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Why it isn’t okay for a white man to play characters of color.

So. The issue that will not die.

(Nor should it).

As has previously been discussed, there’s been some what-about-ery regarding the Tyler situation compared to, say, Jeanine or Amber. Specifically, about why it isn’t okay for a white man to take roles intended for POC, but why POC playing races or nationalities that do not completely align with their own is not the same thing.

First, we need to look at the numbers. We’re going to stick with US TV for now, using the statistics from this GLAAD report about regular characters on broadcast TV in the 2019-20 season.

Out of the 879 roles available on shows airing that season, 264 - or 30% - were white men. 43 (4.9%) were Latina women, 85 (9.7%) were Black women, and there weren’t even enough Native American roles to make up a category on their own They’re part of the 66 or 7.5% (total! for all genders!) roles for other races. These numbers in no way reflect the demographics of the US.

What does that mean?

It means that Jeanine is up against every single other Latina actress for Latina roles, but she’s also up against the likes of Floriana Lima, who has repeatedly taken Latina roles despite being Italian-American.

It would have been wonderful for Liz Ortecho to have been played by a Mexican-American actress. I am sure Jeanine is dying to play a Cuban-American character. However, how often do you think she’s going to get that opportunity? If she sat around waiting to only play Cuban-American characters, she would never work.

Instead, she has to widen the pool to other Latina characters, or even go for the “ethnically ambiguous” roles, as she has done in the past. But she is unlikely to get ever get cast in a leading role as an explicitly white woman, because she doesn’t pass as unambiguously white.

Michael Trevino is in a very similar situation. He’s not in that position on RNM, because he’s a Mexican-American man playing a Mexican-American character. Excellent! But once again, how often do those opportunities come along? He’s played white characters before, but especially as he ages and his face shape alters to make his features more strongly “ethnic”, he’s going to face less chances to do so.

Amber does not pass as white. She is not Latina but she’s playing a Latina. Why? Because if she waited for roles for Native American actresses, she would never work. Despite her father being a casting director specialising in NA roles. The work is not out there for her if she limits herself in that way. The same goes for Kiowa Gordon.

Heather is in the same category as them, but she faces another twist to these limitations. She is Latina but as Gina Torres, another Afro-Latina actress, has commented in the past, Latina women are expected to look a particular way; you are categorised as Latina or Black, not both. Heather has stated before that she would like to play a Latina character but the number of Afro-Latina characters is slim. The one time she did play an Afro-Latina character, the nationality of her Latin roots wasn’t even specified.

In the meantime, she will be able to play Black characters of multiple nationalities (including Egyptian, which she has done) even without any heritage tying her to that. She faces these issues because Hollywood does not care enough to differentiate between people of the same race but differing ethnicities. Black people are interchangeable, Latinx people are interchangeable, Indigenous American people are interchangeable.

Which brings us to Tyler. Tyler is a white man. Tyler is, theoretically, able to play any of the 30% of TV roles which fit his race/ethnicity and gender. If he is a capable actor, he will have no trouble finding work within those limitations, unlike any of the people named above if they try to only play characters who match their own heritages.

And yet, what he did, was take a role explicitly earmarked for a MOC - one of the few such roles available. He got his big break, but in doing so ensured an actor of colour did not get theirs. And then he did it again (and again).

Tyler’s career would not have suffered if he had not claimed a role not intended for him. That is white privilege. Others have undoubtedly suffered when he, and others like him, have claimed heritages they know do not belong to them in order to advance themselves.

Tyler has spoken about being known as one of the “few” working Native American actors - but herein lies the rub. If NA actors cannot get work, they stop seeking it. They find other career paths instead. We will never know the talent that has been pushed out of the industry because of the scarcity of suitable roles.

It is a structural issue, definitely, but nor is Tyler an innocent in this matter. It also hasn’t just come into popular consciousness in the past couple of years, because it was being discussed around the time of the Twilight movies a decade ago. Actors like Kiowa are still having their careers stymied by it.

