#where's that you're not immune.gif

[oranges8hands]

I agree with everything except the last sentence. I know it's trendy lately, but we really don't need to mix racism with everything. For me, a POC girl, this is as ridiculous as saying that liking top! Joe is racist. I am glad that people have become more aware of certain things, but you cannot exaggerate it and see racism EVERYWHERE. Even where it is not the case.

re: this post

Well, thanks for sending in an ask. There's kind of a lot of parts to this I want to address, but first let me ask - do you disagree with my assessment that Joe gets more blame for the exile and exile length, or do you disagree with my assessment that Joe getting that blame comes from a pattern of fandom racism? Because the first is a fandom interpretation and as always, interpretations will vary and be heavily based on the fandom circles you are in; it's based on a pattern I noticed in my engagement with fandom, the same way I noticed fandom's treatment around Booker's exile, and I find the two intricately linked. Some people (like possibly you) may not connect fandom's prioritization of Booker's pain/trauma to be implicitly (or explicitly) against Joe specifically, rather than against the group of Andy, Nicky, and Joe. [Regarding not naming Nile, the fact that she is a) new and b) voted for the apology-only means she seems to rarely get conflated into the blame game.] Like, ymmv, etc etc.

However, if you do think Joe gets specifically and repeatedly put on a different level from the other two in terms of being the one to heavily push for a long exile (against group opinion), being the one who wanted the strictest "punishment" possible because he's the angry/resentful/unforgiving one, being the only one who wanted the "punishment", being emotional (irrational) in his hurt while the other two are calm and collected (and therefore rational/objective in their decision), that his reaction is going to be a continued vocalization of his anger only and/or that his vocalization is a problem but Andy's immediate reaction or Nicky's silent treatment isn't, that his reaction is only anger while Nicky and Andy are disappointed/hurt/guilty/etc (aka a spectrum of emotions and not just one note), that his main motivation is retribution (esp that the other two don't feel that), that his anger is based on and only on selfish hurt (for hurting Nicky) while the others are looking at the larger picture of Booker's actions or able to see Booker's side of it, that he is quick to temper (unlike the others) and can't control his response, and/or that in general his anger about the betrayal isn't justified, I don't quite get why you wouldn't assume racial bias has a role in it.

Like, Joe is a different character from them! He's considered the emotional one, the expressive one, the vocal and loud one (to varying degrees of fairness.) The genesis of those traits exists in canon, and fandom as always has the weird ability to both flatten a character to specific traits and layer on complexity to the shown facets of character's canon. I even get why he gets tagged as the most mad in comparison to the others (though I don't actually agree with it) - the way Andy had her angry moment with Booker but doesn't continue with that anger in the lab and she's caring with Booker in her goodbye, Nicky basically tells Joe now is not the time to yell at Booker and then you never see him interact (look at?) Booker again, and again Nile wanted to let him off with an apology. I'm not saying it doesn't make sense or comes completely out of left field to view it that way.  

But again, it's not that he reacts differently; they're all different people and obviously their reactions will reflect their personalities and their relationship to Booker. It's that his reaction to betrayal is held to a different standard, the way he's subtly and consistently painted as wrong for his reaction in a way the other two aren't. And to be clear, I am specifically and only talking about the dynamic around Booker's exile and Joe, and not how Joe in general is written, but there's some touches of it in that too. My comment is also very much not about one specific fic or one individual's opinion about either Joe or the exile, but about the pattern I noticed that Joe's reaction is often treated with a different (lesser) level of acceptance than Nicky's/Andy's, that his reaction is often assigned more/only negative motivations (esp in comparison), and that (which ties to the main point of my first post) his reaction (even if - though it’s not - just anger) should be de-prioritized in comparison to Booker (or the others.) 

And obviously, this isn't all fic. Maybe not the majority of fic. But it's definitely more than one; it's something I started to pick up on as a potential thing to look for, and I know I'm not the only one. This is a large fandom and it is growing. This fandom on A03 alone has almost 6k works, and that's been in six months. (And that's just one platform!) It is frankly preposterous to me to say this one (large) fandom is somehow the only fandom where racial bias isn't a factor, or that it doesn't affect how all the characters get written.

(also I think it's worth bringing up while my original post, this ask, and this response have been heavily leaning on words about fandom's racism, I don't think that's divorced from its Islamophobia and the western (US/Hollywood) racialization of Muslims.)

As for the general fandom and racism discussion - look, I'm not going to speak over you a poc and say you should or have to notice racism in everything. It is 100% not my place to tell you how to experience/react to racism, how to interact with fandom and racism, or to say you are doing it wrong.

I'm personally coming from a different mindset - that racism does affect everything, and that fandom is absolutely not different in that regard, and that reactions to racism (either for people of color in general or the specific identity being talked about) are not monolithic.  

I also think - while I get why you use it - the word 'trendy' does a disservice to fandom racism discussions and how those got co-opted and conflated in the larger cancel/call out culture.  Cause

racism being used as an excuse/reason to cancel something ("I hate this, and here's racism as a reason no one should like it/why you are a bad person for liking it")

racism being discussed as an important issue canon failed at ("I'm criticizing the canon and depending on what it is, I may think canon's racism should hold the highest priority in terms of canon's worth")

racism being looked at through the lens of fandom ("racism permeates every facet of this world and that includes canon/fandom, here's how")

are all different things, and while the first one is used a lot more, and all of them are a lot more visible now, I don't think the other two are that much more accepted than they were before.

I only caught the periphery bones of the top/bottom joe/nicky controversy, but my understanding is these two sides collided very badly: side a) early into fandom people pointed out the trend, related it to how that trend works in every other fandom, discussed specifically how bias in interracial and interfaith relationships are likely to show up in this fandom and that dynamic, called for more nuance/thought into this dynamic, and all of that got flattened into "top!Joe is and only is racist, and you're a racist for liking it." and side b) because call out/cancel/purity culture, fans (specifically including fans of color) were being called racist for either engaging in the characters the "wrong way" or not engaging at all, pushing them to create content they didn't want to create, left the fandom due to harassment/bullying, and got treated like even the hint of top!Joe was the Worst Thing They Could Ever Do, so that even suggesting racial bias may play a part on shipping dynamics for joe/nicky is completely unreasonable/without merit. That, again, is how my (limited) view followed the issue, and like everyone else where I fall on the spectrum of that discussion is very much dependent on the circles of fandom I float in.