Look, you clearly came into this conversation from a position where you don’t have to see what fandom does to characters of color. Where you don’t see the erasure.
Every single character of color fandom dismisses is not “more boring” than the white character that fandom rushes to replace them with. That’s an excuse that y'all use to excuse focusing on white dudes all the time and it is TIRED.
Because for people like you, it’s all about offsetting the blame.
You say stuff like “fandom has a race problem, BUT,” and then give a list of reasons why fans of color shouldn’t be livid about the way characters of color are treated.
It’s not the writers’ fault that fandom refuses to flesh main characters of color put the way they do minor white characters.
Because you all choose to a) ignore and erase characters of color in your fanworks; b) not lift up the voices of fans calling for more introspection on the way these characters of color are treated; and c) develop white characters with bit parts and then say that the narrative made them interesting while not making the effort for characters of color.
Look, some of the white characters fandom latches onto weren’t even actual characters. Because y'all find whiteness and white dudes interesting and exciting all the time.
Fandom gave Clint and Coulson personalities and characterization before the MCU did.
They were building up Darcy, who has never met any of the avengers she’s shipped with, from day one.
They will sooner pick some random white dude out of a crowd and give him an absolutely manufactured backstory that places him in relation to their white dude faves, than have him interact with a person of color.
I’ve been in fandom a good, long time. I know the way things work and this thing about “not wanting to focus on charactera of color because the writers make them boring” is bullshit. Because boring, unfleshed out backstories don’t matter when there are white dudes involved, only POC.
Mind you, when we get the rare fleshed out villain of color or antihero, fandom rushes to say that they don’t want to ship them with their white faves because they’re dangerous or some crap like that.
So y'all keep switching your reasons as to why it’s okay that poc are erased in fandom spaces. First we’re boring, then we’re too aggressive, now, white authors claim that they are ~too afraid of criticism~ to write characters they weren’t writing in the first place.
Also: if you came out of SWTFA and decided that the space N azi with like a dozen lines (half of them propaganda and the other half snitching on Kylo Ren) was more interesting than Finn or Poe, damn straight there’s major racism at play. Because he isn’t more interesting. Not by a long shot. He’s basically a bitchy , baby Grand Moff Tarkin…
Instead of coming into a post to repeat tired excuses white fans have been giving to explain away their erasure of characters of color for YEARS, maybe you should’ve considered doing some research and listening to what people of color are saying about this and about how fandom makes them uncomfortable when it comes to race and racism??
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