Dear white-washing avatar fans: Toph is NOT white (a lesson in genetics and your “inadvertent”racism)
1. Toph is a member of the Bei Fong family. I hate to belabor the obvious here, but that’s NOT a white name, or a hispanic name. That is a Chinese name. Translation here.
2. Now on to the good part. This is Toph’s dad:
…as you can see, he is obviously Asian. You get that, right? That is just not a white person. I don’t care how pale his skin is. He’s an aristocratic man in a society that is modeled after ancient China/Japan/Korea. Of course he’s pale skinned.
3. This is Toph’s mom:
…again. She’s very asian. VERY, VERY Asian. Do we need to go into how Asian she is? I hope not.
4. WHEN TWO ASIAN PEOPLE HAVE BABIES, THEIR BABIES END UP LOOKING ASIAN.
5. I know, I know. Toph has light skin and dark hair! She could be white! EXCEPT:
…she’s really fucking not.
Toph is really Asian.
I hope you understand.
AND THAT BEING SAID:
THIS.
IS
NOT. ACCURATE.
THIS.
IS
MOTHERFUCKING
RACIST. AS. FUCK.
…why you might ask?
…because YOU TURNED AN ASIAN GIRL WHITE.
BECAUSE DESPITE OBVIOUS CUES AND HINTS AND FACIAL FEATURES…
…YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS UNIMPORTANT.
…Boom. Racist.
/thus endeth the lesson for today.
SoLDN:
Even if American society conditions people from a very young age to be white-centric and the posters excusing those who think Toph is white are dead wrong…in this case I think the OP is a little off and not taking into account styles of anime. I AM SICK of people assuming that Asian people have slanty little eyes and/or dictating what are or are not Asian features. Ultimately, it seems rooted in white-centric stereotypes of what Asians should look like or are otherized as. It gets so close to the argument used to whitewash anime and Avatar.
While I don’t know about all of these pieces of art and whitewashing defenders need to GTFO, some of these drawing styles are how East Asians have been drawing ourselves for decades, not out of a twisted desire to look white, but because we have the right to decide how we are depicted…and the idea that we might have “chinky eyes” never crossed our minds. That was part of what was so refreshing about Avatar: the South Korean studio was encouraged to use it’s own style of depicting Asian characters, including Asian youth, since that was what they were experienced with. Maybe I am off, but I don’t want calling out whitewashing to cross over into defining stereotypical racial features.
More ranting here: http://jedifreac.tumblr.com/post/20336263343/damnlayoffthebleach-mulan-chinese-from-here
