Tag: fandom racism

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: James Olsen is Pete Ross 2.0

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I’ve talked a ton about what fandom spaces look like when Black woman steps into a racebent role, but not about what happens to Black men who play racebent roles in the same franchises.

If you think that things are any easier for Black men in fandom well…

You’ve thought wrong.

This installment of What Fandom Racism Looks Like will look at how the racism behind how the Smallville fandom treated Pete Ross – played by Sam Jones III – and how, over a decade later, the Supergirl fandom pulls from the same playbook in order to excuse heaping a ton of racism on James Olsen and the black actor that plays him, Mehcad Brooks.

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[Stitch Answers Feedback] What Can Non-Black Fans Do?

Stitch

The text, from a screenshot of a really cool message I received, reads:

hi stitch! im a regular reader of your site, and i wanted to ask a question that im unsure if you’ve addressed so far or not. having grown up on tumblr from 2011 onward, i definitely feel you hit the nail on the head about the “blank slates ghost” and migratory slash fandom always hyperfocusing on white men. it’s really telling how ships like stucky (while i personally enjoy it) can completely overshadow and create hostility toward steve/sam; i had a friend who got routinely vagued and harassed for that exact thing. but what im wondering is, on the flipside, how can white and nbpoc interact w black characters in ships without being creepy abd voyeuristic? i liked your post about the finnpoe racist fics where finn is always hyper-big and sexualized, that kind of demonstrated some stuff Not to do, but i wonder if there’s more nuance to it? should we accept that black fans will sideye/be more wary of nonblack people getting involved in the slash scene for black characters, or are there more dedicated steps we can take to openly be supportive and non-fetishistic? thanks for reading this even if you dont have much time to answer!!!

I got this message in my inbox a few days ago, but since the email address attached to it looks like it’ll bounce back if I email them back and this is a topic I’m sure many of y’all have been wondering about… I decided to make public! I hope that my anonymous reader sees this and knows that I’m grateful to them for being a longtime reader and for sending this message!

There are two real questions being asked here and I’m going to try my best at tackling them in clear and relatively concise ways.

Now, to the answer(s):

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Fleeting Frustrations # 7: Archive Frenzy and Being (Un) Grateful To Our Fannish Foremothers (Stuck In 2002)

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Note: This Fleeting Frustrations installment mentions racism as well as fanworks involving sexual violence and underage characters. It’s also not very nice. Obviously.

Fleeting Frustrations #7.png


There are things to love about the AO3. I won’t list them here because I don’t need to. Almost every single piece written about the big ole archive – especially in the wake of its 2019 Hugo Award nomination – has been positive. 

It’s been gushing. 

The AO3 is positioned as a site for queer and/or female exploration and empowerment.

It’s so amazing, these articles and adoring fans write, because it allows queer people and women the freedom to understand their identity and play around with sexual and gender roles as they figure themselves out.

We should be grateful to the grand ole archive because it gives us room to be queer, be women, and to explore kinks and identities that we can’t in real life.

Which is a cool story, let’s be real here.

If I wasn’t a queer Black fan who’s used the AO3 and been in fandom for most of my life, I’d even take those claims at face value. After all, a space for female and/or queer fans is pretty cool, right?

But what about the racism on the archive – in the form of fanworks or in how fans of color have talked about the response from archive staff volunteers have given when they talk about their experiences with racism on the platform?Read More »

[Pitch The Stitch] What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Antiblackness in K-Pop Fandom and Industry

Stitch

Pitch the stitch - kpop fandom and industry antiblackness

In case you’ve missed it, I’m doing a project for my website on anti-Blackness in K-pop fandom spaces and why the industry’s understanding and appropriation of Blackness/Black culture for the aesthetics of it all partially fuel the problem.

It’s already a massive project, but I want to make even more work for myself by opening up for guest posts related to the series I mentioned writing over on Patreon.

While of course, anyone can send me a pitch and I’m open to anything, I want to center the voices of other Black fans and Korean fans across their diaspora who’ve talked about the genre/industry’s relationship with (anti?) Blackness across this project.

