#I’ve been trying to view it with an outside lens of ‘they’re just besties’ and i cannot fathom the purpose behind this scene | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eoieopda · 1 year

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i’m going to discuss this one (1) time in full and then i will no longer devote my time, energy, or blog space to this topic. i simply cannot be assed to keep having this conversation. i will continue to block these anons as they pop up. in fact, i'll see y'all in a minute when you inevitably come calling.

here’s the tldr for anyone who is curious but does not have the capacity and/or desire to continue seeing this shit*.

*i have neither, and yet this is somehow still not over??

this whole thing is both buffoonery and goonery. i am so, so tired.

the people doing this are more concerned with hurting M and M’s friends than they are with their allegations of racism.

it’s gross as hell that people have misappropriated and devalued what could’ve been a meaningful discussion about an important topic... to instead shit on people they don't like.

i see you, besties 👀

tw: racism as written by white creators & as i have personally experienced (examples of micro-aggressions, racist messages i’ve received, etc.,) anonymous messages, harassment, cyberbullying.

p.s. i recognize that this is an exercise in futility and that literally nothing will convince these people to stop. i also recognize that saying something will probably make things worse for me. that's a problem for future jade™️, though, because present jade™️ is on one.

as we’re all aware, somebody is engineering an anonymous hate train against some of the writers on this site. these anons have been in their feelings (and the inboxes of writers, hate blogs, their own vagueposts, etc.) for weeks.

for what is probably the 100th time: my opinions are my own. i speak for myself, loudly and exclusively. not everyone is going to agree with me; that’s fine. my problem is not — and has never been — that people have different opinions than i do about the things i’m about to discuss. i’ll get into that later.

where it started:

an anon sent a message to a tea blog (read: hate blog) about M, who is white. the anon’s stated issue was that M included a depiction of racism/xenophobia in a chapter of a fic; and anon didn't feel that they should have. the position they took (if it existed in a vacuum) was valid and within their right to take. the way they went about all of this (by posting on a hate blog? in the year of our lord 2023?) was — in my opinion — sus as hell.

and that was before we all figured out what was happening here.

my position on white ppl writing about racism:

if a white writer can’t depict nuance or demonstrate any meaningful understanding of the issues they want to discuss, it’s my opinion that they have no business doing so.

for example: i’ve seen stories by white writers in which BIPOC react exclusively with violence or harsh words when confronted with racism. this, to me, is an “orange flag” because actual BIPOC have to do a lot of calculating in these situations. sure, the impulse to hulk out is there, but so is the risk that our immediate safety would be compromised further by hulking out. if that ^ kind of consideration isn’t fleshed out, i have a problem. when i see that ^ in stories, it tells me that the writer is not viewing the events they’re writing about through the lens of someone who actually experiences them and has not done their due diligence.

when i read racism as written by white authors, i primarily look at four things:

is the racist action depicted believable, or is it clear that the writer has absolutely no clue what they’re trying to talk about & made no attempts to learn?

does the inclusion of racism make sense in the context provided, or was it included for nefarious purposes (shock value, wokeness points™️, etc.)?

is there inclusion of the characters’ race, ethnicity, and/or culture in the fic outside their experiencing racism, or is that the only representation we get?

how do the characters process/react to this racism?

important context:

at the time i read the fic that sparked this whole ordeal, i’d just “met” M. this was around the time we became mutuals and started getting to know each other. all that to say, when i read this fic and formed an opinion on it, that was done as a reader, not a friend.

not as an “ass-licker,” “boba liberal,” worshipper of whiteness, and/or whatever else these anons have called me, either.

my opinion on the fic/situation hasn’t changed now that we are friends. if anything, getting to know M as a person (and not just as a writer whose fics i liked) has reinforced my opinion. regardless of what these anons have said, the M i know is a deeply empathetic and supportive friend. they consistently uplift me — and others — and make me feel seen/heard.

the only people who are indicating otherwise haven’t publicly identified themselves or stated any basis upon which their opinions (or borderline obsessive behaviors) are founded.

for what it’s worth, none of them that i’ve seen have even claimed to be asian. this will become relevant in a moment.

