Racebending.com

March 10, 2013 • 7,254 notes • angellyfish

boxlunches:

angellyfish:

This little girl was one of my favorite cosplayers of all of ECCC. After we took the first photo, she said she didn’t wanted to fight and wanted to smile instead. I loved her!

Princess. Hulk. I love kids

Omg adorbs

(via aragingquiet)

November 20, 2012 • 7 notes

Q

What is your personal opinion about cosplayers darkening their skin to cosplay a character of a different race? Because it seems like it would be more offensive for a white person to cosplay Nick Fury and not darken their skin. Then again what do I know.

hechu

A

This is a YMMV situation. I assume you’re saying “but what do I know” as a way of admitting ignorance (lack of knowledge, not stupidity) and curiosity about the opinions of others, not because it is sometimes used as a manipulative way to cushion a statement about an —-ism… If that’s the case, then essentially, it’s this: You have identified a white person cosplaying one of very few characters of color as potentially “offensive.” If that is the case, how is putting on darkening make up (which has been traditionally used to convey racism, especially in costume) supposed to mitigate that? In other words…why would adding a costuming practice with tons of racism-related baggage to your cosplay somehow make your cosplay LESS racially problematic?

October 6, 2012 • 1,133 notes • puzzlegirlsandpoprocks

inbetweenthelineart:

negroism:

racebending:

pokemonmasterkimba:

racebending:

fangshinobi:

butts-with-bro-shades:

puzzlegirlsandpoprocks:

Hello there, this is Becky. Say hi Becky!

Becky has decided to enter into the hellish world of cosplaying, GOOD FOR YOU BECKY!

Now, Becky had decided to make the controversial decision to cosplay as a POC who just happens to be brown skinned. And I know what you are thinking, it’s just a costume, it shouldn’t matter who wears it right? Hahahahahah… no. Dark Skinned POC are treated like freaks at many conventions when they Cosplay as a light skinned person, getting called disgusting racist names or their costume is all wrong because of their skin when they probably have the best made costume out there. It wouldn’t hurt Becky to think about that before she dons the costume of a brown skinned POC and understand her privilege allows her to wear the costume without a problem and instead chose one of the thousands of light skinned people instead of the hand full of brown and dark out of respect. But that’s not the issue here!

Now Becky believes her costume is not accurate enough. Now anyone with two brain cells can see she is missing arm bands and a few other minor things. But wait! Becky isn’t even thinking about those things and is concerned with her skin tone and decided to change her skin to better match the character.

Becky. Is. Wrong.

People of Color are not costume, contrary to popular belief. Becky has no right to wear the skin of a POC for a day without the actual oppression and racism that goes along with being a POC. This is brown facing, a recent hate child of black facing, red facing and yellow facing. And regardless of intent. It’s racist. It will always be racist.

So here are some rules for Becky and maybe some of you should do that same

DON’T

Wear body paint to mimic skin tone

DON’T

Go out tanning to mimic skin tone

DON’T

Get a fake tan to mimic skin tone

DON’T

Use darker makeup to mimic skin tone

Follow these rules and don’t end up like Becky!

Jesus tits its a fucking costume its just about accuracy, not “wearing the skin” of another race. I grew up in south L.A., racism goes both ways.

Even as a brown person, I am not that offended as much. But can’t we take in mind that there are brown people who are as offended of brownface as black people offended by blackface? Just saying.

Apparently not.

“This is brown facing, a recent hate child of black facing, red facing and yellow facing.”

Except, you know, it’s not a hate child since it isn’t done out of hate but rather love for this person. Blackface was performed in order to de-humanize the people and mock them, that’s not what I see happening if someone decides to tan their skin for cosplay.

//opinion, bring on the hate; I know it’s coming.

You don’t have to consciously hate someone to perform an act that invalidates racial identities and/or experiential realities. Ignorance towards inflicting harm can be just as dehumanizing as conscious infliction of harm.