If you’re interested in doing a guest post at any point in this project – about your relationship with K-pop as a Black fan or how you engage with the reality of the fandom or industry’s anti-Blackness as a Black and/or Korean person in these spaces – here’s your chance. I’d like to open up my platform and my site to you!

I’m looking for:

  • 5 guest posts (for the time being, i’d eventually like to post as many as 10 essays/guest posts)
  • 600-1000 words each (i won’t say no to longer posts, but I feel like that works best for what I can pay)
  • posts can be celebratory OR critical when it comes to talking about your experiences as fans

While I can’t pay a ton because I’m poor and money’s tight, THESE ARE FOR PAID GUEST POSTS @ $40 a post!

This is my first attempt at doing this kind of organized guest post set-up so please, don’t let this flop!

🙂

You can find the Google form here.

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: The Problem With Preferences

Stitch7 Comments

problem with preference

Back when Captain America: Winter Soldier first came out in 2014, I noticed something… strange about many members of the MCU fandom and how they would talk about Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson. Many of them honestly saw no shame in how they treated Sam Wilson as if he was the first Black character they’d ever engaged with.

Not only did some people (sorry scifigrl47, but I’m incapable of letting go of this) go above and beyond to posit that it’d make “more” sense for Sam to be a member of Hydra than Tony Stark at a time when Marvel wasn’t trying to make Hydra an equal opportunity employer for all marginalized people –

But you had folks who literally made and shared posts that outright said things along the vein of “[Sam Wilson] is the first time I’ve ever been attracted to a Black man before.”

No one should feel that comfortable with expressing their racist preference thatthey were outright comfortable with confessing that a Black actor in 2014 is the first time they realized that Black people could be attractive.

(Especially not Anthony Mackie who is honestly only “alright” in the looks department.)

The thing is that the word “preference” allows folks in fandom to feel as though they’re just expressing their totally neutral preference for white male characters above everyone else when they’re practically playing into literal centuries of sexual racism and the complicated politics of desire and race.

Preference isn’t neutral.

Neither is whiteness.

In 2019, it’s time we sat down and accepted that fandom’s overwhelming preference for white male characters in and out of slash ships/fandom isn’t neutral.Read More »

Fleeting Frustrations 6.5: “We Can’t Have Anything, Can We?”

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Fleeting Frustrations 6.5_ “We Can’t Have Anything, Can We_”.png

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker is the focus for the cover story for Vanity Fair’s Summer 2019 issue and readers were “blessed” with dual covers – one with Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren and the other with Daisy Ridley’s Rey. Written by The Magicians’ author Lev Grossman and interspersed with photos from Annie Leibovitz, this massive article was the talk of the Twittersphere for days after its release.

Grossman’s Vanity Fair article is… alright. It doesn’t really focus on Finn, but I gave up on folks remembering that Finn was supposed to be the male hero of the franchise – and just as heroic as Rey – back when The Last Jedi came out.

In the article, there’s a particularly stunning photograph of John Boyega’s Finn and newcomer Naomi Ackie’s Jannah sitting astride a pair of orbaks – an equine adjacent species new to audiences. It’s an iconic photo as well because Jannah is only the third Black female character with dialogue in the franchise – and the first to be in a main trilogy – and this is the first time that the Star Wars franchise has had two Black characters interacting like this.

It’s something that clearly belongs to Finn and to Jannah –

So, of course, someone had to make it about Kylo Ren Ben Solo.

