Korra Is Not Tan

Deedee: Submission Ask (All my responses will be under a quote bracket)

Sorry for the late response!  I just wanted to point out a few more things, for I love a good intellectual discussion. =) “From what I’ve researched Korra is the first WOC in an American action cartoon geared toward boys.”  I think this is great, too!  Hopefully we will be able to continue progressing.  ”Drawing her the wrong color makes her less BAMF” and then ” is degrading to her as a character”, I think you are mixing up ‘media figure’ with ‘character’. While it is great from a media standpoint that a darker skinned heroine is taking to the screen, it does not change the type of character she is - neither does her gender, really.  In the Avatarverse, she is badass because of her actions, not her skintone or gender.  While this, of course, doesn’t usually extend to the real world, the people in Avatar don’t say “wow I can’t believe this darkskinned girl is breaking stereotypes”, but rather “holy fuck did she just toss that guy into a clock shop?”  Do you see what I’m trying to get at?

What I have to say about this. I actually have a lot. Korra in her society is special because she is the Avatar. As the avatar has the ability to be any gender, and any race that exists in their world. Race and gender aren’t as important as the ability to bend. 

But just because it’s not important in THEIR world, doesn’t automaticly make it unimportant in our world. 

I don’t know about everyone else but when I grew up I saw a lot of people that looked like me. Either as main characters in cartoons or live actions shows. I wasn’t confined to just watching shows on BET as I was able to see black people everywhere. 

And before anyone says “KORRA IS NOT BLAQUEASDFLASJ” I understand. But she IS brown. She’s a middle brown that a lot of people can relate to as her shade of brown is in just about every racial group in the world. I’m dark skinned but my little brother and boyfriend are her shade of brown. Also some of my good friends who are non black Dominican are her shade of brown. She’s an inuit and there are asians that are her shade of brown. Middle eastern people come in her shade of brown. Arabic people come in her shade of brown. Indian people come in her shade of brown. If they are non-white, chances are there are a good chunk of people in that society that are her shade of brown. 

Her skin color is able to make her relatable to a LARGER demograpic and makes her a childhood role model for many children who are going to grow up watching her on tv. Espcially all the little girls that only get cool action heroines that are white women. 

So just because her skin doesn’t matter in the show, doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter IRL. 

 I do agree that whitewashing is wrong, but you are putting a lot of emphasis on artist’s portrayal of the character.  Usually (and this is not typically considered a good artistic practice), the painters do what is called ‘mirroring’, subconsciously placing themselves into what they are drawing, especially if they can identify themselves with the character.  It’s not their way of saying “Korra can only be awesome if she is my skincolor,” because that would make zero sense.  Hopefully it came from their lack of research and other elements I will discuss below.

((=_____= I feel like I’ve said this before a lot so sorry for the half assed response. We really need to make a FAQ for this))

Artist draw her lighter, regardless of reason, need to understand that it is wrong. 

Mirroring one’s lighter skin on to a brown skinned character is saying subconsciously that she is better as a character if she was more white, more desirable and worthy of my talent if she was lighter. 

“The fact her skin tone isn’t seen as something worth remembering” is again a conflict between character and media representation.  It just means the artist’s foremost thought wasn’t how great it is that this main character’s skin color is very progressive, but that she is the Avatar from the Southern Water Tribe.

Either way. She’s still a brown skinned character. Southern whitetribe or Inuit. 

The artist foremost thought NEEDS to be how awesome it is to have a dark skinned character like that. Because when they forget, we get whitewashed characters. 

You should try not make harsh judgements on the artists because of their priorities when it comes to remembering a character, especially if they don’t understand what your project is.

Again. Not putting her skin tone in the front of their minds when they draw her wrong because we get whitewashed art.

Our project- DLOTB, Stopwhitewashing, and the other blogs that are anti whitewashing wouldn’t exist if art whitewashed art didn’t exist. 

