Anti Blackness - Tumblr Posts
I have a question in regard to the whitewashing tw tag: do you think Aoi and the rest are...African-Asian? Because I always just thought they (apart from Angie of course) just had tans
Having tans is the canonical explanation from Aoi, Akane, and Sakura; Yasuhiro (doesn't have a talent that would reasonably require lots of exercise) and Angie (canon Polynesian) are the only characters who are technically canonically dark-skinned.
However. Danganronpa has a terrible colorism problem. And because dark-skinned characters rely on racist and colorist tropes, it seems obvious that they relied on the implication that the characters were blasian in order to communicate them. (We could also get into Gonta here, but since he isn't usually considered by fandom to be a dark-skinned character despite having a darker skintone, we'll set it aside for now. Just know the "dumb gentle giant" look isn't good.)
Firstly: Akane comes from a low-income area with gang violence and prostitution, with a lot of siblings, and is poor enough to not be able to afford a gymnastics uniform. She is portrayed as being unintelligent and caring only about food and fighting. In her crossover art, such as with Sanrio, she is alongside a monkey character (as is Yasuhiro). She has her boobs on constant display to indicate she is Sexy TM. This is a series of very blatant stereotypes about black people.
Sakura is constantly mistaken for a man and called "ogre." She is physically enormous, has bulging muscles, and is one of the only female characters to have a face that isn't condensable to "anime girl face" (primarily, she has a defined nose). Her talent involves beating the shit out of people. And one of her beta designs has her as a straight-up black woman with an afro. She suffers from the (once famous, though I don't know if tumblr still talks about this one) trope of a dark-skinned character with light-colored white person hair for seemingly no reason. This is another series of stereotypes.
Aoi is sexualized. She's constantly sexualized. Her big solo art is her in her underwear with her boobs smushed together. Toko/Syo bring up her boobs constantly. The only character on her level is Miu, who is a very different kind of sexualization; Miu is a character who expresses her sexuality herself, whereas Aoi is viewed as a sexual object by other characters and the audience. This is a very basic aspect of misogynoir - the black woman as a sexual object.
Whether or not these characters were intended to be blasian, these tropes applied to dark-skinned women conveys some very clear and disturbing implications. To make the characters not even canonically dark skinned is such a huge kick in the face - to convey all of these stereotypes and not even give the representation that goes along with them. It is an extra layer of cruelty.
So, yes: this blog agrees with the fandom-wide adoption of "they're dark-skinned." Really, the tag should be "colorism cw," but it has way too many posts for me to go back and change it now. You don't necessarily have to believe they're black; the characters could be Indian, or Polynesian, or any other number of nationalities. But they are dark-skinned, at least as far as I'm concerned.
“Fandom spaces are sacred, you can't censorship them!” If fandom spaces are sacred, WHY WON'T YOU MAKE IT SAFE FOR RACIALIZED PEOPLE, FOR FUCK'S SAKE?
Yoshi-p and Xenophobia in gaming
Ff16 is causing a buzz online due to its producer Naoki Yoshida defending the game's lack of diversity under the guise of " Historical realism ". Ah yes, the game where you can summon mythical beasts and cast magic spells is so deeply trenched in realism. Naoki's statements are outright xenophobic even if he didn't intend them to be as such. He's reinforcing the idea that people of color have no place in fantasy worlds and that their existence is somehow more esoteric than literal dragons. I never knew we were so special that we outshine all manner of Mythical Gods and monsters just by breathing.
Even if you want to but into the historical accuracy nonsense, various articles online provide proof of Africans living in medieval England so there's no need to have such a vanilla white cast. Perhaps Naoki should do his research before making outrageous claims. Black people have existed in Europe for while now. We've been here and yet he acts as if we don't exist. Don't y'all ever get tired of making all white fantasy games anyway? A little melanin here and there never killed anyone. Well, except for Mihoyo because they avoid the color brown like its poison. It's crazy how they made two regions based on South Asia and the Middle East with no dark skin characters in sight. And no, using the absolute lightest shade of brown possible doesn't count as representation. Even real life white people have darker tans than the Genshin Impact cast.
It's gotten to the point that a small number of fans are boycotting ff16 in the name of diversity. Similar to Hogwarts Legacy, I don't believe it's a good idea to boycott a game simply because of a disagreeable opinion from the staff. Boycotting won't change anything or inspire Naoki to do better. The best thing to do is to call out Naoki's Ideology and state why diversity is so important in media. Developers and Producers need to be made aware of how their actions affect their fans, particularly fans of color. POC have every right to exist in the world of fantasy.
Love how you turned off the comments cause you know your ass would be eaten for this shit take. But let's just deny things like statistics and history, let's deny how redlining allowed the government to purposely distribute funding away from black communities. Let's forget the multiple times our communities were allowed to be bombed and destroyed once y'all saw how prosperous they were. No no no let's do this if you can tell me the Asian and Hispanic towns that were destroyed and then flooded for white people entertainment, the number of Asian and Hispanic people lynched bodies used as post card greetings. Then I believe what y'all type, and I would love for y'all to provide evidence of other minorities other then native Americans having their families FORCEFULLY separated? Also love the evidence of the government pushing drugs into y'all communities so they can over police them. The multiple audio evidence of police targeting y'all, the multiple investigations of racial profiling. Oh wait...also let's be honest anon isn't black, cause we all know this by now and wouldn't say this much antiblackness.
As a African American I always ponder why Asians are often so successful in America. A lot of these people or their parents escaped horrific conditions from their former countries. I recall one Indian saying that her father was taught to hide his religion items in public as a child so he wouldn’t get beaten to death. That some early middle age persecution shit right there. But I realize why.
Most Asians aren’t raised on self pity, learn helpless, and victim complex.
In my community, people love to cling onto slavery, Jim Crow laws, etc to our bad situation. Yeah the government did/ still do terrible shit to black Americans (fuck the FBI) but let not ignore the anti intellectual elephant in the room.
Yes Asians have their own set of issues. But I realize most wasn’t raised on the “Oh woe is me!” mindset so they often break the narrative that minorities can’t succeed with the system treating us like mentally challenged kids.
Yep, pretty much this. Many Asian cultures are, sometimes detrimentally, extremely focused on working hard, excelling, and not bringing shame on yourself or your family. Black American culture is...not, sadly. No one wants to say it, but nothing is going to improve for American blacks, especially urban American blacks, until they have a massive culture shift. And to be fair, it's not all their fault. There has been a systemic attack on the black family from multiple sides since the 60s, from within and without. Somewhere along the way they were convinced that the values blacks and whites used to share--family, hard work, pride in accomplishments, etc--were "white people" things and not for blacks. And that couldn't be further from the truth.
Every single person who thinks that they can't succeed because of the color of their skin is just as capable of success and improving their lives as any white person. I'm not special because of my skin. My advantages in life came because my parents, who both grew up dirt poor in abusive families, btw, worked hard and improved their situations so that I'd have a better launching point than they did. Fuck, that used to be the American Dream. Giving your kids a better life than the one you had. Now, that's called privilege and it's something dirty. Kids are seen as a burden instead of a legacy. Family is seen as a crutch instead of the whole point. Society is fucking ass backwards when it comes to values. And sadly some groups of people have lost more of those values than maybe some other groups have. The solution isn't--is never, can never be--to tear down the ones who did the right thing and succeeded. The solution is to follow their example.
Listen I understand that Boris Pavilkovsky is a troubled kid and not a particularly good person, but I will never understand why Donna Tart felt the need to have him say the n-word. Explicitly. Multiple times. Never adressed.