#no place for racism

[theoniprince]

Naar links, naar rechts!!!🇳🇱❤️

[krstsole]

Just wanna say that I think Ekko and Mel slander makes sense when you understand that 85% of the Arcane fandom views both of them as characters less worthy of fandom attention.

In their eyes, they are afterthoughts to more interesting relationships, so when someone in the 15% dares to give them anything outside of dutiful lamentations ("Mel and Ekko deserved better!"), they can't help but feel those analysis would be better suited for a character they *actually* like and so they lash out.

Fans of both characters have to constantly argue that these characters have loved and have been loved. They want Mel "independent" because she doesn't "need love" and they want Ekko focused on The Tree and the unnamed Firelights because they want it to be easier to carve both of them out of the interpersonal narratives that attaches fandoms to characters in the first place.

They want Mel and Ekko to "save the day" because they don't want their roles in the story to interfere with other characters that they like. Better for them to beat the Bad Guys™ than to be given more material that would validate their personal connections with other characters in ways that the fandom would prefer to ignore.

And the fact that Ekko and Mel are completely different characters who have never once interacted with each other and yet somehow both of them are being treated the same way with how the fandom constantly diminishes their relationships with the rest of the main cast leads me to believe that it does have something to do with the One Trait they do share.

[antifainternational]

[slyandthefamilybook]

Yesterday two of my coworkers were trying to get a stuck wheel off a 2-ton. One of them, who lives in a quite rural town, got it off in an unconventional way and said "that's an old farmer's trick." The other said "yeah, maybe a Jewish farmer."

I didn't quite hear what he said so I went up to him and asked, "hey, what was that you said about a Jewish farmer?" He said, "oh, I should've said a Polish farmer," and then reminded me that his family is from Poland. It wasn't until then that I realized the point of his joke was that "Jewish farmer" meant stupid or incompetent. He knows I'm Jewish, but he's a bit of a jokester and doesn't always think before he speaks. I'm wasn't sure what to say about it, and he seemed to know what he said was wrong, but I think it'll stick with me for a long time

[ellstersmash]

seeing a lot of posts about being prepared to avoid fandom discourse this time around and while I will also be bobbing and weaving that bullshit, let's also make it a point to gear up and watch out for the bigotry and abuse that will inevitably come to light--and not to avoid it, but to actively participate in making fandom a hostile place for it to thrive.

challenge your friends when they say something transphobic on the discord server. ask your fave if they meant to whitewash that character in their art. watch for harmful tropes and stereotypes in the fic (and source material!) that you read. when other people bring it up, don't dismiss it as discourse. most importantly, when trans people, disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, people of color, and victims of abuse share their experiences, listen.

[jesncin]

I really hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but why did you decide to make Lex Luthor, whose motivation is basically racism and xenophobia from my understanding, a person of color? This isn’t like, a criticism, more just, I really like your JL remix stuff and you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one

I understand the curiosity! But I have to point out that "you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one" made me laugh, haha. Long answer coming because I have a lot of feelings- but the point in the very end is worth it, trust me.

So for one, Lex is Afro-Greek in my version. This comes from the popular headcanon that STAS/DCAU Lex is Black (and his design is based on a Greek man). His character design, skin tone, and Clancy Brown's enigmatic performance became unintentional perceived representation for Black fans (and even DC writers). And now in the Harley Quinn show, that's become canonized! For why they like it, that's not my place to say as a non-Black person- so I listen!

I don't agree that Lex's motivation is "basically racism and xenophobia"- his themes are much broader than that. It's the desire to be the Man of Tomorrow, his jealousy of Superman, the way his intellect alone is a match against Superman's strength. Sometimes that jealousy is expressed through bigotry, but it's all a means to an end for Lex. My approach is: if Lex being Black is something we want to integrate more into his character, what opportunities does that open up narratively? Because there's rich potential for him and the characters connected to him.

When discussing MAWS I talk a lot about how when you're writing a bigoted marginalized character, there needs to be specifity with where that internalized bigotry is coming from. So a change like that for Lex Luthor could, for example; discuss how privileges like wealth can assimilate otherwise marginalized people into the kind of power that harms others in their community.

