queennubian:

ai-yo:

girljanitor:

Wistful POC make a photoset POC fancast for Lord of the Rings. White people :

Like I said before, I think adding poc into things JUST for the purpose of inclusion is just as bad. But I don’t think adding them in to a fantasy story that has been around for decades with a very strong and dedicated following is the right way to do it. This isn’t about racism, this is about fucking with my fandom.

Stay away from my elves.

An author of color writes a book featuring POC protagonists. White People:

I’m all for being happy that a black person wrote a fantasy book with black protagonists, just as themselves, largely (though not entirely) away from any color related power struggles, letting them exist on their own merit and showing the obvious fact that fantasy characters don’t all have to be pale.

It would be nice if the responses weren’t “FUCK YEAR! FINALLY A BOOK FOR US! TAKE THAT YOU HORRIBLE, BORING WHITEYS”.

However I do fail to see how ‘race isn’t a conflict’ as someone (I think) mentioned above, when it’s really just about black supremacy, not white supremacy. BUT HEY DON’T MIND ME. I prefer not to read fantasy with an agenda, even if it’s in my favor.

I’ll reserve my adulation for a black writer who is above being racist entirely. I do not withhold judgment based on skin color.

Making it clear that White villains are only bad if the Protagonists are POC:

You know, I kinda have a problem with this, as well. I’m white, but one thing I’ve made a major point in my life is to never see skin color. If you had told me this book was part of a wonderful fantasy series that would have been fine. If you had told me the protagonists were people of color and the antagonists where white: still fine. But you had to drive home the thought that it’s so superior just for those reasons, and that’s unsettling.

A white author writes black characters which are subsequently whitewashed by white fans. White people:

I mean seriously, you SJS Skidmarks whine and bitch about how authors don’t include enough “non-white” characters in their books. Then when an author DOES do so, you whine and bitch because they aren’t the star or the main character. And when an author makes one a pretty important character you complain about THAT.

Seriously, kindly write “racist” on a club and beat yourself to death with it. It’s what you want, anyways, but no one would likely care enough to humor you. You can make the club any color you want, though I think we can all guess what color it’d be. Funny thing is, regardless of that? It’d still be stupid and incredibly ironic.

Ursula K. LeGuin writes a Black main character in The Left Hand of Darkness, a seminal Gender studies text and all-around awesome sci fi book. White people:

Ursula K. LeGuin writes an entire World full of people with “reddish-brown” or “blue-black” skin. There is quite literally only ONE white character (Tenar). White people make a TV miniseries:

I take it that everyone remembers the racist shitstorm over Rue and Thresh? No?

“Naturally Thresh would be a black man,” tweeted someone who called herself @lovelyplease.

“I was pumped about the Hunger Games. Until I learned that a black girl was playing Rue,” wrote @JohnnyKnoxIV.

“Why is Rue a little black girl?” @FrankeeFresh demanded to know. (she appended her tweet with the hashtag admonishment #sticktothebookDUDE.)

“Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the little blonde innocent girl you picture,”@sw4q

“Kk call me racist but when I found out rue was black her death wasn’t as sad,” wrote @JashperParas

But wait! Let’s not forget the Fan-made movie that was uploaded and waddled its way around the internet well before the ACTUAL film came out, which has OVER 3 MILLION VIEWS AND FEATURES A BLONDE, WHITE RUE, AS WELL AS DOZENS OF COMMENTS REGARDING HOW MUCH “BETTER” IT IS THAN THE ACTUAL HOLLYWOOD MOVIE

According to the filmmaker:

I know that Rue is described as being dark skinned in the book, but I wanted to show Savanna’s acting. I think she would make a good Prim though.

The commenters:

Danielle McMeeking 11 hours ago

Everytime I watch this, I always think it was so much better than the movie. This vid is just epic. It captures the whole feeling of the book. It’s realistic, and for that reason it’s completely awesome.

justanotherandomanon 2 weeks ago

Personally, I like this version better than the one in the movie. It’s more emotional, it feels more realistic, and the actors here acted better, especially Rue.

dawn98silver 4 weeks ago

Why is this better than the movie?! I cried! I didn’t cry for the movie.

