#I don't care that Wakanda is 'racist' about Bucky

[beenheresinceforever]

So the Wakandans are racist to Bucky now?!

Bucky was a guest of the Wakandans, how could they build a failsafe into the vibranium prosthetic of a super soldeier?! They de brainwashed him! Honestly, does Ayo not trust her own techniques that Wakanda, by extension Shuri has to build a failsafe that can easily disarm a trained super serum ex-brainwashed assassin that the Wakandans hosted in their super secret absolutely uncolonized country in Africa. The country that no white supremacist had guessed to exist until just a few years ago.

Oh look, Ayo was able to use her non-super powered palm into taking off Bucky's prosthetic - fie on you, Ayo! Because ya know you wouldn't just need a failsafe in case Bucky needs emergency medical care and absolutely NO ONE outside of Ayo, Bucky and Sam Wilson knows. Who wants to bet that neither was able to replicate what Ayo did? If it was so easy our deranged fake Captain America would have tried some of that shit.

And it's super funny when Wakanda is being accused of being racist to Bucky because ya know Sam Wilson- the Black Capain America - is flying around in a Wakanda made (we don't even know the entire suit is from there, do we?) suit and woe is me, there may or may not be a fail safe in case Sam decides to run amok.

Totally forgetting that Sam is NOT a super soldier and all his hi jinks is reinforced only by the suit, wings and the shield.

Are you that dumb to think that an ex-hydra assassin would not be a good mark for more villain type groups aka SWORD?

#I don't care that Wakanda is 'racist' about Bucky #they still don't have any real proof he'll do anything for them. #all they've done is give give and give and Bucky has never reciprocated except to do stupid shit with Ayo

[wenellyb]

hey about bucky understanding the dangers of white supremacy. u don’t know if i agree because if that’s try wouldn’t he understand racism and had behaved differently in regard to sam process? and many people don associate nazism to white supremacy (i talk about nazism because that’s what hydra was right) I mean you see many white people hating on nazi history yet being mega racist and disregarding racism and the history of it in their own country also i have a question, to what extent does the analysis one does of a character interact with the product? i ask this cause we know the writing really sucked of caatws, and bucky’s redemption was really hurried and didn’t voiced that he was in fact ignorant. so did the writers think about bucky being careful with white people because of his history with white supremacy? does it matter if they thought about it? to what extent a character is what we analyze of him and what was made to be by it’s “””creators””” are this dumb questions ? haha it’s just there’s a lot of good analysis about sam and bucky, mainly in the hands of poc that we don’t see on the screen, they are more flat there and watered down. like are these analysis just fanfiction? haha basically what i’m asking is how do you relate to stupid media right that has so much potential in the hands of lazy writers hmh 🤭🤭

Hi Anon!!!! This was a long overdue!

I'm going to split my reply in several parts, to make it easier and I'll also link my original post (when I manage to find it).

hey about bucky understanding the dangers of white supremacy. u don’t know if i agree because if that’s try wouldn’t he understand racism and had behaved differently in regard to sam process?

If you remember my post, I talked about Bucky understanding the dangers of white Supremacy, but I also explained that it didn't mean that he would understand racism, as a White man, and also while living in Wakanda. Because Wakanda, is an African country. Where the reality of Black Africans have a completely different view on racism than Black people living in "Western countries".

It's a little bit tricky, because Wakanda is a fictional country created by Americans, but it is also an East African country so to me, the perception of African people, will differ from the perception of other people.

I will be speaking from my personal experience and I think Wakandans, are very informed and aware of the dangers of White Supremacy, and colonialism, and it's the big reason why they have chosen to stay hidden. But it also means that they have never really been confronted to racism.

That's why I said that even if Bucky were to understand more about racism (even if he will never) it wouldn't be from living in Wakanda. Just a detail here, because even if he had been hanging around Black people in Europe or US he still wouldn't understand it, but what I mean is there is even less chance of that happening in Wakanda.

I'm saying this because a lot of African people, will not experience racism the same way African people in other countries experience it, and sometimes will not experience it at all. I'm not trying to generalize but speak from my experience and expalin what I have seen.

I say this because I grew up in several African countries. And I'm French (but originally from an African country I will not name because I don't like disclosing too much info about myself), but having grown in several different African countries, and the first time I experienced racism was when I arrived in Europe.

