Follow Your Passion: A Seamless Tumblr Journey
Some Percy Jackson doodles, because these kids live in my brain rent
So... it finally downed on y'all that Rick Riordan portrayed pocs inappropriately? Are we surprised a white cishet man from usa wrote poc from a point of ignorance in a problematic way? Come on! Pocs have been criticizing him for years but y'all wouldnt LISTEN.
I'm not really into cancel culture because it doesnt work. This people dont get "erased" from history, their mistakes get erased while their art lives on - they should be acknowledged and held accountable. And I understand people make mistakes and they should have room to grow. But what irks me about seeing "he tries" type of posts defending him is that he doesnt. Maybe when he wrote the books a decade ago he was trying, and well intentioned. I can understand that. And yet if you read his "apology" you'll see he isn't trying anymore. Hes done growing and caring. Instead of writing "I get how it can be offensive, I didn't know better back then, knowing what I know now I would've written this characters differently" but no, he tried to defend it and stood by it. He needs to be held accountable. He needs to know this is not okay. Stop defending him with "the books were very subversive/progressive for their time" that can be said for a lot questionable works of fiction (like Harry Potter or To Kill a Mockkngbird for example) and it doesnt make it right. If we were just talking about what he wrote ten years ago it would be different, we could say that he wasnt being racist but that hes portrayal of poc was problematic for his lack of information, but no, he decided to take the racist label by steppping in and taking a stand defending his previous mistakes and not listening, and trying to decide over poc what is racist - instead of acknowledging he made a mistake and moving on. We grown folk but hes not being mature or "trying".