Jon snow 1 month ago

This was more sad when rue died than in the actual movie! still loved it though!

lolapoopbear 2 months ago

rue is so beautiful

Okay, so….

Recap.

White people: “STAY AWAY FROM MY ELVES!!!”

White people: “I’ll reserve my adulation for a black writer who is above being racist entirely.”

White people:

White people:

This is exactly the shit that has me still getting hate mail from irate Tolkien fans talking about how shitty I am for calling their God of White Short Hobbits racist. 

For an English major, you sure know good books. Harry Potter and The Hunger Games… Seriously?

———

Alright, first off: why the fuck was this a submission? Because I have anon off? Seriously?

Second, your attitude is elitist. What the fuck is wrong with Harry Potter and the Hunger Games? Just because I didn’t feel the need to list Shakespeare, O. Henry, The Phantom of the Opera, and Chaucer under “books that I like” doesn’t mean that 

a) I don’t like them

b) that I can’t read them

Tumblr is all about fandoms to me. Those are the books I tend to blog the most about. 

Third, I’m getting real tired of this stupid-ass bullshit. “YOU DON’T APPRECIATE TOLKIEN BECAUSE IT’S TOO SMART FOR YOU” getting combined with “CLEARLY YOU’RE TOO PRETENTIOUS AND ACADEMIC.”

pick one, Tolkien fandom, and please stick with it because those are two very conflicting criticisms.

I’m a fucking proud Harry Potter fan. I don’t necessarily think that the books are without problems, but I think they’re fucking awesome and I don’t see why that should be an indicator of my intelligence level. Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s meaningless or stupid. So what if tons of people read Harry Potter and identify with it? You know what else is hugely popular that people identify with? The Bible. 

I think the Hunger Games are revolutionary to the Young Adult genre. The Hunger Games may be written for the masses (but let’s be real here…so was Shakespeare), but they feature a strong, independent WOMAN OF COLOR, who is poor, whose main focus is NOT romantic.  It’s as book about politics and regimes and dictatorships. It’s a book about class relations and racial socio-economic intersectionality. So yes. The Hunger Games are great books and I don’t see why people think “Oh these books are exactly like Twilight.” They’re the antithesis of Twilight.

I like popular literature. I also have a huge fondness for history, nonfiction, and Victorian English literature. But that shit gets boring. That shit, that literature canon? It’s all dead white guys, with the occasional dead white woman. 

So seriously, any further messages and aspersions cast upon my intelligence based on the fact that I like Harry Potter and the Hunger Games will be deleted or will be referred to this post. Jesus Christ. You people are as bad as the birthers with Obama’s Birth Certificate. 

Dude.

Cato.

Stop propositioning Caesar Flickerman.

Like, shit dude.

He’s giving you the frozen growly face.

That’s enough.

goldenheartedrose:

casual-isms:

nappyedges:

katnissisoliveskinneddealwithit:

foxxandthefeline:

I see so many of you bitching about the cast of The Hunger Games, not because they don’t fit the characters, but because there are not enough POC in it for you.

Sigh.  I can already tell how shitty this rant is going to be.

Let me ask you something, when you were reading the novels, how many of you actually pictured characters OTHER than the district 11 tributes as POC? Because with the exception of Rue, Thresh, and Cinna in the first novel, & The other people in/from District 11, I imagined them all as white…possibly Asian.

Well, thanks for informing us from the start that you consider characters to be white until they’re mentioned as PoC.  That will make things much easier!  Fellow white person, you are benefiting from white privilege.  This allows you to go blissfully unaware of the fact that characters who aren’t described explicitly as PoC might actually not be white.  This allows you to ignore the many races of people in America, and sum up race demographics in Panem as there being Black people in District 11, and maybe, possibly Asian people somewhere else.  That’s not only problematic, it’s just incorrect.  A quick look into race demographicss in North America (and yes, Panem is ALL of North America!) will show that Panem should be approximately 50% people of color.  This includes Black people, Latin@ people, Asian people, Native American people, Middle Eastern people, etc.  You are blatantly ignoring the racial demographics of North America so you can keep your racist idea of Panem.  That’s wrong.

