i think the problem i'm coming up against a lot here with other white people is that we tend to think of racism as a fixed point - u either are or are not racist. but it's so much more complex than that! firstly, we exist in racist societies with varying degrees of white supremacy depending on where u live and what culture u were raised in. then there's personal identity; for the most part, white people don't want to identify as racist. and while this is all going on, we participate - willfully or not - racist systems of governance and culture that produce ideas, tropes, caricatures, and narratives that crop up in media. so when someone says 'hey, that thing u just wrote is racist', white people interpret that as 'hey, u are racist', which. really isn't the point. what matters here is recognising where u exist on this spectrum of racist behaviour and whether or not ur working towards undoing the lessons u've been taught
the issue here is also that discussions of racism, in order to be fruitful, demand a decentering of the white psyche. criticism like "hey, you did something racist" is interpreted first and foremost as "oh no, (they said) i'm racist" instead of "oh no, i hurt someone with my racist action". and then subsequently the ensuing discourse continues to center white feelings and white reaction and white anger and white allyship. the initial critique is pushed aside in favor of a new discussion that is seemingly about racism but in practice ends up being about how to talk about racism. over and over again this vicious cycle mostly ensures that instead of addressing problems we spend most of our time having semantic debates and reassuring fragile egos.
this is particularly evident when observing how white folks react to posts about racist behavior that do not center their intentions or their feelings. even the most civil, nuanced take will inevitably be read as an absolutist, tyrannical demand. pleas for awareness and introspection, because they focus on the effect casual racism has on its audience and not on the person enacting it make white people uncomfortable in a way they usually cannot quite verbalize. because this criticism of racist subtext does not bother itself with intent, it strips white people of agency in a way that they are unused to. it tells white people that for a minute what they think and what they want and the reasons behind their choices do not matter. and this is perceived as an attack. generally, if we're being honest, the prioritization of racialized perspectives is perceived as an act of aggression.
the first step on the long, arduous path of anti-racism is the negation of the ego. you need to swallow your pride. you need to accept that you will fuck up, and that it will feel shitty, and that this will happen many, many times. it's this acceptance that allows us to learn and grow and become better human beings. if you are reading all this and scoffing to yourself because after all this is "just" about fandom discourse, think of it this way: if this is how people react to something as objectively small and inconsequent as fanfic tropes, i don't want to imagine how they deal with concrete instances of racism that demand much more discomfort to face and deconstruct, and have material, devastating consequences.
