I want to preface this by saying that there absolutely are white supremacists, racists, and other unsavory people using anime avatars, and that I in no way endorse their beliefs or views. I am, and have always been a liberal, and a firm believer that neither a person's skin color, ethnicity, religion, or even interests and hobbies, are grounds for discriminating them, or considering them as somehow "less human."
I am, myself, also a member of an underrepresented population, as I am gender fluid/genderqueer, though I lived, worked, and generally existed as a woman (I'm biologically male), up to and including having legally changed my name from male to female, for four years. However, I later realized that I am not as much transgendered/transexual, as a I am, again, gender fluid/genderqueer. I faced harassment every year I lived as a woman, up to and including being groped and having the skirt of my dress lifted by a group of men at a Halloween party.
Having made that preface, let me just say I have been an anime fan since I was probably 10. I own over 50 full anime series, plus movies, on DVD and Blu Ray. My first anime was Galaxy Express 999, which I caught on Toonami way back in the day and resulted in my falling in love with the medium. I'm 33 now. Anime has been hugely influential in my life, as the worlds, characters, lore, technology, magic, and stories of them have been some of my foremost inspirations as a writer and artist, up there with video games, movies, and books.
I am not a racist, nor have I ever held white supremacist beliefs or supported racist causes. As I said, I am a firm believer in equality between people of all ethnicities, skin colors, genders, classes, etc. and hope that someday, I will be in a professional or financial situation where I will personally and directly be able to do something, whether manually through work or financially through my income, to further the cause of promoting justice and equality for everyone, especially among non-white, non-cisgendered populations.
I have not read this whole topic, but I take great offense to the broad strokes some people are using to paint all anime fans as socially awkward, mother's basement dwellers, etc. up to and including being racists.
The people making these statements are not acting like progressive, equality-supporting individuals if they are using broad strokes to paint people at all.
Racism and prejudice, though far, far, far more severe than making broad, sweeping statements about anime fans is using roughly the same mechanism as these people are using to classify all anime fans as being socially awkward, up to and including racist.
They are generalizations applied to people, and the disparaging statements applied equally to all anime fans, regardless of said fans' own personal beliefs or actions, are basically 'prejudice light,' in that the people making the statements are pre-judging all anime fans and not basing statements about them on the specifics of individuals, but to a single trait -- in this case liking anime.
How can you call yourself progressive if you are judging everyone who partakes in something as shallow as a hobby the same way? Isn't being a liberal about standing up for injustice and calling out those who support inequality and injustice, not about judging people about what media they enjoy?
Saying "all anime fans are _____" is no different than someone saying "all gamers are _____" or "all sports fans are _____." Explain to me how this is productive or justifiable?
Yes, there are many horrible people -- racists, white supremacists, sexists, etc. -- who watch anime and use anime avatars online. But that conversely does not mean that all anime fans are horrible people, as racists, sexists, or what have you.
Additionally, I personally see white supremacists co-opting anime characters to represent themselves online as a form of cultural appropriation. These people are using characters from a traditionally Japanese media, watched by fans of anime culture around the world.
Since when is cultural appropriation the fault of the thing being appropriated and not on the individual appropriators?
Anime in and of itself is not evil. Yes, it can be sexist, as there are anime out there that depict women as little more than eye candy or sex objects, and I assume some anime can even be racist (though I have not experienced this). But that does not mean all anime are those things, or that all anime is bad.
It's fine to not like anime. But anime is no different than things like gaming or sports, in that it is a form of entertainment. Anime is made and watched by people, just like how video games are made and played by people, and how sports are played and watched by people. And as we know, people can be awful. There are racists and white supremacists who make and play video games, who play and watch sports. But you don't see people saying things like "video games are evil" or "sports are evil" on the internet as much as you see people saying an analogue of "anime is evil." Why is that?
Anyway, in closing, please think before you judge a person for something as shallow as a hobby. Judge them instead (if you must judge them at all) for what they believe, say, and do in their lives. Judge a white supremacist for being a white supremacist, not for being an anime fan. How is a white supremacist using an anime character as an avatar any different than one using a character from a video game, or the logo of their favorite sports team, as their avatar?
Thank you for reading.
