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When AstroTurfed hate movements like Comicsgate and Gamergate talk about their hatred of SJWs and the SJW "infiltration" of mainstream comics, men like Christian Cooper are who they are referring to and their "culture war" is a thinly veiled war against black and gay creators. https://twitter.com/enthusiamy/status/1265370081887875072
My streams are crossing, so let's go. Comicsgate started as a harassment movement spearheaded by white supremacists such as Vox Day to mimic the success of Gamergate in driving disgruntled men to the far right and to get them to embrace fascism. https://twitter.com/cheryllynneaton/status/1039544755972128768
What happened to Cooper in the park is just the final form of what happens to black creators in the workplace. Anti-blackness being used as a tool--either as a weapon to silence black creators and drive them away via harassment or a form of promotion for bigots and fascists.
Comicsgate started by trolling modern black creators at Marvel and DC relentlessly, by calling them "race hustlers" and "diversity hires" who had no talent and were simply hired for being black--anti-black statements at their core.
But this is nothing new because older black creators (creators that Comicsgate pretends to love for plausible deniability) heard those same statements earlier in their careers.
That's the paradox of anti-blackness in comics. They only "love you" if you've been a black person in the mainstream for years, but how do you get the experience of being in the mainstream if these people fight against your very presence and harass you constantly?
(Fact: They never ever loved you and did not buy the indie books of your predecessors because they considered them "black books" and complained that their books were being "ruined" when more than three black characters appeared in a mainstream book.)
Blackness in comics is microaggressions from your peers. It's Comicsgate members joking about throwing out the applications of black women on streams to try get a rise out of hypervisible black women for self-promotion. (Snippet from Priest below:)
It's Comicsgate members sending you pictures of the Klan on Twitter and joking that "It's lit" to strike fear into you for the audacity of--*checks notes*--writing an Ironheart series about a black female character in the Marvel universe.
It's Comicsgate members disingenuously trying to harass you into to sitting down and "debating" with white supremacists who seek to remove you. Exposing you to abusive racism for "hits." https://twitter.com/cheryllynneaton/status/1033775460591788038
All while having channels formerly named "Fascist Frog" and "Comics MATTER" to trivialize the deaths of your people and the deaths of the people who made this industry what it was in the first place.
And you are expected to create beneath this constant stream of hatred and abuse. And added on top of that is the exploitation of your blackness by those who seek you out because they know that blackness is a target that draws attention from abusers and support from black people.
And amazingly? We do. Create incredible works full of meaning, history, and culture. Infuse what is ours with what has become before. And they despise us for that. Launched a "war" against us for it. For adding black cultures to the mainstream instead of PhotoShop representation.
Anyway, I am done (for now). Apologies to those I owe calls (and more) to, because I see all hell broke loose while I was away filling in homegrown hellmouths. I promise to be caught up by the end of the week.
