I have a general comment to make about the whole Sebastian thing, not on the Instagram picture, because it is not my place to comment, but a general comment about dealing with racism in the fandom, and some of the behavior I have seen on Tumblr.
I have a story to share first and it's not really related to fandoms, or shipping Sambucky or even Sebastian Stan directly but it's about how White people see racism, so I hope some people will read this and think about it.
I just want to say one thing... if you want to comment this, please read until the end before you do.
And please bear in mind that I'm not talking for anybody else but only my own experience and my opinion.
I see a lot of people get defensive when racism is called out in the fandom,whether it is them or a celebrity they love, and a lot of them try to deny it, or try to find excuses.
I understand why they do it, but it's really not the right way. The correct way is to sit down, listen, think about it and THEN only then can you deny or accept the accusations.
Here’s the story:
I was once with my group of friends and I don't know what prompted the question but they asked me if I thought all White people were racist. And you can guess it, I'm the only Black woman in my group of friends. We're all French and 5 of my friends have Asian orgins (Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos) and 3 of my Friends are White. Just planting the decor, lol.
I don't know why they asked, but we're always having debates like these on different topics so i just answered...
I told them that yes, that I thought all White people are racists, and that racism is not just hating all Black people, or all non-White people, but also includes a multitude of other aspects that enables racism to prosper.
It can be some unconscious feeling that you or White people in general are a tiny/ a lot better than Black people, it can be making or laughing at racists jokes, it can be denying racism even exists anymore: " But it's 2021, those kind of things don't exist anymore" this is also harmful, because then when your friends come talking to you complain about an encounter that was racist.... you will minimize it because "racism doesn't exist anymore so it can't be racist" so even though your intentions may not be bad... You are protecting the racists, intentionally or not etc...
There are so many more aspects to racism than just being a far right extemist who hates all foreigners. Racists don't only look like that.
I won't expand on this, but there are many more aspects, I mean I could expand, but it's not the point of my posts, the point of my post is that they asked me and I made a mini essay to explain that the way I see it, there are "levels" of racism (for lack of a better word), and that in that aspect, all White people were racist. People think that you need to be a far right white supremacist, to be racist, you really don’t.
And I told my White female friend, let's call her Alice, that she was the only White person I knew who wasn't racist (implying that my other two friends were racist).
To be honest, I don't think that all White people are racist, my uncle is White and he's the furthest from racist you'll ever find, but I said it anyway because otherwise some people would never question themselves. If I say this people will either get defensive and deny it, or reflect on it and try to assess if they have some internalized stuff they didn't explore and didn't know. But if I say that not all White people are racists, my friends would have directly thought they were off the hook.
What I do believe is that a lot of people are racist and just don’t realize it because they only think about the "extreme" cases of racism.
So I said to my friends that I thought all white poeple were racist and two things happened, and I wasn't expecting any of it:
- My White male friend, let's call him Pierre, listened carefully, and said that in what I had described, he admitted that he was indeed racist, he acknowledged that he did have some prejudice if he was being honest, and also that he had made some racists jokes so that even though he never considered himself racist, hearing what I was saying he said that on some levels, he was indeed racist.
Bear in mind that this is the friend whose favorite character in Black Panther was Martin Freeman, and had already argued in other conversations that positive discrimination made it difficult for White straight Men to find a job (When by the way he has never struggled to find a job a day in his life so go figure, besides there is no postive discrimination policies in France or anything, so I don't even know why he said that).
So knowing my friend, I knew he had some kind of prejudice, obviously, I just didn't think he would really think about what I was saying and admit it.
This was kind of a big deal, and I would never have thought that he would have admitted it, I thought he was the one I would have to argue with, but nope, he listened.
- Then my friend Alice, the one I had told was the only White Person I knew who wasn't racist, got mad and got defensive, even though she was the only one I hadn't called racist to her face. I said specifically she was the one White person I knew who wasn't racist because from previous discussions she was the most open when it came to discuss issues on racism.
However, she's the one who wouldn't really listen and said that I should not generalize about all White poeple, all that kind of stuff, so eventually I had to apologize to her and told her "It's not because all White People I know are racist that all White people are". I had to rephrase this way.
A few months later, I received a message from my friend Pierre, he's Alice's boyfriend by the way. He texted me that they were having Sunday lunch with her family, and someone asked Alice about a Black woman she knew, and Alice answered " She's pretty for a Black girl"...
So many things to unpack, the violence of those words thrown around so casually, those words being said by someone who doesn't consider herself racist, and also, the fact that I would have never known this if her own boyfriend hadn't texted me this.
"She is pretty for a Black girl" is one of the most disgusting and White Supremacist thing she could have said: All Black people/women are ugly by default but that girl is a little bit over that standard?" I don't know any context where that sentence isn't awful.