You add the note “bring on the hate, I know it’s coming”… to your post—as if you are bracing yourself, expecting to be called out. By your logic, that is “hate,” but brownfacing is not?

Why fight so hard to continue doing something that is obviously offending people?

What you’re (people who are defending brownface/blackface with no malice) saying is that pretending/costuming is more important than people and THAT’S where the “hate” comes in. Disregarding people for a make-believe realm. That’s some shit right there and I’m not here for it.

“WHY FIGHT SO HARD TO CONTINUE DOING SOMETHING THAT IS OBVIOUSLY OFFENDING PEOPLE?”

This is what I don’t understand. If you scoff at PoC who tell you “Please stop, this is racist and disrespectful to my feelings and the feelings of my fellow PoC” and you respond with “I’m not being racist or disrespectful, and I’m not going to stop because it’s just for fun and I love the character” you are putting your “fun” and the love of a character over the thoughts and feelings of people whose thoughts and feelings get trampled on all the fucking time. You ARE being disrespectful. YOU. ARE. DOING. EXACTLY. WHAT. THEY. SAY. YOU. ARE. DOING. AND ALL BECAUSE YOU WANT TO “HAVE FUN”. I’m sorry, but that’s just as bad as being racist with the intent to be racist.

I reblogged something yesterday that I think is extremely relevant to this and I’m going to paste the image here so you can see it right here without having to click away from this post:

I used to think this way. I will admit this: I used a tanning lotion and dark foundation when I cosplayed Kya (Sokka and Katara’s mother) at NYCC in 2009. I thought “Hey, this will make my cosplay slightly more accurate because I am pale as fuck!” But you know what…it didn’t. My face looked terrible, and my hands and neck weren’t even the same shade as my face. I looked EXACTLY like what I was: a white woman trying to pass as a brown woman. What most people don’t understand is that people with darker skin tones have distinct facial features that no amount of dark makeup can replicate without the aid of prosthetics. And even with prosthetics, it still looks off (see: Cloud Atlas and every other film that uses black/yellow/brown/red face). Ethnicity is not a costume and should not be treated as such. And yes, the races in ATLA/LoK are based on REAL ethnicities…even Roger Ebert pointed this out:

After the miscalculation of making the movie as live action, there remained the challenge of casting it. Shyamalan has failed. His first inexplicable mistake was to change the races of the leading characters; on television Aang was clearly Asian, and so were Katara and Sokka, with perhaps Mongolian and Inuit genes. Here they’re all whites. This casting makes no sense because (1) It’s a distraction for fans of the hugely popular TV series, and (2) all three actors are pretty bad. I don’t say they’re untalented, I say they’ve been poorly served by Shyamalan and the script. They are bland, stiff, awkward and unconvincing. Little Aang reminds me of Wallace Shawn as a child. This is not a bad thing (he should only grow into Shawn’s shoes), but doesn’t the role require little Andre, not little Wally?

So don’t start that “Oh, it’s just fantasy” bullshit. M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter was so excited when she saw Katara because she finally had a character she loved that looked like her, a brown girl, and she dressed as her for Halloween. I cannot even begin to wrap my brain around why he forgot how important the race of the WT people was to his daughter (and many others) when he cast The Last Airbender.

I am extremely ashamed of what I did, and I apologize to everyone now, out here in the open. I was wrong to treat a WoC’s skin as a costume piece. And HEY LOOK AT THAT, admitting this did not kill me, and I feel so much better for acknowledging that what I did was wrong and I never did it again. For NYCC 2010, I did not alter my skin color when I cosplayed Katara. And you know what, 99 times out of 100, people appreciated the craftsmanship that I put into the costume and said nothing about the fact that my skin was “the wrong color”. Yes, there was ONE person who coughed “KATARAISN’TWHITE” as I passed by her, but you know something, that was only one time. Cosplayers of color get that type of shit said to them ALL THE TIME should they dare cosplay a white character. I have never once seen a PoC wear “whiteface” to cosplay a white character, and I’m willing to bet that they sure as hell don’t want to even try. They would most likely get comments like “It’s funny how you’re trying so hard to be white” “Oh, wow, are you not proud of your skin color?” or even things that I am not comfortable typing out, but you can probably imagine. Far worse, I think, than a white cosplayer in brownface being told that “Hey, the way you are wearing my skin color is offensive to me. Please stop.” ~~Racism goes both ways my ass….~~

