Hi Ashley! I’ve been seeing a phenomenon on TikTok in regards to proshipping, fandom etiquette, and fandom culture and I want to ask your opinion on it since you are a proshipper of color
I see a lot of people of all different races saying that stuff like fandom etiquette and proshipping are “white” and joke that white people are so protective over it because it’s the only culture they have, they say that fandom culture is just 30 year old white people writing “icky gross incest lolicon fanfiction” who ignore racism in fandom and crying oppression when people think their fics are gross. As a white person I definitely agree that racism in fandom culture needs to be addressed and called out but again the idea that fandom culture and proshipping as a whole is “inherently” white feels very noble savagey and makes it seem like POC are incapable of being “gross” or having “icky” kinks or fetishes
Again I just wish to know your thoughts on this but TikTok is honestly a cestpool of crazy opinions if I’m being honest
Ohhhh, I've talked about this at length, and this phenomenon is rooted in racism. Specifically a kind of racism called "benevolent racism". This is similar to benevolent sexism (in which women are seen as pure, nonsexual, and delicate, unable to commit any violence). The "noble savage" stereotype is often a big part of this form of racism.
It goes that people of color, usually black or indigenous, are "untouched" by modern civilization. That they're more connected to nature, more spiritually pure, etc. It often is used to distance people of color from the modern lived experience, acting like their cultures are stuck in the past.
This kind of racism extends into fandom spaces. People of color are seen as "too good" for shipping, fandom activities, and kink, especially if anything taboo is related. Those things are seen as modern, western "degeneracy" (the whole "the west is falling because yxz is also Nazi rhetoric) which the noble and pure people of color couldn't be involved in. It is a form of fetishizing that treats people of color as idealized objects or props, rather than normal people living in the modern age like all the rest of us.
It is true that racism is common in fandom spaces, and needs to be called out, but this kind of racism needs to be called out too. And they often go hand in hand. The more people of color are told that they're too "good" for fandom, the more likely they are to be pushed out of the community, and without a thriving population of nonwhite people in a fandom, racism will proliferate unchecked. And then, due to this racism, more people of color will be unlikely to join the fandom, creating a downward spiral.
