#fandom against racism

[end-otw-racism]

OTW Board Meeting on July 14!

The OTW has announced the next public Board meeting will be held on July 14 from 13:00 to 14:00 UTC. For some of us that'll be July 15, though, so be sure to check what time that is for you.

The posted agenda:

Decisions made since the last public board meeting

Organizational Culture Roadmap Update

Board Year Roadmap Update

Any other business (Questions & Answers)

Meetings are held in the OTW Discord server and last approximately an hour. The Board will address the agenda first, and once that business is concluded they will take at least ten questions. Questions that are not answered during the meeting will be combined and posted as weekly Q&A threads in the ⁠#questions-answers channel starting two weeks after the most recent public meeting.

For this meeting, there will be the option to send in questions in advance through a Google Form. You'll need to be logged into a Google account in order to submit a question, and only one question per person will be accepted. Questions can be submitted up to three days before the meeting begins or until fifty questions have been submitted. At that point, the form will be closed.

Because procedures may continue to change, we recommend reading through the OTW Discord's Community Guidelines in the #rules channel to familiarize yourself with the details of how meetings will be run. 

We hope to see you there!

--The Fandom Against Racism Team

[icecreambeach]

You say people can write whatever they want no matter how problematic, why is racism any different? If someone has a thing for n*zi uniforms, and it stays in fiction then why's it wrong?

Hey there! This post should help explain. Sample below:

"Well, let’s see. Socially, incest and pedophilia (to take the two most commonly cited examples) are already taboo concepts. There is no existent social culture that lionizes or excuses either one, which means that there’s no prevailing bias or imperative towards either action that fanfiction could amplify on a collective level. It’s also relevant that fanfiction itself – though globally popular – exists as a series of overlapping niches: in order to locate a particular type of fanfic, a reader must first choose a fandom, find a website that hosts or links to it, and then search within the existing content there to find what they’re looking for. As such, even if you take darkfics as a collective entity and ignore the disparate fandoms, types and quantities in which they’re written, such works are still not being popularized in the public mainstream, which means that nobody is being exposed to them in an ambient, casual, ongoing way, the way we experience, for instance, constant depictions of thin, conventionally attractive, predominantly white people in countless ads, films and TV shows. So while an individual reader might be upset by a particular fanfic, it’s equivalent to an individual child being scared of dinosaurs after watching Jurassic Park – the problem is a mismatch of audience and content, not a sign that the content should never have existed.

All this being so, it makes no sense to claim that the existence of a comparatively small number of darkfics have the power to create a culture of acceptance or normalization around things like incest or pedophilia. It simply doesn’t track with what we know of how narrative influences realty."

Also, why tf are you censoring the word Nazi? This isn't TikTok, the post isn't going to be taken down if you use certain words.

I swear to Christ, if you people can't even do your basic due diligence as activists by, idk, reading about the issue you claim to care so much about, let alone the reason you should censor words on TT but not on Tumblr, you're not only going to fail to make the world a better place, you're contributing to the impression that the whole movement is little more than consumptive, performative faux-activism, whose main purpose is to ensure young people stay cooped up in their homes ranting to strangers on the internet instead of organizing to bring about real change.

Anyway, follow Stitch.

[mxtxfanatic]

Fandom Grips #25: Nah cause why did I just remember that there are unserious people in this fandom who truly believe that Wei Wuxian would make a bad parent because he’s a “danger around kids,” with their only evidence being that he got angry in A-Yuan’s presence once (not angry at A-Yuan, mind you; he got angry and, unrelatedly, A-Yuan was present). This same fandom that says that whipping children, slapping them in the face, or yelling about how worthless and unloveable they are is just “regular (Asian) parenting.” Imma need y’all to start adding “I think child abuse is when someone I don’t like is near a child” to your posts and bios so the rest of us can easily identify how much of a clown you are and move accordingly.

[monstersinthecosmos]

I don't have time to get into this right now and I'm happy to expand on it later when I have a minute to sit down, but: Do not give your money to zines runs by antis.

Do not participate in zines run by antis.

Do not trust people who have never participated in your fandom until they show up trying to make money off of you.

