Racism and the Dragon Ball fandom

[Cure Dragon 255]

I know this is a very loaded subject but its one I think its relevant right now. Aim dissapointed me when he showed he was actually quite racist and even rude and arrogant about it, I dont miss him. But he isnt alone, many in the fandom look down on black fans and so on.

I apologize if I am doing anything wrong I didnt mean any harm.

EDIT: I edited the title to make it clear I dont really see much truly awfully wrong with the fandom and thus people would be more willing to engage and not feel bad or called out.

[Jord]

So what is your intention with this topic?

[Cure Dragon 255]

To call out racism in the fandom community. I am sorry if I am not equipped or prepared to be the best person to bring up this subject but I think it is important to adress.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Racism is an unfortunate fact of life, every large fandom has its fair share of it, and Dragon Ball is no different. Some people are just assholes and aren't worth our time or effort, except if any of us are mods, in which case we can ban them. Luckily, as you have mentioned, racists on this forum have been banned and rightly so.

[MCDaveG]

You can actually report toxic behavior or speak with the person directly through personal messages.
I don't want to patronize or anything and I agree that any form of toxic behavior should not be tolerated and we shall respect each other regardless of race, gender, religion, personal opinions (in regards of mutual respect and manners).

But IMHO, I am against jumping the bandwagon and forming a task force to call out individuals in public for behaviour ala witch hunt, that we personally feel is innapropriate. There are rules, tools for that and staff and moderators that evaluate our possible toxic behaviors

Even when frustrated and I know it's hard and challenging, I prefer to open a dialogue with said people or anyone for that matter.

[Yuji]

In my experience, the fandom is pretty inclusive regarding PoC at least. A big group of fans are PoC themselves.

[Scientist Fu]

I personally never been in a situation like this and I never noticed anyone being racist in the DB community, probably because I'm not much active on social media. I don't even know who "Aim" is, but if he is racist then of course this is disgusting, morally wrong... it is inhuman... racial discrimination always been a problem... but from what I can see on the surface the DB community seems pretty respectful towards everyone, whether it's about their color or religion or something else.

[NeoZ Duwang]

1 - "Aim".... who?

2 - Yeah, large fandoms, especially anime and manga communities, are filled with racism, it sucks. This might sound like doomerposting, but the huge majority of people feel really comfortable with prejudice of minorities, they feel no need for change and a lot of their harmful views are validated by others that are just like them, so I'm very careful when interacting in fandom. The best way to interact with online communities is to remember that just because you all like the same thing, it doesn't mean that you should trust in their ability of being a decent person any more than you'd trust anyone else

But there's also a lot of good people out there, so it's still good to try to engage with fandom to a certain extent

[VegettoEX]

Not entirely sure what the underlying point of the thread is. There's no need to drag up the skeletons of past encounters(?) if the people have already been made an example of and are long gone (and, as others are pointing out, they don't even have a clue who you're talking about -- myself included).

We make it abundantly clear that hate directed toward your fellow fans is absolutely unacceptable and we're under no obligation to entertain it for even a millisecond here. If you see it, report the posts and let the moderation team know. I think they've proven time and time again that they back up what our stance is and they'll take care of it as soon as possible.

I suppose there's a larger conversation to be had if there are prominent fandom members (likely elsewhere, since they'd have no chance in hell surviving here) that have a large, vocal following and promote this kind of behavior/outlook/bigotry and deserve being called out on it. I'm not sure that's the case, though...? I wouldn't exactly follow anyone like that, myself.

[ATA]

Dragon Ball is popular among Non Japanese people. It's loved by other Asians, the African(Black) Diaspora, Latinos, European Diaspora, and everything in between. While I do think the fan base as whole isn't intentionally racist, there is more ignorance or accidental racism within the fan base. It has gotten MUCH better over the years. As I said in the "Unpopular opinion" thread the Black Freeza jokes by non Black people were a lor (little in my language) racist with the exaggerating stereotypes.

