Ok but see the last anon is looking for validation from you even though you're not black. And were the majority of notes from those asks even from black people? Sorry but it's starting to feel like this is turning into a matter of speaking over black folks to make white-passing cosplayers feel better.
Anonymous
You’re right. I didn’t check. That was wrong of me and I’m sorry.
To the other anon, you should definitely talk to a cosplayer who is black.
I have a question about the Zecora matter.. What if Zecora was the person's favorite character & they wanted to cosplay her simply for that reason? The person isn't intending any racism in any way, they just love Zecora & are enjoying the opportunity to dress as her. I understand how people are her as a PoC pony, but I don't think it's always a matter of racism, just generally having fun :)
Anonymous
I’m not Black, so I shouldn’t weigh in on this. But this ask and this ask got the most notes, so I’m assuming that those are the asks that the most people agree with =] I think you should be fine to cosplay Zecora if you really really want, so long as you don’t do brown or blackface.
weighing in on the Zecora discussion: I'm a white passing person of colour. I've been told I could cosplay Zecora, but my choice is that it's not okay because though I am half Black, I think there's so much white washing that goes on in media and fandom that I think it's unfair to take on the roll. While I am a person of colour, most of the time people assume I'm white, and therefore I feel like it'd just do a disservice to non-passing poc because it is white washing the character.
Another comment from a black person: I can understand why people aren't crazy about white people cosplaying as Zecora, because she's one of the only widely-accepted "poc" ponies. For a white person to cosplay as her when there's a literal plethora of other "racially ambiguous" characters to choose from is a little weird. Same thing goes for other characters of color. Since there's so few of them, it would just be nice for white people to just... lay off a bit?
That makes sense! =] The first anon that started this was… well, anonymous, so I wanted to be careful about taking them seriously.
The Monster High fandom recently had this same debate about white cosplayers playing Clawdeen. We came to the conclusion that it is okay and NOT racist to dress as a character of color AS LONG AS you don't use make up to darken your skin. Then it becomes black face and black face is never okay. Just use your own natural skin! But painting yourself fictional colors like pink or green is perfectly fine!
That sounds about right =]
As a follow up, my head canon for humanized Zecora is that she still has the stripes. So a black cosplayer can paint white stripes and a white cosplayer can paint black stripes or people can wear a mask or paint both colored stripes or whatever they want to do. Being told you can't dress up as a character because of your race hurts, the first time I heard it was when I was ten (Christina from Phantom can't be black!) and I NEVER want to be the person who says that to somebody.
Oooooh that is a really cool headcanon!
Yeah eugh like, cosplay is supposed to be fun and creative! Not racist and appropriative and some weird unspoken competition (unless of course you’re entering a cosplay competition lol)
Anyways, thank you for writing me and talking about this! =]
The fact that white folks often cosplay as PoC without getting the weird looks and questions that a PoC cosplaying as a white character is racist and offensive, but so is telling ANYONE they can't cosplay as a character because of their skin tone. Yes, I'd like it if everyone would shut up about race and let people cosplay as whoever they want but that's unlikly to happen. Also, Zecora is a ZEBRA in canon. Nobody knows what skin tone Zebra would have as humans so don't act like you do.
Also, Zecora is a ZEBRA in canon. Nobody knows what skin tone Zebra would have as humans so don’t act like you do.
EMPHASIZING THAT BECAUSE YES EXACTLY THANK YOU
the only disrespectful thing about zecora being cosplayed by a white person is if said white person used black face and perhaps an oversexualized/fetishizing costume of the culture, at least how i see it.
Anonymous
This makes sense, thank you kind anon =]
i'm not laying down any rules, i'm simply expressing my opinion. i can't say its racist, but i can say that i think its disrespectful.
I guess? But like you don’t get to decide what’s disrespectful towards people of color. People of color know what’s disrespectful towards them.
