MiiShii Likes to Write

PACIFIC RIM dir. Guillermo del Toro | 2013

I’ve been noticing something for a while now, and I recently saw @prettylittleky call it “black reader baiting.” I love that term, but I also want to add another: POC character erasure.

To me, that means when someone writes for a show, fandom, or game and consistently leaves out characters of color like they just don’t exist. A good example is Mel Medarda from Arcane, who already gets a ridiculous amount of hate. And the reason I’m even writing this is because of Duke Thomas from DC Comics a literal member of the Batfamily.

You can also look at Cassandra Cain, or honestly any POC character. I see it over and over again: people will write Batfamily fics and include everyone everyone except Duke or Cassandra. And sometimes even Damian Wayne gets left out or written in a way that feels offensive.

And the excuses are always the same:

“I didn’t have time to write them.”

“I just didn’t include them.”

Or something equally weak.

But somehow, they have time to include characters like Stephanie Brown who isn’t even consistently written as part of the core Batfamily in those same stories. That’s where it starts to feel intentional, or at the very least, careless in a way that isn’t harmless.

As a Black woman and just as someone who genuinely loves these characters it’s frustrating. And I’ve stayed quiet before because the response is always the same:

“Why complain? Just write it yourself.”

That response is backhanded. Writing your own stories shouldn’t be the only solution to exclusion. If you’re choosing to write in a fandom with a diverse cast, then you should be capable of writing that diversity or at least acknowledging it. Otherwise, what are you really doing?

It’s especially weird when writers will have white characters “act Black” using AAVE, calling someone “ma,” borrowing from Black culture but won’t include actual Black characters in the story. I’ve seen it happen with characters like Jason Todd or Dick Grayson again and again. You can adopt the culture, but you can’t include the people?

That doesn’t sit right.

At the end of the day, this is simple:

Stop erasing POC characters from your narratives.

Being Black, being a reader, and being a woman already comes with enough barriers. There’s no reason fandom spaces places that are supposed to be creative and inclusive should keep reinforcing that same exclusion.

If you are stupid, Republican politics sounds brilliant.

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