Let's play a game. In front of you are three characters, all whom have overlapping and comperable levels of trauma. All of these people are currently experiencing a very hard day, and their mental health is suffering. Read the charts below on how what their trauma is, and how they react to it.
One character(Robby) is taking out his trauma on the other two people who have similar trauma, unable to empathize with their experiences. He specifically directs his traumatic experiences towards them, women of colour who have been treated like this all their life, adding to their existing racial trauma. Whenever they react to their own trauma, they get yelled at, disrespected, undermined, and the behavior is used by Robby to prove that they don't belong in this workplace.
You, the viewer. Get to decide who's mental health you prioritise. Is it the women who are continuously mistreated and don't get to react to their trauma, always having to behave well because they -as women of colour- have internalised that they can never react to trauma in a substantial way. Or is it the white man, with a lot of power in this workplace, who reacts to his trauma by disrespecting the marginalised women around him?
Now that you have made your decision. What is you reaction when people, mostly made up of women(of colour)who can see themselves in these two female characters, empathise with Samira and Al Hashimi more than Robby. That they are angry at him for being able to direct his trauma in such a racist and misogynistic way, while their mental health is ignored? Do you support them, and try to understand their experiences? Or do you tell those viewers that they have no empathy for mental illness, simply because they hate the man who actively harms people that look just like them.
Last question. If you specifically relate to Robby for displaying mental health in an unpleasant manner, because you have displayed that behavior before and have received scrutiny for it. Do you agree that overexplaining and justifying this behavior to make it look more acceptable is not at all productive to the recovery of a severely mentally ill person? Do you agree that allowing and justifying it just furthers it? Do you agree that the mental health of the people around him, especially those with comperable trauma, should be held in the same regard as his?
If you agree, can you accept that the marginalised women who have been disrespected by white men all their lives, who are watching this show and get reminded of that trauma, get to be angry and hate Robby? Can you accept that mental illness in women (of colour) gets ignored and scrutinized, while white men get to react however they want to their trauma? And that it hurts to see the fandom adopt these same patterns; furthering these viewers' hate towards Robby and the people who overexplain and try to justify his actions? Can you accept that Robby is fictional, but your polarising treatment of mental illness in white men/brown women is glaringly real?
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