Your stuff on race relations in the JoJo fandom is interesting. What I see quite a lot (I'm younger, 19, so it might not be super prevalent to the older folks of fandom) are people pushing their (usually black) racebends of white or Asian characters as some kind of a statement against racism. As a black woman, this makes me snicker at best, and really uncomfortable and/or frustrated at worst. /1
(Continued) They want race commentary to be taken seriously, but they don’t even acknowledge things that actually look really racist. The main example that sticks out to me is Joseph snapping his fingers to get Avdol’s attention like he’s a servant. As someone who has elders with personal experiences of being treated like that and worse by white people, that action stuck out a lot to me. No one talks about the implicit racism there, but making a white/Asian character black is a statement? /2
Sorry if any of that came off like a disjointed rant. Your commentary just made me excited to speak up to more than just my close friends. Feel free to ask for any clarification. /fin
Thank you for sending this. I really appreciate you reading and engaging with my post on this topic.
Yes, absolutely: Joseph snapping his fingers at Avdol is racist– and Orientalist, as it also participates in tropes of white (especially English) men treating Arab men as servile: Joseph says in the Sun arc that he’s a fan of “Lawrence of Arabia”; Araki was invoking (Western) Orientalist tropes on purpose. Even in the context of Araki as a Japanese author playing with Orientalist tropes, and even in the context of the later nuances given to Avdol’s character and his friendship with Joseph… canon is undeniably problematic here, imo.
When it comes to racebending, I think you’re getting at something important: the larger context of the fandom in which racebending takes place.
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