It's just this one artist and I swear they're doing it out of spite. Do they really just not like light skinned characters? Why else would they do this?
I actually like this piece way more than the others I can't exactly pinpoint why but that's the feeling I get from this picture, The okina one still takes first place though. With that said the artist is a kind of a hypocrite since they can't tolerate black characters getting "whitewashed". Don't get me wrong the low effort shit where the only change is the skin color is definitely racist bait but I feel like if an artist goes through the effort to reimagine the character as a different ethnicity then it should be considered acceptable and not inherently racist.
With that said the artist is a kind of a hypocrite since they can't tolerate black characters getting "whitewashed".
There's nothing hypocritical about it, because "blackwashing" and whitewashing aren't comparable in the slightest - the latter is always significantly worse. And the fact that so many on Danbooru seem to refuse to acknowledge that is immensely telling, especially if they view it purely through the lens of corporate diversity mandates and random people online claiming to 'fix' characters (neither of which apply here), as if some view black people or minorities themselves as inherently political.
There's nothing hypocritical about it, because "blackwashing" and whitewashing aren't comparable in the slightest - the latter is always significantly worse.
There's nothing hypocritical about it, because "blackwashing" and whitewashing aren't comparable in the slightest - the latter is always significantly worse. And the fact that so many on Danbooru seem to refuse to acknowledge that is immensely telling, especially if they view it purely through the lens of corporate diversity mandates and random people online claiming to 'fix' characters (neither of which apply here), as if some view black people or minorities themselves as inherently political.
No, they are totally comparable in this context. We're talking about fanart. Blackwashing a character vs whitewashing a character are either equally as racist or equally as harmless. If blackwashing is not inherently political, then whitewashing is not inherently malicious. If reimagining a character as a minority (nevermind that 90% of the characters being subjected to this trend are Japanese, and not white) is acceptable, then reimagining a character as white should be as well.
We're not talking about mainstream media, we're talking about random fanart on the internet. You cannot in good faith claim that a random no name artist giving a character dark skin is harmless but turn around and claim a random no name artist giving a character white skin is harmful.
Whitewashing already existing minority characters reduces the presence of minorities in spaces that already lack them to begin with, whether in be in the media itself or in the community that consumes said media, like the reverse cannot be argued for "blackwashing" when it comes to white people. A lot of the arguments made against "blackwashing" hinge on black people having equal representation in media to white people (which allows them to be segmented away in fandom discourse), so when white people are told that isn't the case they start complaining about "why are you making this political" and saying that they can't represent themselves with given characters. Because the truth of the matter is that black people aren't equally represented in media, even more so in popular media, and so, just like you see with white people, they'll want to represent themselves with the characters in media they love, and the logical conclusion of that is depicting them as black with all the accoutrements associated (just as you might see Asian characters basically being rendered 'white').
You might ask then "why not make characters they can identify with," or "make existing black characters more popular"? On the former, there's probably plenty of black characters already, but again, how many of those characters are popular, and even more so, how many of them are in popular media and accessible to general audiences? Most Western media anyone will consume will be made by largely white people and involve largely white people. Even if they were to make more black characters, the vast majority of characters black people will watch on TV, in movies, online, etc. will be non-black. So of course they're going to end up identifying with way more non-black characters than they do black - even more so if the black characters they do see aren't representative to them. And on the latter, which ones? Like, firstly, we're being sane here and not counting tan/gyaru characters, they aren't black. Secondly, a lot of black characters, especially in anime, are just side-characters, so there isn't much that can be done to make them more popular. And third, depending on where you look, the depiction of black characters is.... not good, so those characters aren't getting popular in the black community whatsoever. So, there's no political agenda behind "blackwashing", it's just black people depicting the characters they love as black, just as you'd see white people doing the same essentially.
The reason "blackwashing" occurs is because most characters in popular media are not black. If there were way more black characters in popular media then it likely wouldn't be as common (though you ultimately can't stop people from depicting characters as being from any group, not just black). Regardless, no one complains about "blackwashing" if the art is well-drawn to the person that might complain, and doubly-so if it is sexually-charged art.
blindVigil said:
No, they are totally comparable in this context. We're talking about fanart. Blackwashing a character vs whitewashing a character are either equally as racist or equally as harmless. If blackwashing is not inherently political, then whitewashing is not inherently malicious. If reimagining a character as a minority (nevermind that 90% of the characters being subjected to this trend are Japanese, and not white) is acceptable, then reimagining a character as white should be as well.
