Your tags on that post you’re so right- like Lucas wanting to play basketball and move on from more nerdy stuff felt like a specific nod to his race and his need to be around more of his peers, (nerdy shit even to this day can be super exclusive and black people are constantly made to feel unwelcome in those spaces) and how he in particular struggles more with being an outcast, but they never fully address that or go anywhere with it and it feels like a total cop out and just another device to add tension. Justice for my boy Lucas 😭
Oh 100% and on top of that like idk it's so weird to me like it feels so specific also to have him get into sports as a route to acceptance, which I don't know the full context in America or within basketball but certainly thinking about Black British football players who are praised and held in such high regard (right up to the second they miss a penalty or something). Like playing a sport and being good at is it is almost a way to protect yourself and gain respect in some way even from the people that are actively racist. So that feels intentional but then it isn't treated as intentional, it's just treated as ah well Lucas isn't as dedicated to the geek lifestyle and ALSO he's proven to be wrong because Jason is a mega-prick. So HE ends up going 'I never should have wanted to be like Jason' but did he??? Really??? Or did he just want to like play basketball and not face bullying and be supported by his friends?
Like I don't think it even would have to be such a major change to a lot of the writing. Like they could have done this very briefly, where Mike and Dustin actually maybe feel bad that they didn't support their friend. And have them realise that Lucas isn't just up against the same bullying as them, but actual discrimination. And again why make Billy's character racist in the first place if he was going to be written as sorta redeemable? Could he not just have been a general bully a la Steve? Like it's such an irritating thing when they sort of allude to racism (as well as misogyny/homophobia) but don't follow it through with consequences or even the real effects of racism. So Lucas (and Erica) are being discriminated against but like the post said their feelings about it aren't at all accounted for. Racism is just treated as a kind of vague sign that somebody maybe isn't a very good person.
