i have a lot of empathy for salem wolfertinger. he's been harrassed on the internet since he was fifteen, he grew up in a cult, he's fat, trans, black and disabled. all of those things can create, and has created, severe mental illness in a person.
his termination, also, was simply to do with the fact that he creates suggestive art and is black.
however, none of that prevents him from being a shitty person on a continued basis. as much as i appreciate his commitment to drawing fat bodies, his commitment to depicting feminine trans men, he has done, and continued to do, incredibly shitty things that he never took accountability for.
those who are mourning his termination proclaim from the rooftops that his blackness and transfeminism got him terminated, even claiming him as an “honorary tma” and/or harassing those who don't say anything, or don't care, or openly acknowledge that he has done shitty, racist and misogynistic things he doesn't take accountability for by claiming that doing any of the things listed makes them a coon (which is still a fucking slur btw), are not helping his case.
if you are sad about his termination, then support the black and trans artists that are still here. report instances of the moderation targeting black bodies for even the suggestion of sexuality. support the black tumblr users who are pro-black on main and continue to use their voices, the ones that salem claims do not exist.
do not use this as an excuse to pretend that he wasn't a shitty person. do not use this as an excuse to be transmisogynistic. do not use this as an excuse to air out your antiblackness onto innocent black bloggers.
and if you took nothing from this post, remember this: yes salem was terminated for racist reasons. but he also consistently fetishized east asians, refused to depict darkskin or darkskin-coded characters who didn't fall into stereotypes, villainized transmasculine medical transition, fetishized transfems and women, made an oc he was explicitly told was racist against natives — all of which is within the last two years. none of this he has acknowledged, nor apologized for.
he is a shitty person, and his termination was racist.
so maybe instead of being antiblack, maybe extend the same support so many of you have suddenly discovered to the hundreds of other black blogs and black bloggers who are also at risk of the same situations and aren't shitty people.
that's all imma say on this.