In my opinion DB fanbase is more anti LGBT and sexist than racist these days. We made progress on the racism now we need to make progress with the ANTI LGBT and sexism. The sexism part is most likely due to limited (important) female characters. Bulma and 18 was all we had before Super introduced the U6 Saiyans. Every other female character started off as a martial artist and then became a housewife for some reason. The anti-LGBT stuff is the same deal. General Blue is Gay. But he basically labeled a weirdo in the series. He also implied in the Anime I think to be a pedophile for Krillin. It's all in the name of humor. But that shit isn't funny stu. Then you have Funimation having that leak a decade ago with the whole cast saying the F word. The fan base echos what they see.

To relate it back to racism. It's like when Funimation had that fighter speak in bootleg Ebonics making fun of how people like myself talk but in a much much much exaggerating way. The multiple forms of Ebonics(it's regional and different depending where you from) are beautiful languages. Hell much of "TikTok Sland" or "Gen Z slang" CAME from Ebonics that's been spoken for almost 100 years. Hell even LGBT Ebonics is mainstream now. That's a different non Dragon Ball subject however.

But yeah to fix all this we just gotta be better people and be mindful. We also can't allow the creators, dubbers, or anyone higher up than us to produce offensive material. And before someone say "We're soft and sensitive as a society now", not being a jackass doesn't make society soft. Also if you look at old internet forms in the 2010s, 2000s, and late 90s people was saying society was getting soft back then too. Every decade is "softer" than the last.

[Cure Dragon 255]

You can actually report toxic behavior or speak with the person directly through personal messages.
I don't want to patronize or anything and I agree that any form of toxic behavior should not be tolerated and we shall respect each other regardless of race, gender, religion, personal opinions (in regards of mutual respect and manners).

But IMHO, I am against jumping the bandwagon and forming a task force to call out individuals in public for behaviour ala witch hunt, that we personally feel is innapropriate. There are rules, tools for that and staff and moderators that evaluate our possible toxic behaviors

Even when frustrated and I know it's hard and challenging, I prefer to open a dialogue with said people or anyone for that matter.

I did NOT call for a witch hunt. That's why I only mentioned the one person confirmed to be racist and not other people. There are nice people who just make mistakes and that's why other than Aim I didnt mention anyone else.

Not entirely sure what the underlying point of the thread is. There's no need to drag up the skeletons of past encounters(?) if the people have already been made an example of and are long gone (and, as others are pointing out, they don't even have a clue who you're talking about -- myself included).

We make it abundantly clear that hate directed toward your fellow fans is absolutely unacceptable and we're under no obligation to entertain it for even a millisecond here. If you see it, report the posts and let the moderation team know. I think they've proven time and time again that they back up what our stance is and they'll take care of it as soon as possible.

I suppose there's a larger conversation to be had if there are prominent fandom members (likely elsewhere, since they'd have no chance in hell surviving here) that have a large, vocal following and promote this kind of behavior/outlook/bigotry and deserve being called out on it. I'm not sure that's the case, though...? I wouldn't exactly follow anyone like that, myself.

I didnt mean to drag skeletons, I didnt actually have any encounter with Aim. I meant more like pointing out actual tangible racist tendencies. Because if I didnt people would say I had no proof or stuff like that.

[Dr. Casey]

The anti-LGBT stuff is the same deal. General Blue is Gay. But he basically labeled a weirdo in the series. He also implied in the Anime I think to be a pedophile for Krillin.

Not Krillin, but some random child from Penguin Village. The English dub (which was my original exposure to Dragon Ball; I didn't watch through the series in Japanese until 2008 and 2009) changed it so that he was platonically enamored with the kid because he resembled his little brother, but honestly I would have preferred that they just cut the scene from the televised dub altogether rather than just soften it up. The revision changed the scene from being offensive to being weird, confusing, and still somehow discomforting. Not exactly a fun scene to watch in either version.

[Gaffer Tape]

Not Krillin, but some random child from Penguin Village.

Obatchaman is hardly a random child. He's basically the Kuririn of Dr. Slump! The Caramel Man lineage would weep at such an insult. Dr. Mashirito didn't put such effort into building robots for his work to be dismissed like this!

[Dr. Casey]

Not Krillin, but some random child from Penguin Village.

