TLDR: There’s a an artist I see on the tl occasionally who’s said some super racist shit in the past and no one knows asides from me and a few others because it happened in a private server. Racism is very alive in fandom spaces and being black, it’s hard to choose between “keeping your peace” and “starting drama” because people typically don’t care and will attack you instead of critiquing the racist.
I hate hate HATE to be the mf that vagueposts about something serious but with the way fandoms have been moving recently when discussing racism…I’m not in the mood to invite klansmen to my doorstep. With that being said tho, this has been on the back of my mind, and I really need to rant about it .
To sum this up the best I can. A little over a year ago, not quite going on two, there was a racism incident in a (now private) Baki server. A Russian artist (their nationality is important, as they used it to justify their behavior) decided it would be appropriate to start a conversation about “blackwashing”. This conversation quickly devolved, as one would expect, and they:
- kept asking why they can’t draw characters of color white
- Began to parrot phrenologist talking points
- said the word “negroid” multiple times
- said the word “negro” multiple times
The conversation mainly went on for as long as they did because they led with the whole “oh I’m foreign, I’m Russian, this is what I’m taught in school and I don’t understand why it’s wrong 🥺🥺🥺” bit, and there was a presumed language barrier, so initially people engaged with them in good faith whilst explaining that the points they were making were antiblack and they needed to change how they spoke/thought about race.
This quickly fell apart because they chose to debate people on if those slurs were slurs, doubled down on the phrenology shit despite being warned, and chose to argue with the black members of said server. (I would know, I was one of them!) They were promptly kicked. They only “apologized” upon their removal. And Despite being blocked, they decided that it would be ok to find and follow those same black artists across platforms because they “still wanted to see their content”.
The whole thing was never brought to public attention because: it happened privately, ended when they were blocked again, and as a BIPOC you lowkey gotta pick and choose what you bring to your doorstep because people lowkey dgaf. And idk it just wasn’t worth it, I don’t like to do the whole “call out post” thing anyways. So please don’t consider this to be that
But idk it’s all just so??? Crazy to me. Insanely crazy, I still think about it from time to time. Because white people just get to be racist and still expect you to engage with them, especially in fandom spaces. They get to say “it was just a phase” or “they didn’t know any better” or in some cases “it was a different time” and move on with their lives. Not having to make any real changes to themselves while black people are still impacted by their actions
I see their posts from time to time. See people interacting with them, because they don’t know— how would they know?? I wonder if it would even be worth it to say something. Personally, I think there’s no expiry on racism….and I’d consider 1-2 years to be very recent. But the truth is a lot of people don’t see it that way if they’re not personally affected. I mean, not the same fandom but look at how people have been reacting to the TADC situation!
Not to mention how people behave when the perpetrator “apologizes”. Like everythings magically ok after that.
Would people even care??? Long ass rant but what do y’all think. I don’t want this to read as “GO HARASS THIS PERSON NOW!!!!”, which is why I’ve omitted their name. I can’t lie I do have a lot of feelings about this because it’s really weird. That whole thing was weird. I’m in a weird spot cuz god forbid I say something and then everyones like:
origamiaround
turnnoffyourmind
janainaart
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
annaxmalina
jacobvanloon