We're not talking about mainstream media, we're talking about random fanart on the internet. You cannot in good faith claim that a random no name artist giving a character dark skin is harmless but turn around and claim a random no name artist giving a character white skin is harmful.
And here's the other common argument levied against "blackwashing", trying to render it equal to whitewashing by looking at both in isolation as just "raceswapping". But you cannot look at "blackwashing" and whitewashing in a vacuum. As mentioned already, whitewashing already existing minority characters reduces the presence of minorities in spaces that already lack them to begin with, and that includes the spaces which consume that media in the first place. You cannot argue that someone deciding to whitewash minority characters in a series or franchise where 99% of the characters are white (or white-passing, since as you say, we are talking about Asian[-inspired] characters here) in a fandom that also majority white doesn't implicitly say something.
In a world that's sane and doesn't have the historical legacy of race issues we're suffering with today, both "blackwashing" and whitewashing would be equally seen as harmless. But we don't live in that world, and likely never will. "Blackwashing" is harmless, whitewashing isn't.
There's nothing hypocritical about it, because "blackwashing" and whitewashing aren't comparable in the slightest - the latter is always significantly worse. And the fact that so many on Danbooru seem to refuse to acknowledge that is immensely telling, especially if they view it purely through the lens of corporate diversity mandates and random people online claiming to 'fix' characters (neither of which apply here), as if some view black people or minorities themselves as inherently political.
That's the part I don't understand shouldn't it be ok to do what this artist has done? I'm not talking about simply making the skin color of a darker character lighter I'm talking about completely changing the way a character looks in order to fit that ethnicity. It's completely hypocritical to say that it's wrong to do it to a darker skinned person but completely justified if the character is of a lighter complexion. I know very well that dark skin minorities are a marginalized group and I also know very well that some artist take pleasure in ridiculing or "fixing" them but not every artist does this, this artist for instance is just having fun and trying for representation in a cast that has no dark skinned characters. Is this to say that an artist race swapping a minority is looking for fair skin representation? Well no that would be absurd but I am saying that is it so wrong for an artist to take a character they like and change then to better fit their own image? Does the act of doing this mean that artist hates the characters canon race? I wouldn't automatically say that they did.
Not nearly as tiring as seeing the same commenters relentlessly whining about it every time. We get it already; y'all hate seeing light-skinned characters drawn with dark skin. If it triggers you so badly, you can blacklist alternate_skin_color dark_skin (as has already been suggested on other posts) and quit forcing yourself to look at things you don't want to see here. Unless, of course, you just want to have an excuse to whine.
And this is why not everyone follows your movement or views. You are looking for still being a minority, but gaining a special privilege over other races only because of your skin color (sounds familiar?). The typical "a black man can't be racist because he is an oppresed minority" bullcrap excuse you hear everyday. You would think minorities fight for everyone looking at their talents instead of their skin color but no, they oblige others to look at their skin and get a special free pass at everything because they feel oppresed. Then they can look down from their position at other races like hispanic inmigrants or American natives.
Whitewashing and Blackwashing are identical. If you haven't realized yet, you are just being racist from a minority demographic.
That's the part I don't understand shouldn't it be ok to do what this artist has done? I'm talking about completely changing the way a character looks in order to fit that ethnicity. I know, this artist for instance is just having fun and trying for representation in a cast that has no dark skinned characters. I am saying that is it so wrong for an artist to take a character they like and change then to better fit their own image? Does the act of doing this mean that artist hates the characters canon race? I wouldn't automatically say that they did.
Well, for a lot of folks it doesn't matter whether it's just changing the complexion of a character or properly adapting the character to their new race - it's raceswapping in both cases, and so both will be treated with equal scrutiny.
rom_collector said:
And this is why not everyone follows your movement or views. You are looking for still being a minority, but gaining a special privilege over other races only because of your skin color (sounds familiar?). The typical "a black man can't be racist because he is an oppresed minority" bullcrap excuse you hear everyday. You would think minorities fight for everyone looking at their talents instead of their skin color but no, they oblige others to look at their skin and get a special free pass at everything because they feel oppresed. Then they can look down from their position at other races like hispanic inmigrants or American natives.
