Being Black in ATLA Fandom
TW: violence, slavery, lynching
i recently had an interaction that made me reflect on what it is like to be Black in ATLA (or any) fandom. In the exchange, it was presumed that because I live in America, i don't get to speak. While I don't particularly enjoy attempts to be silenced, and have experienced it numerous times throughout my life, it is incredibly harmful to invalidate the Black experience in America.
My people were violently stolen from their countries, sold and dehumanized in unspeakable ways over centuries. The cruelty of slavery is unfathomable and has been getting erased/swept under the rug for decades as "that was so long ago." Even after slavery ended, the brutal nature of Jim Crow laws and sundown towns continued. Picnics were a place of public lynchings where a whole family, including the children, were brought to watch, take photos, and souvenirs. there are likely families to this day that have white hoods passed down through generations. lynching was not made a federal crime until 2022. Since then, Black individuals have continued to be found hanging from trees, including Juliana Nzita in Charlotte NC.
i think everyone should pick up a fucking book or visit an African-American history museum. Everyone likes to remember the peaceful nature of the Civil Rights Movement, but no one likes to discuss the brutality those non-violent activists faced--dog attacks and being hosed down so forcefully that they flew back several yards with their skin seared off. Activists being explicitly targeted by the police and the government. Murders like Emmett Till, with mounds of evidence, have all charges dropped. Black people creating their own towns and having them burnt down because their oppressors didn't want them to have NOTHING. We were (and are still) openly discriminated against systematically in every aspect of living. When i was 5, my sister's best friend told her that she couldn't be friends anymore because "her mom doesn't like Black people."
As a Black person today, anti-Blackness still affects interactions that i have. i am terrified to drive to or through certain states in the U.S. as a medical student, i have been treated differently than my peers; i've had a nursing manager report me for being "rude and offending her" despite complying with her wishes. Her words were superior to mine because, subsequently, my course director wrote this in my evaluation as "lacking interdisciplinary professionalism" despite the fact that he did not witness the interaction. He checked on the nursing manager's feelings weeks later and not mine -- despite the fact that I left the meeting with him in tears. He wrote a 4 paged letter of every "insult" he thought of me including that I didn't knock on his open office door before entering, despite that I verbally asked if i could come in. Through all of this, i was told that it was not a microaggression and did not receive support. These circumstances could have derailed my entire future (and still might affect my future bc i have not matched into residency yet). Once i match into residency, statistics like Black residents being 4x as likely to be dismissed from programs, await me.
So no, I don't *personally* like to be reminded of the painful history of my ancestors in the fandom space where I try to escape the realities. I don't like to be told that what i am saying is fake "niceties" because i genuinely feel as if everyone should speak their truth and are valid for the way they feel about shipping within ATLA fandom. That does not extend to harrassing people. i don't think anyone who is BIPOC should be told to be silent/deferent in these conversations. there is a reason that BIPOC is acronymed this way, and it goes beyond shipping.
