I saw someone ask if the fandom-is-racist conversation wasn't separate from the purity-culture one and like...

It's actually not separate bcuz of how things stack in fandom and how folks who talk about racism in fandom have historically been accused of wanting fandom to be pure.

A) And the folks who are having the purity in fandom aren't physically having the other conversation usually unless they're saying that folks talking about the former are actually arguing for the latter

(like the only reason fans of color talk about racism is bcuz purity )

B) https://twitter.com/stichomancery/status/1114639719336423425?s=19

A day later, I realize that I've already written about a really good example of how the "it's about purity in fandom" conversations and the "fandom is fucking racist" conversations converge and why folks who think A and B aren't related should uh... walk that back:

Slave fic

One of the things I got a ton of really vile pushback against was saying that fandom's thing for slave fic was racist.

I had people accuse me of... wanting to control them and keep fandom pure and w/e because I wrote about slave fic and was critical of fandom's thing for it

But I'm Black. Visibly and vocally Black.

So I was talking about something that fandom sees as "just" a kink but revolves dehumanizing and enslaving other people who don't consent to it in the same way that my ancestors were and folks called that... wank and purity culture.

(Which reminds me that I want to see if there's a transformative fandom equivalent for virtue signaling and identity politics because that's kind of where the discourses are heading...)

What's "just a kink" to one person is "deeply traumatizing because of the generational trauma of slavery and the continued legacy of antiblackness in the world" to another

& its important to remember that (and also stop lecturing/mocking Black people over their slave fic feels)

But that was one of the many things that got people so mad at me when I was on Tumblr: that I went "yeah, slave fic is a thing we find normal in fandom and I know that a lot of us have created and consumed it, but it's racist. Stop defending it to anyone but esp Black people"

(Like I remember how we had tic censor Captive Prince on Tumblr because every time we'd talk about how it felt as Black fans to see folks celebrate this already wonky book with slavery, we'd get tons of people splaining slave fic AND race to us like... Wow.)

I'm back on this thread specifically because y'all, no joke some of the stuff I expected would happen re critique of Docile has happened.

Namely queer white people passive aggressively accusing (but not NAMING) Black people critical of the book of purity and policing...

Docile is, again, a book about an updated form of slavery in the United States that DOESN'T engage with race AT ALL, centers white men, and uses a Black character named Onyx as the Healing Cock trope.

I would like white people in fandom/publishing to stop doing this rude shit.

It is tiring to CONSTANTLY see folks attempt to gaslight and dismiss Black people in fandom/book communities when we talk about issues like Docile's.

Docile *is* boring - a whole last chunk is set in court y'all - but it's ALSO problematic in what it does/n't do about race.

And the accusations of purity and policing are coming from people who'll swear up and down that they care about REAL race and racism in these spaces but somehow, despite the fact that they're never talking about race, always manage to dismiss and derail and sunk on critical POC