Whitewashing and Blackwashing are identical. If you haven't realized yet, you are just being racist from a minority demographic.
My man, don't try to project or put words into my mouth. Minorities can be racist towards white people, and none of 'em in this movement are looking to be heightened above other minorities. Get out of here with your divisionary rhetoric, when you'd just whisper sweet nothings into the ears of those same races. Also, 'reverse racism' isn't a thing. It's racism. If you want to call me racist, do it. The fact you gotta attach a 'reverse' to it reveals you recognize it ain't the same.
I don't really think white people are racially conscious enough as a group to be actively race-swapping black characters, white in fan works. I disagree that its okay only for black people solely because of their minority status in representation in certain media franchises that are popular/they so happen to enjoy individually. At the end of the day I don't mind a black artist drawing their favorite characters black and vice-versa for white people regardless of the representation situation.
I was going to bring up corporations race-swapping in established media but I don't think you addressed that or is relevant really. However I do think that is the reason other commenters here are lashing out and they in a sense are trying to stop that but all they are really doing is just yelling at a person having fun not sticking it to the big corporations.
And these kind of discussions with "blackwashing" or "whitewashing" only reminds me of something, that there are only 2 kinds of problems in this world, real world problems and first world problems.
And this is why not everyone follows your movement or views. You are looking for still being a minority, but gaining a special privilege over other races only because of your skin color (sounds familiar?). The typical "a black man can't be racist because he is an oppresed minority" bullcrap excuse you hear everyday. You would think minorities fight for everyone looking at their talents instead of their skin color but no, they oblige others to look at their skin and get a special free pass at everything because they feel oppresed. Then they can look down from their position at other races like hispanic inmigrants or American natives.
Whitewashing and Blackwashing are identical. If you haven't realized yet, you are just being racist from a minority demographic.
Every time I think you sink to a new low, you keep on digging a trench of ignorance.
I actually like this piece way more than the others I can't exactly pinpoint why but that's the feeling I get from this picture, The okina one still takes first place though. With that said the artist is a kind of a hypocrite since they can't tolerate black characters getting "whitewashed". Don't get me wrong the low effort shit where the only change is the skin color is definitely racist bait but I feel like if an artist goes through the effort to reimagine the character as a different ethnicity then it should be considered acceptable and not inherently racist.
Finally a smart comment in this brain dead website. fun fact for you weebs out there who love Japan. one of the 7 lucky gods Benzaiten is based on the Hindu goddess Saraswati so you can say Benzaiten is Japanese wash Verison of a Hindu goddess so would you complian about that? Look objectively if someone wants to make Verison of a character of a different race and ethnicity for fan art it fine as long your not making it to be offensive. As long it doesn't change the canon of the official work it as has little to no impact. And I find it interesting as an artist to make a character in a different ethnicity because I personally find it interesting see what a character look like in a different race. that doesn't mean someone is racist and just because an artist make a character that are all race swap to be a specific it doesn't mean they hate any other race don't be so fucking uncharitable. obviously if they made fan art of a character they like despite them not being the race they are obviously that sign there not racist because they wouldn't make art of the character at all. do people like that exist yeah sure but unless they show that their being racist just keep a fucking open mind
that there are only 2 kinds of problems in this world, real world problems and first world problems.
Which are both problems at the end of the day. All you are doing is just being smug about it while helping nothing. I hate to break it to you, but first world is still part of the world, if anything the most influential part of the world.
Whitewashing already existing minority characters reduces the presence of minorities in spaces that already lack them to begin with, whether in be in the media itself or in the community that consumes said media, like the reverse cannot be argued for "blackwashing" when it comes to white people. A lot of the arguments made against "blackwashing" hinge on black people having equal representation in media to white people (which allows them to be segmented away in fandom discourse), so when white people are told that isn't the case they start complaining about "why are you making this political" and saying that they can't represent themselves with given characters. Because the truth of the matter is that black people aren't equally represented in media, even more so in popular media, and so, just like you see with white people, they'll want to represent themselves with the characters in media they love, and the logical conclusion of that is depicting them as black with all the accoutrements associated (just as you might see Asian characters basically being rendered 'white').
