Lakitha Tolbert
2 min readAug 14, 2023

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Actually you're right. I've been studying this phenomena for a long time and these kind of "culture wars" have been happening in pop culture at least since the 20s Jazz age, and probably before that. Each new musical style, for example, was met with just this kind of denigration by mainstream white society, from Jazz, to Rock, to Disco, to Rap, to use music as an example.

Rock music was described as Satanic music for decades, white men had a riot at Komiskey Park to protest the existence of Disco (a musical style created by Black women and the gay community), and the white mainstream passed laws against Rap music seeing it as detrimental to America's youth. This kind of behavior by white men has been seen in every single industry they controlled once a certain fraction of that industry became more inclusive to the marginalized, from books, to movies, to tv, and music.

I also want to point out once again something that was stated by the black SciFi writer Samuel R Delaney (and can be applied to every other industry since)

https://www.nyrsf.com/racism-and-science-fiction-.html

'As long as there are only one, two, or a handful of us, however, I presume in a field such as science fiction, where many of its writers come out of the liberal-Jewish tradition, prejudice will most likely remain a slight force—until, say, black writers start to number thirteen, fifteen, twenty percent of the total. At that point, where the competition might be perceived as having some economic heft, chances are we will have as much racism and prejudice here as in any other field.'

Right now, movies starring women, PoC, and the gay community are actually having some real economic heft, and as as a result we're seeing racism and various bigotries being expressed by that demographic that used to be the sole audience pandered to in the past. What we're seeing in film and tv today, is the future normal. Well move past it in about ten years and these types of reactions will probably be largely forgotten.

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Lakitha Tolbert
Lakitha Tolbert

Written by Lakitha Tolbert

(She/Her) Busybody librarian from Ohio.

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