#there are a lot of links in this one

[creatingblackcharacters]

“Across cultures, darker people suffer most. Why?” Multiethnic and Multicultural Blackness

“Across cultures, darker people suffer most. Why?”- Andre 3000

Tell me what's wrong with this picture.

Hint: This is Miles Morales- from the video game depiction- canonically an Afro-Puerto Rican. Jefferson is Black American; Rio is Puerto Rican.

So why is the Cuban flag on their wall?

This is what happens when no one (with any saying power) in the board room is representative of the group being depicted! And mind you, this was produced under SONY and MARVEL, for the PS5, a product under two brands that combined churn out hundreds of millions in profit! And… No one on any level corrected them until the beta came out and fans saw it. That's how pervasive this sort of ignorance of other cultures can be. How are you writing a story about a character, and you don't even know how he identifies?

Multiethnic & Multicultural Blackness

Realistically, you’ve probably walked past many a biracial, multicultural, or multiethnic Black person before and assumed they were “just Black”. One example: Rae Dawn Chong- known as Mama du Pointe du Lac- is Afro-Chinese, but that Chinese background did not play into the role she played. A more personal example: my recent loctician was also Afro-Chinese, with very dark skin (she made jokes about how her eyes reveal it, but we can’t make those jokes here). I would have never known.

Point is, we reacted to what we saw, and that’s not an accident. Blackness is treated as a monolith, and an indicator of social level whether you realize it or not. You see a ‘Black’ person, and without wondering any further about their identity, you will treat them as you’ve been socialized to treat ‘Black’ people! But every Black person is not the same!

You don't have to write an entire essay with citations mid-story about how you learned so much about the Afro-Chicana or Afro-Iraqi experience for your main character. We didn't ask. But, slipping natural things here and there into the story of a character’s culture helps cement that yes, this character has this multicultural identity and it matters to them; it is who they are, it has an effect on their life and character in some way. It is how you deepen the character and show respect for the culture you are depicting!

I love using Miles as an example, so here’s a good example. In Across The Spiderverse, he goes to a party to celebrate Jefferson’s new position. In that scene, Rio walks through a mix of all his family members. Even when he speaks with his parents in this scene, they managed to incorporate his Afro-Puerto Rican identity without shouting to the rooftops “HEY! HE’S BLACK AND LATINO! SEE HOW I’M TELLING YOU?”

Race vs Ethnicity

The Black experience stretches as far as the African diaspora- worldwide! It's why it's frustrating when people assume "Black people" means "United States" and the West's perception of "Third World Africa" (especially when it comes to existing in media that people have strongly claimed is just White). Latin and Central America? West Europe? East Europe? Southwest Asia and North Africa? The Mediterranean? East Asia? Australia? You will find Black people!! Just because we aren't the majority doesn't mean we aren't there!

But just because we're Black doesn't mean we're all "African-American". Ethnicity is "the quality or fact of belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent." Race is "a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society."

"But I thought you said Black is an identity!"

It is! Black does not only mean “Black American”. The reason Black Americans identify as just Black (which is why I demand that you show respect by capitalizing it) is due to the loss of our specific heritages from the enslavement meant to scourge us of them, to make us property. To call us by our actual names would be acknowledging our equivalent humanity and culture. In order to enforce slavery without qualm, they had to be violently removed. Black Africans of numerous ethnic groups, now violently forced into this amalgamation, had to come together and forge something new. We had to find a common connection- our Blackness (and that experience as defined by whiteness in this society) was it. It also functions as a reclamation of our identity, of our presence in this world. We are a culture, we are an entire group of people, and we should be acknowledged as such.

Again: all Black people are NOT the same!!! This is like… anti-racism 101, but so many people continue to fall for it, even those ‘well-meaning’. You cannot ask one Black person to represent the ENTIRETY of the world's Black experience. Many other factors will come into play, and this includes their culture.