Because MOST of them were actually described that way. That doesn’t make me racist. I would have had no issues if there WERE more POC in the cast. I’m not one of those people who threw a fit when Rue was cast as an African American girl, because that was how I imagined her to begin with. But most of the characters came off as white to me. Also let’s think about the fact that Suzanne Collins actively participated in the casting of the movie. If she had meant one of the characters to be POC, don’t you think she would have stepped in and done something about it? 

Uh, no, they weren’t described as white.  Apart from Peeta, Katniss’ mom, and the rest of the Merchant class, and Glimmer NO ONE in the Hunger Games is described as white. Yes, that’s right, no one.  So yes, you imagining everyone else as white (despite race demographics that show otherwise) is racist.  There’s really no getting around that fact.  When we benefit from white privilege, it’s easy for us to ignore things we might be doing that could be racist.  I hope you will realize that just because you (or any other white person, including me) says that they’re not doing something racist - doesn’t make it so.

And no, no I don’t think she would have stepped in and done something about it.  Authors often get pressured to accept things they might not agree with.

What’s even more frustrating is people talking about how they think Katniss, Gale, or Peeta should have been POC. Guys. Katniss and Gale are both described as olive skinned, with blue/gray eyes and dark hair. OLIVE SKIN DOES NOT MEAN BLACK OR MULATTO. The people who are most often described as Olive skinned are Italians and Greeks. I should know, my family is Italian. It’s naturally LIGHT brown with a hint of yellow sometimes. But the problem with that is Italians typically have dark eyes. Not to mention the fact that Peeta has blonde hair and was supposed to have blue eyes. Aside from Josh’s brown eyes, all 3 characters are exactly as described in the book.

Sigh, you’re showing more and more of your racist self as this goes on.  No one is saying that Peeta is a PoC.  Katniss and Gale are not only olive skinned (and they have GREY eyes, not blue), but they also experience racism based on the color of their skin.   There is a racial dynamic in the Hunger Games, and it’s not our fault you didn’t catch it.

Olive-skinned is actually used more often for people of color than it is for Italian people.  I am also part-Italian, but I recognize that the term “olive-skinned” is often applied to people of color.  

“It’s naturally LIGHT brown with a hint of yellow sometimes” > Now you’re just being outright racist.  Olive-skinned is definitely not exclusively reserved for light-skinned people. 

http://www.calstage.com/images/makeupimages/2cakktfondcolr.jpg

Also, mulatto is often considered an offensive term: http://parlourmagazine.com/2010/09/mulatto-racial-slur-or-socially-exceptable/

The only person I have seen so far in casting that I don’t agree with is Sam Claflin, and that is because I don’t find him nearly attractive enough for Finnick.

Seriously people. Stop fucking whining. Don’t agree with the cast? Don’t watch the fucking movie then. I don’t see any people of color in TMI at all and yet, THAT fandom isn’t throwing a bitchfit about it. 

No.  No we won’t stop “whining.”  

Look followers, someone was being casually racist about the Hunger Games and this lovely white person (katnissisnotoliveskinneddealwithit) corrected the fuck out of them. Now that’s what I’d call collecting.
—nappyedges 

They do an amazing job of that.  I’m really really glad I chose to follow them. Excellent takedown of the bullshit the OP spewed.

yesthattoo:

holymotherofrowling:

“Unsurprisingly, many of the comments on this excellent post (which deserves much better) are in the vein of the “well Italians have olive skin too guise ITAAAALIAAANS” defense. Which is just…headachingly beside the point. While reading the books, I pictured Katniss as a non-‘passing’ biracial person of color. And though I’m open to anything that falls within that description, there is no way Katniss could possibly be white. Her physical description of olive skin and black hair are undeniably coded, and if you want to hem and haw over that, you’re kidding yourself. Actually, if all you won’t-someone-think-of-the-Italians casting apologists really want to parse details, true black hair is extremely rare among whites and most whites with ‘black’ hair have very dark brown hair. Maybe more importantly though, a Katniss of color brings a more urgent, more vivid reality to her place and perspective on many of the novel’s key aspects: the tiered poverty of the districts, the exploitation and public consumption of the poorer, untrained tributes in the area, the fact that in District 12, the ‘darker’ folk in the Seam have it worse than the pale blondies in the town, and so on. Even more intimate exchanges, like her instinctively identifying with Rue and Thresh over the white tributes, and Rue’s subsequent death (which, like, Rue is completely short-changed by the narrative in a way that is so predictable but no less deeply infuriating but that is another story altogether) mean something totally different if she’s white. tl;dr Brown Katniss=a kind of fatalistic intersectional parable about the relentless exploitation and breaking of a Brown girl with accompanying systemic racial and economic oppression. White Katniss=white Savior cries when a Black girl dies for her, poor Brown and Black people revolt, frenzied by the intoxicating power of white tears. Also: not Italian.”

