What do you think of the people who use “coded as black, therefore it’s problematic” etc. argument for certain non-human characters, like gems from SU or trolls from HS? Me personally I just don’t get it, like they’re not even human, they don’t have a race?…
‘Coded black’ characters are super important for representation of diversity in media. Its important to hire actors from all races and backgrounds, and its super important to show to children that non-white features are beautiful and universal, and that white features are not the ‘default’ for beings that look human.
However, in a narrative/literary context, as well as in a fictionkin context a character whose physical features, manner of speaking, or personality are coded a certain way, but whose backstory and culture are generic or divergent from that coding, it should not be problematic to consider that non-human character not a POC in the way that we understand the term.
Take Meenah from Homestuck for example. Some people have said that she is ‘coded black’ due to some of her dialogue using human aave/’urban slang’, and the fact that she wears a lot of gaudy jewelry.
However, not only is she not drawn with any “stereotypical black” features, she as a character has no experience of blackness. She’s a princess from an alien race that grew up in privilege and luxury, and is in fact considered the genetic superior of all the other varieties of people from the culture that she comes from.
She is not of African descent, has never experienced discrimination due to her race (or other inborn features that might in the narrative be used to parallel being discriminated by race), and she was not raised in any kind of analog to black culture. Considering her a black character is fine, but its as arbitrary as considering her a white character or a Chinese character. She’s none of these things. She’s a non-human alien.