my position on the fic in question:

i'm a korean immigrant living in the united states. the chapter in question showed racism experienced by korean people in the united states. i'm qualified to make up my own damn mind about this.

i didn't have a problem with it, based on that four-part analysis i described up yonder. here's why:

(1) the depiction was of something i personally experience on a semi-frequent basis. in my life, racism often takes the form of micro-aggressions, as was the case in the chapter.

for example: being compared to people i look nothing like and/or aren’t korean simply because they’re also asian; people rolling their eyes when i correct the pronunciation of my (obviously) asian name like it’s not worth their effort; and tokenism/fetishizing, as if i’m a collectible item based on where i was born and not a full-fledged human being who is many things beyond simply being korean.

in my opinion, M’s portrayal of this more “subtle” racism (aka no slurs, no violence, etc.) was believable. to me, them making this choice demonstrated an understanding of what others experience, despite not experiencing it themselves.

(2) the scene made sense to me in the context of the chapter. bts encountered racism when they broke into the US, and the characters were in the US for an award show. frankly, i appreciated the acknowledgment of how asian immigrants/international tourists are treated in america because it’s not something i noticed non-asian people pointing out at all until COVID hit.

(3) the MC is a reader-insert who lives in korea and speaks korean. yoongi is obviously korean. the racism/xenophobia experienced by the characters in this chapter is not the only time i saw these things depicted in this series. importantly, the other references to korean culture were thoughtfully made, and they were either neutral or positive, not negative. the conclusion i came to was that M took this seriously, as they should have.

(4) the reaction of the characters is one i frequently have (not engaging, walking away) and i think it was communicated well in this scene why they reacted the way they did.

this was significant to me.

reading that, i got the impression that M had discussed this with BIPOC in their life and listened when they shared their experiences. that impression turned out to be accurate, though i didn’t have confirmation of this at the time i read the fic.

(conclusion) if i thought that any of these four things weren’t handled well, i would’ve brought my thoughts to M directly because it is important that these conversations happen. it’s also important that white writers listen. from where i’m standing, M has been open to those conversations with others, on or off anon. i believe that they do take this feedback to heart; and that they were taking steps to remedy those things — prior to being bullied off the platform at the end of april.

why ✨ i ✨ have a problem

i’ve discussed this issue already here, but i’ll elaborate further.

i have no reason whatsoever to believe that these anons are/were looking for changed behavior or remedial action because they continued to harass M — on M's blog, through the hate blog, and on the blogs of literally any person who has so much as perceived them — when M was addressing the issue. based on that, i have serious doubts that these anons care about the issue of racism the way they purport to. worse, they’re now harassing BIPOC in their inboxes and on the aforementioned hate blog.

on park jimin's internet, no less!

i haven’t spent much time discussing the substantive issue (hence this post) but have been very vocal about how shitty the anons’ behavior is. again, see here for the only take i’ve posted thus far (spoiler alert: cyberbullying is bad.)

for reasons that aren’t clear to me, that take resulted in metric ton of shit in my inbox. here’s a small sampling of what i've been forced to read with my own two (2) eyes in the past 24 hours:

*i did not include screenshots of other users’ inboxes in which anon messages reference me, or untagged submissions on the hate blog that very clearly allude to me.

at some point ?? they were mad about racism ?? but now the racism ?? is calling from inside the house ??????

and one last thing before i go touch grass….

i have reason to believe that this entire situation was orchestrated by small people with big feelings about M as a person, not about what they wrote. that’s not my story to tell, though, so i won’t.

when this shit kicked up, the majority of us who were/are being harassed installed IP trackers on our blogs because the identity of these people was suspected but not confirmed. that means we can see who they are, what they do on our blogs, and how many times per day they view our blogs (hint: a lot). we know that they are jumping from one blog to another as if they’re stopping on a goddamn mail route.

some of us (myself included) have alerts set to notify us via email when they pop by for a visit.

their presence on my blog this week lines up with the hostile and blatantly racist anonymous messages i’ve been receiving. i don’t think that’s a coincidence.

they’re either the ones sending them, or they’re lurking to see if/how i react to these messages.

that’s categorically fucked up.

#jade speaks #jade engages in discourse #psa #tw racism #tw harassment #tw bullying

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