💮Meka💮

I did go and watch the 20 minute segment of that stream, and think this is actually a great conversation to have, since I believe the core of his intentions are valid...but then he kept going... If you SOLELY blame a lack of growth or not doing well in the creator space on who you are such as your race, or doom yourself with a mindset that "because I'm x I won't be able to succeed in things" you are putting yourself through a mental obstacle that can prevent you from really putting your best foot forward and doing the best you can. Now what lost me entirely was the entire denial and ignorance to say that there are no disadvantages to people just because there's some bad apples out there that will "throw rocks" when it's much deeper than that when there are SYSTEMIC issues that affect many of us in ANY field, space, fandom, community, etc. I literally can go on for hours on the bs that we have to go through, because its further than just content creation/the internet this shit is literally REAL LIFE... A take like "if you're good enough at your job, you'll fly" is something that sounds great and anyone who puts the work in should be rewarded for such, but we are deadass in a time with an administration that ACTIVELY peeled through every form of our government to remove QUALIFIED black individuals to be replaced with less qualified white people??? They cheer for the dismantling of DEI and we're gonna pretend we don't hear? And to step outta the government realm even normal jobs actively avoid from hiring certain kinds of people or try to get them fired in numerous ways? Whether it be in corporate, STEM, etc. What was absolutely tone deaf was "If a trans man made the wheel, do you think people wouldn't drive" people can achieve many things but it does not whatsoever refute the issues they deal with. For example there are COUNTLESS black inventions that are used TODAY by the most racist people alive. Do they know a black person made it? Hell no. Did the creator have to deal with the same, no, WORSE racism as they struggled through their lives to get things done way back then? Absolutely. They've dealt with not having the same access to education, paying WHITE actors to pretend to be them just to get patents made/their inventions respected, etc. And you have to understand that even today there are plenty of systems that we both can and CANNOT see behind closed doors that keep groups of people down. To narrow back in on content creation specifically, even the black creators mentioned are outliers in the space. On the streaming side of things Twitch has been around for what 15 years? And it took until the last few years for the biggest ones around to be black creators. Speed may be MASSIVE, but plenty of us have seen how the world views him with the way so many of these countries treated him, even during the World Cup? And even online there's a deeper conversation many people have talked about how black people tend to have the most reaction images(such as someone as animated as Speed) and how it can intersect with racism and minstrel showcases. CoryxKenshin was name dropped as well which is such a wild example given even though he is not only one of the BIGGEST black youtubers, but he's massive in general yet literally made a video about the racism he's experienced compared to how his white peers are treated in the space??? Just because you don't see or experience certain issues does not mean it doesn't exist, and to say it's only something vtubers do or say was an odd take too since it's unfortunately engrained in everything. Final thing I wanted to address was the immediate irritation and denial he had when told "Being black and queer isn't the same as being white and queer". While the LGBT community is a group of people discriminated against, being a part of that community while BLACK is much more charged as you have multiple levels to be discriminated against?? How is that concept confusing? This is known enough for there to be a running meme of how there are actively some people in the LGBT space who claim to be inclusive but end up being racist as hell😭 Anyhow TL;DR, the whole point of this is to educate that yes, plenty of minorities and suppressed groups CAN work hard enough to reach their goals, and it's also WEIRD if anyone tries to tell you you'll have a hard time succeeding because you're x, but it's uneducated and ignorant to rule out the fact that there are both systems we can and cannot see surface level that are ACTUAL obstacles on our success and opportunities, so it's important to put our best foot forward in spite of that. If you can learn from this situation that would be great, but if anyone firmly believes these things are all bullshit even after reading this you can go ahead and refrain from speaking to me.