#because there is no excuse for racism

[edwinisms]

it’s actually so wild to me that this fairly quirky YA type show gave both of its main characters deaths that can, in one way or another, solidly be considered hate crimes. they were both flat out murdered as a result of being A) gay and effeminate or B) brown (south asian, specifically) and you could argue whether or not those kids thought of it that way in the moment or whatever but the bottom line is that they would not have been in the situations that killed them if they weren’t of their respective minorities. like legitimately that is a ballsy choice for this kind of netflix show, let alone for the two Main Characters, and i respect it big time

[goldxnfemme]

I kind of wish we could talk about racism in the community (rampant occurrence) without getting sidetracked, because it comes from all sides. I made a post about it and about the straight up fetishization we go through before and it blew up but to this day, I don't know the answer to this problem, aside from doing the work to become antiracist, which is constant work, not just "oh I'm now antiracist".

As far as white people are concerned there isn't one group better than the other, all of you have work to do, I don't care if you're lesbian, bi, trans etc, if you're white, you're privileged.

It doesn't make one group any less racist to say "what about this other group instead?"

As a person of colour I have a hard time feeling safe around any white person, because I don't know them, I don't know how they're going to act and I have my own experiences with all groups, really don't think that one is better than the other.

[casscainmainly]

This is a copy/paste of a reply I did to this post. I'm putting it in its own post because I genuinely need people to understand that saying Duke is unpopular because he's 'new' or unknown only furthers the racism Black characters face in fandom. This extends to the sexism Babs and Steph face, and the double racism/sexism that Cass faces.

For everyone in [this post's] notes saying [Duke's unpopularity in fanfiction] is because Duke is new, that's part of it, but absolving fandom of responsibility is misguided and sweeping both racism and sexism under the rug. The newness argument doesn't explain why Damian has more fics than Cass, Stephanie, and Babs, who all predate him.

More importantly: Jon Kent, who was introduced one year after Duke in 2015, has a total of 3,144 works under 'Jonathan Samuel Kent' and 9,280 works under 'Jon Kent'. That is 12,424 fics - around 5,000 more than Duke, despite debuting at roughly the same time.

The adaptation argument (that the ones who are more adapted are more likely to be written about) is also flawed - Tim has 3 major TV show appearances (The New Batman Adventures, Young Justice, and Titans). He cameos in Superman: The Animated Series, Static Shock, and an episode of Justice League. For films, he appears in two DCAU movies, Batman Unlimited, Gotham by Gaslight, Batman Ninja, and Death in the Family. That's 12 total appearances in film and TV.

By comparison, Barbara has an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to adaptations of her. She appears in 8 animated films, 6 animated Lego films, and has 5 animated film cameos. This is already more adaptations than Tim. Add to that 60s Batman, the Birds of Prey show, Titans, Gotham, DC Super Hero Girls, BTAS, Batman Beyond, Gotham Girls, The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Young Justice, Beware the Batman, Teen Titans Go!, Harley Quinn, Batman: Caped Crusader, and the live action Batman & Robin, that's 35 total appearances across film and TV.

Barbara Gordon as Batgirl is undeniably more popular to the general public than Tim Drake as Robin, and her film and TV adaptations also outnumber Jason's (13, with 90% of those being pictures of him because he's dead) and Damian's (15). So if she should be more popular than Tim in every supposed metric (longevity, adaptations, even name recognition), you have to ask yourself: why is she less popular in fandom?

To return to Duke Thomas, if you're even a casual Batman fanfic reader you would know that most of his tagged fics are not about him. Duke has 7,042 tagged fics, and of those, 242 works are tagged as Duke Thomas-centric. By contrast, Tim Drake has 62,704 total works, with 3,809 tagged Tim Drake-centric. That means 3.4% of Duke fics are tagged as Duke-centric, whereas 6% of Tim fics - almost twice as much - are Tim-centric. This is not a perfect metric by any means (for example, Dick actually has less than Duke with 2%, though this is due to him having a bonkers amount of fics), but it is illustrative of the trend that literally anyone who's skimmed AO3 could tell you.

More comparisons: Jason Todd (2,990/76,427 = 3.9%), Damian Wayne (1,870/45,635 = 4%), Cassandra Cain (200/17,060 = 1.1%), Barbara Gordon (54/16,729 = 0.3%). Keep in mind not everyone uses the -centric tag, but this is generally useful to see broad trends.

If debut date, adaptations, popularity among the public, amount of canon content, or presence in major Batman events were truly the deciding factor, Barbara would be the second most popular character in fandom (behind Dick). However, she isn't. Even Dick isn't the most popular - Tim, despite his lack of adaptations, is clearly the Batboy centred most in fanfiction and fandom. Therefore, the treatment of Babs, Steph, Cass, and Duke in fandom cannot be attributed purely to lack of knowledge.