And also, I'm her friend, am I supposed to be relieved that maybe I'm in the basket of the "pretty ones" or should I consider myself as a member of the other crowd?
There's no way around it, what she said was so f*cked up.
This is why your " I can't be racist I have a Black friend" doesn't mean anything by the way. It doesn't mean anything. She's one of my closest friends.. we had a group trip together for my birthday. So she's not a casual friend, she was in my close group of friends.
The only silver lining is that by doing this, she exactly proved my point.
So according to you, who's the "ally"?
A White guy who recognizes he has prejudice and works on his racism and will call it out when he sees it, even if it's coming from his own girlfriend?
Or a White woman who considers herself an "ally" and doesn't think she is racist, but in the safety of her home doesn't hesitate to say racist stuff when she is surrounded by her White relatives?
It's no use being an "ally" if you're going to be defensive and deny everything or forget you're an ally the minute it is your favorite celebrity being called out.
Getting defensive whenever people start talking about racism is suspicious. If you feel called out, think about it, work on yourself and find out if what you’re being called out for is legitimate or not. And you know what maybe it isn’t? Maybe you Tumblr user X are not racist or you don't have prejudice, but you will never know if you don’t ask yourself and shut down the discussion from the beginning.
Just after the picture was posted a lot of people had already chosen their camp.
Even if you first reaction is defensiveness and wanting to deny it all, the first step should always be to sit back and think about it, and it's not only about racism, you listen first, think about it, and THEN and only then do you deny it or confirm it. Nobody is perfect, but the people who choose to stay obtuse in certain situations are really not helping and are by far the worst.
Stop finding excuses for Sebastian, of course don't go on his Instagram, don't harrass him, don't insult him... But also stop finding him excuses before you have taken the step to listen to the people who have something to say about it. Listen first, you’ll find the excuses later.
Also, most probably the people who are calling him out here on Tumblr are not the ones going on his Instagram to harass him (well at least I hope not) so why can't we have the conversation here?
We can have the conversations here on Tumblr, and discuss it... But the discussions will go nowhere if everybody just gets defensive.
Same thing when we call out racism in the fandom... Your first reaction shouldn't be to get defensive but to listen, I’m taking the example of the MCU but if we say there was racism in the Stucky fandom, don’t try to make it seem like there’s a Sambucky VS Stucky “ship war”, listen to why people are saying this, and then you can draw you own conclusions.
Here, for the Sebastian story, let's listen to what Buddhist people have to say, first. Maybe they will say the post was problematic maybe not... And we'll learn something.
My first thought is also to get defensive when I read a post and feel called out, but that's not the correct way, you may have some prejudice and not even realize it, or realize it and be in denial...
This might be contreversial but it is my opinion that most people are not hardcore racists. But their unwillingness to acknowledge their racist tendencies, working on it... or even staying silent when blatant racism is on display is what enables racism to live long and prosper.
On Twitter or other Social Media people will be openly racist without a problem, but Tumblr prides itself in being open and tolerant, but when it comes to really calling out racism, then it’s crickets-
If you don't want to do anything about racism... It's ok, I really mean it... It is ok.
If it doesn't disturb you when the non-White characters are treated differently in your fandoms it is ok, I'm serious... If you want to enjoy your Tumblr life without thinking about racism it is more than fine, you really have no obligation... It’s ok to stay away from some conversations.
But please... please, please don't stand in the way of people who are trying to do something about it.
And most importantly don't say you want to fight racism or that you are an "ally" but when you are called out or someone else is called out, you try to minimize everythin with "Not everything had to be about race"
Yes, not everything has to do with racism but you'll never know if you don't sit down and think about it first. Maybe Seb’s post wasn’t offensive, I don’t know. But how will we know if it was or not if we don’t listen to the people who are affected by that post?
This isn't even really about Seb himself but about the way some people in the fandom behave... How people just go to extremes without even trying to discuss first.
I love Seb as an actor, but I don’t know him and I’ll probably never meet him, I won’t spend the next days trying to defend him or accuse him, he and I live different lives that will never intersect, and it's fine like that, but I will listen to people who have been affected by his post and have something to say about it.
Seb will be fine, his career will be fine, he probably even has someone handling his social media... But the people on Tumblr who have to accept racism in silence and have had to do it for years will not be fine, if the coversations keep getting shut down before they even start.
Everyone skipped the listening part and jumped to the defending or condemning part. And also a lot of things from the past re-surfaced (take a knee post, some instagram likes I guees) which makes it even more difficult if people skip the listening part.
To me, there are 2 groups of people, people who have prejudice and want to do something about it and people who have prejudice but don't want to do anýthing about it...
I don't know in which group Seb is and I don't know him so I won't be spending days trying to figure it out...
But from what I've seen, at least in the MCU and Star Wars fandoms, I know in which group a lot of people in Tumblr users are and if some of them want to switch groups, it’s never too late.
