Another Round of Comment Mock

asf 98.163.78.142

Submitted on 2009/02/06 at 6:02pm Seems like your a racist bitter person

Okay this comment is in reference to this post – Anime/Manga Characters =/= White. Now I’ve re-read the post and I really need someone to explain how I’m the racist there. Now I’m assuming most of us are beyond Race 101 and know that racism = privilege + power. Now while it could certainly be argued that I’m privileged in my blog because I control what is said I hardly have the societal power to stop you from starting your own blog and linking to me while calling me an idiot. I don’t have any kind of institutionalized power to swing around in that situation.

So let’s give “asf” the benefit of a temporary bout of stupidity and assume that he or she meant that I was prejudiced within that post.

Okay I’m still not seeing it.

What I called out was a very particular attitude that I’ve seen in certain white people within the anime community. Does that mean that all white people into anime have a skeezy fetishization slant to their vision? No, of course not – some do, some don’t but I don’t see calling out an attitude steeped in stereotypes and privilege as being bitter or racist myself. These attitudes still exist all over the world and calling them out is the only way to make them disappear in my opinion. Oh,  and that old tactic of silencing by flipping the script and calling me racist? That ain’t gonna work here, ’cause I know what racism is “asf” and that post wasn’t it.

Anime/Manga Characters =/= White

Okay so while I’ve never been a huge fan of Anime or Manga, I am a fan of both mediums I just tend to stick to what friends recommend or things done by the same individuals I’ve enjoyed before. I was part of the Anime club in my High School, in fact I was the vice-president and I enjoyed a lot of the series and OVAs that we saw. What I didn’t enjoy was the fetishization I saw coming from a lot of the white boys in the group.

Now from talking to friends I understand that my high school group was actually better than a lot because except for me all the officers were Asian and aware of the issues with fetishization. Now that I’m thinking about it this was the reason I was brought in as VP because they didn’t want the office to go to the only other guy running, a really annoying white guy who used to try out Japanese pick up lines on all the Asian girls in the group despite the fact that a large percentage of them were from China.

Yeah, that kind of guy.

Anyway I’ve gotten completely off-topic. My point is that there was/is a weird dynamic among those white boys of a huge fetishization of Asian culture and bodies while at the same time coding most of the anime characters as white. I had a huge disconnect recently when I heard someone on the street say to a friend that one of my favorite shows, Avatar: The Last Airbender, was great but why were all the characters white? My head jerked around so quick I almost got whiplash. I didn’t understand how she could see those characters as white and before I could find a way to insert myself into their conversation and question her about this they were gone. It’s something I couldn’t help but think about though.

Well my good friend bankuei has busted out some deconstruction of these issues in his post: Why Are They All White? over at Deeper In The Game: From Geekdom To Freedom. Head over and check it out, here’s a sample:

The usual point most of these folks like to bring to the table is that all the characters have big eyes. At the same time, none of these people turn and ask of American comics, “Why are they all steroid/silicone breast enlargement junkies?” Oh, that’s right, they’re able to parse and comprehend that this is a style factor of the genre, not a literal representation.

But why is that?