@gazavetters Vetted List lists Ahmed and his family at #740.

From the Wikipedia page on loons

Race absolutely matters. Racism absolutely exists. But different racial groups are stereotyped in different ways, and those stereotypes can produce completely different social expectations.

For example, I’ve seen people criticize Rachel and Jacob for joking about Hudson being unintelligent because he’s a person of color. If Hudson were Black, I would understand that criticism more, because there is a long history of anti-Black stereotypes portraying Black people as unintelligent. But Hudson is Asian. Asian men are stereotyped in almost the opposite way. They’re often assumed to be intelligent, studious, and academically successful. The stereotype is still racist, but it’s a different stereotype. It doesn’t suddenly become an anti-Asian stereotype just because we’ve replaced “Asian” with the broader category of “POC.”

The same thing happens constantly in fanfiction with Shane.

A lot of writers portray Shane as being afraid to fight because he knows he’ll be judged more harshly than white players. I understand where that idea is coming from, but as a black person I’ve never found it particularly convincing.

If Shane were black, that analysis would make more sense to me. Black men are often stereotyped as aggressive, which means behavior that is considered acceptable from white athletes is often interpreted differently when black ones do it.

But asian men occupy a very different place in the racial imagination. They’re frequently stereotyped as passive, non-threatening, weak, nerdy, emasculated, etc. If racial stereotypes were influencing Shane’s approach to hockey, I could just as easily imagine the opposite dynamic: feeling pressure to prove he’s aggressive enough to belong. Maybe he’s fighting TOO much.

But that doesn’t make sense for Shane. He’s the league’s golden boy. He’s polite, media-friendly, and heavily inspired by Sidney Crosby. He’s a superstar. Fighting is often delegated to players lower on the depth chart whose role is specifically to provide physicality. Star players generally aren’t expected to be enforcers. Teams usually want their elite talent scoring goals, not sitting in the penalty box after dropping the gloves.

So Shane not fighting much doesn’t strike me as evidence of racial pressure. It strikes me as evidence that he’s Shane Hollander.

Crosby is a useful comparison here. For years, people mocked him for not being physical enough (and for talking to the refs too much). They questioned his toughness and masculinity. They called him “Crybaby Crosby” or “Cindy Crosby.” Fans edited photos of him in dresses or makeup. The criticism wasn’t really about hockey. The joke was that he wasn’t a “real man.”

And that’s a white player.

Imagine how much worse those conversations could become if the player in question were Asian.

That’s the kind of racial dynamic I could actually see affecting Shane: not people thinking he’s too aggressive, but people questioning whether aggressive ENOUGH.

There’s a good chance that if Shane fought exactly like many white players, he probably still wouldn’t be viewed as tough enough. Meanwhile, if a Black player fought exactly like those same white players, he might be interpreted as more aggressive.

People often criticize Rachel for not doing much racial analysis in the books. But sometimes fandom fills that gap with racial analysis that feels disconnected from both hockey culture and the specific stereotypes that affect different racial groups.

Not every POC experience is interchangeable.

A stereotype that affects Black athletes is not automatically a stereotype that affects Asian athletes. A stereotype that affects Latino athletes is not automatically a stereotype that affects Indigenous athletes.

If we’re going to talk about race- and we should- we have to talk about the actual racial dynamics at play, not just substitute “person of color” for a more specific analysis.

And hockey culture matters.

Hockey is one of the only major sports where players are allowed to drop their gloves and just start throwing punches. Losing teeth is practically a badge of honor. Violence isn’t some weird exception to hockey culture- t’s part of the culture.

The expectation isn’t simply that players avoid violence. A lot of the time, the expectation is that they embrace it.

One of Rachel’s other books, Tough Guy, is literally about a player whose whole struggle is that everyone expects him to fight because he’s huge. He’s a giant enforcer, and people assume physicality should be his role whether he wants it or not. The conflict isn’t that everyone thinks he’s too aggressive. The conflict is that hockey culture expects him to be aggressive.

(Honestly, if they can’t find a 6’7 white redheaded actor who perfectly matches the description, they could probably get away with casting a 6’2 Black guy and nothing would change).

That’s why I think people sometimes miss how much hockey culture itself matters when discussing race in fandom.

There are even real-world examples of this conversation. When the Team USA Olympic roster was announced, a lot of people were confused about why Jason Robertson wasn’t selected despite being the highest-scoring American player. And one of the arguments that kept coming up was that players like Robertson aren’t always perceived as bringing the same level of physicality or aggression as some of the other stars who made the team.

Whether you agree with that assessment or not isn’t really the point. The point is that toughness, aggression, and physicality are things hockey people talk about constantly when evaluating players.

Which is why I struggle with fandom interpretations that assume every racialized hockey experience would look the same.