You might ask then "why not make characters they can identify with," or "make existing black characters more popular"? On the former, there's probably plenty of black characters already, but again, how many of those characters are popular, and even more so, how many of them are in popular media and accessible to general audiences? Most Western media anyone will consume will be made by largely white people and involve largely white people. Even if they were to make more black characters, the vast majority of characters black people will watch on TV, in movies, online, etc. will be non-black. So of course they're going to end up identifying with way more non-black characters than they do black - even more so if the black characters they do see aren't representative to them. And on the latter, which ones? Like, firstly, we're being sane here and not counting tan/gyaru characters, they aren't black. Secondly, a lot of black characters, especially in anime, are just side-characters, so there isn't much that can be done to make them more popular. And third, depending on where you look, the depiction of black characters is.... not good, so those characters aren't getting popular in the black community whatsoever. So, there's no political agenda behind "blackwashing", it's just black people depicting the characters they love as black, just as you'd see white people doing the same essentially.
The reason "blackwashing" occurs is because most characters in popular media are not black. If there were way more black characters in popular media then it likely wouldn't be as common (though you ultimately can't stop people from depicting characters as being from any group, not just black). Regardless, no one complains about "blackwashing" if the art is well-drawn to the person that might complain, and doubly-so if it is sexually-charged art.
And here's the other common argument levied against "blackwashing", trying to render it equal to whitewashing by looking at both in isolation as just "raceswapping". But you cannot look at "blackwashing" and whitewashing in a vacuum. As mentioned already, whitewashing already existing minority characters reduces the presence of minorities in spaces that already lack them to begin with, and that includes the spaces which consume that media in the first place. You cannot argue that someone deciding to whitewash minority characters in a series or franchise where 99% of the characters are white (or white-passing, since as you say, we are talking about Asian[-inspired] characters here) in a fandom that also majority white doesn't implicitly say something.
In a world that's sane and doesn't have the historical legacy of race issues we're suffering with today, both "blackwashing" and whitewashing would be equally seen as harmless. But we don't live in that world, and likely never will. "Blackwashing" is harmless, whitewashing isn't.
You're essentially justifying blackwashing with representation "argument". But nobody is obliged to represent any race/ethnicity in media. That's not a law. If an director wants to make a film where 100% of the cast is white/black/asian, they should be able to.
White (or "white-passing" as you put it) characters stay white. Black characters stay black. End of story.
You mentioned the solution yourself - create and write better black characters. Not snatch white characters and paint them black. This applies to popular media, this should apply to fanart by small scale artists the same. It's admittedly a very optimistic thought, but if a black character is written well, characterized well, taken care of by storytellers over the course of many, many years, one day that character will be as iconic as Superman. That's the solution - not blackwashing Superman.
This applies to popular media, this should apply to fanart by small scale artists the same.
And this is where I fundamentally disagree. I just don't see in what world it makes sense to apply to small-scale artists the same standards that we apply to corporations engaging in diversity mandates and cynical tokenism. They aren't the ones the corporations are appealing to, they're appealing to the kind of consumer who'd write in an AI generator 'black superman'. It's not the fault of small-scale artists that corporations don't care to make better-written black characters in popular media (or rather, hire creators who would want to do that, to address your point) and just lazily blackwash existing characters. You can't equate the two at all.
It's not their fault, but it doesn't give them an excuse either. It makes no difference if the artist is blackwashing characters out of some earnest good intention, and the corporation is doing it out of greed, results are the same.
It's not their fault, but it doesn't give them an excuse either. It makes no difference if the artist is blackwashing characters out of some earnest good intention, and the corporation is doing it out of greed, results are the same.
As in that meme from The Office, they're the same picture. When you pander to a certain demographic, EVERYONE will hate you for it, INCLUDING said demographic.(We're looking at Velma. That bastardization should have NEVER been greenlit in the first place)