#“it's just a him and Nancy problem” respectfully wtf are you talking about

[jonathanbyersphd]

Me, waiting to see how exactly they plan to resolve Jonathan's storyline now that they've reintegrated him back into the Byers family:

[gayforsaturdays]

Is Billy Hargrove Racist??

Yes, yes he is.

That doesn't necessarily negate the possibility of a redemption arc, however.

Before I begin, I'd like to say that I am not promoting racist ideals.  I am always down for intelligent, respectful discussion, key word respectful, so please feel free to make a counterargument - respectfully.

We live in turbulent times.  With Cheeto Voldemort in power it seems to many as though racists have taken over.  This has been a long time coming, though, racist ideas implicit in the founding of America and evolving throughout our history.  Just because racism is not as overt as it was in the fifties doesn't mean it's gone, and that the average white American is immune to its effects.  Racism is the elephant in the room that we Do Not Talk About, showing its face in ideas and stereotypes and implicit biases so ingrained into our culture that we don't even recognize them for what they are.  When we do recognize racism, it is easy to make it the Other.  This is hatred, I do not hate, I am not a part of this.  This is what I see happening in fandom, but this is not where anti-racism needs to go in order to make real impact.

The Duffer Brothers have real potential here.  They are poised on a cliff in front of a vast audience.  Will Billy Hargrove get a redemption arc to parallel our dearest Steve, or will he tip over the edge to become a villain?  If he is redeemed, will his racist comments be swept under the rug?  In a show which has done excellent work creating extraordinarily human characters with foibles and flaws, after all the work they put into Billy this season without seemingly much reason, I don't think that Billy will go without some form of redemption.  His bully arc appears to be over, and considering his father's abuse and his own PTSD, to vilify him now would feel like another depiction of mentally ill people as evil. They would absolutely need to address his racist remarks in this instance, though. 

To give another explanation for Billy's outburst over Lucas is a cop-out, one of the most common when it comes to racism.  Not My Problem.  I don't want to deal with it, so I'm just going to pretend it isn't there.  This is silence, and silence is complicity - if we don't speak up, it will never end. 

To vilify Billy and his racism would actually be damaging as well, though.  I know that sounds bad, but hear me out.  Remember how I said that racism is a set of ideas and biases and stereotypes ingrained into our culture?  Those ideas and biases and stereotypes are bought into, often unknowingly, by average white people all across the country.  Average, white, human persons.  Human beings whose primary defining feature is not "a racist" - not white hoods and burning crosses.  This is where the potential with Billy lies - to show that a person who holds racist ideas is still a human being, and can even let go of those ideas as they learn and grow, as humans do.  The only way we can really dismantle racism is from the inside out, calling out our own ingrained prejudices and changing hearts and minds. 

It wouldn't even be that difficult to do with Billy - as his redemption arc begins, he'll want to distance himself from every vestige of his father.  With Neil tossing the f-word around so nonchalantly, I don't doubt that Billy's father has been the major influencer in his beliefs.  I want to see Max calling Billy out on his misguided distrust of Lucas, in explicit terms.  Leave no doubt as to the fact that Billy has inherited racist ideas from his father.  If Max and Billy have a conversation like this, perhaps Billy can begin to realize that this too is part of his father's legacy.  I want to see him awkwardly trying to reach out to Lucas, having no idea how to talk to him or apologise, committing little microaggressions like white people do all the time.  Have him say something that people say all the time and have Lucas give him the Lucas Look of Wtf, Bro (tm) so people will go oh, that's not a good thing to say.  I want to see Billy and Max go to pick up Lucas and Erica opens the door and totally calls him out, super sassy, because I fuckin love her ok Erica is the shit.  I want to see Billy experiencing white discomfort and realizing that he was wrong - not just about Lucas specifically because that gets into exceptionalist territory, but about people of color.  I want to see Billy feeling bad about everything he's done and believed and actively wanting to change, taking real steps towards making amends and becoming a better person, because that's what he is - just another human person stuck on this rock.  Separate the idea from the human being so that people can see racism as a set of ideas we all need to fight, both internally and externally, instead of a group of people separate from self ("the racists").

Please don't hate on people for being drawn to Billy, for shipping Harringrove.  People who see the humanity and the potential of Billy's character.  Because he does have potential, both as a person and to be an expositional tool for a lot of good social justice work that could reach a lot of people.  Not just anti-racism work either, but definitely anti-sexism and potentially anti-homophobia as well.  I want to see Max and Nancy and Eleven and even, most definitely, Steve calling him out on his overuse of the word bitch and treating women like sex objects.  He also holds potential as a queer character - if you read him as queer as I and many others do, his father's abuse is even more tragic because it features so heavily homophobia and toxic masculinity.  If Billy were canonically queer, it would make a tremendous amount of sense for the amount of anger that he carries (not that being a hormonal teenager with PTSD isn't enough).  Here his father is yelling at him not to be a f*****, beating him, and Billy believing that he's right, that liking guys is wrong, that he deserves these beatings because his father is right about him.  Show us Billy, the non-stereotypical queer guy, learning that his father was wrong and learning to accept himself and let go of his self-hatred.

Having thoroughly bashed Neil, it is necessary to recognize that he, too, is human.  Everything that he believes and does is ugly and twisted, but he is driven by fear and shaped by the culture he lives in.  He sucks, but there are men like him everywhere and every one of us has to work to change our culture so that we stop creating men like him so that they will stop creating and damaging boys like Billy.  We need to hold hope close that we can change people's hearts and minds, but we can only accomplish this without hatred. 

This is what I want to see in the next season.  You have a huge audience and a fantastic platform for wonderfully human characters, Duffer bros.  You can do something really amazing with it.