this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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[–] ThunderWhiskers -2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

But is it enough just to swap the skin color? IMO, it is not. You have to represent the culture as well. So you change the family dynamics, the character background, relationship dynamics etc...

How is this not racist?

"Racism: noun - a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement..."

Can Peter Parker not be black and have experienced everything that white Peter did? Shit, can Peter Parker not be black and adopted by a white Aunt May and Uncle Ben?

[–] VelvetStorm 6 points 9 months ago

Because black people are treated pretty differently in the usa than white people are and to deny that is pretty racist.

[–] Rineloi 5 points 9 months ago

Because sadly the world doesnt work that way. Imagibe if you had a black peter parker in segregation era. Could Peter be black and still go through the exact same things? And i am not saying that because being black inherently different. Its just that black people go through different hardships due to inherent racism in america. It is not racist to say people with different backgrounds have different cultures and values.

And there are cases where this is not important, for example in the new batman film we had a black Jim Gordon and it was great. But again that is just my opinion.

[–] daltotron 3 points 9 months ago

I really don't understand why this is getting downvotes. Like, sure, you maybe open up the character to a racism storyline now, or racial character explorations, which is good, and you couldn't do some of that subject matter with a white peter (or with a white author, probably, as, double-sided, taking on those storylines is playing with fire sometimes), but it's not a necessary thing, that every black character has to experience some racist trauma.

Lots of media is aspirational. Part of that is being able to imagine a world where not every racial minority has to experience weird racist comments to the degree that it works its way into being a primary aspect of their personhood. I would say, if you were to advocate for every minority character to broach this subject matter, that would also be problematic, and you would also be tokenizing every minority character in a weird and fucked up way. It's not "denying racism exists" to portray a black peter parker that doesn't struggle with, like, extreme character defining racism, or even like, any racism at all. You can also just choose to have that aspect of the story be ignored, or assumed, like how 99% of characters in media don't ever stop to take a shit.