I am not really too up-to-date on the new race-centric criticism of Urbance, but is it in regard to this?
If so, I continue to be boggled how Tumblr stretches and misconstrues information into something offensive and __phobic. Truly, it is an art.
To be frankly honest with you, sometimes, I am fucking tired of talking about race. I deal with race and racism every fucking day. Not as often in the form of something direct, but I deal with it personally when I have to continue to read that Darren Wilson has not been arrested for Mike Brown’s murder, when I read that a unarmed black men gets shot by a white cop trying to remove his license from his car, when I have to read about a woman getting discriminated against and fired from her job for her natural hair. I am tired of the fact that the only movies a black actor/actress gets lauded for are ones that deal with slavery or servitude. Twelve Years a Slave made me fucking sick and sad, but white people applauded it for its “raw truth” and felt better about themselves by feeling bad about what their ancestors did.
Minorities deal with racism every single fucking day and sometimes we are tired of hearing about it. We are tired of it being in our narratives.
So if Steambot wants to give me a show about mixed-race peoples or peoples that are not literally of African or Asian heritage but are similar/inspired (No one gave a flying fuck when Avatar: The Last Airbender did this, but all of a sudden here is a show about some brown people and Tumblr loses it’s fucking mind? HRM.), then I am like HALLE-FUCKING-LUJAH. Not every show about “People of Color” has to be about or address race/racism. Sometimes, it’s just awesome to see brown skinned people in a show doing stuff that is not about their brown-ness. We can be dancers, physicists, secret agents, or knights. We don’t HAVE to be BLACK dancers physicists, secret agents, or knights.
It’s not erasure to say that IN THIS FICTIONAL WORLD races are so blended together that they are no longer distinguished by ethnicity or origin. Or, SINCE IT’S A FICTIONAL WORLD places like Africa and Asia do not exist so how can you say they are African or Asian (Again: Avatar the Last Airbender did it). It is a breath of fucking fresh air and I am even more excited. I understand the history of white people saying “They don’t see race” or “Race doesn’t matter” and how that is meant to ignore racism and race issues. But I do not think that statement implies that at all. Maybe they don’t realize the social climate is different. But is it their ignorance, or Tumblr’s Witch Hunt policy in regard to those that dare to speak of race/gender/sexuality they deem “unworthy” to do so.
(White) Tumblr: get the fuck over yourselves. You want representation, you get representation (from a team of multi-ethnic people at that), and then you snarl about it. Again, Steambot can’t even get a chance to prove themselves capable of presenting elements like race, gender, and sexuality well in a 26 minute story because everyone is damning the project before it’s even off the ground.
