starting first off with: it does not matter the "intention" of the people depicting racist stereotypes or acts in media or art -- racist depictions are racist depictions. end of. the idea that "intent" somehow changes the racist-ness of an act or image is ignorant of the causes & reality of racism: it is not simply bad people doing bad things, but rather a systemic and societal othering of anyone who falls outside of the category of "white". the "intent" behind a white production team deciding to show a Black man getting branded (and not only getting branded, but refusing any aid to lessen/brace for the pain -- which perpetuates another stereotype based around Black peoples' and darker skinned peoples' higher pain tolerance... which is an actual pseudoscientific myth that kills people around the world.) does not matter to me, a Black person having to witness the pointless, racist absurdity of the scene. nor does it matter to white supremacist chuds who clap and cheer at depictions of violence against racialized minorities.
bethesda is not uniquely antiblack, but they do have a long track record of representing Black characters in horrible, horrible ways. which also adds to why maximus' treatment is exceptionally worse, even in comparison to the white man thaddeus who also is made to be subjugated and brutalized. im not saying if this was a unique situation of antiblackness on behalf of the team i'd be less affected, its just infuriating to know that this team is getting away with pushing out gutwrenchingly racist content for years. see the examples above -- as well as
- X6-88 being an emotionless, obsessively violent, literally De-Humanized servant to either the player character (in a majority-white male demographic) or a fascist dictator
- Glory, the sole named Black female character in the whole of fo4, who is triply-marginalized by in universe standards (a woman, Black, and a synth) who gets murdered by the hypermasculine technofash race-supremacists in the Brotherhood or by her own former-oppressors in the Institute. no matter what ending you take.
[ID: a screenshot of the anonymous ask. it reads: " At what point in writing are Black characters morally barred from specific story points because of their similarities to a history that is not directly related? Sort of similar barb, at what point can Black characters not to bad things at all, especially when there are near a dozen non-black characters who do worse things?" End ID.]
this question is fucking baffling to me because Black characters are consistently exposed to violence, dehumanization, ridicule, demonization etc in media. It Is The Norm. its wild to think that somehow asking for less of this is a "challenge" to the world of art, or some sort of slippery slope into silencing of artistic expressions. standing on some artistically moral high ground on a topic one clearly does not have much knowledge of, and then asking a nonblack person to speak on this kind of turns my stomach. violence against Black and Black-coded characters in media is the norm. all bethamazon had to do was see the cut of maximus getting branded and realize "hey this is fucked and not anything we've done in any previous titles. maybe we should scrap this plot point, and replace it with something else." to the part on "similarities to a history not directly related", i direct you to the bell hooks quote i recently posted (hyperlink isnt working but i'll get on that). art is political. images and especially images of identities outside of the white cultural hegemony are going to be steeped in the author's preconceived notions of said identity, and consumers of that image willingly or unwillingly add that image to their understanding of that identity, if the consumer is not aware of and willing to cognitively challenge these images. bell hooks is not the only cultural critic to point this out, just the one i happen to be reading a lot of currently.
i know looking at works of fiction in a political/"moral" light is a Hot Fandom Topic but i cant stress enough how any handwringing about "purity culture" and "censorship" is a false flag being raised to shut down any sort of critical thinking on behalf of nonblack fans when it comes to the treatment of Black characters in media. the standard of dehumanization and abuse of Black people in images, fictional and not, has been the standard for CENTURIES. white creators have gotten away with incorrect and stereotypical depictions of Black characters since they started designing advertisements for the slave trade. and the reactions of white and nonblack spectators for years have been shoulder shrugging or "its just an image"-ing if not outright support and acceptance of these images. it is not revolutionary, pushing barriers, or exploring new artistic ground to be cruel and violent towards one's Black characters. in fact, the exact opposite is true.
i wont lie, unless the original asker wants to come off anon and pay me for the hour i spent articulating this oh so nicely as to not seem like a scary Black person who hates white people and makes them sad when i teach them antiblack racism is systemic and appears in art as frequently as it does anywhere else, im not saying any more on this topic. thank you op for your response and for tagging me. genuinely. i hope even people who tend to generally agree with me still learned something from this