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“A discipline overrun with whiteness”: #FSN2019 and Making a Statement – A Guest Post

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In April 2019, I was invited by Stitch, Cait Coker, and Robin Reid to be part of a Roundtable on Race and Racism in Fandom and Fan Studies at the PCA/ACA 2019 conference held in Washington DC, USA. The intention was to discuss Fandom and Fan Studies 10 years after the events of RaceFail ’09 to see if things had changed and, if so, how. While I didn’t speak to the events of RaceFail ’09 itself, it did inflect my critique of institutional responses that followed in the wake of a more recent event.
What follows here is a rough estimate of the things I said at the conference, much of which was unscripted. I should note that these are my views alone and that I do not speak for Rukmini Pande, who was also involved in the series of events I plan to discuss.
At the same time, I should also be clear that many of the points that follow are points that fans of colour (hereafter FOC) and acafans of colour (as well as acafans working on critical race theory in fandom) have already noted. In a multiplicity of ways, I am echoing their work, restating it, forcibly reinscribing it as best as I can, and ascribing it as best as I can (and Rukmini is part of this, though again she is not the first).
As previously noted, these conversations have been around for far longer than us, and to assume that we are the first to voice this discomfort, this anger, this complaint (per Sara Ahmed) is to be complicit in this erasure and our own eventual erasure. These are not just my words, this is not just my voice.

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What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Misogynoir – Black Actresses Under Attack

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Don’t forget to check out last month’s post and the introduction!

wfrll - misogynoir - black actresses under attack

  • U simple bitch. This is why comic book fans hate Hollywood. The criticism is not b/c U R an African actress but that ur 3 personas look too human wearing cheaply made costumes . U didn’t even care enough to Youtube the animated series and actually research the characters. (a comment sent to Anna Diop on twitter by user @Walter_Stylez on 4/13/2018)
  • I’m grateful you made starfire hideous and ugly, you are her first adaptation that looks less exciting. I’m sure this will make people choose batgirl over starfire now cuz she’s more prettier of a love interest. Dickbabs all the way!!! Thank you Anna for propping up my ship!!! – From twitter user @dickbabs3 on Twitter directly in response to Anna Diop posting an image of herself in a suit on 12/11/2018

Name a Black actress in a popular nerdy franchise and I’m pretty sure I can find you proof of people claiming that they:

  • Are too ugly
  • Aren’t talented enough
  • Are too “ghetto”
  • Don’t have enough chemistry (with the nearest white person)

To play the role they’ve been cast in.

Angel Coulby didn’t just have to deal with people claiming historical anachronism for her casting because Guinevere stems from a Welsh name that means “fair/white and smooth” in a show full of historical inaccuracy and sorcery.

She had to deal with a ton of “I’m not racist, but”s claiming that she was a terrible actress, that she wasn’t attractive enough to play Gwen, that she wasn’t young or refined enough… you know the drill.Read More »

[Tweet Share] Threads from 2/23 – 2/25

Stitch

I know there’s some overlap between the folks that support me on Patreon, folks who subscribe to my website, and the folks that follow me on Twitter, but tweets are hard to keep up with.

So I’m playing curator for a minute.

Earlier today, I got distracted from writing (which, granted, isn’t very hard to do) by someone attempting to whitesplain racism and fandom’s open lack of empathy towards Finn from Star Wars. This person even included a whole “this isn’t about race” thing even as they embodied one of the most racist aspects of the fandom: the lack of empathy towards Finn and refusal to actually engage with him as he is (rather than making up weird and problematic untruths about him).

(I’m calling this thread: What Fandom Racism Looks Like: The Empathy Gap in Action but I probably won’t actually turn it into a WFRLL essay because I don’t have the time. But I had the time today… to be a petty and furious Stitch.)

Bonus threads from days before:

A thread about anti-blackness in k-pop fandoms (re: rap/rappers)

“conveniently only caring about ‘real racism’ when fans of color are talking about racism IS RACIST”

double standards and empathy (kylo and finn)

on how white female characters (like jessica jones, wynonna earp, and peggy carter) on shows that are problematic wrt race REALLY don’t represent ~us~

 

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Misogynoir – Black Women in the Way

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Don’t forget to check out last month’s post and the introduction!

wfrll - misogynoir - black women in the way

I may later eat my words because I haven’t seen more than season 1 of ToS or any of the movies but I hate that Uhura in the reboot is just a love sick puppy that follows Spock around. Like she doesn’t even resemble herself and she feels less of a character. (A tweet from twitter user @meganbytetweets from 2/4/2018.)