ZINE DRAMA is not ~fandom drama~. Zines are independent small businesses. Any time money is exchanged, you risk sharing your legal name. Any time physical media is purchased to be mailed, you share your home address.

Do not trust antis with your personal information. It is not safe.

I really try not to engage in drama and bullshit on here because I think it's irresponsible and wastes everyones time, but when this type of money and personal safety is involved I think it's absolutely crucial to be aware of it. This is not drama, it's very basic safety.

Especially in this fucking fandom, with its history. There is a reason we have not had zines, and they would know that if they actually spent time here before trying to monetize your work. I say this due to their handling of it and also in case fandom folks around here don't have zine experience and don't know what red flags to look for, since we haven't had any. There is a mature and responsible way to navigate this new territory and this is absolutely not it.

[ilikefelines]

Just found out CrazyTom had to stop making F&B/HotD art because crazy stans from a certain team were stalking/bullying her for drawing art of Team Green character's. To those stans, especially the ones who tried to weaponize accusations of racism against the artist, you're all rabid and need to learn some manners. Shipping Jaehaera with Aegon III, an actual canon marriage, is not racist.

Do you know what's really racist - a white women forcing her husband to leave under the subtle threat that if he didn't her uncle would kill him, to pave the way for their incestuous marriage (people who think it was consensual and he left of his own will, you truly have a brain rotted take, he literally had just sworn himself to Rhaenyra and promised to do better, loved his dragon and family and definitely didn't want to abandon them for his boytoy ESPECIALLY after his sister's death) and a white woman having a black man murdered so her bastard son could usurp a black family's seat.

Bring that same energy to Rhae-Rhae and then we'll talk. Oh wait. You won't because you don't actually care about the shows black character's, you were just salty that a talented artist depicted Team Green character's, even though she included the TB kids and did a lovely drawing of Daenaera. You rabid animals are the reason we can't have nice things, and the reason fandom has become so toxic. Like, imagine bullying someone for drawing fanart? Truly y'all have sunk to a new low. Watch yourselves. It's on sight.

[unovaslankiite]

Prolly gonna be my one and only rwde post (cus the fanbase is rancid and I'm not rlly a rwby fan, just a person who watches the show): some of you rwby fans are too comfortable using your queerness as a shield to silence BIPOC voices about the racist writing and your 'precious' bigoted CRWBY. You guys unironically act/think that just because you have to deal with queerphobia; you are IMMUNE to being bigoted yourself and you are INCAPABLE of parroting bigoted beliefs. Cus I know there will be a dumbass ant1-rwde posters who will try to drown out this post by saying its 'lies from the EVIL RWDE!!!': You would rather weaponize your queerness to bash on BIPOC voices, while claiming to care about our voices. You would rather be complicit with the racist writers and their racist writing, just because your racist writers gave you a queer ship. There is no shame nor issue in projecting the abused you suffered onto the characters, however you refuse to see through the characters and their writing through a BIPOC lens. You do not get the right to impose your perspective of the characters at the expense of BIPOC voices, you do not get to twist our voices to be alt-right bigots because we called out RWBY's rampant racism. You do not get the right to say you give a shit about BIPOC and have #BLM in your bio when you fervently defend your bigoted company. You do not get to pretend to care about racism when you buy merch off of your bigoted company. My fellow BIPOC (especially the queer BIPOC): why are you guys so comfortable dismissing your fellow poc about their discomfort with RWBY's racist writing? BIPOC are not a monolith with the same opinions about racism in media; but some of you guys are weirdly comfortable with turning a blind eye to your fellow BIPOC getting dogpiled by the white fandom. We can and will disagree, you not agreeing as a BIPOC about RWBY's racist writing is not what I take issue with. The issue lies within you upholding the racial colourblindness in the fandom; like how the fandom was ok with throwing the racism under the bus in favour of queerness, you are ok with throwing your BIPOC peers under the bus for white queerness. Sincerely, a POC who has been watching the fandoms rampant racism problem ever since 2019.

[positively--speculative]

People complaining about Bailey and/or Delainey not looking "young enough" are weird and racist lmao.

