My thoughts on Greek representation: Greek erasure and anti-Blackness perpetuated by the West and Greeks… explained through a fish comic.
Disclaimer: I made an ask with this same comic and posted that on @creatingblackcharacters. I’m tagging them for reach (I’ll admit that), and because I’ve added text narration to this comic that wasn’t on the post there.
And for those looking for the symbolism behind choices that I haven’t gone into depth on here, check out the ask I sent to CBC.
The fish you see here are Greek fish, represented by the white dot in their tails, all swimming in water the same hue as the Greek flag. The lightest toned fish is swimming towards the Middle East, and the darkest toned fish towards Africa.
They blend with Greece. They give to us, we give to them. They’re neighbours.
The middle fish is swimming towards… a place of navy. A place of navy much further away than the other two places.
The navy also blends with Greece. But the navy doesn’t want anyone else doing that…
The navy has taken over the fish! The fish of the edges have lost their heads to it, and the middle one its tail.
It made a smart move. Those who look toward the navy die last.
But it doesn’t have its dot anymore. It lost it to the navy.
Its friends are gone. Those who look towards the navy die last.
The navy has controlled Greek culture for 200 years.
The navy has controlled Greek culture for 300 years.
The navy has controlled Greek culture for over 300 years… until some friends swim in. Friends from the west, with their water stolen. Friends from the south, more familiar to Greece than the top-hatted navy fish.
And the next door neighbour that looks like a Greek, the friend from where the Greeks used to swim to before the further away navy took over, and the fried with Greek heritage all get called out of place, woke and irrelevant.
They get called such by the navy and the Greeks, those that care more about the navy than they do anywhere else.
They get called outsiders. Before the navy fish do.
Even though the navy fish group and the non navy fish group both have only one fish with Greek heritage each (the pink and lime green dotted fish).
They get called irrelevant, even though they’re the neighbours. They’re the neighbours that the Greeks swam to, talked to, traded with, lived with.
Some of the neighbours got their cultures balled up and thrown into the trash. Their cultures were thrown away and dismissed by the same navy.
Better to have ours merely painted over, permanently stained. At least it still exists, can still be recovered.
We can let the neighbours come over, just like we came over to them. Until they rebuild, and we can go swimming over once more.
But at the end of the day, there aren’t any white dotted fish anymore. The white dotted fish aren’t in white dotted fish land. Instead, there’s the neighbours… and the navy.
The very same navy that stained our sea in the first place. The navy that hasn’t, doesn’t, won’t, let us speak.
All I’m saying is maybe we should get rid of the navy to get back in the story. We don’t need to get rid of the neighbours. There’s more than enough space for us if that damn navy goes.
This has been my thoughts on Greek representation and the Greek erasure and anti Blackness in the Greek cultural sphere explained through a fish comic. Thank you for making it this far.
Also if you have stuck around, please reblog this. I think this is an important statement, so I’d like it to go as far as I can get it.
Full comic for your pleasure:
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