#troq

Troq is well-intentioned but misguided. I feel discussing episodes like this are still helpful because the way people write fictional bigotry ends up reflecting how they view the real thing and it's my hope that analyzing this episode will help people better understand how to approach these situations.

Some Excerpts:

Why is the Black disabled boy meant to be made the face of poor allyship in an episode of nearly entirely white voice talent as written by predominantly white writers?

Writers constantly project this white-gaze fantasy of putting Black people especially in these positions to picture themselves as the victims and to be able to tell off Black people.

The entire episode works on the idea that a slur used to dehumanize Starfire is only bad because it hurt her feelings, feelings she is framed as sympathetic by too many viewers for ignoring in favor of focusing on "the bigger picture."

Slurs are mean and hurtful, but the root issue with them is that they connect to systems of institutional violence.  

It's not just that it's mean and ends with hurt feelings and judgement, it's that there's a power differential in the society where the slur exists where institutional violence toward a targeted group is normalized and rationalized by the narratives the slur evokes.

There is violence toward Starfire though. The episode just decides it's not important.

 Val-yor weaponizes this mission and sends Starfire off on a deadly job. He assigns her the task of exiting the ship and carefully moving mines that could easily explode and kill her.

That's what makes Valyor's targeted violence toward Starfire all the more gross when the episode never takes it into consideration with Starfire deciding to set aside her feelings.

Beast Boy: Val Yor said he’s never seen anything like me! Raven: Yeah. Most people haven’t.

Don’t get me wrong, I love her moment with Cyborg. I love their sibling relationship. I love their dynamic of “everyone around us judges us on how we look and our minority statuses so we support each other.

I was watching a react channel react to Season 4 Episode 6 of Teen Titans. The episode was titled "Troq", a slur used against Tamaraneans that was constantly hurled and mocked at Starfire, as if the slur was a nickname.

Many reference this episode tackling racism by specifically citing the moment when Cyborg calls her Troqqy and has a conversation of what Val-Yor is really saying when he calls her that, and what it means to be named nothing or of no value based on merely what you look like or come from.

I think another incredible moment, one that is missed, is the moment Val-Yor calls Starfire "one of the good ones".

Many racists, xenophobes, transphobes and queerphobes, across the spectrum of insensitivity to downright hate and contempt, may come across a person belonging to the group they are prejudiced to. That person may prove them wrong about their universal truths they made of that community based on stereotypes or affirmed-generalizations based on anecdotal experience and confirmation bias and not know what to do with the reality that, hey, maybe the Blacks aren't beasts. Maybe the Tamaraneans aren't nothingness Troqs.

So, in attempt to save face of being indicted a bigot, or even save merely themselves of guilt or shame for being one, they will escape the cognitive dissonance of "wait, all Blacks are savage beasts, but this one is nice and civilized. Well, these things are both true, but the latter proves the former false... but no! The first is true!"

They do this by concluding that "this is one of the good ones".

This way, Blacks can still be savage beasts, and when you come across a Black person that proves that isn't true, you can still dig your heels in the sands of your closed-minded prejudice and say "yes, they are, you are just a mere exception." Why, of course, there are always exceptions to a rule, but the belief still stands. Non-savage Black people are just statistical anomalies, is all.

CN: You're cancelled.

Teen Titans GO: *Has Beast Boy farting the alphabet*