Claudia's "Bleak, Black Life" (iwtv3x06)
i just wanted to put out my personal opinion as a black on this line that has thrown a lot of non-black people into a hysteria. there were posts i was going to reply but i think it's easier if i do it this way.
i have seen a lot of people to say that it is racist for Claudia to have been called her life "bleak [and] black" or that it is racist that the "one good thing" Claudia ever had was her girlfriend Madeleine, who just so happened to be white.
i think there is some kind of misunderstanding of what Claudia is saying here from some non-black people, and that is the belief that somehow being born black is not something that Claudia is allowed to list as one of her personal injustices or grievances in her life. it completely is. in society (specifically in the time period and country she found herself in) it is disadvantageous to be a black woman. there. i said it. this does not mean that i would rather have been born white, or that i resent my blackness. it is the acknowledgment of the harsh reality of the real world. it something every black girl has to reckon with at some point in their life, and simply have to deal with and try move on from. try and find things, people and connections that make this manageable.
the love of Madeleine was that thing for Claudia. and if Madeleine is white? what does this change? Claudia does not say here, "having a WHITE companion is what made my life better" she said that having the love of her companion (regardless of what race she is) is what brought something good about her life. all she ever wanted was a companion to make her vampirism manageable, and she finds that in Madeleine. people's attempts to somehow make this racist is a pattern i have recognised throughout the entirety of this show of people being unhappy about the fact that interracial relationships (especially the white person x black person ones) are the main relationships present in the show. you see it in the people who try to bring down loustat because their "racial differences" somehow make them incompatible, or that Louis "needs a black partner"/ "someone of his own kind." (something i intend to make a post on)
if you are white, and you somehow are offended that Claudia called her life "bleak [and] black" that is white privilege. it is white privilege because you cannot even comprehend why Claudia would say such a thing that is truthful. because you have no understanding of what she means, because you have never once found yourself in the position of realising that so many things or dreams that you may have had as a young child are not attainable because you are born a black woman. it is a harsh reality, and a very bleak one, and Claudia was well within her rights to address it as such.
