Islamophobia and anti-MENA racism is something that has always been present in anti-shipper circles and fandom as a whole.

Thread

TW // racism and islamophobia

Many of us are very aware that Islamophobia is a very serious issue that targets Muslims, but it becomes frustrating when this behaviour enters places like fandom which is supposed to be escapism

It becomes more frustrating when our concerns are brushed off. When our concerns aren't word for word what people want to hear and we are painted out to be aggressive for it

Even though we are members of fandom spaces and deserve the same amount of respect as our white and non-muslim peers

Here is an incident that happened to me when another middle eastern muslim said very racist and islamophobic remarks to me and to a mutual of mine

This person believes that just because they are also in the same marginalized group as me then they think that it’s okay to spout bigotry at me and my mutual, which is not true at all. Being in the same community does not mean you are immune to being bigoted yourself

It's also annoying that people believe themselves to be fit to use the REAL situations that affect me and my community as a gotcha for their internet arguments

TW // mention of uyghur muslim genocide

They don't care who me and my people are and the real things we go through daily. Others have no problem defending genocide if it means they can seem progressive

There is also the issue of how many people in these spaces use gore images to trigger people. Real life gore images of real people

It becomes even more disgusting when those images are the bodies of middle-easterners, africans and other BIPOC who are victims of genocide often at the hands of white and american people

Not only are we disrespected in life but we are disrespected in death. Our bodies are then used to hurt and trigger other real people as if we were nothing more than toys

All I ask is that our concerns be acknowledged, that our opinions can have a place to shine without us being painted under the brush of “aggressive”

Although I mostly talked about how this behaviour is present in anti-shipping circles we should also not forget this is an issue in and outside of fandom as a whole. /end