The ripple affect this has on a character like Superboy/Conner is that we get to see how -even though they're both Luthors- Conner is profiled, othered and further marginalized as a Kryptonian and a Black homeless teen because he doesn't get to benefit from any of Lex's privileges. This is just part of the many reasons why I think Conner would be infinitely more interesting if he didn't look like Kal El despite being a clone. You get to see a new intersection of how the Kryptonian identity intersects with Blackness on Earth. The potential ripple effect for a character like Lena is also really fun! What if she's struggling with her own model minority pressure when she's making up for her brother's crimes? It's all very compelling!

And MOST importantly, in a 3 trillion IQ Lex Luthor-style move-making Lex Luthor Black means that some version of Matt Fraction & Steve Lieber's Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen arc exists in my au. Which famously hinges on the twist that LEX LUTHOR AND JIMMY OLSEN ARE DISTANTLY RELATED. THEREFORE!!! We have now found a convoluted way to have Wacky Renaissance Artist Jimmy Olsen connected to The Manifestation Of Black Excellence Evil Edition Lex Luthor in this au.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

the second worst part of the “ed eats soap” joke is that it distracted the whole fandom from how funny it is that not only is ed upset that he isn’t given any of the ship’s fancy soap after breaking up with stede, he verbally expresses his disappointment about it. like, out loud. he says it like he’s hoping that maybe it was an accidental oversight and they just forgot to pack him some. like what did he think would happen, that lucius would just go “oh shit, my bad, i’ll be right back with that!” hello??????

[jadedgenasi]

The more I think about Carla the worse it all feels. RTD did a Racism For Idiots episode and that's cool, but did anyone look over the optics of not only Ruby calling her bio mom her "real" mom in front of Carla, but sitting next to her instead of between her two moms (as in, near Carla)? How many people looked at the part where Carla without Ruby states that she only keeps kids for the money and went "hmm yeah that seems fine," like. I've watched enough British TV to know there's a huge fucking blind spot with them as a whole re racism, especially with regard to black people, but what the fuck. It tastes nasty. And it could have been solved so, so easily by acknowledging - reinforcing - that Carla is Ruby's mother. A large portion of the time we got with Carla wasn't even real, and those times were super shitty.

[midnightvstheworld]

after this episode the doctor goes back to martha, bill, ryan, yaz, etc etc and says they’re really sorry

[questionableadvice]

TW: RACISM

~ The Whittier News, December 7, 1920

So this happened. It may seem so long ago that it's another world, but my grandmother was born in 1917 and died in 2021. She lived 104 years from a time when this was something you might see in your morning newspaper to watching Obama become President. History isn't a nice place but I think it's important to realize where we came from. Let's not go there again.

[puppypalice]

It’s incredible just how quickly you find racist shit when looking through a terf account

[sukibenders]

Not some CaitVi stans playing victim on Twitter, wondering why no one vibes with them anymore, even though they went on a spree of harassing black Arcane fans, calling them, Ekko's VA, and black Arcane characters racial slurs while pretending they [Reed and black fans] were homophobic for not liking how Cait was a cop and gassed Zaun, even going as far as to dox some fans for even daring to ship Vi with someone else (who is black). But, suddenly they feel unsafe in the fandom? Sure, Jan.

[autisticlancemcclain]

Could you explain your position on Shallura? Since Allura was established as a teenager when she started dating Lance and Shiro was very clearly an adult. I can understand the bi shiro headcannon but the shallura thing worries me

i am going to remind yall that i have been in this fandom since 2016. and in the early seasons, allura was not established as a teenager. in fact she was coded as older, as closer to shiro's age -- there was a specific divide between her and the younger paladins that she did not have with shiro. they made her younger (both explicitly and in mannerisms) as the show went on. and i do not give a fuck about voltron like...post s4 and i didn't even watch s7-8. so like. especially with older fics, im going to enjoy shallura.

[bookishfeylin]

I know you don't usually do these kinds of posts, but you're probably one of the most implicated in black history month people that I follow so I wanted to ask you, as I already value your opinions in Acotar, what do you think of the documentary where actual historians claim Cleopatra was a black woman? Lately, this has been a pretty active topic on my fyp on TikTok, and I wanted to know a black woman's perspective on this.

Thank you in advance, and if you usually don't answer these questions or don't want to answer this one, I'll totally understand, and there's no problem at all.

I didn’t know there was a new documentary out, but when I saw the name Cleopatra I automatically sighed because I knew what was coming. This is a subject a know a little 🤏🏾 about, actually, because I researched it a bit myself in my last year of high school (and stopped because of the uh. NASTINESS associated with this particular subject) and though it’s been a few years I remembered some main, basic things, and I wanted to check a few things first.

