I know that you are excited about Black Panther. I know that all the memes that Black Tumblr and Black Twitter are creating are hilarious and wonderful, as is all media we create. After all, it’s already the best Marvel movie ever made, with the most beautiful cast, and the most perfect costumes and special effects.
That being said though… please think long and hard about how you talk about characters in this movie. T’challa is not your bae. Killmonger is not your precious son. Shuri is not your wife. Absolutely none of the characters are your children or your smol anything. Most specifically? The characters AREN’T YOURS.
The language of anti-black racism is often couched in terms of infantilization and ownership. I don’t give a shit if you’re just putting it in tags, be careful how you interact textually and mentally with black characters.
Black Panther is a movie for black people. Sure, a lot of people are going to see it, but this movie is, for many a black nerd, a lifelong dream. It’s ours, and while you get to share it, you don’t get to fucking claim it.
The MCU fandom already turns black characters into mammys and servants and sidekicks for their white favs, and it’s bullshit. You turn black pain into plot points for your white favs. Basically you have a long history of treating black characters like shit, and I’m here to tell you to cut that shit out.
Your white favs do not belong in Wakanda. They don’t belong there in meta, in head canons, in fic.
The only reason Buckwheat Barnes gets to be there is because he’s currently being used as a decorative ice sculpture for state dinners.
You have literally the rest of the entire fucking MCU, go play in that sandbox and leave Wakanda alone.
Love,
Me, and Black Fans Everywhere Who Are Tired of Your Shit
P.S. I know y’all won’t listen and a bunch of you are gonna get your panties in a twist over this, but let this serve as a letter of notice that I will come for you if I see even a HINT of White Nonsense™ on posts about Black Panther and it’s cast.
I am reblogging this from @athynaoswald because her notes were flawless and I want to share. White people, this is what “getting it” looks like.
#a lot of the responses seem to be taking this as discouraging white people from seeing or enjoying black panther #but like as a white person reading ops post this says to me go see and enjoy this movie and be respectful of the characters
#the thing about infantalizing especially cause like yeah that’s a way a lot of people including me interact with characters in general #calling them smol or precious but like from what I have read that has a whole different context when it comes to black characters #because of racism and historical contexts like op said
#and then also just ya know not using wakanda as a playground for white people seems pretty simple to me #like ah yes let’s put all my white characters into wakanda seems too close to colonization
#tldr op isn’t saying don’t see the movie they’re saying be responsible with how you engage with fiction
You, my friend, get it, and are invited to come to the opening night showing of Black Panther.
I don’t think it’s proper. You can’t spread equality with a closed fist.
You sound mad fucking stupid man shut the hell up
I think this creates a separation in the LGTB community. Why not just have one flag for everyone?
There are literal hundreds of LGBT flag variations to upfift said Race/Religion/Country
Even ones for the specific areas in the LGBT community
How the fuck is this any different? Why is it everytime black people come up with something for themselves y’all have to come out with this show your entire asses with this “"segregation” shit.
Suck on my entire dick
Also, if you’re in this thread and have never made nor reblogged a post about the way POC, especially Black people are treated in the LGBTQ community then motherfuck you. We wouldn’t feel the need to remind you that we’re here, if you didn’t treat us like we weren’t.
how is literally every sentence in this more amazing than the last
I am literally breathless with what-the-fuck.
I still don’t know what “incel” means but I don’t think I want to know at this point.
“Incel” means “involuntarily celibate.” It’s a bunch of guys who hate women and then blame women for the fact that they can’t get a date. As opposed to, ya know, the fact that they’re fucking creeps.
“likely a virgin by not of her smallness and shyness”
Uh….
Good news people, when you have sex for the first time, you get taller! That’s how that works. All short people are virgins. When a short person has sex for the first time, they grow to above average height overnight.
These guys, wtf?
A common story with these dudes is how they were rejected by girls at school, possibly before they started getting rejected for being predatory creeps. I don’t understand why they can’t handle rejection. I mean do they think girls never suffer rejection? Like I got laughed at by my crush when I was 12 and I never admitted having feelings because I knew he would reject me. Boys in general had no interest in me, laughed at my looks. And I don’t go around dropping doors in men’s faces and hunting down waiters being both predatory and racist.
I can sympathise with the pain and loneliness. But I don’t understand the long lasting and generalised anger and hatred.