Obatchaman is hardly a random child. He's basically the Kuririn of Dr. Slump! The Caramel Man lineage would weep at such an insult. Dr. Mashirito didn't put such effort into building robots for his work to be dismissed like this!

Oh shit... I'm sorry! I actually have zero experience with Dr. Slump (aside from the first episode of the anime; according to the Wiki he's introduced pretty deep into the series at 115).

[Cure Dragon 255]

I know I made what is probably the worst opening post ever, but I genuinely thought people would at least engage with the subject of the thread. I know sexism and LGBTphobia are EXTREMELY HUGE problems in the fandom but they have various threads on these subjects and I had hoped people would make much better commentary than I could ever do. Still, racism needs to be called out and I started this thread to call it out.

[Jord]

As far as I can tell, this forum is pretty racism-free. I don't know what race or gender every member here is, nor do I care. It's all about having good, worthwhile discussions.

If someone is being racist, just report them or something.

[Zephyr]

I know I made what is probably the worst opening post ever, but I genuinely thought people would at least engage with the subject of the thread. I know sexism and LGBTphobia are EXTREMELY HUGE problems in the fandom but they have various threads on these subjects and I had hoped people would make much better commentary than I could ever do. Still, racism needs to be called out and I started this thread to call it out.

I think people might be burnt out from the last several dozen threads on social issues.

[Koitsukai]

Was I the only one that thought the OP mispelled "I'm disappointed"? lol.

Anyway, I've noticed anime fandom in real life tends to tilt towards the right-wing, specially nowadays, at least on the south part of the world, way more than what I've encountered on this site. So, I kinda expect bigotry and ignorance from anime fans to be honest.
There is also a right-wing surge all over the world right now, so I don't think the fandom is immune to it.

[MasenkoHA]

Was I the only one that thought the OP mispelled "I'm disappointed"? lol.

Anyway, I've noticed anime fandom in real life tends to tilt towards the right-wing, specially nowadays, at least on the south part of the world, way more than what I've encountered on this site. So, I kinda expect bigotry and ignorance from anime fans to be honest.
There is also a right-wing surge all over the world right now, so I don't think the fandom is immune to it.

There's probably something to be said about nerd culture (anime fans, comic book movie fans, gamers) overall moving further to the right since...2016 ish

[LoganForkHands73]

If you want this thread to be about "calling out racism", you can't really lead the discussion without naming any specific instances, other than some broad "racism = bad" statements which nobody here would disagree with. The wider issue of racism obviously goes far beyond the scope of the Dragon Ball fandom and is in no way unique to it, unless you believe that Dragon Ball actively instigates racism, rather than a case of there simply many fans who happen to have racist views unrelated to their liking for Dragon Ball. Considering how globally massive the franchise is, it's only natural that a proportionately high number of dickheads enjoy it.

Toriyama has said time and again that Dragon Ball isn't an intellectually deep story, it doesn't extol any moral framework (with protagonists who don't care about questions of good and evil), and it rarely takes a solid stance on real world issues. It was made to appeal to the lowest common denominator. You could possibly make an argument that because the series has so little going on beneath the surface and unwittingly promotes harmful messages at times (I'd say racism is fairly low down on the list compared to the weirder sexual attitudes the series exhibits), it may be more likely to attract people with toxic views since they can safely disconnect their views from the media they're consuming.

But my counter to that is, there are so many other big media franchises that do present solid moral frameworks and still manage to attract more wankers than Dragon Ball ever could. Star Wars is practically synonymous with toxic fandom culture, yet the story itself is a morality play created by someone with left-leaning, pro-democratic, anti-establishment views. The villains are coded as Nazis, yet many actual Nazis root for the Rebellion. People will always find an excuse to draw an arbitrary disconnect between their own views and the media they choose to consume.

Regarding Aim, he's no longer here to defend himself so it's not really fair to go in on him, but IIRC he was the kind of person who simply didn't have very nuanced/mature understanding of difficult topics, not just surrounding race but class as well. It's a classic example of left-wing ideology spiralling back to agree with the right that the poor are somehow to blame for everything. You see a similar mentality with hardcore tankies who loudly don't give a shit about intersectionality or helping other downtrodden groups because that faff just gets in the way of "the greater good".