Fandoms hate People of Color

captainsway:

fandomshatepeopleofcolor:

Ok so this is by no means a complete list (I’m only 6 episodes in) but here’s a few things I’ve noticed (there’s a TL;DR under the read more). Granted some of these may be resolved by the end of the series but right now this is what bothers me.

You are completely right in noticing that everyone is talking English with an accent instead of their languages. let me elaborate on why this is annoying. If you watch with the subtitles on you’ll notice that at some points they use the subtitles to say, “in Swahili,” or “in Korean” which basically acknowledges that yes they don’t want to make their audience “work” to make out the English. That is a fundamentally ethnocentric view to take and its compounded by the fact that because the show has such a diverse cast they could have conceivably made it so it was equal in its focus in different regions.  This wouldn’t have been just a “Western hemisphere” show it would have been a show that literally spanned the world. 

Furthermore they specifically use languages other than English when the audience is meant to be confused and using the subtitles then. why is this an issue? Well think of it this way, it makes English the common language when they can actually feel each other.  Making English the default heightens the xenophobia most Americans already have towards foreign languages. For example, I’m bilingual, if Lito’s parts were all in Spanish I would have understood all the parts that were in English and Spanish. Reading the Korean, and Swahili would not have been a huge burden at all and others who are fluent in those languages would have felt more included.

Moving away from the languages bit here’s a short list of other instances of racism:

• Where’s Caephus? Here’s the imdb screenshot

Here’s Caephus’ trailer

Admittedly this might be an oversight but I want people to complain to imdb. He’s fucking brilliant ok? And as the only man of color in the central group (I’m sorry Naveen Andrews’ Jonas doesn’t count as a central character) he deserves to be credited!

• Lito Rodriguez is played by Miguel Angel Silvestre a Spaniard (that is a white Spanish born European) and he’s not Latinx. This is an important distinction because any Spanish born person who’s white only experiences occasional xenophobia in the US. They don’t have the added burden of being latinx. And in Latinoamerica Spanish born people have automatically been chosen to rule over the mestizos/mixed people.  Because they’re white.  
• In colonial era Mexico being born to Spanish parents classified you as a criollo, (which is to say that there was a caste system in place that prioritized white Spaniards and their offspring over anyone else) and just for context this caste system was in place until at least my father was in school in Mexico.  So they basically cast a white European to play a Spaniard telenovela star which is by default a latinx industry basically following the white supremacist formula established when Columbus came to the “New World” white people ruling in PoC countries.  
  

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the entire credits thing about imdb is so ridiculous - that has nothing to do with the show. aml ameen is literally the first name seen on the opening credits so like??? that doesn’t even make sense in context of the show (it appears that imdb lists it in order of number of episodes. as far as i know capheus is in more than 3 episodes so that needs to be changed on imdb itself)

‘So just to clarify he’s not even the most central character in Lito’s life because he’s introduced after Lito’s beard Daniela‘

he’s literally lito’s lover. he’s the most central to lito’s character. daniela was introduced first as a way to throw people off like the way they’re throwing people off in the show and then it’s revealed lito’s gay with hernando. it’s formating. totally agreeing with daniela’s characterisation tho. i love her, but she gives me the creeps sometimes.

i agree that there should be more reciprocation in the nomi/amanita relationship, but that’s the way they’re characterised??? if that was a het relationship, would there be an issue? also nomi is a queer activist which is what attracted amanita in the first place??

‘One thing to consider is how Sun Bak is like super pale even in her own family she’s like the palest.  Is this significant? Well it is when you consider that some people can be white in one place and a PoC in say the US. ‘

sun bak is korean. this is fucked up to say. asians have their own issues with anti-blackness and skin lightening, but what the fuck??? there’s no fucking WAY she’s white anywhere in the world and to say so is racist in and of itself. 

idk much about kala/wolfgang and it seems silly to me and wolfgang is the least interesting character to me so far (i’m only three episodes in) but i’m still wtf-ing???? on how western people interpret asian culture

The utter disrespect Is2g.  I said that I was aware that Caephus’ actor not being listed on imdb correctly was probably an oversight but coupled with the fact that Freema and Aml are only credited with 3 episodes each and they’re the black characters with the biggest roles is really freaking suspicious. (Especially when you take into account how Lana Wachowski is on record being anti black).

Yes there would be an issue if Nomi and Amanita were het. If Amanita were a black man instead of a woman I’d ask why it was the black man’s role to keep saving the white woman. Why that was Aman’s (I’m shortening it for the sake of this hypothetical) most prominent characteristic to constantly be saving the white girl.  I just finished episode six and Nomi is literally seeking refuge at Amanita’s mom’s house.  

“He’s literally Lito’s lover”, get over yourself and pay attention to the way the script has written Hernando. Daniela is the one with the backstory, she’s the one that has an abusive ex that’s looking for her and she’s the one that needs protection. Comparatively speaking we don’t have half as much attention paid to Hernando.  We’re told v little about Daniela and I’m sorry but that’s really annoying seeing as the central focus on that storyline is around a white Spaniard. 

Don’t you realize that colorism is a huge problem in the way that PoC are presented in media? Its really freaking strange to me that Sun is both pale and the victim of her family’s machinations. Her brother and father are noticeably darker than her and they’re persecuting her conveniently. If her storyline had been more aware of colorism I would have appreciated that. Or perhaps enjoyed seeing Sun make her brother take the fall for his own embezzling and succeed him in the business. She would have been fulfilling her familial duty of keeping the company intact and leading it herself. She wouldn’t have been the pale victim of her darker father and brother. 

I honestly don’t care for the way Wolfgang is interacting with Kala. It rubs me the wrong way and it seems unnecessary that he’s one of 3 white men in the central cast. I admit I was high on painkillers (I had a horrible migraine yesterday during which I still had to work btw so I was exhausted) so I agree that I probably should have paid more attention to my analysis of Kala and her culture. 

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