—

furnaceofchildlove (via katnissisoliveskinneddealwithit)

I mean…I think Katniss being white is fine. In fact, I think it shows the opposite end of the spectrum, showing that now, even white people are being oppressed by the Capital. It shows that it doesn’t matter to them how you look, what you’re like or who you are, they’re going to treat you worse than second-class if they want.

Also, Jennifer Lawrence did a remarkable job as Katniss. I’m tired of people saying she was too “white” or too “well-fed”. She was brilliant.

(via acciotomcruise)

The problem is that the Capitol DOES care what people look like.  Ignoring that is ignoring the fact that District 11, which is almost entirely comprised of Black people, lives pretty much in slavery.  

http://katnissisoliveskinneddealwithit.tumblr.com/post/27032415772/evidence-of-a-racial-narrative-in-the-hunger-games

Here is a list of quotes.  Panem is not a post-racial society.  It is a society where race is less talked about, but where people are still discriminated against based on the color of their skin.

Your opinion of Jennifer Lawrence’s acting skill doesn’t change the fact that Katniss was whitewashed.

Look. You can think Jennifer Lawrence did a GREAT job and still be aware that Katniss was whitewashed. A casting call for caucasian actresses=whitewashed. A casting call for anyone olive-skinned, then taking the best of who comes out, may or may not be active whitewashing, but a call for CAUCASIANS is whitewashing. Doesn’t mean she did a bad job. Doesn’t even really make it her fault that Katniss is whitewashed- if she hadn’t gone for the role, some other white person would have had it. Put the blame for the whitewashing where it belongs: On society for demanding it and excusing it, and on whoever decided that casting call would be for white actresses.

People who say “Jennifer Lawrence is such a great actress, tho!” are missing the point.

Look, if I read a cookbook, and it’s all about eggs, and it’s a fantastic cookbook, and you say, “let me actualize that cookbook a little bit more” and you hand me, instead, a motherfucking roast chicken, and say, “well, they both come from chickens…so…similar…” I am not going to be like, “oh, hey, this chicken is delicious!” 

I am going to be like, “bitch, please give me the eggs that the cookbook was written for.” 

I am just sayin’.

I believe these pics should be captioned:

“I CAN FLY, EFFIE! I CAN FLY!”

“My hands are abnormally large because THEY HOLD SO MUCH RESPONSIBILITY”

“and this year’s couture wedding theme is “storm trouper redux”

“Yes, my name is 8 year old Madonna and these are my gay backup dancers.” 

…I would just like to point out that in the Hunger Games, the only thing that is explicitly white is the white liquor.  

inspired by the drew carey virginia meme, I present you with “SOCIAL JUSTICE DREW CAREY”: A new meme

OK, I’m just going to point out that I have several mixed friends. And sometimes, one kid ends up looking really motherfucking white, and the other looks very….Not.

genetics is funny that way. I have half-white cousins who look absolutely white.  I also have half white cousins who look really fucking Asian. 

Also: the book is very clear about Katniss looking like her father. Her father who was a coal miner, not a of the rich merchant class (like Katniss’s mother).  So clearly, it’s possible that her mother could have been a rich white girl, and her father a poor POC (native american and/or Black).  

“Hey baby…break me off a piece of those BAKER’S BUNS”

“….Are you BREADY to get nasty?”

“Oh no, honey, you can’t eat my pussy, cos you’ll give me a YEAST infection”

“Run Run Run, my gingerbread man!”

“Ice on my cakes, baker boy!”