brigid | Is this racist?

Originally published at brigidkeely.com/wordpress. You can comment here or there.

Let me lay this out for you, and then tell me if you think it’s racist or not.

Let’s say there’s a book, or series of books. Virtually all the characters in the series are white. The series is then made into a tv show, and one of the white characters (character A) is made Black.

In the series, A is successful and self made. She has her own business. In the tv show, A is barely able to keep a job because of her bad attitude and winds up becoming a bartender and having a sexual relationship with her boss.

In the tv show, A is the only character who comes from a fucked up single parent background. Yes, a white parent is a single mother, but she was apparently married when she had her kids and is now divorced. Further, A’s mother is a rampaging hot mess of an abusive alcoholic who kind of acts like a crack head. A was primarily raised by the main character’s (white) family.

In the tv show, A and her mother (who, again, are Black) go to a voodoo witch doctor out in the woods because A’s mom is convinced she “has a demon in her” and needs an exorcism. Although a skeptic, A becomes convinced that she, also, needs an exorcism and has the Black voodoo witch doctor perform it out in the middle of the woods.

A admits she is “fucked up” and has “self esteem problems.” Frequently.

A speaks her mind and is outspoken in general. Is she confident, or is she A Sassy Black Woman?

In the book series, B is a Black male who has no relationship to A, who is white. In the tv series, A and B are cousins, apparently because all Black people are related?

B, the Black male, is a flamboyant gay man who wears nail polish and clip on earrings, has sex for money, has a pornographic web site, and sells a lot of drugs, including Vampire blood. He has sex with a Vampire in order to get the Vampire blood, which he both uses and sells.

B talks about “juujuu,” tying him in with A and her mother’s voodoo witch doctor woodland exorcism.

A is one of the more complex and compelling characters in the tv show. She’s raw and wounded and in everyone’s face about it, and nowhere near as passive as a lot (most?) of the other characters. B is also really interesting, and his character seems to be one of the most real on the show; perhaps because of the personality of the actor or something. He’s not a huge character, but he definitely has presence and a very well developed sense of character. I like both the characters, in fact like them a lot more than the main characters on the show. But they seem to fall into a lot of racist tropes.

Unemployable! Superstitious! Sassy! Prey to drug use! Sexually loose! Broken families!

I haven’t read the book series, but was talking about the tv show with two different people who’d read the books but hadn’t seen the show (or had only seen one or two episodes). I asked a few questions about A, then about B as well, and the responses were pretty much “what.” regarding the changes.