Keep in mind how being multicultural and/or biracial and Black will put many people at a crossroads that is complex and difficult to traverse. There will always be parts of incomplete acceptance, an extra layer of code-switching based on where you are and who you're with. A Black Kenyan is not a Black American, who is not a Black Greek, who is not a Black Colombian, who is not a Black Filipino. They're different cultures, that will treat each other differently. Society- from strangers to your own family- may try to pull multiethnic Black people one direction or another- are you ‘Black’ enough, are you ‘technically Black’, are you ‘technically’ something else, are you that ethnicity enough?

(I will discuss Black biracial people with whiteness in the next lesson, because I felt like the interracial and biracial White & Black topic needed its own talk, but this is relevant there as well.)

Where- In the world- Is-

Coming back from the opening of this lesson: keep in mind that you need to know specifically WHERE your character is from! For example, just saying they're "Afro-Latino" reveals very little- there's an entire chunk of the planet that falls under the "Latin America" category (as defined by U.S. standards).

A follower of mine- they identify as Caribbean Latine- sent me this in discussion about the topic:

"I wish people actually thought about where their Afro-Latino characters are from. It’s always very vague and it’s so reductive because an Argentinian Afro-Latino is very different from a Puerto Rican Afro-Latino. This is very subjective but I think this issue is pretty blatant in The Owl House. They flash the Dominican flag a couple of times, but when it comes to actually making her Afro-Latino…I don’t think they did a very good job. They barely made her Black in the first place. I don’t want to dog on the voice actors too much because there are a million factors that might have affected this but. When they make a point to have the characters speak Spanish, it’s really noticeable when the accent/dialect doesn’t align with their ethnicity. Dominicans have a really identifiable dialect in Spanish. When the Afro-Latino characters speak in Spanish, it’s the most neutral accent I’ve ever heard. This is such a me-issue, but this is to say that people should actually research where their characters are from instead of vaguely painting them as Afro-Latino. We are all SOOO different. Our dialects vary so much that sometimes an Afro-Mexican and an Afro-Puerto Rican won’t understand each other even though we speak the same language.”

WHO are we talking about? How does that factor into their identity, and the way the world- both in story, and how readers from around the world- will perceive them? Will an Afro-Dominican know that they're supposed to relate to your character if they're vaguely Latino?

Note:

While I was doing my research, I noticed that searching for “Afro-_” doesn’t always offer much, as it does the ubiquitous antiblack experience and roles in politics and resistance. And while I think that’s super cool and mandatory, I think another way to approach this would be to focus on the culture as a whole, and then go from there. So for example, if I wanted my character to be Afro-Mexican- maybe even from a specific location in Mexico, or their family is from that area- it would be easier to look up the cultures and activities of that area itself, and then inform with my knowledge of how Blackness is treated there.

As I am not a member of these groups, I thought it would be better for me to find resources that better explain, than to try to speak for them myself. Hell, just from doing this research, I learned that I have far more to educate myself on. There are so many good resources out there! People speak on these topics that y’all want to know about, and there are so many books and videos- find them and educate yourselves! This is a long section filled with links, so I'm going to put them under a readmore.

I also could not possibly sit here and name every single ethnic combo because that would be endless. So what I'm going to do is give some broad strokes of a few major groupings, that will hopefully start you on the path of how to conduct your own research!

The African Diaspora

This is such a good resource. There are short chapters going into the details and history of Black people in many regions, all around the globe. I’m honestly in love with how this is set up. It's a good starting point!

Black Africans

This one isn't specifically an example of multiethnicity; I just want to emphasize that there are many ethnicities and cultures within Africa itself! One is still multiethnic if they are Black American and Ivorian, for example! As the birthplace of humanity, there are plenty of ethnic groups in Africa with endlessly rich cultures, and all of them will come with different foods, fashions, languages!