Skin color is VERY closely tied to racial identity, excluding skin tones that obviously do not exist in real life like leaf green or apple red or sunshine yellow. Eye color and hair color are not. THEREFORE, black/brown/red/yellow face should not be compared to wearing contacts or dying your hair or wearing a wig. Any natural eye color and any natural hair color are traits that can appear in any ethnicity, they are not race exclusive.

I’ve ranted for quite a while on this, but the bottom line is, will it KILL you to put your “100% accurate cosplay funtiems” feelings aside and simply NOT DO what you are doing because it is causing emotional pain to real people? No. No it won’t. And I’m pretty sure a lot of people will be extremely grateful for that.

October 6, 2012 • 1,133 notes • puzzlegirlsandpoprocks

pokemonmasterkimba:

racebending:

fangshinobi:

butts-with-bro-shades:

puzzlegirlsandpoprocks:

Hello there, this is Becky. Say hi Becky!

Becky has decided to enter into the hellish world of cosplaying, GOOD FOR YOU BECKY!

Now, Becky had decided to make the controversial decision to cosplay as a POC who just happens to be brown skinned. And I know what you are thinking, it’s just a costume, it shouldn’t matter who wears it right? Hahahahahah… no. Dark Skinned POC are treated like freaks at many conventions when they Cosplay as a light skinned person, getting called disgusting racist names or their costume is all wrong because of their skin when they probably have the best made costume out there. It wouldn’t hurt Becky to think about that before she dons the costume of a brown skinned POC and understand her privilege allows her to wear the costume without a problem and instead chose one of the thousands of light skinned people instead of the hand full of brown and dark out of respect. But that’s not the issue here!

Now Becky believes her costume is not accurate enough. Now anyone with two brain cells can see she is missing arm bands and a few other minor things. But wait! Becky isn’t even thinking about those things and is concerned with her skin tone and decided to change her skin to better match the character.

Becky. Is. Wrong.

People of Color are not costume, contrary to popular belief. Becky has no right to wear the skin of a POC for a day without the actual oppression and racism that goes along with being a POC. This is brown facing, a recent hate child of black facing, red facing and yellow facing. And regardless of intent. It’s racist. It will always be racist.

So here are some rules for Becky and maybe some of you should do that same

DON’T

Wear body paint to mimic skin tone

DON’T

Go out tanning to mimic skin tone

DON’T

Get a fake tan to mimic skin tone

DON’T

Use darker makeup to mimic skin tone

Follow these rules and don’t end up like Becky!

Jesus tits its a fucking costume its just about accuracy, not “wearing the skin” of another race. I grew up in south L.A., racism goes both ways.

Even as a brown person, I am not that offended as much. But can’t we take in mind that there are brown people who are as offended of brownface as black people offended by blackface? Just saying.

Apparently not.

“This is brown facing, a recent hate child of black facing, red facing and yellow facing.”

Except, you know, it’s not a hate child since it isn’t done out of hate but rather love for this person. Blackface was performed in order to de-humanize the people and mock them, that’s not what I see happening if someone decides to tan their skin for cosplay.

//opinion, bring on the hate; I know it’s coming.

You don’t have to consciously hate someone to perform an act that invalidates racial identities and/or experiential realities. Ignorance towards inflicting harm can be just as dehumanizing as conscious infliction of harm.

You add the note “bring on the hate, I know it’s coming”… to your post—as if you are bracing yourself, expecting to be called out. By your logic, that is “hate,” but brownfacing is not?