I have this example that comes into my mind, one of my nephews was being bullied at school, he was only 7 but his classmates were calling him names and saying he "looked like poop", my cousin and her husband decided to write to the school about it, My nephew is mixed, and my cousin (his mother) is Black, and his father is White. When writing the letter, my cousin's husband was furious and wrote that the kids bullying my nephews were being racist because they compared him to poop because he is brown. After the letter was finished, my cousin went behind his back and erased all the mentions of racism, because she though it would stir things up and it wasn't a case of racism but bullying.

I discussed this a lot with my family, because to me it was obvious racism was a big part of the bullying, but my cousin didn't see it. And we realized, it was because she had done all of her scholarship in an African country (location will not be disclosed hahaha), and racism wasn't her go to reflex when something like this happened. because in reality she had never experienced it at school. Whereas me, and other family member did a portion of our school years in Europe and got full on experience of how racists Europeans could be, especially at school. But also at work.

I deviated a little bit, but just to say that Bucky understanding the dangers of White Supremacy doesn't at all mean he understands racism, far from it. Especially while living in Wakanda, because I don't personally think it's something Wakandans even experience. Because of their closed borders policy (maybe it will change as they get more tourists or something). But they do know of the dangers that White men represent, because they have seen what happened to their neighbor countries and the devastation colonialism has caused and is still causing there.

and many people don associate nazism to white supremacy (i talk about nazism because that’s what hydra was right) and hydra mean you see many white people hating on nazi history yet being mega racist and disregarding racism and the history of it in their own country

==> This is absolutely correct but also reality. A lot of White people are able to identify White Supremacy or racist behavior, but are incapable of identifying it in their own behavior. Because they will always think they are immune to it. Or the only image they have of racists are the those White Supremacists we see on TV, with guns and wanting to get rid of Black people, but they never think about the fact, that they refused to hire a Black candidate, who had a great resume because they were Black, or the fact that they inherently think they are better than Black people because of the color of their skin, or they are only suspicious of the Black people in their store while White people can steal stuff unbothered because they are rarely suspected or monitored. , there are so many examples I could give, but all of this to say, yes White people are able to hate on Nazis, or even condemn colonialism and speak about how awful it was, but when it comes to taking a hard look at themselves and thinking about the way they could be racist or even acknowledging all the ways they are still benefiting from colonialism, no one's there anymore.

I'm French, and a lot of White French people will openly say that the US are one of the most racist countries in the world (their words not mine lol), but yet fail to acknowledge that their is a lot of racism in France as well. I could talk about this for hours but i think this example is enough.

So Bucky identifying and acknowledging the dangers of White Supremacy, colonialism, and refusing to hang around White people doesn't mean he can understand racism and certainly doesn't mean he is able to notice when he himself is being racist.

Also, I know a lot of White people who don't hang out with/or date other White people, but it doesn't keep them from saying or doing racist thing either.

to what extent does the analysis one does of a character interact with the product? i ask this cause we know the writing really sucked of caatws, and bucky’s redemption was really hurried and didn’t voiced that he was in fact ignorant. so did the writers think about bucky being careful with white people because of his history with white supremacy? does it matter if they thought about it? to what extent a character is what we analyze of him and what was made to be by it’s “””creators””” are this dumb questions. haha it’s just there’s a lot of good analysis about sam and bucky, mainly in the hands of poc that we don’t see on the screen, they are more flat there and watered down. like are these analysis just fanfiction? haha basically what i’m asking is how do you relate to stupid media right that has so much potential in the hands of lazy writers hmh

==>I get what you mean and I understand it, but when I'm writing long analyses about a character or a relationship I like, I'm just trying to have fun!

It's not that serious, and I don't believe my interpretation is the only correct one. We're different people so, of course, we'll have different interpretations of the same scenes, and I'm not really worried about if my perception of Bucky is more due to my own analysis or if it's what the writers wanted to portray. I'm not saying I'm right, far from it. I'm just saying what I think and sharing it. But I can't confirm 100% it to be true.

For instance, my views of what Wakandans are like is heavily linkend to my own personal experience and the countries I grew up with, and it might differ from the interpretation of Black people who have only lived in European countries, or who are in the US, or African people who have only lived in their origin country.