Notable Figures: Nelson Mandela, Tobi Lou, Patrice Lumumba, Tems, Wizkid, Kwame Nkrumah, Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Wangarĩ Maathai, Agnes Tirop, Chéri Samba, Sheikh Abdullah Ssekimwanyi

Internalized antiblackness in African countries is due to the long and violent history of western imperialism in Africa. “The Carving Up of Africa” by European nations has long worn on the continent, its resources, and its peoples, and that includes remnants of their beliefs. Another pervasive idea in media is that all African peoples are ‘poor’, ‘living in huts’, and ‘starving’. There are people doing that all over the world, it is not inherent to being Black African. But even if that were the case- and it is not, every African does not live that way- it would still be the fault of aforementioned imperialism. Please do your research, and do not EVER write that if someone is African, they ‘must not be used to food’ or ‘have never seen such magnificent things as [what white character offers]’.

Afro Latinos

Notable figures: Celia Cruz, Frantz Fanon, Zoe Saldaña, Colman Domingo, Lupita Nyongo, Gina Torres, Cardi B, MJ Rodriguez

Notable music styles- Reggaeton? Salsa? Rumba? A lot of the best music of the area has roots in Blackness.

Antiblackness in the Afro-Latino community

Colorism plays a huge role in perception, to the point of putting you into classes of people. From the same Caribbean Latine follower:

Also, they have to do research on racial groupings in LATAM. It’s unavoidable. A Latino that’s considered Black in the USA may not be considered Black in LATAM. This is because of Blanqueamiento. That is a LOT to explain, but TLDR: A big difference between racism in the USA and racism in LATAM is that white people aren’t focused on segregation. It’s racism through imposition. “Blanqueamiento” refers to whitening and it’s the belief that you can cleanse the bloodline by having children with white people. The lineage will get increasingly lighter. That is why whenever a child comes out lighter than their parents, people will praise the parents for “bettering the race” (mejorando la raza). So a light skinned Black person in the USA may have another racial classification in LATAM (prieto, moreno, mulato, etc)."

One example is 'pelo malo' (bad hair)- how afro-textures are deemed unwanted, as a holdover from Spanish colonization and ideas of whiteness being equivalent to purity. Another severe example is of the slur "mayate"- apparently, it means "f*ggot black bug". If you're Black, and someone ever calls you this, know that you are being severely insulted. If you are interested in more Afro-Mexican history, Colonial Blackness by Herman Bennett is a book that follows the stories of enslaved Africans and their descendants in 17th century Mexico, questioning the existing history told that often leaves out their presence.

Afro Indigenous

*Indigenous doesn't just mean "to America", though the links are to the Afro-indigenous experience in the U.S.

Notable Figures: Crispus Attucks, Lucy Parsons, George Henry White, Charlie Patton, Jimi Hendrix, Eartha Kitt, Lena Horne, Ausben Jordan

What’s interesting is that it was much harder for me to find solid evidence of people who are Black Natives, mainly because it seems this history was lost and/or never recorded, or due to Blood Quantum and antiblackness, not acknowledged. That is something worth thinking about, if you are writing an Afro-Native character.

Blood quantum: A system developed by the United States federal government to determine how much “Indian blood” an Indigenous person has and if they are qualified for Tribal enrollment. Blood quantum limits accessibility to citizenship and is designed to decrease enrollment numbers. Today, some tribes still use blood quantum as criteria for Tribal enrollment. As part of their sovereign status, every federally recognized Tribe determines its own criteria for membership and enrollment.

Further reading:

Young, Black Native activists say it's time to appreciate Indigenous diversity

Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage

Blood Politics: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma By Circe Sturm (2002)

We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power By Caleb Gayle (2023)

Afro-Arab/SWANA

Notable figures: Bilal ibn Rabah, Fatima Bernawi, Layla F. Saad, Samirah Srur Fadel, Ahmed Osman, Sara El Hassan (known as bsonblast), Ali Jiddah, Maryam Abu Khaled

Here's an amazing resource cataloguing the history of Afro-Palestinians, as well as a timeline of the solidarity between Black Americans, Afro-Palestinians, and Palestinians!

