since antiblackness is global and everyone has a problem with black people simply existing but#they hate us too but 😭#it’s just#expect full blown kkk bullshit as soon as a black character pokes their head out from around the curtain#antiblackness#I see white ppl cry about yasuke every other month man#or at least once a year on Twitter
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"acab includes fandom police" "acab includes bossy people" "acab includes-" no it doesnt. no it fucking doesnt. there is a way for you to express your disapproval of a group without equating it to the government sponsored institution that loves to torture and kill black people
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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.
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okay listen. im gonna say something here, I'm not black. however, the non black people in the tags (mostly the kendrick lamar tag) being like. oh well uwu 😔☝️how come no one talked before about drake being a pedophile and preying on black women etc? thats weird! uhhhh??????? black women have? for years???? yall didnt listen when they said 'hey this is weird' n it only got a considerate attention when it was about millie bobbie brown and still you people were like "oh whatever he still makes fire music" or whatever. and some people still are acting like this. so, listen to black women when they tell you they feel or know that something is not right. listen to black people.
#stating that im not black in the post cuz you know. not being black does a 100% affect the way i 'experience' this whole situation#very very different#and like. hear me out here. 19 year old jorja smith dating him???? hmmmm#idk#kendrick lamar#drake#antiblackness
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The whole transphobic bullshit aimed towards Imane Khelif, an Algerian woman, calling her a "man", all becos her opponent, a White Italian woman, lost and cried white woman tears. Do not forget how transphobia is linked to racism and colonialism.
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so officers can unload 3 full mags into a black woman's house over an alleged robbery sighting (it was her own home), shoot her 5 times (remember breonna taylor? we're not safe even at home) and the only consequence they face is administrative leave (they shot at her in her goddamn home over speculation.)
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when you know that the word woke is aave and refers to someone who's informed about systemic antiblack racism all those conservative rants about "the woke mob" are that much more transparent. whether or not they know what it actually means, the effect of misusing it in the way they do is the same. most people will end up thinking it just means "the radical left" or some other nebulous and vague anti-conservative movement, and whatever topic du jour is considered "woke" ends up completely sweeping any discussions about the antiblack systems that the us is built upon under the rug
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"The story of 'John Doe 1' of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is tucked in a lawsuit filed five years ago against several U.S. tech companies, including Tesla, the world’s largest electric vehicle producer. In a country where the earth hides its treasures beneath its surface, those who chip away at its bounty pay an unfair price. As a pre-teen, his family could no longer afford to pay his $6 monthly school fee, leaving him with one option: a life working underground in a tunnel, digging for cobalt rocks. But soon after he began working for roughly two U.S. dollars per day, the child was buried alive under the rubble of a collapsed mine tunnel. His body was never recovered.
The nation, fractured by war, disease, and famine, has seen more than 6 million people die since the mid-1990s, making the conflict the deadliest since World War II. But, in recent years, the death and destruction have been aided by the growing number of electric vehicles humming down American streets. In 2022, the U.S., the world’s third-largest importer of cobalt, spent nearly $525 million on the mineral, much of which came from the Congo.
As America’s dependence on the Congo has grown, Black-led labor and environmental organizers here in the U.S. have worked to build a transnational solidarity movement. Activists also say that the inequities faced in the Congo relate to those that Black Americans experience. And thanks in part to social media, the desire to better understand what’s happening in the Congo has grown in the past 10 years. In some ways, the Black Lives Matter movement first took root in the Congo after the uprising in Ferguson in 2014, advocates say. And since the murder of George Floyd and the outrage over the Gaza war, there has been an uptick in Congolese and Black American groups working on solidarity campaigns.
Throughout it all, the inequities faced by Congolese people and Black Americans show how the supply chain highlights similar patterns of exploitation and disenfranchisement. ... While the American South has picked up about two-thirds of the electric vehicle production jobs, Black workers there are more likely to work in non-unionized warehouses, receiving less pay and protections. The White House has also failed to share data that definitively proves whether Black workers are receiving these jobs, rather than them just being placed near Black communities. 'Automakers are moving their EV manufacturing and operations to the South in hopes of exploiting low labor costs and making higher profits,' explained Yterenickia Bell, an at-large council member in Clarkston, Georgia, last year. While Georgia has been targeted for investment by the Biden administration, workers are 'refusing to stand idly by and let them repeat a cycle that harms Black communities and working families.'