The ideal future is for a world where there are enough roles for everybody, of every ethnicity, to be able to play their own heritage and never be out of work. But we’re so far from that, and that means we have to hold white people to a higher standard than POC, or any discussion of anti-racism in fandom is nothing more than hot air.

hey guess what if your response to someone bringing up an important issue about fandom racism is to fucking harass the person who brought it up on every single conceivable platform including the fucking comments on their fanfics, you’re the problem. Who does that?? who the fuck ever even thinks to do that? if you can’t handle someone pointing out the truth of an actor’s own words–if defending the honor of a man who doesn’t even know you exist is so important to you you have to cause real harm to a member of your own fan community–you need to log the fuck off. you need to take a good long look at yourself. and the parts of this fandom that think this behavior is okay need to take a good long look at themselves as a whole, too.

and before anyone comes NEAR me with concern trolling about vagueblogging? again i tell you to look at your own behavior and your friends’ behavior before you even start. this post is only about you if you’ve sent anon hate instead of developing a single cell of self-awareness or if you know someone who has and have said nothing. this post is only about you if you think the person who addresses racism in fandom is more to blame than people being racist. this post is only about you if you only care about bullying and harassment in fandom when it happens to you or your friends.

tyler blackburn is an ADULT. he can handle the consequences of his own actions. HE said what he said. IF he or anyone else in his camp thought it would be damaging to him or his career, they would have told the podcast to edit it out, but they didn’t.

this has been a fucking difficult year, and for many of us we’re just now heading into the worst months of it. i empathize, i do, with the emotional toll that comes with the tarnishing of a person you look up to, whose work you enjoy, whose image you want to consume, who you’ve built a community around. but when that person says in his OWN WORDS something that is inherently tarnishing, and you turn around and lash out to harass, manipulate, hurt the people who won’t look away from that like you’re willing to? go so far as to make their own comments section hostile territory?

you’ve gone too far. and you owe people a fucking apology.

honestly, it should be simple.

if you like the gifset, reblog it. flail about it! we love that!

if you don't, scroll on by. blacklist the character/relationship tag. or unfollow or block the blog. make a post on your own blog in your own rant tags about it. don't force a content creator to read it. would you reblog fanart and bitch about the subject(s) for that artist to read? (i know the answer is no.)

why has the concept of "scrolling past something you hate" gone by the wayside?

Also? Don’t download and repost someone else’s gifs. Especially without proper credit.

so

i’m apparently a negative white bully? 

1. i didn’t bully people out of fandom. i asked one person in private to please respect my gifsets that i make for fandom. that if she doesn’t like the subject of the gifset to just not reblog it because it is so easy to just state your opinion on something you don’t like in your own text post instead of on something i created for that character/dynamic. that person decided to mock me and tell me no one is seeing it, and when i told them “i see it, me the person who made it,” they laughed me off. so i decided to make an example of that person and their tags by letting my followers and fandom know that i wouldn’t be tolerating that kind of hate on my gifsets. literally none of that is bullying. 

2. why are y’all so pissy about me using a ‘redface tw’ tag? it’s literally what tyler is knowingly doing. people are upset and hurt, i am thinking of them and what they might not want to see. y’all bitched and whined about tw tags on anything involving maria during alex week. even things not involving the threesome scene were requested to be tagged. and when maria fans spoke up about the racist implications, y’all tried to shut it down with your nonsense. but i’m in the wrong for using a proper tag like ‘redface tw’? so should i not use proper tags like ‘abuse tw’ or ‘blood tw’? is that too negative for you too?

3. i’m mexican, bitch. and you’ll be sure to remember that when talking lies about me.

* i hate posting non gifsets in the main rnm tag, but i will not have lies being spread about me and do nothing about it when they’re posting it in the main tag too.

So You’re Feeling White Guilt and You Don’t Know What To Do

I’m not going to rehash the most recent Roswell New Mexico fandom news. I’m not going to rehash any of the difficult and necessary conversations surrounding race and racism that have been happening over the last week. They are important, they shine an important light on fandom racism, and they have caused many to reflect on their own unconscious bias and how it has manifested itself in fandom. That’s important. That is the constant work of an ally: to reflect on your bias and your actions and take steps to inform yourself and do better. As participants in a racist society and a culture that tries to say that racism is only an overt, obvious thing, we must always take the time to listen to others and change our own behavior.