[hussyknee]

[wizardsimper]

I hate to say it but I feel like if Wyll and Mizora's genders were reversed people might actually take the implications of their relationship seriously. It seems that the abusive dynamic is treated as a joke moreso than not (especially after watching the Christmas animated short), it's almost forgotten that Mizora manipulated and groomed Wyll into signing the contract as a child and has been abusing him since.

I don't like bringing gender into the conversation because the whole "oh if their genders were swapped..." is often used as a dog whistle by misogynists, but it's so clear that this is the case, I even see it with Gale and Mystra's relationship too (as well Halsin and the drow to a further extent).

I'm really glad that for the other companions the trauma they have faced at the hand of their abusers is taken seriously throughout the game, but we need to keep the same energy for Wyll too.

[tododeku-or-bust]

What i wouldn't do for white society to realize how much effort goes and has gone into keeping them mentally and emotionally "comfortable"/in order at sacrifice of the rest of us. The way we could all move forward as a whole once that was acknowledged

[lostchildofthenewworld]

oh i see the hotd fandom has quickly reached the levels of racism in the asoiaf fandom concerning non-white/non-valyrian characters; how majority fandom ships a problematic white couple at the expense of the poc around them and how it’s detrimental to the narrative. ah yes, i am familiar with your game…unfortunately

[end-otw-racism]

What's Next

The action for #EndOTW racism has officially ended. Originally we called for it to run from May 17th through the 31st. We are completely blown away and heartened by the response of fandom. Even though we’ve seen some racist backlash, the majority of the response we’ve seen has been positive and supportive. For us it has been deeply reassuring to see how important this issue is to fandom as a whole. Over the last two weeks:

5,602 works have added 'End OTW Racism' to their information

Our Collection has grown to 1,606 works

There has been a wealth of discusson on multiple social media platforms about the issue of race in fandom and the OTW

"Now what?" you may ask. We have not yet received any official response from OTW. This is disappointing but not surprising. Calling for institutional change is a marathon, not a sprint, and this was just our opening act. 

We count as a success that we have been able to bring awareness to issues with the OTW in a respectful but insistent manner. It is also a win that we have been able to connect with one another and begin the first of many deeper fandom discussions on how to move forward. Additionally we are heartened that many who work within the OTW have come forward to detail their experiences within the institution. 

We’re also grateful for those people who have signed up to stay involved with us, including volunteering for various related projects and committing to participating in future actions. We’ll be reaching out to everyone who filled out the form in a few weeks - though it may take us a while, given how busy we’ve been with this campaign!

Also, we already have another action planned to coincide with the upcoming OTW elections. Please keep following us here or on our other socials (twitter, dreamwidth) and consider signing up at our form to be alerted when upcoming actions take place. 

Though this action is now officially done, we will be keeping the AO3 Collection open and any works added during the action will remain there unless creators want to remove them. Those who wish may revert their work titles (while keeping them in the collection), though we know many will keep the changed titles going forward. If this is something you are comfortable with, we encourage you to keep them! And should you continue to update new works with End OTW Racism in your title, we welcome you adding the work to the collection. 

Thank you so much to those who participated in this first of, hopefully, many actions. We do not intend to let up until consistent and measurable action on our requests has been taken. 

Fandom Against Racism Team

[jewishdainix]

Btw if your analysis of the reaction in the epic fandom to calypso doesn't talk about the mysogynoir in the fandom affects how people view and interpret her it is worthless

[thedailydescent]

going off of what dwreader and ghostfoolish have been saying better than i can:

why do people think louis will still be a believable victim and it won't be racist if the show just has armand mess with louis's memories regarding 1x05 and how claudia died, and also be controlling him throughout the entire interview/relationship? like not only does it paint victims of abuse as unreliable and unstable, therefore not be trusted with anything*, but it also, just, shifts most if not all the blame from a white man to a poc? we've asking this the entire time, but they still don't have an answer for that.

