It’s finally done! Thanks for sharing my artwork! (Moth)

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

thelastjedicritical:

shannanigansandmisadventures replied to your post: “I’m honestly so confused about people suddenly claiming that…”:

I can’t speak for tv shows, but I watch a ton of movies and out of the last 15 films I watched, only one had an interracial couple. You’re still more likely to see what I’ve been calling a “matched pair” where two people of the same race end up together.

There is a type of racism where it’s okay to some people for different races to be together but not white people with a poc character. This still stems from the “white people are a superior race” mindset.

yes, the only difference now is that compared to a few years ago I can actually list some interracial pairings…

And while I think it is very important to have interracial pairings in the media where both are POC I have absolutely noticed that in fandom spaces even obviously racist people had no problem declaring they ship an interracial pairing when both characters are POC but if one character is white the weird excuses suddenly begin as to why this white person has to be with another white character/or noone, and the character of colour with another character of colour/noone. It’s pretty clear POC are seen as more fitting with other POC in racist fandom spaces, while character of colour/white character seems to be a huge step or even unthinkable for many.

Fandom likes to think that white supremacy is all white hoods and tiki torches when it’s actually something very ingrained in Western culture. The idea that approving of POC/POC IR but not white/POC IR is super progressive disregards history’s treatment of the latter.

If you look at anti-miscegenation laws in US history, they were specific to marriages, sex and procreation between a white person and a person of color, and was applied most aggressively to white/Black relationships. Those laws were specifically about not “tainting” the white race (and I’m not being histrionic when I saw that the same laws were upheld in Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa, applying specifically to relationships with a white person and a non-white person (including Jewish people)). Americans don’t like to think that our country is that white supremacist, but it, historically, is. And the effects of those laws influence modern American worldviews.

The main targets of these laws were Black men. Although the famous Loving vs Virginia case involved a white husband and Black wife, white men, historically, were less targeted; they were allowed to take whatever they wanted from Black women. There was no protection for Black women. White women, on the other hand, needed protection from Black men, and a Black man with a white woman was the ultimate abomination. Many lynchings of Black men were justified as protecting the sanctity of white women (even if the man had had neither assaulted nor had a consensual relationship with a white woman).

It goes deep. There’s an analogy that people still use today: A drop of sewage (black blood) in a vat of pure water (white blood) contaminates the water, while a drop of water in a vat of sewage is still sewage. (My mom is white – trust me, this analogy is still used).

Most people wouldn’t admit to believing that, but a 2016 study by the University of Washington (https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/a-hidden-bias-toward-interracial-couples/) concluded that, while white students will say they’re all for interracial relationships, many implicitly react with “disgust” when shown photos of white/Black couples.

In one part of the study, participants were asked to categorize Black/white couples, same race couples, and animals:

We predicted that when interracial couples and animals were categorized together, the participants who were primed to feel disgusted would do the task faster. Instead, we found that all participants completed the task faster when interracial couples and animals were categorized using the same button (indicating implicit dehumanization).

tl;dr: Americans are socialized to implicitly find white/Black couples repellent, even after all these years, and that is strongly reflected in fandom patterns..

Overt Racism in Fandom

mikeymagee:

In Policing The Black Man, edited by Angela J Davis, there’s this really interesting essay on how racism is recognized in the courts (unfortunately, I’ve listened to this piece on Audiobook, so I can’t quote/cite it directly) but the gist of it is, Overt racism (meaning, racism that is seen and and easily proven through a very very specific set of explicit actions) are the only forms of racism that can be recognized as bad.

And this type of language is important because it allows for SO MUCH RACIST SHIT to go unaccounted for.

Shit like implicit bias goes unnoticed because it doesn’t fall within a specific set of actions. Shit like white prioritization (or giving more empathy to white mass murderers than Black victims) doesn’t get counted either because it doesn’t fall into the category of “overt.” And “justifiable cause” is also used as a way to get away with racist behavior. In the American Policing system “Justifiable Cause” is literally anything. You think that Black dude running down the street is on his way to a drug deal? Well, then cops have the right to stop them. End of discussion. And then add the fun little practice of hypocrisy where white people doing the exact same shit (running through a parking lot, for example) is seen as innocent and “normal.” It isn’t criminalized.

But none of this can be taken to court because it’s not “overt racism”. And even when shit is overt and obviously racist, there is still a large section of the law that requires the person to prove that it really is “overtly racist” (because remember the people who created these narrow boundaries for what constitutes as racism are ALSO the ones who benefit from ensuring that white supremacy remains unchallenged.

Sounds a lot like fandom, doesn’t it? Sounds a lot like how white characters are allowed to be selfish and moody and human while Black characters are held to ridiculously high standards that can’t be achieved regardless of skill or character. Sounds like the same excuses fans love making for White characters’ bad behavior, while they shit on Black characters (and really non white characters) for doing the exact same thing. Sounds like the constant gas lighting, tone policing, and wild goose chasing that white fans expect us to put up with in order to “have a civil discussion.”

So whenever a fan demands that you “stop looking for things to be mad about” just remember this little excursion into the American Policing Systems. Whenever a white fan demands “stop bringing race into it” remember that the American Police system thrives by holding Black people (and POC in general) to different, impossible standards and then pretending that they hold white people to the same standards. Whenever a fan demands that you provide “proof”, remember that this is just them trying to get you to shut up about their own implicit biases.

When we’re silent they win. You’re not required to fit your experiences with racism within their impossibly narrow views of what constitutes as “actual racism,” because they’re just gonna move goal posts. It’s how this type of system works.

Keep speaking out though. Speak out every where.

Also, I’d recommend picking up Policing The Black Man edited by Angela J Davis. It’s a good read (or a good listen if you want it on audiobook).