Possibly The Greatest Struggle In Fandom Is Trying To Talk About Racism In Either Canon Or As A General

219q vs 145q

fujimaki (and by extension knb fandom) and the relationship with colorism

fujimaki has some extremely questionable views on dark skinned people

its like…the only other character in the series that exhibits sexual “interest” bc he reads gravure mags as a past time, has dark skin (haizaki is notorious for his sexual exploits but its supposed to be frowned upon…hes clearly marked as Bad…so the unfortunate implications are rather telling re: aomine…not to mention how fandom ran with this trivia as some Definitive Character Attribute of aomines l o l)

the only character in the series that exhibits infantile toilet humor (farts, burps) as well as being the Dumb Musclehead character, has dark skin

we wont even mention how momoi, in a fit of rage/frustration, calls aomine ganguro, so essentially using his dark skin as a pejorative and kise made a weird mention of aomines dark skin when he first met him (why? its not connected to his status as a basketball prodigy) or his Biggest Weakness is that he cant clean when his miragen cohorts cant draw, cook, carry a tune, or make a joke? or how nebuya is referred to as a gorilla by sports spectators

and of course, the fandom engages with these characters - particulary aomine - in some insidious ways that match with fujimakis prejudices, but pointing that out incriminates fandom or makes you an oversensitive killjoy

though im not ascertained if the colorism+negative views on dark skin are as prevalent or normalized as it was back in the day, its still rather difficult to navigate in this fandoms content when im constantly bombarded with claims that dark skin means youre a hypersexual/sexually predatory fetish, intellectually deficient, unclean, vulgar, a subject of perpetual derision

its especially disheartening when you yourself are judged constantly by the darkness of your skin, both in the setting of east asian culture (japan has a long, ugly history with colorism and xenophobia) and the setting of US-ian politics (do i even have to spell it out?) and then be told that i should be grateful to fujimaki for even considering dark skin representation?? (these types of people have been brainwashed by tumblrs obstinate and incredibly shortsighted identity politics tied with media repesentation)

honestly being reminded of scott mccall hate stemmed from racism perpetuated by teenwolf fandom when i engage with aomine fandom and its alienating/infuriating

From that one video. Let the man rest.

One of the stupidest things ppl respond with is "instead of complaining about your character of color's lack of popularity why don't you make stuff for them instead?"

It’s a horribly shitty thing to say because I only got to the point of pointing out racism in fandom because I’d noticed it for years. I have spent YEARS in fandom. My contributions to this blog are from personal experience. I didn’t write mod R’s super popular post but that’s just because I’m not great at distilling my observations down like she is but I agree wholeheartedly.

I started out in white fandoms almost a decade ago because back then the shows I liked had been predominantly white. You know the type, they had a recurring character who was a WoC and several poc villains and I thought wow great representation! But I was young and dumb and hadn’t finished college yet. As time went on I noticed how my new fave Ugly Betty was still featuring a lot of abuse towards its woc lead. It relied heavily on the white savior trope weekly (Daniel would save the day with money for her family problems) Wilhelmina another woc was the villain (she ended up having a great arc but did they have to pit the woc against each other so much for so long?). I was afraid to join the fandom because occasionally there were problems with the show I couldn’t articulate. (Why did Betty only date white men? Why weren’t there more poc in the office? Why did it have to be called ugly betty in the first place?).

Eventually I became more involved in fandom and this process I’d gone through with Ugly Betty started repeating itself with different shows. I started noticing that stanning for my faves wasn’t easy because fandom was incredibly typical in its preferences. I started reading meta and noticing horrible patterns. I’d already been a feminist but being a feminist in fandom and seeing all the shitty ways fans belittled MoC reminded me of the shitty treatment my father gets just because he’s a brown immigrant. Seeing ppl constantly cry for equal rights and mysteriously only stan for white cis het men made me realize that intersectionality was missing in fandom.

White ppl forget that a poc growing up in the States don’t automatically get when something is racist. Because here colorblindness ideology keeps our own white friends treating us like tokens and using us as “proof” against their racism. So in fandom when all the love goes to white cis het males we’re expected to ignore the fact that our characters of color are not loved the same way (and instead are villified needlessly). Or when we talk about it you respond with things like, “well then make stuff for them” (maybe I did and fandom can’t wait to tear it apart because a PoC can’t possibly be “that awesome”) “my preferences don’t make me racist” (discounting whole races because you don’t think they’re beautiful IS RACIST) “I like villains they’re more interesting” (simple q & a: why are they all white villains who get complex stories? Your media is fucking racist).

To the ppl who feel the need to defend themselves as not racist: stop acting like you know a damn fucking thing about racism, if you’re white you will never truly understand.

Meryl Stryfe.

1/5

oh wow! um, thank you for the new follows and reblogs/likes. i barely have the time/energy to draw souharu lately (grad school+depression lolz) but i have been thinking a lot about getting back into drawing my fave free characters (esp since ka effed up their dynamic again AND ruined continuity...idk how i feel with a new free series....) anyways, hi!! you can find me on twttr and curiouscat.me mainly @aomine_ebooks if you want, but no pressure to follow! i just thought if anyone wanted to idk chat and stuff i'm down with that :) feel free to message me here as well

new kw office au doodle page dropped

“During World War One, 10% of all casualties were civilians. During World War Two, the number of civilian deaths rose to 50%. During the Vietnam War, 70% of all casualties were civilians. In the war in Iraq, civilians account for up to 90% of all deaths.”

— The War You Don’t See by John Pilger.  (via pourlapaix)

a decade later and the way people talk about fictional women and girls is very. Fucked. The only way they’re compelling to most is 1) she girl bosses in a way that doesn’t obstruct their male faves 2) her motivations aren’t male centric (which, hard agree) but then they dismiss her complexities in the same breath BECAUSE all they focus on is her connections to men. there’s definitely a double standard bc men can obsess over men and not be questioned lmao