*like statistically speaking victims of abuses' memories might be muddled/repressed from the trauma, so even though they know the abuse happened, people will use the fact that they might not be able to describe an entire fight in specific detail, or got some dates mixed up, or did not speak up sooner, to paint them as mentally ill liars, or even abusers themselves. which is why i think giving louis false memories in 1x05 is still victim blaming in a way, because it encourages the trend of victims not being believed.

[fromtheseventhhell]

IDK if it's exactly what you wanted but your recent post about Mirri came "in time" for what I've seen.

Here are some screeshots of tags from this post

To me it seems like they try to critique the writing but as always, tend to blame the character. Plus, they sprinkle some lies (that Dany forced Mirri to save Drogo, that she refuses to engage with history), they project onto GRRM (that he wants to critique violent intervetionism with her), they ignore his statement about the "white saviour" accusations (which fair, you may not find them satisfying but still, take his intentions into account), they take away acountability of what the slavers did (bc THEY turned Slaver's Bay into a "hole of death" and was that long before Dany arrived) and not saying why "she allowed slavery to continue", which is a convenient way to frame her as immoral because after the masters of Yunkai attacked Astapor, and because "gently born" people, anticipating the struggle in Meereen, ask her to let them sell themselves back into slavery :

"My queen?" Daario stepped forward. "The riverside is full of Meereenese, begging leave to be allowed to sell themselves to this Qartheen. They are thicker than the flies."

Dany was shocked. "They want to be slaves?"

"The ones who come are well spoken and gently born, sweet queen. Such slaves are prized. In the Free Cities they will be tutors, scribes, bed slaves, even healers and priests. They will sleep in soft beds, eat rich foods, and dwell in manses. Here they have lost all, and live in fear and squalor."

"I see." Perhaps it was not so shocking, if these tales of Astapor were true. Dany thought a moment. "Any man who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman." She raised a hand. "But they may not sell their children, nor a man his wife." (ASOS, Daenerys VI)

I mean, she does this because she wants to respect their choice and she makes sure no one is forced to be enslaved. I don't think she should have allowed it but I understand why. It was not out of mallice. (here is a meta about how she is not a slaver X , X )

Plus the tendency to blame Daenerys fans for pointing out how the situation with Mirri was grey, that Mirri indeed killed Rhaego, but they can defend Mirri and acuse us, Dany stans, of being racists and whatnot.

Ironically my post was about conversations on Twitter (I know) where people were demonizing Dany and I found out this post was actually what started it all, so my post was unintentionally a response to this one. I'm gonna talk a little bit about this conversation and the overall conversations about racism in this fandom but I don't mean it as a direct reply to OP's post. The only thing I have to say specific to their post is that it does stand out to me that they acknowledge the issue with Mirri's writing, which is that it's part of a trend with how characters of color are written, but they fail to actually talk about said characters. Their main point isn't even about how Mirri is handled, it's on the subject of Dany's whiteness.

The thing about discussing racism in asoiaf is that it's a more complex and nuanced conversation than a majority of people are willing to have. Often times it just gets devolved into justifications for disliking a specific character and this was the same attitude people had towards the show. If there's racism in the writing, then that's a factor that affects how the entire series is written, it doesn't just reflect poorly on a single character. People definitely act like that's the case though.

On the subject of Mirri and her treatment, it's rare that people discuss her character without using her as a means of bashing Dany. The screenshots you provided highlight this. We're supposed to believe that Mirri's actions towards Dany are justified and that Dany's actions towards Mirri are racist solely on the basis that Mirri is a WOC, but it's not that simple (Also note that it's always "Mirri was right to do what she did" but they never talk about what specifically she did, which was force the abortion of a 14-year-old bridal slave. Somehow saying exactly what happened doesn't make her as sympathetic). What makes the writing racist isn't the situation itself, it's the idea of characters of color being disposable in service of white characters' arcs. But this situation is often talked about as an isolated event, in a vacuum. The logic applied just doesn't work. If race is such an important factor, why was Mirri right to kill a child of color over a prophecy she was ultimately wrong about? There are plenty of racist connotations in the "brute" narrative surrounding POC, specifically men of color, but people eagerly justify his death because of the hypothetical harm he could've caused. They also completely ignore that the prophecy wasn't about him, so the justification is that a child of color can be murdered if people assume they'll cause harm. There were also the others in Drogo's Khalasar that Dany couldn't help because of her situation. Eroeh suffered a horrible fate before her ultimate death, but Dany would've conceivably been able to help her if she hadn't been incapacitated. So does the fact that Mirri's actions harmed other POC, and not just a white woman, factor in at all? Or are we not supposed to care about them because they are, however positively, associated with Dany?