STOP HAVING WHITE VOICE ACTORS PLAYING NON-WHITE ROLES
stop depriving non-white actors opportunities to act and get recognized!
Voice actors often don’t know who they’re reading for or what franchise they’re in (that’s what the strike was recently about, so they’d know whether they were in a small first time game or the 4th installment of a major franchise, if they were replacing a beloved voice actor, etc.) so please don’t harass the actors, until recently they legally didn’t have the right to know who they were reading for and were usually not told until months or even years later.
Definitely go after casting, directors, and studios executives. Those are the people making the decisions.
What’s worse is that they take their concept of “races” and try to apply it everywhere else, which … doesn’t really work all that well (but when has that every stopped US Americans?).
Race doesn’t really apply to other nations based on the stronger ethnic ties in communities versus skin tone. Scottish individuals can easily look British based on skin color. But the concept of racism being discrimination based on skin color and physical features is not limited to America at all.
Europeans always claim they not racist but still do racist shit
Europe the birth place of racism which make their denial of their racism hilarious
America is racist because of racist Europeans who brought that mindset over here; I swear Europeans wanna act so superior like minorities in their countries face zero issues based on their race. All the EU rejecting the categorization thing means is that they find other ways to discriminate against minorities,its like how when dudes say females they mean in it a derogatory way. Europe not slick, ya’ll just as racist and the denial of it actually makes y’all worse
Where do y’all think we Americans got it from? Hmmmmmm?
You’re misunderstanding, I think. None of this is about saying Europeans don’t have racism. Of course we do.
It’s just a cultural and linguistics difference in how racism is expressed. I’m French and it is absolutely true that if someone says the word “race” in France- unless they are an academic and specifically referring to Anglo-American race theory -, that person is a racist and they are definitely about to tell you how “Blacks and Arabs are not as evolved, really”.
The word “race” in (mainland) Europe is an inherently racist one. Because our understanding of the word is rooted in the pseudo-science of race promoted by the Third Reich. The word “race” brings up “studies” showing black people’s brains are smaller and Jewish features aren’t as perfect as “aryan” ones.
When I moved to Ireland and went to university here as a Languages and Cultural Studies student and “Race Studies” appeared in my curriculum, I was totally shocked. The concept of race, not as a fake pseudo-scientific, biologically-justified hierarchy, but as a cultural identity formed by a shared history and shared lived experience was not a concept I had heard expressed by that word before. It took me a while to be able to say it without feeling like my mouth was dirty. it didn’t help that it’s the same word in French, just pronounced differently.
It’s not about Europeans not having racism, but about Europeans talking about racism differently because of the way our History shaped the words we use. The word “race” is a taboo one. In fact, it is used as an insult in France (”Ta race”, meaning “your race” and used the exact same way and with the same intent you’d say “your mother”). The word “race” is for nazis and zoologists. It’s only ever used in a neutral way for animals and pet breeds.The word “race” is essentially considered a slur.
Basically, if you want to discuss race in mainland Europe in a non-racist way, you’ll be using different words and phrases. You will talk about “skin colour” or “ethnicity” or even “religion” when relevant. If you try and use the word “race” to someone, many of them will think you’re calling non-white people animals or implying they’re inferior to white people.
HOWEVER, race cultural theory has been slowly carving its way in Academia in mainland Europe and it is slowly entering the mainstream as a concept of cultural identity, so you might start encountering people who will be more comfortable with the word as well as people who will advocate for the end of the taboo because when you reframe it as a social and cultural identity, it is a useful concept to discuss how to deal with racism. So yeah, things are changing slowly, but we’re not quite there yet.
As a whitey i can tell you you cant “accidentally” say the N word. Ive known how bad it was since i was a kid. If you are mad and that word comes to your lips its because its a part of you. Your anger is stronger than your fear of commiting horribly racist acts, which makes you hella racist
I have literally never said the n word in my life and neither have any of my friends. you can’t say it on accident. it just doesn’t happen.
You CAN say it by accident, but the only reason you would is if you used it regularly in everyday conversation. I could easily accidentally say “fuck” in front of my Grandma even though I know it’s horribly inappropriate, but that can only happen because I say “fuck” like 900 times a day in other contexts.
Pewdiepie probably fuckin says the n-word as much as I fuckin swear, is what I’m fuckin saying.
Pass Through Fire 