i know a big point of contention in this fandom is Ed's Anger. but the thing is that it's rlly hard for this to be an "agree to disagree" issue because the sides are like:
edward teach does have anger issues. in the show he becomes disproportionately and irrationally angry, and he expresses that anger in harmful and unacceptable ways. saying ed doesn't have anger issues is flattening a complex indigenous character for the sake of respectability politics.
edward teach does not have anger issues. every instance of ed's anger in the show is proportionate to the situation he is experiencing and ed is shown to be capable of controlling his anger. the way ed expresses his anger is normal and acceptable within the fictional comedy universe he exists in. saying that ed does have anger issues reflects implicit biases about men of color being inherently and exceptionally angry and violent.
and like, i've rewatched this show a billion fucking times at this point. i've seen these scenes more times than i can count. never, at any point, did i think ed's on-screen expressions of anger were indicative of anger issues. i have always considered ed's anger to be reasonable. even in the brief period of time before i began engaging with this fandom, i did not think ed had anger issues. i was surprised to find out that some people believe he does.
i just. i have a hard time, after watching this show over and over again and finding ed's anger to be a reasonable response to some very difficult situations, seeing people say they think those reasonable responses are indicative of anger issues. i've heard the arguments, and i just don't agree. and the question of why i don't agree really comes down to: am i subconsciously over-correcting for racial stereotypes and flattening the complexity of a character of color, or are other people reading ed's anger as more extreme than it is due to subconscious racial bias?
and that's. really not a question i think any of us are ever going to be able to answer.
Hey, this post was the very first thing I saw when I visited the "OFMD meta" tag yesterday morning and well. Wow. I was with you for the majority of it cuz your description of the controversial "Ed's anger+violence" debate is pretty spot-on! I agree: anxiety over racist bias is causing fans to over-correct for strong associations between black and brown men and violence vs. conditioned fear of brown men's anger is causing people to see Ed's violence as overly dangerous are the polarized camps of thought for this specific ofmd meta topic. I also liked the self-reflective approach you took and was ready to reblog with words of appreciation and some notes about my read on Ed's relationship to anger because it's a very personal topic for me.
But then I got to the last two sentences.
"am i subconsciously over-correcting for racial stereotypes and flattening the complexity of a character of color, or are other people reading ed's anger as more extreme than it is due to subconscious racial bias?:
and that's. really not a question i think any of us are ever going to be able to answer."
I am blown away to see this "welp, guess we'll never resolve this race question" attitude from you.
I've seen this precise attitude being used a million times to shut down constructive conversations about racism (usually paired with platitudes like "tribalism will always exist, fear of difference is human, etc."). And seeing this from a white fan who talks so much about racism in the show and the fandom tells me that you care more about feeling affirmed than about pursuing a definitive answer to your own implicit racial biases as they relate Ed's mental health.
I want to invite you and other white fans to consider that it's not that there's *~~no answer~~* to the question you asked, it's that making the two above views oppositional has ZERO didactic value at this point.
Because in the larger context of the "Ed's anger+violence" debate, where a bunch of different people are sharing their thoughts and feelings on the subject, we're not really grappling with one question that has two possible answers.
We're grappling with two questions.
"am i subconsciously over-correcting for racial stereotypes and flattening the complexity of a character of color..." ie. What does my interpretation about Ed's anger say about my own implicit racial biases towards men of color?
"...or are other people reading ed's anger as more extreme than it is due to subconscious racial bias?" ie: What do other fan's interpretations about Ed's anger say about the larger fandom's implicit racial biases towards men of color?
I have good news for you: exploring these two questions with people who might disagree with you can help generate concrete answers for about your subconscious biases and the epistemological trends of the people who agree with your views. Just approach the question with a modicum of vulnerability and well, look at the notes in this post. The problem with exploring these questions publicly is that, for most people, it's hard enough to explore personal subconscious biases without toxic discourse. Which is fine.
But in practical terms, there's just no use for this "either subconscious bias A or subconscious bias B is more powerful in me/our community" approach because it centers the white imagination above black and brown experience. It's not about the groundbreaking narratives Edward's character reveals about being brilliant, queer, visibly brown, indigenous, disabled and a man/masc-presenting person--it's about deciphering, comparing, and separating yourself from other fans' racist feelings towards black and brown men. Why uplift BIPOC stories and experiences when it's more gratifying to reinforce bonds with people who make us feel good or who we deem as "being correct"? This "debate "question" is hardly a debate anymore but largely an interpersonal, polarizing, fucked-up antiracism fandom positionality litmus test that corrodes trust and curiosity for black and brown experiences with our men's anger and violent behaviors.
And I do think that you understand that there is didactic value outside of the false dichotomy we've been operating with. Which is why I have a problem with the defeatism of your last sentence. Of course you couldn't imagine an answer to your question when you wrote this post. You had no intention of exploring this debate outside of a white imaginary.
And, to put it plainly, surrendering to this toxicity is especially unfair to black and brown fans who've lived with, loved, or are men of color that have chronically hurt others with their rage. We don't get to shrug off the uncomfortable parts of the debate. On my end, living with black and brown men's anger is baked into my personal life, along with the trauma of family violence, which forced me to hold difficult contradictions in my head. Those contradictions are what inform my read of Edward's violence as a manifestation of trauma-borne anger issues more than any of the tired subconscious biases at the center of the debate. And I know I'm not alone in this. This fandom antiracism litmus test is especially irrelevant when Ed-style outbursts are something you have no choice but to navigate in your real life in order to maintain your affections and relationships with your brown uncles, fathers, spouses, neighbors. Uplifting these vulnerable insights is invaluable to decolonization in media right now. Choosing to celebrate progressive black and brown stories on tv as "good representation" to then ignore or diminish the ones our black and brown peers share because they don't make us feel good is bad praxis, regardless of whether you're white or not.
Which brings me to what spurred me to write all this. Because It wasn't just the nearsighted, cynical, defeatist attitude that got to me.
It was checking the notes and then seeing People of Color who disagreed with your personal position in the debate or even challenged the dichotomy within your question in good faith being dismissed, egregiously disrespected, or straight-up ignored.
That made me really fucking angry.
Tl;dr You may not have meant for this, but the post itself and the engagement of it reflect the toxicity of beating the dead horse in question ("am i subconsciously over-correcting for racial stereotypes and flattening the complexity of a character of color, or are other people reading ed's anger as more extreme than it is due to subconscious racial bias?"). What's worse, it is entirely disingenuous of you, as a white fan who cares about racism in ofmd and its fandom, to try and draw a defeatist conclusion about this argument, continue to indulge in it, and then dismiss the voices of fans of color who disagree with you because "none of us has the answer to this question!"
This is what performative antiracism looks like.
