So @ryannfaythe wanted some clarification on my target audience for one of my fics, specifically Sunday Morning. So ma’am, allow me to impress upon you the importance of Black!Reader.
As long time fan fiction reader, I am often met with not being seen in the works I read for both fictional and nonfictional characters for YEARS. “Her cheeks turn beet red”, “with skin paler than the moon”, “her petite frame”, “she had long, straight hair”.
NONE of these characteristics/depictions fit me and my TARGET audience(Black Women). After being fed up with the lack of representation in the media and within the fandoms that we help build and popularize, we decided to make a lane for ourselves so that we are seen as writers and readers for fan fiction and media consumption.
And these Black (specifically) and POC writers I have come across are brilliant and can develop characters and create worlds that SHIT all over decades old writers in Hollywood that try to erase their existence and voices with just one chapter alone! And even with lukecold non colored creatives getting movie/streaming deals we still write because we LOVE to write and we love to be seen and have others like us note that YES you and your experiences deserve to be seen and read.
And now that the world is literally seeing us in our lane/our niche & we are flourishing … we are met with passive aggressive ass resistance such as your comment. And before you even fix your Tumblr fingers to say that you weren’t and that you were just “curious” or you “just wanted to know”. Understand something, I am grown & I don’t have time for the foolishness and beating around the caucasity bush.
So with that being said, I’m getting to the point: it genuinely bothers you that the topic of discussion is not based around you or women/girls that resemble or described like you. You state that you love my story, but dislike the fact that a Black Woman is the main (fictional) object of Henry’s affections.
And that bothered you enough to tell me A BLACK WOMAN (not even through a reblog so I can formally address you) that I’m making my story “race based” as you stated. And you are absolutely right, I am because for a long time we were meant to be devalued, yet appropriated, and monetized. Well I’m not having that shit, you and people with mentality like yours will see me cause you have no choice.
I will continue to write and base my OC’s and readers on Black Women because that’s what I am and that’s what I’m proud to be. I don’t write for just me, I write for the young Black women that don’t see themselves unless a non colored person poorly imitates a caricature of stereotypical mannerisms.
It is insulting as hell to tell a person of color that illustrating herself/himself/themself in their own fandom(s) is dissatisfactory to you, especially when it’s NOT. FOR. YOU! If you wanted to know why I use Black!Reader, you would look around. But since this white supremacist world suits you so well, diversity and inclusion is seen as a nuisance to individuals like you rather than a act of solidarity amongst writers, creatives, and readers.
My existence and my work that exclusively includes my existence is not cumbersome, if I had spend years to force my cheeks to be red and my hair to be bone straight. You can force yourself to wear a fucking bonnet for 5 minutes!
So disrespectfully kick rocks and don’t ever come for any BIPOC creative like this ever again in life!