 Most people I know do not care what color people’s skin is.  Being different ethnicities has not stopped us from being the greatest of friends.  I guess because it is so downgraded where I am in life, it shaped what I believe to be true for other people.  Maybe I’m giving people the benefit of the doubt by thinking this, but try to keep people like that in mind, who don’t see ethnicity as a deciding factor, when you are critiquing them.

I’m actually not to suprised you brought colorblindness into this after some of the things you’ve said. 

Here is an exert from wikipedia so that better expains it

“Critics assert that color blindness allows people to ignore the racial construction of whiteness, and reinforces its privileged and oppressive position. In colorblind situations, whiteness remains the normal standard, and blackness remains different, or marginal.^[7] As a result, white people are able to dominate when a color blind approach is applied because the common experiences are defined in terms which white people can more easily relate to than blacks.^[8] Insistence on no reference to race, critics argue, means black people can no longer point out the racism they face.^[7]

Sociologists such as Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of Duke University and Ashley Doane of the University of Hartford describe color-blindness as a dominant “racial ideology”, or as Bonilla-Silva explains, “the collective understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world”.^[9] He also explains that we have this new racial ideology because of events that occurred between the 1940s and 1960s that led to a change in the racial structure of the United States.^[10] Thus he stresses that studying the ideologies of color-blindness is not about accusing or blaming individual people, “of finding good and bad people”, but rather looking at the “collective” understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world”.^[9] Bonilla- Silva examines the most salient “frames” of these alternative racial ideologies and of color-blind racism. They are abstract liberalism (e.g. statements such as “I am all for equal opportunity and that’s why I oppose affirmative action”),”biologization of culture” (e.g. “Blacks are poor because they do not have the proper values”), naturalization of matters that reflect the effects of white supremacy (e.g. “Neighborhood segregation is a sad but natural thing since people want to live with people who are like them”), and minimization of racism and discrimination (e.g. statements such as “There are racists out there but they are few and hard to find”).^[9]”

 Informing them about how much you care about this subject and why it is important is great, but a condescending tone will make you seem like you are only doing this to ridicule people.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s good if you’re informing the artists about your feelings and helping them, but when you act rude, the true message is lost.

This is tone policing. Our message should not be lost or ignored because we are angry and upset. 

-

http://damnlayoffthebleach.tumblr.com/post/20475261757#notes

Please read this quote

 ”Because for all our lives as POC we’ve been told to just suck up our feelings and get on with our lives. Because our voices won’t change anything.”  I do not know who told you that, but I am very sorry.  Your use of the passive voice suggests that the entity that told you this is not something finite [correct me if I am wrong] and most likely has something to do with society in general.  Things will get better!  That is my personal believe, at least.

That’s the point though…

If it was just one or two people saying, “Oh hush, your brown people problems are not that bad, I mean, look over -insert people struggling in 3rd world country- they have it bad” it’s not that big of a deal and I can just ignore them. 

But that’s not that case

It IS society. As I love in society, I’m a product of society. I have been told by said society that my problems don’t matter. 

That’s as a black person my problems don’t exist, are not important, are not worth fixing and I should be grateful for what I have. 

I’m not just gonna be grateful when I want other’s eat from the main table of life while I get the scraps. 

Things will get better. 

Sigh.

The thing is. People say things will get better but I personally am not seeing it. 

I prefer the term:

Things may not get better but I promise you won’t go through it alone. 

Because really, the only thing that’s changing is what socially acceptable to hate. As long as it’s okay to hate it in the open, people will do it. They will still be racist, sexist, homophobic, ect in private and will still pass it to their kids and they will pass it to their children. 

They will change the definition of racism and the lot so they don’t fall under those terms as being an -ist. 

So it’s not getting better, just more people are coming together to fight it and comfort the suffers. 

Woah I really went on and on with this. @-@ Sorry for the wall of text, I didn’t intend for it to get this long.  I hope this makes sense and is not seen as a personal attack.  There is one thing all fans can agree on - that Legend of Korra is an extraordinary show and I can’t wait to see where the creators will go with it!