I sat here and tried very hard to come up with a way to summarize this, especially given current events in our world, and I found that at this moment, I lack the skill to do it. Not because there’s nothing to say- God knows there’s plenty- but unraveling the intersections that comes with the SWANA experience would take me far longer than a summary. I think Maryam Abu Khaled can speak on her experience far better than I, anyway:

Afro-AAPI

Notable figures: apl.de.ap, Michael Ealy, H.E.R., Karrueche, Rae Dawn Chong, Naomi Campbell, Naomi Osaka, Chanel Iman, Anderson Paak

Interview from famous R&B artist, guitarist, actress for Belle, and Afro-Filipina: H.E.R.

There is a strain between Black and Asian communities, in the United States and beyond, white supremacy playing a major role. But that does not mean that we cannot move forward together, or have not shown one another solidarity.

One of my biggest pet peeves that happens often in fandom spaces is fans who claim that Asians- East Asians in particular, but Asians in general- don't know what Black people are and what we look like. It's racist to every ethnicity and background involved. Yes, there are Black East Asian and Black South Asian people. Yes, these countries have access to the Internet to look up what we look like. There have been plenty of well-drawn Black people by those artists. Just like every white artist isn't going to draw a caricature, every Asian artist isn't going to. It all comes down to practice, their commitment to their craft, and their commitment to not being racist. Being from these areas is not an excuse for not drawing Black people accurately- the same amount of effort they can be put into depicting a white person (that would also be a minority in these places), can be put into depicting us as well. Knock it off.

Conclusion

Antiblackness is unfortunately ubiquitous, yes, but that doesn’t mean the rest of every Black person’s life experience is going to be. We are everywhere on this planet, which means there’s a planet’s worth of experiences to be had. If you decide that you want to create a Black character with a multiethnic or multicultural background, you need to commit to that! Even by mentioning their music, or their food, or- if you’re going to get into it- how others might treat them due to their Afro-identity. Something that lets us as the viewers know that you didn’t just write a white person and then claim they were “Afro-Blank” for clout. If you mean it, do it, because as always, it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

[octarineblues]

supporting communities & people impacted by the Southport attack and the far-right riots in the UK

here is a list of community fundraisers I found, starting with those aiming to support the Southport community after the appalling attack at a children dance party, to the fundraisers helping those affected by the subsequent racist and Islamophobic far-right/nazi riots

Edited on 5 August to include Middlesbrough fundraisers. Edited on 6 August to correct the link on the Books for Spellow Lane fundraiser, to adjust the name change for the Belfast fundraiser, and to adjust the wording in the second last paragraph.

Southport:

Southport Strong Together Appeal - organised by the community foundation for Merseyside, for those affected by the Southport knife attack

United for Southport families - the funds will be distributed among the nine families of the children who were at the party

Swifties for Southport - a fundraiser for the Alder Hey Children's charity, which supports the victims and the affected families, as well as first responders and clinicians. Extra funds will also support the wider Southport community

Fundraiser for the Southport Mosque - a fundraiser to aid rebuilding or possibly re-locating the Southport Mosque after the damages it suffered during the riots

Rebuilding Windsor Mini Mart - fundraiser to rebuild the locally-owned grocery store that was targeted during the attacks, broken into, and looted

Liverpool:

Fundraiser for the Spellow Hub - the Spellow Hub was broken into, looted and set on fire at night during the riots. The Spellow Hub is a newly created one-of-a-kind (in the UK) institution, which consists of a library as well as a community centre with a mission to help people get education and pathways to work

Books for Spellow Lane - another fundraiser for the library in the Spellow Hub, to replace the books and rebuild the library there edit: included the correct link

Hartlepool:

Fundraiser for the Nasir Mosque - the Nasir Mosque was attacked following Southport riots; this fundraiser is organised by Hartlepool citizens to help the mosque deal with the damages as well as to show appreciation for the role of the mosque in the community. edit: the funds will be also distributed to the local community!