Blaming fandom's focus on the White- or White-passing boys on canon is ignoring the signs of racial and gendered biases in the way we latch onto characters. Fandom barely cares about canon - most Titans Tower AUs or family fluff blatantly ignore huge chunks of comics. If we can ignore Gotham War, make up lies about Red Robin (2009), and pretend Tim's allergic to shrimp, why can't we extend that imagination to the POC and female characters? Why are they less worthy of our efforts to make stories about them, whether they have canon/adaptational histories or not?

All this to say, trying to explain away the lack of works for Duke and the girls will not solve anything. Making excuses for the fandom is only perpetuating the racist and sexist erasure of these characters. Instead, read their comics! Here is a list of reading guides for POC characters.

Not interested in comics? Read these Duke fics (compiled by @himejoshiangels)! Also take the time to go through the Barbara Gordon-centric tag and support those creators. Feel free to post any recs of your own as well :).

[robohintz]

Funniest thing is watching people backtrack now, when he first posted that y’all were praising him for his ‘sassiness’ then y’all saw what he was replying to and that poc’s were not amused and y’all immediately tried to say he was hacked and then when people pointed out that he posted -> then went on a blocking spree -> and then went on his IG to delete said racist meme posts that there’s no way it could be a hack; now it’s “well obviously it’s photoshop” or it’s “still a hack but Buddie’s are the ones who hacked him y’all are so desperate”

Mind you, this man was confronted by a Black queer man and you all still tried to make it about a ship war? And that’s the person you’re trying to blame for said hacking?? Are you all that stupid? (Don’t answer that, it’s rhetorical- I know the answer)

Y’all are actual weirdos who are doing their absolute best to defend a racist white man- am I shocked? No because when those memes first came out about him the first thing y’all did was literally made posts defending him or deflecting entirely from the situation. Y’all nasty right along side him tf you mean.

[wenellyb]

The way White stans decide who's racist or not based on whether they like the person or not should be studied.

Because why are Ryan Guzman stans acting like Lou Ferrigno Jr should be "cancelled" for his racists instagram posts, but Ryan Guzman should be forgiven for his racist takes on how he and his wife should be able to say the n-word.

And why are Lou Ferrigno Jr stans acting like anyone who's brings out Lou's past posts is a hater and just wants to "ruin his career" because of a ship.

You guys have no idea what it's like to start watching a show, a movie and you start liking one of the actors, then, bam, you find out that he doesn't like people who look like you or he doesn't respect people who look like you or he doesn't care about people who look like you.

And honestly, most of us don't have the luxury of wondering if it was a "one time mistake" or if they have "changed". We have to assume that's who they are, because more often than not, that's who they are when no one is around.

It's like that actor from the Boys who liked anti-Black tweets that were mocking a Black woman cosplaying a chatacter in his show. Who does that?

If you've never experienced racism, the best course would be to be silent first and listen to what peope have to say before putting your 2 cents in explaining how "it was all in the past".

[evie-doesnt-write]

Begging everyone to please be normal about this man

[lenaboskow]

hi how are you my anti posts (and the majority of others') are because tommy's racist and misogynistic, not because he made one questionable comment (except for when it happened). they're because he tells buck to enjoy it while it lasts and makes a closet joke in front of buck's best friend that he's not out to. they're because he disregards buck's relationship with bobby and tells him his father is still alive. they're because he can't be bothered to dress up for the party buck planned despite knowing that if he got called into work, he'd have to change anyway. they're because he treated hen and chim like shit when they started at the 118 and never properly apologized, proven by the fact that they didn't bother to keep in contact after working together for a decade. they're because no matter what you might think of the deleted henren and tommy scene, it doesn't take away from the fact that tommy doesn't care about whether or not the most important people in buck's life approves of him (because we all know it matters to buck), and he intentionally avoided answering whether or not his intentions are honorable. i could go on and on and on, but i think you get the point. not one thing tommy ever did can be viewed as positive. go ahead, name something. you'd be wrong

[sillygrossgirl]

The fact that after Dr Moumita was brutally raped and killed, yet to recieve a smidge of justice and evidence was even purposely destroyed to deter the investigation, people went to porn sites to search her name and find photos/ videos of her last moments alive. Recently found out this apparently happens everytime a case of someone being sexually assaulted/ killed goes "viral".

The thing is that its not exactly shocking to me, but it still makes my skin crawl. People are out here protesting and trying to get her justice, meanwhile others are doing this.

