Stitch's Media Mix

Episode 197: Stitch

In Episode 197, Flourish and Elizabeth welcome back Stitch, the media critic and fandom journalist who was one of their original “Race and Fandom” guests way back in 2016! Stitch discusses their career trajectory from omnivorous fan to independent blogger to writing the “Fan Service” column for Teen Vogue, where they’ve tackled everything from escapism to boys’ love fic to racism—and especially anti-Blackness—in fandom. They also talk about the specific dangers they and other Black commentators face in being vocal about these topics—and how the threats they’ve received will likely make their work unsustainable in the long term.

I think you should read this article:

Noting Rowling’s vast financial success, Barker felt that Rowling’s newfound position of fame ought to exclude her from discussing trans rights. He added, “It really just seems redundant for a woman as successful, as validated in the world, as Ms Rowling, to be negative, to be disruptive if you will, to a very beaten up subculture. These are human beings. She has no right to opine, I think, upon the lives of human beings that she does not know.”

“I feel very protective of people who are on the edge of our culture as gay people still are,” Barker continued. “And certainly transgender people are on the edge of our culture. And here you have one of the most successful people in the frigging world – Ms Rowling. Going after a very emotionally vulnerable portion of our culture. It just seems unnecessary and unfair.”

Lestat stans: "but he hurt Lestat's feelings with his words 🥺🥺"

That the term “s*mp” is misappropriated aave and should be dropped

That calling any poc “feral” or “animalistic” is racist

That referring to any poc with animal analogies and terms is racist

My post has the same formatting, content, and topic matter as this post, which was made by Ivy (@queen-breha-organa​) about an hour earlier. I reblogged it before making mine.

Can anyone explain to me why a blog with 6x more followers than me, who made her post before mine, not only has ½ of the notes but has ALREADY been harassed over it?

I haven’t received any pushback on my post. There’s no replies. My inbox is empty. I haven’t gotten a single snarky tag. Nobody’s said a damn word to me about it negatively. On Ivy’s side, she has. Ivy doesn’t even have anon turned on. I do.

I’m white. Ivy is not.

@ribbonsflyingoutthewindow

All you did was show how ignorant and tone deaf you are. You make several arguments that fall flat for several reasons and are just laughable.

Firstly, I cannot believe Black have to keep saying this, we do not care if you have Black "friends", that is irrelevant to the argument and you can have Black "friends" and still be racist. Saying this actually leads me to believe that you are because why are you throwing around these relationships like you collected tokens you want to cash in? It’s like you are using your “friends” as a veil to poorly hide your racism.

2. My whole post is about the racist reaction to Sam being Captain America and how Bucky wouldn't have been treated like this had he been chosen. Trying to center yourself and your thoughts and opinions about how not racist it is to have a preference is not appropriate.

I literally said "People constantly inserting their opinion "Bucky would've been better," for no actual reason." Referring to the people who say this and give no actual reasons as to why Bucky would be better. At the end of the day people will have preferences and that's fine, but as far as the Captain America preferences go they seem to only prefer white Captains whether they want to admit it or not.

And honestly there is no reason to not want Sam to be Captain America. There isn't. There is not one valid reason. It happened in the comics and Sam was able to do the job just fine, Sam Wilson in the MCU is smart, caring, tough and more than capable of doing the job with or without super soldier serum.

When you said "If you want strictly my opinion (which you don't, but it's the only one you think I'm qualified to give), here it is. Marvel chose Sam to pander to an audience when they could have chosen Bucky and made a statement." This statement proves:

YOU ARE RACIST

Anytime a Black person is chosen for a popular and important role the company is “pandering to an "audience". This is a racist argument and I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It’s racist and spoken by racist people. The fact that you think the only reason why Sam was chosen is to be a token Black man to pander to an audience shows exactly what you think of Black people and how much you value them. If you even watched one episode of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier you’d know just a little bit about why it is such a big deal that Sam is taking over the mantle of Captain America. I’m not explaining it to you because you seem like the type to not care and still push a ridiculous narrative. But I will say considering the history of racism in America that is still prevalent to this day, Sam becoming Captain America is a big deal and does make a statement, it’s just that a lot of white people don’t try to relate to characters and backstories that don’t look like them or remind them of their own.

To address Bucky: I think there is nothing wrong with him getting his mental health together before taking on a role as stressful as Captain America, and where his character was left after Infinity War and Endgame he wasn’t really in a position mentally to take on the role. I don’t like how the Russos acted like he was too damaged to take on the role at some point but Bucky in the comics and in the MCU doesn’t want the role. Him wanting to be Captain America is inconsistent with his character. 

Now this is where the part of your argument gets really funny: 

“And this is really big for me because it has nothing to do with race, but everything to do with origin. Anthony Mackie was born in America. Sebastian Stan came here from Romania after Communism had destroyed so much of their homeland. So this was Marvel's ONE CHANCE to put the shield in the hands of an immigrant. It doesn't matter if an immigrant plays any other role, but to let them play Captain America? That makes such a strong statement it brings tears to my eyes to think about. Marvel has other Black superheroes. There isn't another chance to make an immigrant the face of America.”

You think A WHITE MAN is the BEST choice of an immigrant taking over the role of Captain America? His character isn’t even an immigrant so what the hell would that do? “Marvel has other Black superheroes” How dismissive of the importance and value of Black superheroes. The more you explain yourself the more racist you sound. You don’t need to walk around using the n-word to be racist. There are and will be plenty of chances for an immigrant to take on the role of Captain America, right now it’s going to be a Black man and if you can’t see the significance of that in a country that has and still actively treat Black Americans like trash, then you need to revisit history class and talk to those “Black friends” of yours.