That also leads to the question of what exactly would be the right way of handling this situation. Dany's whiteness is the biggest criticism but her being a woc would come with its own racist connotations. Dany's life of poverty and being sold as a slave would've had other implications when contrasted to the other primarily white, high-born female characters. So what would've been a better way of handling the Dothraki and other people of color in this series? Whether Dany is white or not, the problem isn't solved. Somehow that's never a conversation being had, despite the number of people who supposedly care so much. It also seems as though Dany's suffering, and only Dany's suffering, is considered justifiable through her whiteness. If Dany had been the one to die instead, it still would've been a child bridal slave being killed. How is that the "better" option for people supposedly concerned with racism and misogyny? With almost any other female character their suffering is never justified regardless of who is causing it.

There is just...a different set of standards people have for Dany than they have for any other character. Someone brought up the point that Robb's part in the war caused incredible violence to the smallfolk, yet he is considered one of the noblest characters in the series. We see firsthand the devastation the Northerners are responsible for through Arya's POV, and many women and children specifically are harmed. We hear about countless women being raped and killed from the fallout of Robb's actions but somehow that's not Robb's responsibility. On top of that, there are plenty of smallfolk who have actively anti-North mindsets. Robb, who isn't trying to bring about systemic change or actively focused on fighting for the smallfolk, isn't responsible for the damage he causes them. Dany, who is trying to overthrow a violent system built on subjugating people, is the most evil character in the series because she interacts with characters of color more than anyone else. But then...people seem uninterested in discussing privileges and harm caused when it isn't related to bashing Dany. It's damn near taboo to refer to certain characters as classist, even when that's how they're written.

If you want to discuss racism in the series and fandom though, let's do it! Let's talk about the depiction of the Dothraki vs. The (white) Wildings and the difference in nuance and empathy they get, let's talk about how the current generation of Starks benefit from colonization and the eradication of the children of the forest (who are very much indigenous-coded) and how that's not framed as a bad thing, let's talk about women of color who are already being enslaved before Dany was sold to the Dothraki, let's talk about Alayaya + the senseless violence she faces and how her pain is used to give Tyrion angst, let's talk about the various background women of color portrayed as sex workers and how that could play into the jezebel trope, let's talk about lack of prominent characters of color outside of Dany's pov, let's talk about how D&D wrote a former Black slave dying in chains, how they portrayed the slaves exclusively as people of color despite slavery not being based on race in the books, let's talk about how they played into the Dothraki's racist writing and portrayed Dany's people as "scary foreign invaders" that the North looked down on, let's talk about how everyone justified the Northerners (and Sansa specifically) being scared even though Dany came to help, let's talk about how people in the fandom were laughing at Missandei's death and saying she deserved to die for being "rude" to a white woman, let's talk about fandom's habit of portraying Jon and Arya (considered the uglier, feral starks) as dark-skinned in comparison to their "white" siblings, let's talk about how the hotd writers made characters Black and then diminished their roles and importance, let's talk about how routinely characters of color are ignored and turned into props by fandom, LET'S TALK ABOUT IT! But no, the only capacity people are interested in talking about racism is when they can use it to bash Dany.

TL;DR/summation: There's nothing wrong with having good-faith conversations about racism in the series or disliking a character because of it. The issue is that that's rarely what happens. Instead of having constructive conversations about race, the pain of characters of color gets turned into props and given no nuance outside of that.

[novella-november]

Well, I now know what original story I'll be writing for Freedom February ...

👀🤖⛓️‍💥

Can't wait for people who use l33tspeak or are greek mythology nerds to immediately realize what is happening with the lore and are excited to see how it plays out.