Racism in the whump community
I'm a tired black woman and I wanna talk about the kind of racism i see in the whump community. This isnt a callout, but a discussion and its an invite for white people to listen not talk over me.
Whump is when characters get hurt, this can be from fandom or with original characters, so I'll go into each of these starting with fandom.
Fandom racism is well documented, white people will actively ignore or hate on people of colour, especially black women, both the characters and the actors. Black, Latino and Asian characters are consistently hated or ignored, especially in whump. As someone who runs a poc whump blog, I have to make gifs (as someone who doesnt have the talent or energy to do that) for franchises like the fucking MCU, where characters like Sam Wilson or T'Challa, who have massive fanbases outside of tumblr/whumpblr, but here theyre irrelevant. Black stories and pain are irrelevant in whump.
Been in servers where people will talk about a whumpee by showing pictures of a group of people, no one has to mention theyre talking about the white man in the group, we all know ofc whumpees are white men. The poc in the shot are the background, even if theyre the main characters, to a white person eyes, they arent relevant, arent important.
And OC content isnt free from this either. Instead of ignoring people of colour, we are simply not present. And whump is derived from fandom so its clear that these are linked. You dont like it when we're there, and make worlds where we are not. And it's not about intention, maybe youre just worried about writing poc, maybe we just dont come to your mind at all. But the effect, the consequence, is more important on poc in the community than any of that.
And when you do write us, you feminise and fetishise asian men, you make black men hypermasculine or subject them to poilce brutality. You make black women the sassy best friend type, the black mama to serve white people. We're never the centre of the story.
And whiteness is glorified. In its pale innocence, in the beauty of blue eyes or brown hair. The whumpee was made to be white and for white people to project themselves on. Not for poc. This wasn't made for us.
Something that is so innocent, so obvious to a white person can be harmful to a person of colour and the problem isnt an individual, its a structure. Fandoms are structurally white, the whump community is structurally white. Places white people go to turn their brain off, to "escape" always mean that its a space where poc cant escape. Because you let the racism that is in you not get addressed, and where no one is addressing racism, it flourishes.
titsay
blakekathryn
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
annaxmalina
germansingergirl
romaincrisis
2087
stormborns