[jakeperalta]

once again being reminded of possibly my most controversial swiftie opinion which is that taylor is in fact just a person and no matter how great she is she is not somehow worthy of special treatment by those in her life simply for the fact of being Taylor Swift. like if one person really wanted a certain life and the other didn't, they would both be equally entitled to be heartbroken over wanting different things and well within their rights to feel personally scorned by the other. but it would be crazy to decide that one of them is terrible for not doing anything just to be worthy of the great honour of being in that relationship. and yet swifties will without fail decide that the worst thing someone can do is not put their every need aside when taylor is the other person involved. even though that is just not how a relationship between equals works at all

[weedle-testaburger]

it's funny how americans can understand that not everyone who lives in a red state automatically agrees with the reactionary policies of republicans there, but not that not everyone who lives in a foreign country that does awful shit is automatically supportive of its reactionary policies

[immediatebreakfast]

Your tags reminded me of that time when people brought up the anti-Romani racism in Dracula with how Stoker portrays the Romani as conniving traitors who tricked Jonathan into trusting them before they betrayed him to Dracula, and some people tried to excuse it by being like, what if the Romani were actually just really scared of Dracula and wanted to help Jonathan, but they got caught and were forced to give up his letter, and it's like, these are not actual Romani people whose actions might be misinterpreted by racists, this is Stoker making a choice to have Romani villains who embody racist stereotypes, and at no point in the narrative is that ever deconstructed as Jonathan perceiving them in a racist way and being wrong.

My experience with the Dracula Daily tag must be heavenly blessed because I have never found anything like that... HOWEVER that still doesn't make it less weird to ignore a blantantly racist charged scene painted by the bigoted beliefs of the author with a "but- BUT what if it actually means this!" because that is neither in the text, nor in the subtext.

I like the what ifs, I like to speculate, but my speculations will never take away what the text says. Hell, I even wrote how in the window entry the reactions of the slovaks, and the romani were the only things that they could have done, even if they have wanted to help Jonathan. That is my interpretation made to humanize an ethnic group that is dehumanized in a gothic narrative, but that doesn't take away how Stoker chose to write a marginalized ethnic group helping the main villain of the story while his main british character watched. Those are the social dynamics Stoker's established in an orientalist novel, it's a racist scene! No one should deny that! If we as modern readers refuse to analyse these racists parts of the text, how are we supposed to combat the racism that still exists today?

Yet, to use a literary interpretation made in the 21st century specifically made to humanize a group of people that is still subjected to bigotry to this day to excuse the racism of the author? What are we, those academics that don't bother to read the novel, and badly apply victorian sensibilities to the text (that they didn't read) with the sole purpose of slut shaming Lucy?

Just, don't try to soften topics in a novel that touches so many, whenever it's a good portrayal (Lucy and Mina) or a bigoted portrayal (the romani, the slovaks, the jewish characters). That is how we end up with teethless adaptations, or worse blantant misreads of the text itself. It's the Gothic! We have to see both the good, and the bad!

[queerbauten]

Western Joost fans when the Europapa Guy doesn't hate The Bad Europeans™ (Russians):

[july-19th-club]

it's all fun and games getting letters from watson until you make it to the three gables . what's interesting to me though is not the question of 'did doyle write this one' - i think it's sort of a fan's cop-out to suggest that because this story is so casually racist, it *can't* have been written by doyle. i think it's more worthwhile to look at the number of years between 'the yellow face' (the titular face refers to a blank mask worn by a little girl) - a very sympathetic and respectful, for its day, story, and 'gables' - 'face' was published in 1893 and 'gables' was published 33 years later, in 1926. and this is well into doyle's weirder years, after he's been into spiritualism and wwi has happened and he's old and strange. some of his stories from these years are very fun, and others are...less so. even saying 'sometimes people change and get worse as they age' isn't really it, because there's ugly things in the earlier stories too, just to a lesser degree and without such an obvious degree of humor taken in them. those you might be able to describe as 'a product of their time', an unconscious bias that is not appropriate but also not meant with a serious degree of ill will beyond cultural bigotry. gables is so racist it almost feels out of character, but saying that also feels like an excuse in a way that doesn't sit right with me. so there is no excuse for gables. no grander conspiracy. no justifiable explanation. it's not just unfortunate and distasteful. it's a shame.

[lets-all-calm-down-a-bit]

[valewritessss]

People are using “and the world kept spinning” as a way to invalidate issues that are actually issues instead of a way to tell someone that the thing they’re complaining about isn’t a very big problem compared to actual things we need to worry about.

[falseswag]

Whew, people are mad mad at Bridgerton season three part two. And most of the reasons why are stupid af.