A likable essay in the Minnesota Star-Tribune by poet Bao Phi:
But then how do nerds of color like me fit in, and how do we deal with fellow nerds who don’t want to talk about things like race and class in comic books, video games, role playing games, and movies? I’ll be the first to admit, I got into all of that stuff for the escapism it allowed. It was invaluable to me, as a refugee from a war growing up in an economically poor urban area, to fantasize that I was someone else, somewhere else. I’d rather be a paladin with a war horse riding to battle a chimera than be the Vietnamese ghetto refugee nerd running from the dudes on my block who tried to jump me on my way to and from CUHCC clinic to get my teeth cleaned.
However, there was a discomfort about some of my own internalized issues. I always chose to ignore the weird feeling I got when I realized that, in my dreams, I was always, literally, a white knight. When I dreamt I was a superhero, I was a white dude with superpowers and the Mary Jane to my Peter Parker was always white. […]
As I got older, I wondered more and more about certain things: like, why Wolverine seemed to have an Asian fetish, why the only Asian men in the nerd worlds seemed to be the bad guys or some servant like Doctor Strange’s assistant Wong. I wondered why the only Asians in comic books, movies, and video games seemed to be ‘exotic’ Asian women. […]
I became a fan of the new Battlestar Gallactica and yet wondered how Grace Park’s character seemed like a sci-fi stand-in for Miss Saigon, and despite my skepticism stuck with the series through its entire run and watched in horror as the show literally and figuratively dumped almost all of their characters of color out of an airlock by the time the show ended. I dug Firefly a lot, but was annoyed that Whedon predictably relegated Asian culture to a neo-Yellow peril future where the extent of China emerging as a superpower means that people throw in a couple of badly pronounced Mandarin words into their everyday conversations, and despite the idea of this looming Asian culture, there are no actual Asian characters to be seen.
None of this was easy for me personally, because I had to confront my own internalized racism. There was a part of me that said, no, don’t ask these questions. It’d be easier to just go with the flow. Don’t rock the boat. No one cares about this stuff. Do you really want to challenge yourself about how you want to be white? You’re a man of color from Phillips – are you really ready to out yourself as a self-hating nerd?
And you’d think that fellow nerds, regardless of race and gender, would understand given that our status as freaks and geeks and outcasts would give us some humility and common ground to stand on. Unfortunately, this is not often the case. Try bringing up issues of race, class, gender, and homophobia on a video game message board and see the vitriolic response you get, no matter how diplomatic you try to be. Bring up issues of representation and race to fans of Battlestar and Firefly and get told that you’re a killjoy or one of the “PC police” who doesn’t understand what their favorite show is trying to do.
The comments at the Star-Tribune include headings like “I really feel bad that people have to view everything view ‘colored’ glasses” and “It’s all economics, not racism,” of course. *rolleyes*
That “economics not racism” argument: I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone bootstrap their own refutation so quickly or so deftly.
You know why I remember Voltron? Because even as an 8 year old girl I remember being ticked off every time the plot of an episode was “Princess tries to save the day, fails, is rescued by leader of squad, who then gently chides her for the collateral damage that occurred while she was trying to be useful.”
I’ve met with similar frustration at trying to explain why sci-fi might possibly be irritating to women… but then, I’m a hysterical overreacting strident feminazi with a chip on her shoulder, so.
The commentary is the text equivalent of “lalalalala I can’t heeaaaaaar yoooouuuu because I have my fingers in my ears”. It’s pathetic.
His “don’t rock the boat” paragraph stirs incredibly strong feelings of identification in me – why fight, when all it gets you is denial and attacks? Why bother? Why not hide in a little safe cave you’ve carved out somewhere? I guess because you have to. But it’s hard work; you clean out your own cobwebs, and then there’s a whole world filled with the damn things trying to choke you. Kudos to Bao Phi.
I think the problem that the fans have is that it’s obvious that the problem is near-universal… which means that attacking any single, specific subject seems unfair. For example, if you picked on Buffy for the lack of non-white characters, it would be a fair point… except that you could pick just about any other teen action show and get the same problem. So singling out Buffy seems like you’re just butchering sacred cows for fun.
I think the problem that the fans have is that it’s obvious that the problem is near-universal… which means that attacking any single, specific subject seems unfair. For example, if you picked on Buffy for the lack of non-white characters, it would be a fair point… except that you could pick just about any other teen action show and get the same problem. So singling out Buffy seems like you’re just butchering sacred cows for fun.
Which is sad considering that chances are you pick something like Buffy to point out the lack of nonwhite because it is a well known series and would rarely need explaination (vs. say using the short lived American version of Eleventh Hour as your example).
I’ll tell you one of my pet peeves of being a nerd of color, cosplay. Due to the lack of characters of color cosplay options are often slim. The difficulty and aggrevation increases exponentionally once you add in other factors like personality and size. I’ve wanted to get into cosplay for a long time and a fan of lots of different shows (and not just anime mind you) but when it comes time to pick a character you pretty have two choices, “the badass guy of average build” or “the sexy woman of tiny build”.
Now, here’s where I tell you that I’m married to an Asian woman (I am for real), so therefore I’m not racist. I know you love hearing that one. Just thought I’d throw it in for laughs.
I was waiting for one of the commenters to use the ‘you see, I am/am friends with/am married to a person of creed x, y, z, so therefore I cannot in any moral sense be a racist. Duuuh!’ argument. -.-
Phi’s article is very powerful, though, and amazingly touching to my experience of Fandom. I agree with Mhaille; every time I try to point out a flaw in the portrayals of women, I’m an over-sensitive man-hating feminazi. Or the girl who should kri-moar. Or both.