How you perceive a piece of media will depend a lot on your own history, how you usually consume media, where you grew up, what are your life experience, someone who watches a lot of Marvel movies will have a different interpretation of the exact same movie than someone who never watched one before. And it's normal.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I didn't feel the characters were watered down or anything, this is the most we have ever seen of Sam or Bucky in any MCU project so I was really happy, and this is the MCU not an indie movie or anyhting, they don't have the reputation of providing too much depths for their characters and still I felt like we got to know more of Sam!

Regarding the writing not voicing that Bucky was being ignorant. I agree that it wasn't stated explicitly, but I also feel like they addressed it when Bucky apologized while saying he and Steve never thought about what a Black man would go through (I have personally never seen a scene like this in a Marvel movie, or any major Blockbuster for the matter, but to me it was a huge moment).

And yes, it's too bad it wasn't explicit because some people are just to thick in the skull and refused to understand that Bucky was being racist at several points in the show... But I don't believe those people would have gotten it even if it had been written on a billboard in capital letters, so...

And yes, some of the metas and interpretations are more "headcanons" than a real transcription of what we see on screen but does it really matter? As long as it's not harmful, because sometimes some analyses do end up being harmful, and yikes to that.

I again apologize for being so so late!!!

*I hate it when people say Africa instead of saying the country, but I also value my privacy to much to give too much detailed information about myself.

#bucky barnes #sam wilson #anon asks #long due #I hope this kind of make sense otherwise I will elaborate #I was trying to make it not too long because I had written so much already #wakanda

[sambuckytruther]

What's your opinion on Bucky in 1x02, may I ask? After reading discourse I was worried he was doing big time problematic things but after watching the episode I felt like it wasn't that bad, just, pretty unspectacular and not on the very very Very Bad (TM) side, i don't get why some people are behaving like his character journey is suddelny over and he's a Narcisstic Racist (TM)? What are your thoughts on that? :)

Obviously my opinion is both an opinion and from the perspective of someone non-Black, so I don’t claim to have any genuine authority here on this matter, but I don’t believe Bucky is ‘A Narcissistic Racist (TM)’. He IS either ignorant or dismissive of the realities of Black Americans (which is an interesting choice, for sure, for a character from the 1940s as well as someone who spent such a prolonged time in Wakanda; perhaps, some of his eagerness for post-racial politics stems from his time in Wakanda - hard to say, I’m not the writers of TFATWS), or at least, he thinks that the symbolism and meaning that the Shield carries has more weight than whatever personal demons Sam is facing. He is, of course, wrong, but I don’t think he’s asking Sam to take the Shield back and become Captain America out of wholly selfish reasons. He cares for Sam, which is evident in the text of the show (he jumps from the jet after Sam without a parachute because he wants to help Sam, he follows Sam, and despite how much they bicker, Bucky’s loyalties lie with Sam), and seems to believe that Sam is the only person worthy of the mantel of Captain America. 

Additionally, I trust that Malcolm Spellman, the head writer for the show, who largely developed the storyline, and who is also Black, has a good grip on how the show portrays Bucky’s relationship with race and racial questions. I trust that the show which so far has given us several scenes addressing racial discrimination and racial representation, hasn’t just carelessly made one of its headlining characters into a racist. 

It would also be in bad faith to leave Bucky’s relationship with race un-addressed (RE: the early 20th century upbringing + time in Wakanda). I think the healthiest way to approach Bucky currently is that he is acting with honest intentions but he is misguided; so far of what we’ve seen of both Bucky and Steve as men out of time in the MCU is colour-blindness - race and the history of civil rights activism has never been addressed. I have reason to believe that the show, which already has had so many scenes addressing racial inequality (the bank loan, the cops, making John Walker Captain America rather than Sam, Isaiah Bradley), is not going to shy away from this discussion, but I also don’t think Bucky’s whole character arc is over nor that he is racist. Yes, his ideation of a post-racial society where Sam doesn’t have to worry about being a Black man representing America, is misguided, but I wouldn’t hurry to cancel Bucky/the show for that. 

I FULLY understand where people are coming from with their criticism of Bucky’s behaviour but we’re also 2/6 episodes into this show and we don’t really know these characters that well yet, because their previously meagre screentime. And like I said, I have faith in Malcolm Spellman who has a good resume in addressing racial issues in media.

#anon #answered #sambucky show #tfatws spoilers #marvel