That sucks i just really hate iris and barry idk i rather ship him with linda, patty or caitlin lol (A tweet from twitter user Amber_G27 from 4/6/2018.)

Few things inspire more misogynoir than a Black female character that fandom thinks “gets in the way” of a ship involving two white characters.

When Zoe Saldana was cast as Nyota Uhura in the 2009 Star Trek reboot film series, fans were fine… until it was revealed that Saldana’s Uhura was also in an established and committed relationship with Spock.

Then it became a problem.Read More »

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Misogynoir – Convenient Excuses

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If you’re new here, start at the introduction!

wfrll - misogynoir - convenient excuses

A 2011 article on pop culture website Oh No They Didn’t entitled “Fandom and its hatred of Black women characters” opens by asking readers “What do Martha Jones, Tara Thornton, Guinevere, and Mercedes Jones have in common?”

The short post details the various ways that fandom goes out of its way to diminish the awesomeness of Black female characters, but for this section, I’d like to look at the excuses fandom gives for why they don’t like –and frequently, actively hate – Black female characters.

Livejournal user flint_marko, the author of the ONTD post, provides a handy list of insults that fans use to excuse their hatred of these female characters that includes:

  • They have an attitude problem.
  • They’re lazy.
  • They’re mean.
  • They’re stupid.
  • They’re ungrateful.
  • They’re selfish.
  • They’re sluts.

When I say that fandom hates Black women, this sort of thing is a prime example. All of the examples that flint_marko gives are things that fandom has used to excuse disliking or hating Black female characters throughout the years.Read More »

Stitch Takes Notes #1 – Kohnen Pages 19, 25-26

Stitch

Stitch Takes Notes is an ongoing and flat out random feature now up on my website wherein I share the non-urban fantasy notes I take for various academic/academic-adjacent books I’m reading.

stitch takes notes

I’m a huge fan of Screening the Closet: Queer Representation, Visibility, and Race in American Film and Television, Melanie E. S. Kohnen’s book on whiteness and queer representation/visibility in Western media.

Everything about this books speaks to my own (more informal) work on race in fandom and I want to shake it at a bunch of people. I’m largely reading it for fun – as opposed to reading it because I need it immediately for a piece – and I’ve been taking notes on it and putting it into my context/the context of fan-studies in a totally sweet Batman notebook.

I’m not going to put all of my notes out there because then you’d probably wind up with half of the book quoted online because of how much of it I find valuable, but I wanted to put some of my notes up so that y’all can see the connections I’ve been making from the book.

So here are some notes and quotes from when I was going over pages 18-19 and page 25 of Kohnen’s brilliant book:Read More »

What Fandom Racism Looks Like – When White Characters (Somehow) Aren’t White

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wfrll - removing whiteness

Let’s keep this short and salty: did y’all know that there are people – thankfully a minority in their respective fandoms – that will claim a white male character or actor isn’t white for some reason or another.

Well, if you didn’t know before reading that sentence, I’m willing to be that you’ve figured out what you’re gonna learn today in this installment of “What Fandom Racism Looks Like”.

One of the weirdest things I’ve ever come across in all of my years of fandom is this relatively recent thing where fans of a white male character – usually one half of a powerhouse ship involving two white characters – somehow get it into their heads that said white male character isn’t actually white after all.

I don’t get it. Read More »

#flashbackfriday: Black Panther Fandom Racism Bingo

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Originally posted back in March 2018 after realizing that the MCU fandom never actually stopped its anti-black nonsense. Best way to play? Spend some time scrolling through the unfiltered Black Panther tags on AO3 with a drink in your hand and drink every time you land on something in one of the squares. Repeat drinking is encouraged. (The original, archived inspiration.)

IMG_20181227_095556.jpg

I’m back with another “fandom racism” card, this one more explicitly for the Black Panther fandom. I think this one can be used for scrolling through tumblr tags or AO3 as a drinking game, but I like my liver a bit too much to play it and see how it goes.

If you can’t read the bingo squares, here’s what they say (though the order may not match) and some handy links to explanationsRead More »