October 5, 2012 • 1,133 notes • puzzlegirlsandpoprocks

fangshinobi:

butts-with-bro-shades:

puzzlegirlsandpoprocks:

Hello there, this is Becky. Say hi Becky!

Becky has decided to enter into the hellish world of cosplaying, GOOD FOR YOU BECKY!

Now, Becky had decided to make the controversial decision to cosplay as a POC who just happens to be brown skinned. And I know what you are thinking, it’s just a costume, it shouldn’t matter who wears it right? Hahahahahah… no. Dark Skinned POC are treated like freaks at many conventions when they Cosplay as a light skinned person, getting called disgusting racist names or their costume is all wrong because of their skin when they probably have the best made costume out there. It wouldn’t hurt Becky to think about that before she dons the costume of a brown skinned POC and understand her privilege allows her to wear the costume without a problem and instead chose one of the thousands of light skinned people instead of the hand full of brown and dark out of respect. But that’s not the issue here!

Now Becky believes her costume is not accurate enough. Now anyone with two brain cells can see she is missing arm bands and a few other minor things. But wait! Becky isn’t even thinking about those things and is concerned with her skin tone and decided to change her skin to better match the character.

Becky. Is. Wrong.

People of Color are not costume, contrary to popular belief. Becky has no right to wear the skin of a POC for a day without the actual oppression and racism that goes along with being a POC. This is brown facing, a recent hate child of black facing, red facing and yellow facing. And regardless of intent. It’s racist. It will always be racist.

So here are some rules for Becky and maybe some of you should do that same

DON’T

Wear body paint to mimic skin tone

DON’T

Go out tanning to mimic skin tone

DON’T

Get a fake tan to mimic skin tone

DON’T

Use darker makeup to mimic skin tone

Follow these rules and don’t end up like Becky!

Jesus tits its a fucking costume its just about accuracy, not “wearing the skin” of another race. I grew up in south L.A., racism goes both ways.

Even as a brown person, I am not that offended as much. But can’t we take in mind that there are brown people who are as offended of brownface as black people offended by blackface? Just saying.

Apparently not.

August 22, 2012 • 116 notes • jedifreac

The Lose-Lose Situation for White Cosplayers?

jedifreac:

So, some cosplayers who are white are saying they are in a lose-lose situation when it comes to cosplaying characters of color. The argument goes like this:

If I cosplay and put on dark makeup, I am “brownfacing”

If I cosplay and don’t put on dark makeup, I am “whitewashing.”

There is a distinction between cosplaying a character and presenting yourself as the official character. And hey, being able to acknowledge that the character you are cosplaying isn’t white is already a huge step that many cosplayers who are white are unable or unwilling to make. (If one more person tells me Ichigo from Bleach is white…)

That being said, yeah, on a cursory glance with this lose-lose stuff, yeah, being white and cosplaying a character of color, no matter what you do? You are not going to be able to avoid the unavoidable racial awkwardness that comes with the territory.

(Because, history. And, because, current systemic oppressions intersect in all aspects of fandom including cosplay.)

But is it really that big of a “lose-lose” situation? Or remotely comparable? Because, the feelings of white cosplayers aside, think about it.

When a white cosplayer puts on dark makeup, it is possible that other people might point out that it makes them feel uncomfortable or that brownface is a racist act, etc.

When a PoC at a convention sees someone in brownface, it might evoke feelings of being discriminated against, or trigger that uncomfortable feeling of experiencing a microaggression, discrimination, or racism.

When a white cosplayer is dressed as a character of color, they might run into people who tell them “but your character is supposed to be brown/black/asian.”

When a PoC at a convention runs into a white person dressed as a character of color, they might be reminded blackface, brownface, yellowface, redface, of the hundreds of times people who are white have appropriated cool characters of color while sidelining PoCs in real life. Or of the subtle and overt cultural messages they have received throughout their lives that their skin color is not good enough. Or that there are not enough characters of color to cosplay.

