i'm not sure if anyone has seen this video but it has me really thinking about this subject. tldr: when a Black led (or BIPOC led) media does not have a white anchor character, a majority of white people lose interest because they feel like they cannot relate to any of the characters and they don't feel represented
so how do you avoid a white anchor versus a character who happens to be white, especially in Black led and BIPOC focused media? can they be a part of the focus of the story without taking away from the others, or is it better just to remove them from the focus completely?
i ask because my own story is Black led and BIPOC focused with heavy themes of racism, both as a main storyline at times and underlying tones throughout. five of the main characters are BIPOC and the sixth is white. i've avoided her falling into other similar tropes but now i'm afraid of her becoming the token white / white anchor. i was originally planning on her being there as a direct and obvious comparison when talking about racism, but also to represent some non-BIPOC minorities. im just unsure what to do
That's not something you can control, unfortunately! That's why this page is not just about the creation of Black characters (my name couldn't be TOO long!) but also about the perception and comprehension of Black characters!
In other words, you as a creator cannot stop people from simping over your white characters when you have Black characters upfront and center. That's on their biases. You could have a white man show up for two seconds in the background and will still get hype. No need to be an "anchor".
All you can really do is set the standard for how you are going to interact with these potential fans. That you're going to be emphasizing all your characters equally, that you're not gonna capitulate to the fans' desire to center the white character. That while they might fill the tag with White Character, you are going to have Everyone There.
first off, i just wanna say, thank you SO MUCH for this blog. the things here have really helped me to understand more about other Asian ppl, and have inspired me to do my own research! /gen
main reason I’m sending this in is bcuz i was wondering if it’d be possible for, in Lesson 1, you to change “internment camps” to “incarceration/concentration camps”? (quotation marks for ease of reading)
it’s bcuz the camps being referred to as internment camps is a euphemism by the WRA (the organization in charge of the camps) to make the camps seem less cruel, and it’s done a lot of harm to the Japanese American community
fully understand if not! also, don’t worry about the quote!!!
source, if you’d like to read it, is below
https://densho.org/terminology/
thank you!!!!!
thank you for the compliment! i will in fact be changing the terminology in the lesson, thank you so much for bringing this to my attention.
I did see a photoset of Louis talking to Armand about what happened to him and something about Armand's face. Truly a character for CPTSD havers, if this weren't a show run by the klan and its associates. Woof.
what if this show could be empathetic and impactful and still be a piece of deeply moving gothic horror. Because it is possible to have gothic horror that isn't just abuse apologism and racism, like those are aspects of the gothic genre because you're dealing with themes of stagnancy, rot and decay, but there is always a way to write something or portray something that isn't rejects from a slave owner's manual. And I LOVE gothic horror, I love the genre, you all know this, so to see it so abused and see it be used as a tool to harm hurts. What if things were good???
Trinity has this awful thing that happens when Dennis goes off to Amy’s where she convinces herself he got in a car accident on the way there, or he got there but ended up in a farm accident, and is lying somewhere mutilated and bleeding.
The spirals consume her until she’s completely frozen, terrified that she’s right and Huckleberry’s dead.
Sometimes Garcia is over and that works as a decent distraction. But most of the time she’s alone, going down the rabbit hole of losing another best friend.
So the spirals keep happening, and she tries one too many times to confide in Garcia, only to get shot down and told to go to therapy.
Which leaves her with her only logical solution.
Putting life360 on Huckleberry’s phone and getting him a fitbit that she has access to so when the spiral starts she can just check and see that his heart is beating and he's not dead in a ditch.
-> listening to a jaunty country style song
-> hear the lyrics wrong
-> pause. frown. go back a few seconds to relisten
-> hears the same fucked up lyrics
-> check the actual lyrics to see what it ACTUALLY says
THERES MORE TO WHITEWASHING THAN JUST SKIN COLOR THERES MORE TO WHITEWASHING THAN JUST SKIN COLOR THERES MORE TO WHITEWASHING THAN JUST SKIN COLOR THERES MORE TO WHITEWASHING THAN JUST SKIN COLORRRRRRRRRR
kids of color, you’re allowed to get a bitey when a white friend does something racist. literally 0 percent of people of color are obligated to be nice and palatable for white people. holding your tongue in the name of kindness doesn’t really do much in regards to stuff like this because white people are going to see you calling out their own racism as unkind anyways.
white people, if a person of color comes off as aggressive while calling you out for racism, just fucking listen to them. they’re not coming from nowhere, and believe it or not: they know more about racism than you do! shocker, i know. just thickskin it, because it’s really not about you.
trinity always walking around compeltely shirtless at home, and at first dennis will always really dramatically slap his hand over his eyes whenever she does it and stay like that until she puts a shirt on, until eventually shes like, 'dude, if you can walk around without a shirt on, why cant i?' and he actually cannot think of an answer.
cut to them both sitting on the couch watching like drag race or smth in matching pyjama pants and nothing else
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