This post isn’t necessarily about that either. It’s about how you can do other, small things, for yourself to help a community and individuals who are continuously mistreated, whose suffering is continuously erased, and whose culture is continuously stolen. Political involvement is always an option, but it’s also not always possible. I know for myself, I work two jobs that leave me with 14 hours days multiple times a week, and only one day off a week to relax, do household chores, and prepare for my grad school classes. I can exercise my right to vote, right to assembly, etc. but sometimes doing more isn’t a viable option.

So what else can I do?

Below I have accumulated links to different relief funds, bail funds for protesters, language programs, native artist collectives and stores, musicians, and conservation project.. Some of the links will take you to a larger project that you can explore. Some of the links will be for direct donations. This is not exhaustive. This is limited to what I’m able to find and authenticate to the best of my ability. But I wanted to put this out into the world, as an example of different ways you can support people, cultures, and communities. I invite anyone to add on to the list, particularly people who are Native American. 

Special thanks to @jocarthage​ for being an amazing resource and adding to my already long list. And @litwitlady​ for the bookstore link. Additionally, I was writing this and realized how long this got, so I started limiting to two or three links per area. Please, add on.

Relief Funds:

Reply with recommendations

Bail Fund:

Reply with recommendations

Language Programs:

Reply with recommendations

Art & Clothing & Holiday Presents:

Art and clothing are grouped together, as a lot of the websites feature both.

Note from JoCarthage: In 2016 I drove to all 58 counties in California and started my collection of books on Native American tribes living and working in California, both as research for what I thought might be a book and because I was curious. A lot of the books I found are not on Amazon, you can only buy them in reservation book stores or National Park bookstores or little county museum bookstores. When the world opens back up again, that is a good process I have found for building my own understandings. 

It’s not a perfect system, but when you’re shopping, look for the term “Authentic Native American artworks” and a seal like this one; here is a longer guide to buying Native American art:

Reply with recommendations

Music:

Spotify & website links are provided. This is also limited to what I know and already listen to.

[Video: A Tribe Called Red’s “Burn Your Village to the Ground”]

Books:

Based on the theory that the best information is closest to the source, all of the books below are written by Native American authors; the bookshops are owned by Native America booksellers. 

Bookshops:

Book Recommendations:

Reply with recommendations

Diné and other Native American actors’ accounts to follow:

Why include fun social media stuff: because we’re humans and we like nice things. It’s very hard to keep learning about something that challenges our whiteness and privileges if everything we read and consume is painful and grim. It also fundamentally limits the stories we consume about modern Native American lives if all we do is wallow. So read good poetry, cook recipes that are shared freely, follow pretty actors on Instagram. When Jo went through her house to find the above book recommendations, 4 of them were on her Native American section, one in her poetry section, and one in her cookbook section. Native American stories and food and life are part of modern American life and integrated them into your bookshelves and menus and IG scrolling is a good way to stay aware and learn more osmotically.

Reply with recommendations

News Sources:

Note: none of these are perfect. They all have their own biases, foci, and weirdnesses. But if you subscribe by email to a few of them, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what issues are important, generally.

Reply with recommendations

Conservation:

Reply with recommendations

Thank you for sticking with us through this whole list. It’s long, yes, but it does not even begin to show even a small percentage of places and artists you can support.

And as for what to do about your white guilt? Live with it. It’s not going to help anyone if you express your guilt continuously. It’s not going to help anyone if you push it aside. Live with it. We benefit from a racist system and we should not forget it. Do what you can to help others, lend your voice in support of others. And for fuck’s sake remember that it’s not about us.

Yesterday morning I woke and I was really uncomfortable so I went to roll over and slammed right into my husband. Annoyed I very hotly told him,“ You are on my side.” To which he responded by throwing his arm around me snuggling up and whispering, “Always.” before falling back asleep.

Damn adorable bastard.

An appreciation post for one Jenna Cameron, dedicated to @darlingnotso because you’re the one who reminds me most often how awesome she is. <3

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