Okay, anon. I get that you’re trying your best to not be racist here, and I appreciate that. With that said, let’s go over some problematic approaches with your reasoning.
You say Bro obviously can’t be anything other than white (or at the very least, not black) because “he’s got blond hair” and “is obsessed with anime”.
The latter statement is utterly ridiculous. Because someone’s black, they can’t enjoy anime? Bullshit. I’m going to assume you meant that YOU don’t know any black people that are obsessed with anime. Which is fine. I myself don’t know any Japanese people obsessed with country music. Does that mean they don’t, OR CAN’T exist??? It sure fucking doesn’t.
And for your information, there are PLENTY of black people that LOVE anime. I and most of my extended family, for example, love anime. And multiple black students in my school’s anime club. Basically, what I’m saying is, if you don’t know a black person who’s in love with anime, it’s either because you don’t know a lot of black people, or you haven’t been looking hard enough. (Or you’re friends with someone online who loves anime but hasn’t brought up the fact that they’re black yet. Wow, that sure is a thing that is possible!!!)
Secondly, Dirk can’t be black because his hair is blonde??? REALLY??? For your information, black people bleaching their hairto achieve blondenessis INSANELY popular. Even if it wasn’t, there are plenty of people with skin dark enough to be classified as “black” withnaturalblondhair! This is due to a little thing discovered in the mid 1800’s called GENETICS. When “black” and “white” genetics combine, all of the white person’s lovely white genes don’t get flushed down the toilet or even chopped up in the blender with icky, nasty brown people genes. Yes, “white” genes are usually recessive (blond hair, blue eyes, booty shrinkage, the ability to turn down fried chicken and watermelon, etc etc), but they can still be passed down, untouched for multiple generations, and pop up later when it’s convenient. It happens all the time. In fact, there was an interracial couple who had a set of twin boys, one black and one “white” by all appearances. (Yes, they were both DNA tested and affirmed to be directly related to their black father - no infidelity here!) So that point is moot.
Now let’s get in the thick of canon happenings and whatnot. I am wholly aware of that one page where John describes Beta Dirk as “white guy who is a rapper with a ventriloquist doll”. But guess what? It doesn’t matter. WORD OF GOD says the kids are whatever race, color, or creed we want. That page was written before Hussie found out he wanted the kids to be aracial to prevent PoC fans (or even people with the GALL to portray any of the kids as black!) from being harassed by racist asshats. He’s actually changed it once before, but had to change it back because various fucktards flipped their respective shit. (And he probably didn’t want to scour the comic for other things implying race because that would get tedious and he was still actually WRITING the damn story.)
Even if this wasn’t the case, and Hussie never said the thing about aracial kids… so??? Why should that keep me from cosplaying a character I love? I’m black. Sorry. Not much I can change about that, even if I wanted to (which I DEFINITELY DON’T). Why should I have to limit myself to a few characters you deem appropriate for my skin color??? (Also, REALLY? All of the Dersites? Really? Okay, wow, not going to get into that. It’ll take me a whole other hour to get into why those suggestions were problematic.) I’m fucking grown. I can cosplay whoever the FIDDLY FRACK I want, regardless of my skin tone or what other people think.
So in short:
Seriously, will people give up on the whole “Oh you can’t cosplay that” thing? For fuck’s sake.
People gonna cosplay whatever the hell they like and it’s going to make them happy doing it and you’ve got no place throwing a tantrum over something that makes somebody happy just because your mental image of that thing is a couple shades lighter.
Let’s lid the asshattery, thanks.
Cosplayers of all colours and sizes are valuable to the cosplay community. The last thing we need is less variety.
