Shipping Characters of Color (or not, actually)

[allyndra]

So, I've been reading a lot of blogs about race, both in general and in fandom, and I'm trying to become aware of and confront my own skanky race issues. I remember discussion over the fact that people don't ship characters of color as much as white characters. And it drew me up short, because I don't. Chad/Ryan was my first inter-racial OTP, and that's pretty darn recent. All the approval-seeking by Ford never made me want to ship him with John, and even though Ronon is the hottest character ever to grace SGA, I take Rodney over him every time. I do like Gunn (and want him slashed with Xander), but I tend to overlook him. But I could, to some extent, brush this off. Everyone has favorite characters and pairings, and the fact that my pairings tended to exclude characters of color could just be a coincidence.

Then I watched Iron Man. I don't think I'm spoiling anything when I say that Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) and James Rhodes (Terence Howard) had a close friendship. And lately, I watch everything through slash goggles. Still, despite Tony and Rhodes showing emotional connection, long-term friendship, and a willingness to express affection physically, I didn't have any urge to slash them. And that bothers me. If Rhodes had been played by an attractive white man instead of an attractive person of color, I would probably be frantically searching for the Iron Man slash.

The thing is, if I'm just dismissing interesting, attractive characters out of hand because of their color, how do I fix that? Awareness is usually considered the first step, but what is the second? Should I challenge myself to write more characters of color? Make an extra point of giving fic featuring those characters a chance? I'm going to try both of those, but if anyone has other suggestion, let me know.

Comments

[dancinbutterfly.livejournal.com]

I dont know man. For me Rhodey/Tony was BEGGING to be written. And when i first got into SGA? Ford/Shep was my OTP. Seriously, it wasnt until...gosh, season 2 that I finally noticed Rodney for Sheppard. Wes/Gunn's been my OTP since forever so...I really dont know. For me its all about chemistry not color.

My Marvel comic ship of ALL TIME? Virgil Hawkins(Static Shock)/Richy Foley(Gear) and in that fandom? its fucking obvious that there's racism. Everyone ships Richy with a white nemesis over his black best friend and confidant. I mean....I just dont get it.