so idk why but every time i see a japanese or white character being given darker skin tones, fuckers go "why? people would get angry if you whitewashed a black character"
and i will write a hopefully useful thread that will debunk why this a dumb mentality. (thread below)

We have to distinguish why artists place an importance on drawing very influential characters as POC. and this can happen for many different reasons:
1. Representation (a very nice way of shifting the identity to make more minorities feel included and proud of themselves 1/19

2. fun concept that helps include and show a new design of a character, without it having to be just two skin colors. 2/19

Of course, people will reply "ya but you can just make new characters."
okay, but... lets think about this a little bit more.
characters that already exist & are pretty famous, are famous for a reason. they dont have a very popular place in communities for no reason 3/19

These consist of:
- character design (how the traits of their clothing, their silhouette, their tropes, etc. play into why theyre popular)
- their importance to whatever mainstream medium they exist (whether it be influential or just a very widely used character) 4/19

So, shifting stuff like skin tone or adding a hijab or making them say "trans rights" doesnt detract from that, and only seeks to help develop a very respectful addition to the character AND help aid a self-conscious minority in a society of white people 5/19

And why do artists seek this representation? well, we have to understand the political nature/context of why it happens...
We have to realize that, everything is political, and how racialized the class nature of society is due to european colonial structures effects this 6/19

Let's discuss that, due to cultural affects of imperialism, we see a major mentality pop up out of conquest of others for the betterment of the nation, and this can be seen through the hundreds of years of these imperialist conquests invoking racial pseudoscience 7/19

Racial pseudoscience has sought to accurately characterize race, and claims to seek out the most superior people to lead political structures from this, when in reality, it assumes a false basis of understanding of differing cultural societies to justify their conquest 8/19

The reason why treatment of colonial people was so ruthless, was due to how the factors of economic gains had helped established essential stages of capitalist profit system, and thus, the cultural justification of this as a moral right amongst the bourgeoisie 9/19

We thus see that hundreds of years of European capitalist development from colonailism, and expansion through imperialism has set very strict social structures to separate races & essentially racialize class structures within European dominance 10/19

and this obviously didnt just exist from Europeans & their chauvinist tendencies due to imperialism; Japan had this as well, when they began conquest through the establishment of imperialism 11/19

Japan had adopted a less racialized mentality, but they saw that the whiter you are, the purer you were. and applied this to their view of Chinese & Korean people. Later on, the post-WW2 imperialist power applied this to POC and have had regular depictions of POC as.... 12/19

savager than the Japanese race.
This conception of race is a purely european & capitalist development, that aided in specific class structures in the economic system.
We see a very specific system of races play out within this, and this must be realized to combat racism 13/19

Because racism is a structural problem, one that exists individually due to the structural basis of the systems of capitalism

This goes into the reason why whitewashing a POC character isnt the greatest idea ever. 14/19

There is no negative implication with the switch, yes, but it engages in adhering to the racial structures that already support the white race- the individual treatment of representation of POC only represent a mentality of racism through this. 15/19

EVEN THEN, almost all cases of people redrawing POC characters as white have been done *in spite* of the anti-racist attitude of drawing POC characters! 16/19

I can point to one main one, where white guys started drawing a very obviously black pokemon character as white, and on purpose, because people were upset seeing a japanese man drawing her as white. 17/19

This is the VERY essential difference between drawing a white character as POC vs the vice versa
Refusing to realize this & admitting to a purposefully oblivious mentality will be playing only into a racist mindset, and not keep a critical one towards the genuine racist... 18/19

structures that aide in only erasing the very existence of POC in a specific attempt to uphold the structures of white superiority. 19/19