An Actual Fantastic Discussion on Race and The Vampire Diaries...
If you know me at all, you'll know that this is a subject that rests very close to my heart and weighs upon it every single time there is an episode of this show. This article is really great and I have so many complicated feelings on the matter and I thought I'd share it here if anyone's interested. There are some points I find problematic and
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I loved the Carol moment. And I’m mentioning it in order to say, no one Black has said the word slavery. Carol alluded to it, and Elijah said it. But the other half of that legacy? The ones who weren’t the owners but the owned? They haven’t said it I feel like it helps in ensuring Fandom’s lack of empathy/sympathy for Bonnie. Two White people mentioned slavery. They might as well have said the sky is blue. Wtf did Stefan call Emily? A handmaiden. So you get people saying Emily and Katherine were best friends, and Emily betrayed Katherine and it’s part of witches being untrustworthy (I’m not joking. I got into a discussion with someone over this). Two White characters mentioning slavery, a table of white people talking about how Blacks found MF while one laughs and cracks a joke about it (Jenna) and another says it sounds like a ghost story (Alaric) serves in watering it down. And Damon or Stefan read that Emily was burned at the very spot where her ancestors were killed, and the most important part of that scene, the part THEY took away and therefore the audience took away, is that they’d figured out where the burial ground needed to save Elena was. I say the location of the burial ground was the most important part because….Bonnie never reacted to it! Her family founding the town, the fact that they were burned by her friends’ ancestors, the show has not.let.her.comment on it for good or ill. As a matter of fact, she’s completely detached to the burial ground because she talks about it just like the others do: dead witches, a bunch of dead witches. There’s not much personal there even though there should be. They didn’t let her talk about it with Jeremy, so you know they just weren’t interested because that boy is the one they assigned to listen to her.
It's honestly never more apparent to me that there's either not a single PoC in that writer's room or that person is either silenced or not even thinking than moments like this. Why is Bonnie not granted any sort of self-awareness of herself in that way? Why is she not granted opportunities to reflect and critique this shithole town and its obsession with glorifying an institution that oppressed and enslaved her own ancestors. And the fact that she's really sitting at the intersection of so many oppressions in this show, not just as a woman and a woman of color but as a witch. And it's an explicit choice the show made to situate those kinds of inequalities in her narrative and yet they consistently shy away from acknowledging that. It's just lazy.
I loved Carol's comment, I loved Elijah's comment about the true history being carried by slaves but it's really the show reinforcing this idea that white people can talk about race or oppression amongst themselves as if they have any right to say anything on the matter. They've had Alaric say several ignorant things tbh and I remember when he was in those caves, I did find myself questioning his qualifications.
LOL at Bonnie ever getting a chance to say that her families have more claim to being founders of MF than her peers. They wouldn't do that. And the fandom would see it as the highest form of "uppityness" and it would only give them fresh reasons to hate Bonnie for being such an angry, power-hungry bitch. I honestly think that a large part of my resentment with everything comes from my unforgotten anger at the fandom, which not only reinforces the show's implicit and explicit racism - but goes the extra mile to be even more racist. Good times.
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I mean, remember that time Caroline made that gross comment about "Indian-givers" and Bonnie gave her a look and she quickly apologized. Like, man, I would take even THAT over the non-reaction she has to every founding family bonanza. I know that by now the poor girl has probably been bludgeoned to death with it, the town will never get over its racist roots and there's no getting away from it. But for her to just be peacably watching GWTW was almost too ludicrous to bear. Not to mention her consistent exclusion from these events by virtue of her skin color and supposed non-heritage and no one talks about it. We're just supposed to look at these reenactments and giggle and talk about how pretty all the fake satin is. And it's just too problematic.
Not only does Bonnie not get to participate in these celebrations of family history, but the show fails at giving her her own things to celebrate. I’m talking about her magic. Even that’s not completely her own. For goodness’ sake the 3.15 synopsis is the first time the CW apparently couldn’t insert something like, “Needing nature’s help in his quest to defeat Klaus, Stefan turns to Bonnie and Abby and they do a ritual to appease nature.” More than half the time, in the episode summaries, when Bonnie’s magic is featured it’s because someone’s asking her to open a door for them.
Reasons why I am clinging to that synopsis like it holds the meaning of life. We've never really had Bonnie performing magic for a purpose that has nothing to do with saving something or someone or fighting for someone or cheering someone up or performing for someone. The closest we came was literally Bonnie and Luka making the wind blow or whatever when he showed her channeling. So I'm excited to just give the witches a mythology that is their own and not subordinate to vampires. Because goddamn, it's tiring.
As a PoC, it can be exhausting to watch this show and not let myself feel as if my spirit, my person is being done violence by the narrative. I know that every show and its mother has race/gender issues but this one, I have to say, is one of the most tiring to me.
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She learns it in school!!! Remember when Alaric was like, "Let's take a break from learning about Founding Family history?" I bet Tikki skips those school days.
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What's worse is that the show has twice taken the time (through Katherine, Anna, hell the tomb vamps in season 1 so I guess three times. Remember Frederick's grudge?) to explicitly acknowledge the town's wrongs against vampires. How they got rich off the land of vampires. But they won't comment how they not only got rich on the backs of Bonnie's ancestors and other Black people who weren't witches, and they won't comment on how the Founders stole Bonnie's family's property and are claiming it as their own. Anna and Pearl have commented on their stolen property. Bonnie/Sheila/(Abby?)/Emily have not.
Mags, I have wishes *Crying.* Wishes of Bonnie sitting in Elena's kitchen with Elena and Caroline and Matt and Tyler and Jeremy, and after a day of learning her history, of weeks with her mother, she tells them that they can have a thousand Founders parties. They can wear a million dresses, and she'll take their picture every time. She'll help them pick out their dresses every time, and she'll root for them to win every time. As long as they don't forget that Mystic Falls is her town. As long as they don't forget why they're dressing up, and she's not. As long as they don't forget her history stretches farther back than theirs. And she's quietly intense so they know she's serious, and her history is as important to her as theirs is to them. And she goes back to eating her sandwich while Caroline looks a little put out, Elena is vacant looking like someone kicked her or something, Matt is pursing his lips and nodding because it doesn't affect him either way; Jer's standing against the fridge because he kind of had a pre-cursor to this. And Tyler. Do what you will with Tyler.
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