Being put on the defensive for your costume for “something you can’t help” isn’t fun, and I’m not saying that white people should not cosplay characters of color (which is something that you technically can help, should you want to avoid having to defend your choice to cosplay characters of color.)

That being said, being told that you are brownfacing or whitewashing is—ironically enough—one of the privileges of being white and a cosplayer. By virtue of existing in a media entertainment fandom world where white actors are allowed to play characters of any race while PoC rarely get the chance to play even characters of their own race, you may occasionally be reminded of that privilege. Getting confronted like that? Definitely awkward.

But is this situation lose-lose? Anymore than the situation PoC are faced with when it comes to encountering white cosplayers of characters of color? (Especially since many PoC who express feelings of discomfort are told they are “overreacting” or “being too sensitive” or “putting people in a lose-lose situation.” aka. their concerns marginalized or worse, blamed for the discomfort they are experiencing?)

Will being told you are whitewashing or brownfacing evoke a miasma of shitty feelings similar to the ones that crop up when PoC encounter someone they perceive to be whitewashing or brownfacing? Feelings that are accumulated over time from experiencing microaggressions and systemic racism over a lifetime? Probably not.

Because of systemic racism towards PoC, white cosplayers who cosplay characters of color may be told that they are either brownfacing or whitewashing. But this systemic racism affects PoC, too.

(And to flounce and passive-aggressively say, “This is a lose-lose situation for me as a white person! I guess I won’t be cosplaying this character after all how tragic for me and unfortunate!” really ignores, again, that this situation affects—and hurts—people of color, too.)

July 28, 2012 • 19 notes

Q

May I ask a question? I don't understand why something such as coloring skin to match the character is bad, when there is also the similar problem of whitewashing where characters of color are played by whites. I am also confused as to why coloring skin a different color such as gray or blue to match the character is acceptable but changing it to a more realistic color is not. Am I being a racist butthat for feeling this way?

janedoodles

A

Just because something is “bad” (in this case, whitewashing) doesn’t make something related to it (blackface/brownface) “good.”

“Coloring skin to match the character” is bad because it’s merely an extension of “whitewashing.” Before there was whitewashing, there was brownface and blackface. To act like white character portrayers only have two options (whitewash or black/brownface) is kind of misleading. There’s also the option of not portraying a character of color at all. Or, portray them, with the understanding that blackface/brownface/darker make up is absolutely replicating historical tools of oppression and insensitive to people of color, and that you will be called out.

Essentially, adding blackface/brownface to whitewashing doesn’t make it better—it makes it more problematic. People who do not like whitewashing are not going to be happier to see blackface.

Gray and blue are not skin tones that people have in real life—skin tones that lead to people experiencing discrimination from others. As far as I am aware, no one has painted themselves blue to mock a real life race or culture; no one has painted themselves blue to take jobs form other actors, etc.

As for the question about whether or not you are a “racist butthat,” what you do and the impact it has on others is going to be more important than whether or not you are racist as a person.

There is this tendency to personalize racism (“am I a racist for thinking this way?”) that sucks attention away from the people who are affected by it (“will people be affected by my racism if I think this way?”)

June 19, 2012 • 264 notes

Why brownface cosplay doesn’t really work

Because it doesn’t make you look more like the character; it makes you look like a racial caricature of the character.

The practice of blackface and brownface is inextricably rooted in racial caricature and the use of racial caricature to discriminate and dehumanize. To engage in that legacy detracts from your cosplay— not to mention, it can also be hurtful to people who must contend with the effects of colorism in daily life.

“I think it’s one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan. It’s one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit.” -Jackson Rathbone interviewed in 2009 on playing Sokka in the Airbender adaptation. (They didn’t end up tanning him or putting him in brown make up. Even the “The Last Airbender” production, for all it’s gender and race fail, didn’t think it was a good idea to go there. ATLA Sokka’s skin tone was not a tan.)

Don’t pull a Rathbone!