#if ur gonna be 'woke' about billy being racist toward lucas and nancy's coworkers being sexist then uhhh

[reineyday]

hey! i think perhaps u should consider that billy fans arent relating to his racism, they are relating to his abusive past, and if you're willing to villify real people for relating to billy's abuse bc they themselves are abuse victims, you need to examine your own actions.

furthermore, while you are correct in saying a bad past doesnt excuse someone's present actions, this is a work of fiction where different fans are able to relate to different parts of different characters' stories. while it's perfectly valid for one person to look at billy and see his racist actions and hate him for it, it is also equally and perfectly valid for another person to see his abusive past and understand where he is coming from and want to defend him. i find that the problem lies with people who think it's okay to attack others for having a different interpretation on a work of fiction.

buckle up, this ended up being a LONG response. 😅 but it's genuine in spirit! i really am just trying to answer your post earnestly, since you invited replies.

this is a work of fiction. in my every day life, as a poc, if someone was racist to me then that would be the end of my interaction with them bc i need to protect myself first. i wouldnt be interested in forgiving them or hearing them out unless i see that theyre being honest about their mistake and working to be better (and that's a personal choice on my part; other poc might choose to drop them altogether and that's valid too.)

with billy, however, again: this is a work of fiction. im not just judging him based on a single interaction, i get to see as much of his story that the show gives us, and with billy, the duffers gave us a lot. they showed us that he's been abused since he was a child, that his mother left him alone with his abusive father. the duffers showed us that as a kid, he wanted to protect his mother--that he was a "good guy"--and then he got abandoned by her. they showed us that he would stand up against a monster that's been mind-controlling him--a gigantic monster that came out of literally nowhere for him, bc he knew nothing about the upside down--to save a girl who showed him the barest hint of compassion. the duffers literally showed us that billy was a protector in the past and that his last choice in life was to protect someone else (and apologize to his step-sister to boot).

i also know that racism is something that's learned. his father's been abusing him since he was a kid, and we even see billy get called homophobic slurs by his father. it's not a far leap to assume that his father is also racist, and that billy's own racism stems from survival--that disagreeing with his father about anything, including race, might get him beat up at home.

sure, in every day life, id stay far the fuck away from billy and any person even remotely like him--not just cuz of the racism, but his whole aggressive attitude puts me off by a mile and i wouldnt feel safe around him. max didnt. lucas didnt. that's all valid. but bc this is a work of fiction, i can also see that billy struggled a lot, i can understand that child abuse changes you on a fundamental level, i can see that he's been a protector in the past and is capable of choosing to do so again with some compassion, and i can think, "hey, i like the idea of that guy learning to be a better person, because i think he's capable of doing it and i like it when people do the work and unlearn the shitty things they had to think and do to survive."

god knows everyone who was a child in the early 2000s (in north america, at least) had to unlearn some homophobia. i myself had to be taught that using "gay" as an insult was bad, and i was mostly just a normal kid. (actually, i was a repressed queer kid l o l.) i wasnt calling people "gay" as an insult to be physically safe at home, i was just doing it to fit in. the second i understood it was bad, i trained myself out of it. i was in an environment that actively encouraged doing so, but it still took a little work to catch myself and remind myself that it's not bad to be gay, so it's not even insulting to use "gay" 'cuz it's just a descriptor. i actually had to do this with using "girl" as an insult too: it's not bad to be like a girl 'cuz girls aren't lesser, so why should it be an insult? and these are just very light examples of what i absorbed via osmosis from the media around me at the time. imagine being a child growing up with someone who physically harmed you every time you spoke up against homophobia and racism (and we do see billy getting a lot of sexist and homophobic shit from his dad, both in billy's memories and that one abuse scene). maybe if billy had some support, encouragement and actual physical safety himself, he'd be able to do it too.

we already established that billy likely learned his racism as a method of survival living with neil, and his anger is likely a coping mechanism to deal with his abusive home situation. these things led to his transgressions against lucas, max, and steve. this isnt me excusing him for those transgressions, but we as viewers are able to understand where it's coming from and why it might have happened. the thing is though: people can learn to be better. people can grow up to understand how their transgressions hurt other people, and work to be a better person. hell, look at steve harrington: remember when he called nancy a whore in season 1 and then called jonathan queer in a derogatory manner right after? but now he's a fan-favourite and robin's best friend. robin, who is a queer woman. steve was redeemed. why not billy?

attacking the people who relate to billy because they are or have been abuse survivors that coped using anger by calling them racist showcases a lack of empathy and critical thinking, in my opinion. hate billy all you want, but dont attack his fans bc you could be actively hurting some real people. im sure there are fans out there who like him because they too were once angry abuse survivors, and they might have hurt people in their own lives, made their own transgressions, have their own regrets--all in reaction to or consequences of the abuse they were suffering. telling those people that billy is irredeemable for his transgressions implies that those fans are irredeemable for their own past transgressions as well, that they cant grow and learn to be better, and they should feel guilty for liking billy because they see themselves in him. dont do that to people. dont cut off a source of hope and comfort for them, for the sake of your moral high ground. just let people like the fictional characters they like.

btw, to be crystal clear about this: billy's actions were not okay. lucas and max and steve and anyone else billy may have hurt are not obligated to forgive billy in any way, shape or form. but as an abuse survivor, i think billy himself should have been given more of a chance to grow as a person, with or without the absolution from his victims. he deserved to get love and support and to become better just for himself, and i believe this bc thats what i would want for anyone i love that's in a bad way at home. it's what i wanted for myself as a kid, when my mom would lecture me over and over about what "respect and responsibility" means to her. (and hey look, there's the reason i relate to billy hargrove!)

as a last note, to return quickly to the racism: dont forget that racism is just as much an action as it is a way of thinking. you can do racist things even without considering yourself a racist, by accident or because you didnt realize it was racist--because you didnt know better. at the end of the day, billy's character only interacted with lucas a couple times. billy was a (surprisingly) dimensional character, and there was a lot more material to judge him for, aside from his racism. this is just my opinion, but based on the rest of what we saw about billy, i personally think he was the type of character who did things that were racist to survive (and for the sake of power dynamics). i dont think he was inherently racist; he didnt seem to actively hate and aggressively scorn poc, he probably just learned some bullshit abt places in society from neil that he heavily internalized and (sub)consciously acts on.

TL; DR - in real life, you can and should make a snap judgement on a racist transgression because sometimes that's all we'll ever see of a person and we need to protect ourselves first. in fiction, however, we are afforded the ability to get a larger scope on a character's story, so we shouldnt attack other people for coming away from that character's story with different interpretations than your own. if you dont like someone else's interpretation, dont call them out--just block them and move on.

the way some billy discourse surrounding his racism goes, yall make it sound like hating billy and attacking billy fans means that youre being the better person for refusing to "excuse" racism, but to me it sounds like you might be more likely to fall into the trap of believing you cant do anything racist bc you pride yourself on not being one, so just... be careful. think critically about your actions. think about the way you think about things. accept fault if a poc brings up something to you that made them uncomfortable. oppressed groups can and often do still internalize other bad shit toward different minority groups. poc can still do racist things to other poc. just remember that. if youre defending this issue so staunchly that youre going into other people's inboxes about it, just make sure youre genuinely listening to their replies (like im assuming op is doing! hooray) instead of simply attacking without intent to listen.

A character having an abusive past does not excuse their racism, subtle racism or not and if you're relating to a character being racist because they have had a bad past maybe you need to examine your own actions.

(from a white person so if any POC disagree please let me know if you feel up to it)