At best, in the most CHARITABLE interpretation as far as I in my limited knowledge can tell, it would be correct to say that’s it’s POSSIBLE that she MAY have been mixed Black because, though she was part of the GREEK Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled Egypt (Ptolemy being one of Alexander the Great’s generals who got the Egyptian portion of his empire after Alexander died), that’s on her fathers side; her mother’s exact ethnicity isn’t known. Not that this won’t stop the hoteps from running off and claiming her and all of ancient Egypt as Black though So some have ***speculated*** that her mother—and thus Cleopatra—may have potentially been part Egyptian (and that goes into the issue of deciding that the “Egyptian” in this instance had to have been Black rather than MENA but that’s again a whole other can of worms). BUT it’s more likely that her mother was Greek due to the uh, PRACTICE™️ of inbreeding and it not being common for the dynasty to marry Egyptians. So it’s more probable that she was fully Greek/Macedonian and not part Egyptian, much less part Black. (Also some historians speculate she may have had Persian blood? I guess? Again it’s a can of worms, not something i’m digging deep into because of the nastiness that you often stumble across) Unless there’s a new study confirming her mother’s identity or something that I missed, it’s simply incorrect to claim that Cleopatra was undeniably Black, because though it is ***possible*** she most likely ***wasn’t.***

But this topic really upsets me, because there are LEGITIMATE Black kingdoms and empires who were mighty and well developed and powerful like the Aksumite empire and kingdoms of Kongo and Loango and the Great Zimbabwe empire and the empires of Ghana and Mali and Songhay and the Ashanti kingdom and the WHOLE SWAHILI COAST THAT WAS INVOLVED IN THE INDIAN OCEAN TRADE ROUTE and they had their own great rulers, their own kings and queens and emperors and empresses, their palaces and castles, their own cities and towns, their own complex civilizations and dynastic royal families that deserve the attention Cleopatra and ancient Egypt get. They were erased—and Egypt was not—by white people to prop themselves up as the only race capable of forming civilizations and advanced societies as a means of justifying colonization and imperialism to “civilize” the rest of the world and as a result many of those other empires have been erased from our education system here in the states and many people cling to ancient Egypt as proof that we’re not inferior and aren’t savages like white people claim due to believing that since Egypt’s in Africa it had to have been mostly Black when Egypt, and the Ptolemaic dynasty and Cleopatra in PARTICULAR, are literally the worst example that could’ve been chosen and were the only African kingdom spared erasure FOR A REASON.

Anyway, I don’t like it, it’s disingenuous and does US wrong because we need to give that energy to other African kingdoms that need and could use the fame Egypt + Cleopatra get, and we deserve a better education system to teach us this stuff. I hope this answers your question? And I don’t mind any kinds of asks 🥰

[youling-the-ghost]

hey, random person on the internet, maybe don't do this?

[equalperson]

one thing they don't tell you about having anxiety, psychosis, a PD, or any other diagnosis that causes social anxiety/paranoia as a (multiply) marginalized person is that your fears are much more likely to be proven right than the same thoughts in a white/male/cishet/abled/thin/etc. individual.

the fact of the matter is that most people are not actively hostile; most people aren't quick to shame or mock their peers, nor do they have any strong desire to target or hurt anyone.

HOWEVER, most people are--unfortunately--quick to ignore or attack the needs of marginalized individuals. this isn't to say that the average person actively plans out acts of violence, but rather that they are likely to "other" us and our needs.

if you're a POC, it's not unlikely that white people will treat you more harshly than others. if you're disabled, it's not unlikely that abled people will abuse and/or neglect your vulnerabilities. if you're fat, it's not unlikely that thinner people will shame you for your appearance. so on and so forth.

now, is this to say that you can NEVER trust someone outside of your same demographics? no.

I am saying, though, that the common narrative that fears of rejection/persecution are "all in your head" doesn't hold true when your differences go beyond those baseline fears (or even just if said fears become obvious to others).

learning to cope with and/or recover from anxiety/paranoia as a marginalized person is different; you have to figure out the line between panic and self-preservation, peace and naïveté.

unfortunately, it's not as simple as just "trust other people and everything will work out," because the amount of people we can really trust to respect us is typically limited.

I don't have any particular advice, but I certainly do know that psychiatry's dismissal of all distrust as just being "in your head" has done nothing to benefit Me as an oppressed person.