... Of the 255,000 Congolese mining for cobalt, 40,000 are children. They are not only exposed to physical threats but environmental ones. Cobalt mining pollutes critical water sources, plus the air and land. It is linked to respiratory illnesses, food insecurity, and violence. Still, in March, a U.S. court ruled on the case, finding that American companies could not be held liable for child labor in the Congo, even as they helped intensify the prevalence. ... Recently, the push for mining in the Congo has reached new heights because of a rift in China-U.S. relations regarding EV production. Earlier this month, the Biden administration issued a 100% tariff on Chinese-produced EVs to deter their purchase in the U.S. Currently, China owns about 80% of the legal mines in the Congo, but tens of thousands of Congolese work in 'artisanal' mines outside these facilities, where there are no rules or regulations, and where the U.S. gets much of its cobalt imports. 'Cobalt mining is the slave farm perfected,' wrote Siddharth Kara last year in the award-winning investigative book Cobalt Red: How The Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. 'It is a system of absolute exploitation for absolute profit.' While it is the world’s richest country in terms of wealth from natural resources, Congo is among the poorest in terms of life outcomes. Of the 201 countries recognized by the World Bank Group, it has the 191st lowest life expectancy."
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"African migrants in Lebanon are facing two unique challenges - the struggle of living under Israeli bombardment and discrimination because of the color of their skin. Some say shelters are rejecting them and prioritising Lebanese citizens fleeing Israeli airstrikes." - via AJ+ on TikTok
Donate here to help African migrants in Lebanon.
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will be open about this but being queer and black and an artist is so exhausting sometimes...it sucks that so many others who are like me(I just got lucky) kinda fly under the radar either because people don't notice them for being like me or black creatives do so on purpose to avoid racism/anti blackness.
it feels lonely that I don't see many characters like me let alone ones that aren't pushed to the side so I gotta create my own. it hurts that being myself opens me up to queerphobia *AND* racism.
please love queer black people, artists and creatives alike, and real heavy talk, we kinda don't live that long...
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Via ajplus
#sudan#keep eyes on sudan#antiblackness#black lives matter#sudanese genocide#sudan war#save sudan#free sudan#sudan crisis#sudan genocide#talk about sudan#blacklivesmatter#african politics#african#africa#racism#2024#labutansa
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Antiblackness Isn't Sexy!
As #Kinktober is upon us, I want to take this time to remind everyone that certain things may not carry the same "sexy" connotation for everyone! This isn't just a "your yuck is my yum" situation, this is a "hey, you're being racist" situation. Now if that's what you enjoy, I can't tell you otherwise. But if you'd like to be considerate towards your Black readers and peers, here are *some* (not all!) things to keep in mind:
1) Objectification is not respect. You can think Black people are sexy- I certainly do! That does not mean treating us like sex toys. An example: if your first thought when you look at a Black male character, is "This'll be good smut, I bet his dick is gigantic"- if your first thought is about their genitals and that they're a good fuck... That is weird. Abeg. Nothing else stood out to you? Just ye olde "Black men have big dicks?"
There's a racist and dehumanizing history behind the oversexualization of Black men, Black bodies in general. Sure, big penises are not insulting or bad, but just as you don't want to be brought down to your bits... Don't do it to us. We can be sexy without being objectified. You can think we're sexy without objectifying us!
2) Making your Black character more sexually aggressive (if fic: -than their canon counterpart). Your Black character having a high libido is fine, but if you've essentially written a sex pest, especially in comparison to a nonblack counterpart... Why? Why do you think that they're automatically the one that would be like that? One example of that is the whole "step on me mommy" thing with confidently sexy Black women. What makes you deem she's the "aggressive" one? She could be a gentle pillow princess.
3) Making your Black character more physically hulking (if fic: -than their canon counterpart). They don't look like that, you know they don't look like that, and you need to consider why you felt the need. Especially in comparison to their nonblack counterparts.
4) Chains and whips, Specifically the large, hulking Black or Brown character in chains held by a skinny white character. Especially if they're like a werewolf. You know why these visuals can be questionable! I know the intended symbolism is supposed to be steamy and animalistic, a bodice ripper deal. But think about it- how often have you seen the opposite- with a skinny Black person holding a hulking, animalistic white person in chains? What imagery are we evoking when we draw this, constantly? We are not animals, we are not raging, uncontrollable sex beasts.
Consensual sex and kink are supposed to involve respect between all parties. Respect, communication, vulnerability, and trust. You can have an interesting, sexually active, high libido, kinky Black character without morphing them a stereotype to be used for the sexual satisfaction of white viewers. Just as white people that do kink are humans with inner lives, so are we. Do better by your Black characters, and your Black readers, by showing us that respect. 👍🏾
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Why is it that brainrotted fandom idiots will go "fandom is a space for FREAKS and WEIRDOS it's not your safe space 😡😡😡 if you don't like it you can LEAVE 😤😤😤" but then when someone asks them to stop treating black people in fandom spaces like shit they're all suddenly like "but ummmmm it's my safe space 🥺 the real world is mean and scary this is the only place I can go 🥺 racist harassment is my coping mechanism why won't you let people enjoy things 🥺"
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