Decolonize Your Cosplay Community

Several years ago, I was part of a close-knit geek community. It was composed of mostly Black people, but everyone was marginalized in some way, be it for their size, skin color, gender, sexuality, or ability, we were all oppressed in some way. We attended DragonCon together and would hang out and do photoshoots together. It was an idyllic time. Then, several things happened that shifted my perspective. I met my significant other, who is white, which put a white person in my intimate spaces — several of which were all Black. It also put me in his spaces, which were definitely all white. I started grad school to get my master’s in public health, which gave me a more nuanced view of how the institutions of this country intentionally sabotaged the lives of Black people to promote the lie of white supremacy and how that directly destroyed our lives. Then came the murder of Trayvon Martin, a murder that too many white people sought to justify. Each of these things strongly pushed me to change and I became much more outspoken about oppression.

Initially, the people in my geek circle appreciated my anti-oppression stance. I primarily spoke out about anti-Black racism but, as any person who begins researching anti-oppression learns, anti-Black racism is just the beginning. Anti-Blackness fuels everything, but it’s not limited to racism. Western beauty standards are anti-Black — pale, thin…