Im nnot that prev anon talking about racism but their message made me want to send you one: for me, racism is the only thing in FAN fiction that makes my ears prick warily about the person? And it's usually not because of the racism itself because thats complicated... But because of how the authors and their friends react to the conversation?
For me, it's not just that There Is Racism in fan fic, but how way too many older (usually white) proshippers then have said racist stuff to real people about fiction and dismiss younger proshippers who are poc trying to have discussions about racism as antis. (Of course antis have ALSO been racist, don't get me wrong, but I'm starting to think fandom is just... Weirdly racist all around.)
Anyway, getting called an anti and having other proshippers be mean to you for talking about racism while you're writing dadson on main just feels... Weird.
There are a lot of people in the proship "community" who take the idea of anti censorship to mean "I can say whatever hurtful things that I want to people, and hold whatever harmful beliefs I have fully unchallenged", and this mindset upsets me a lot, as both a woman of color, and an outspoken lifelong activist in the realm of anti censorship, sex work, etc.
I think a lot of people do try to hide behind the "shield" of the proship community, and it allows their harmful beliefs to go unchecked. This isn't a proship community only problem, a lot of "antis" are extremely racist, but a lot of people in the proship community use their ideological high ground over antis to act like when THEY do harmful things (ex. make racist comments, using slurs, etc.), they're still morally superior.
People who have larger followings, who've been around for a while, tend to be the worst with this, because they build an echo chamber of followers who blindly defend them. These people NEED to be called out, because they give the pro fiction movement a bad name, and they make fandom unsafe for people of color. The more the proship community does allow racist people to hide in it, the more people of color will be pushed away and WILL become antis.
I wish that the proship community was inclusive to everyone, I try my best to make the community inclusive, as a "larger" figure who people tend to trust, but it needs to be a community effort, of denouncing racism.
