Tag: anti-blackness

Antiblackness in the K-pop Industry and its Fandom Spaces: Introduction

Stitch

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Anti-blackness is universal.

Outside of maybe a handful of countries around the world, there aren’t many places where I’m guaranteed to be entirely free from anti-black racism. Even my home island of St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands isn’t a safe space for me as a Black person –

And I grew up there.

Because anti-blackness is so ubiquitous across so many different spaces and how often it shows up in situations where Black people aren’t actually present or involved, I am not surprised at anti-blackness being present out of the blue – to me at least.

I am really not surprised at how antiblackness shows up in the K-pop fandom – because antiblackness is everywhere in fandom spaces.

But there’s something a little… extra about how anti-blackness works in K-pop fandom spaces and how much of that anti-blackness is actually fueled by issues present in the music industry’s consumption and repackaging of Black culture.Read More »

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Silly Ship Wars

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What Fandom Racism Looks Like_ Silly Ship Wars

Declaring the problem a ship war wasn’t so much revisionist history as wishful thinking: fans like to consider fannish space utopian, and racism doesn’t belong in utopia— therefore the problem wasn’t racism, it was ships. This line of thinking was white privilege at its finest (or lowest), with POC fandom as its casualties.

From “Not So Star-Spangled Examining Race, Privilege and Problems in MCU’s Captain America Fandom” by Cait Coker and Rukmini Pande in The Darker Side of Slash Fan Fiction

Time and time again in fandom, it’s been proven that the easiest way to stop people from taking the critical thoughts of fans of color seriously when we talk about racism in fandom spaces is to reframe it all as “just” a ship war.

If criticism of racism can be dismissed as “just” jealous shippers lashing out at a supposedly better positioned or more liked ship, then no one has to wrestle with what we’re actually talking about:

That time and time again in fandom’s shippy spaces, fandom actively chooses whiteness. Fandom constantly chooses white characters, whitewashed characters of color, white experiences, and white fans over people of color – real and fictional.

If you reframe it as “just” a ship war where petty babies are out to police fandom because their ship isn’t doing so hot in the charts –

Who’s going to listen to us?

Why would anyone listen to us?Read More »

[Image Post] Finn Needs A New, Less Racist Fandom

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Finn_Doesnt_Need_Redeeming

Source:  Where Are Y’all Getting Your Characterization From? Finn Isn’t A Coward, Or Selfish, And He Doesn’t Need A Damn Redemption Arc.

I love Finn from Star Wars. It’s not just because I not-so-secretly want John Boyega to fall wildly in love with me and marry me (but like…), but I think Finn is one of the most compelling characters in the sequel series.

Which is why I can’t get over the fact that so many people disagree with me on how amazing Finn is. Heck, I still can’t believe that folks think Finn is up there with Jar-Jar Binks as the worst character in the ~Star Wars Cinematic Universe~.

Or that many of his so-called fans wish he’d just… die.Read More »

#FlashbackFriday – Preference and Race in the Dating World

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Originally written in 2013 on Tumblr.

 

I hate the word preference. Or at least, I hate the concept of that most people have of it in terms of dating.

I hate that not only has society made it okay for everyone to have a (frankly racist) preference against Black women, but that it’s also socially acceptable to talk about why you won’t date a Black woman… TO BLACK WOMEN.
Read More »