Rebuilding the Farm Shop - the shop was targeted during the riots, and when the owner and his son tried to protect it, they were also violently attacked. The fundraiser is to help fix the damages to the store.

Sunderland:

help rebuild Citizens Advice Sunderland offices after arson - two of the Citizens Advice Sunderland offices were set on fire during the riots, and one of them is completely destroyed.

Hull:

Hull Help for Refugees - a local fundraiser to support the Hull Help for Refugees charity, the donated money will be re-distributed to community members affected by the riots

Fundraiser for Hull Help for Refugees and Welcome House in Hull - collected money will be donated to the two charities

Belfast:

help fix racially motivated damages - originally the fundraiser for the Sahara Shisha Cafe which was targeted by the far right in Belfast during the riots, now a fundraiser for all affected businesses in the area. edited to reflect the change of the name of the fundraiser to avoid any confusion

Middlesbrough:

Supporting residents after the riots - Middlesbrough has suffered so much during the riots, lots of businesses as well as just regular family homes were vandalised, had their windows smashed or even were broken into. This fundraiser wants to distribute the funds between affected people to help them fix the damages, and to generally support the local community. the newest fundraiser, imo potentially the most urgent one

Fundraiser for a Care worker's car which was set on fire - a car belonging to an employee of a care agency was set on fire during the riots while he was on shift at a care home.

If you want to donate locally but there is no fundraiser to support where you live, consider donating to your local charities oriented towards Muslim or PoC communities, or towards anti-racist and refugee organizations! And go support your local Muslim/Arab/Black/Asian/Refugee owned businesses!

If you have any information about other local fundraisers, feel free to add to the post or don't hesitate to let me know and I will add them here! We have seen so much hate in the past few days, we have to stay strong and keep supporting each other!

Stay safe everyone 💛

[toxiccaves]

I like Link’s new weird dog

[otp-more-like-killmeplease]

[girlboyburger]

[captainjonnitkessler]

Do you guys notice how when Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union, started planning a general strike, he did it by a) targeting his messaging towards unions with the ability to safely and effectively strike in large numbers, b) laid out a clear, actionable plan for those unions to follow (setting contracts to all expire at the same time, since many unions cannot strike while under contract), c) is using union contracts to set clear, actionable demands that can be met in order to gauge success and provide an end goal, and d) started organizing FOUR YEARS before the proposed strike date to give people the chance to plan accordingly, because it takes a really freaking long time to get tens of millions of people organized?

You notice how he didn't do it by slapping a message on Twitter saying 'hey nobody go to work on Monday, that'll really show 'em'?

[wardingshout]

Zelda goes mushroom girl

[somnimagus]

My page for @sheikahzine; about Impaz's duty to her village, empty of people and full of memories.

[id in alt text]

[daeyumi]

Sentinels 🌅🏜️☀️

[2022]

[theoldkyokodied]

One wedding and three funerals

Background paintings under the cut

[zazrichor]

the witch and the bard 🌹

[hugecarls]

my friends gave me sum doodle ideas using expression memes for the creeps + mh chars so here they are :-3 links to the templates r at the bottom

template 1 template 2 template 3

[hinamie]

色彩 [Shikisai]

[errorwarblesrr]

I know it's a comedy manga, but the ww manga probably has one of my favorite manga interpretations of Link. Mainly because he feels accurate to his games. He's quiet, he can talk, but he mostly just communicates his thoughts through his actions and body language. He's also just a silly little guy.

[yuviur]

Summer vacation, 4am.

Tons of easter eggs in this one! Click the image to find them (and for better quality ofc)

Close ups and process shots under the cut, description in alt text

[aeide-thea]

Stained glass by Constantine Woolnough, 1858 Church of St Mary, Dennington, Suffolk Photography by Simon Knott