Well, I actually don't think all of the objections are racist--and you've heard me say this before, haven't you?
Oh yes, absolutely. It just seemed like most interesting discussion about Blaise got drowned out by this and the reactions to it, which is a shame, because views like yours are more interesting because it was character-based--when I was trying to think about good discussions about Blaise during HBP your lj was the one place that came to mind. As you said, the fact that his name is Zabini did give fanfic writers something to go on--and, I mean, it's not like this is a series where one could usually go wrong depending on a name that way. Seamus Finnegan anyone? Cho Chang? Padma and Parvati Patil? Why shouldn't Zabini, the only Italian name in the series I can think of, have an Italian background as well?
I did not mean to imply--though I see I sort of did--that keeping one's previous background for him was necessarily racist. That's just a standard fanfic thing--do you rewrite your characters when they get rewritten in canon? In many cases the sensible answer is no because there's no reason to. With Blaise especially you're talking about someone who was once only a name so fanfic authors did all the work. They'd be starting from scratch now for no good reason. That too, I think, got lost in the F_W cliche of young girls who were writing badfic to begin with saying they were going to continue to write badfic making him white with black hair (and probably calling him Zabini). That didn't seem to happen when we found out he was male and plenty of people continued to write him as female or say they were going to do that. It wasn't a sexist thing, it was just about their fic.
But I think the tortured etymologies put forth by some of the black Blaise supporters as reasons why he was never, ever meant to be thought of as Italian are equally fanciful and say just as much about their origins, especially when accompanied by artwork and icons that depict BlackPowah!Blaise as ebony dark with incredibly short tight hair as though he were no more than a generation out of Africa.
Wow--see, this is how clueless I am about Blaise in fanfic at all, because I didn't know anyone had tried to argue he was not meant to be thought of as Italian. For the reasons I mentioned above, that I don't get. I mean, *I* don't look Italian at all and have an Italian last name, but of course I'd assume that if all you had of me was my name and you were supposed to build a character for me based on those two things, I'd probably be more Italian than I am. Any fanfic writer has to come up with an explanation for his name, just as fanfic writers often come up with an explanation for the Malfoys having a French-y name.
And of course, having seem specifically like a black activist again goes against canon, because Blaise is supposed to judge himself based on his magical blood, not the color of his skin. It's again bringing our racial concerns into a place where they are not supposed to exist, even if they of course exist for the author.
Re: For once, using my default icon on purpose.
Oh yes, absolutely. It just seemed like most interesting discussion about Blaise got drowned out by this and the reactions to it, which is a shame, because views like yours are more interesting because it was character-based--when I was trying to think about good discussions about Blaise during HBP your lj was the one place that came to mind. As you said, the fact that his name is Zabini did give fanfic writers something to go on--and, I mean, it's not like this is a series where one could usually go wrong depending on a name that way. Seamus Finnegan anyone? Cho Chang? Padma and Parvati Patil? Why shouldn't Zabini, the only Italian name in the series I can think of, have an Italian background as well?
I did not mean to imply--though I see I sort of did--that keeping one's previous background for him was necessarily racist. That's just a standard fanfic thing--do you rewrite your characters when they get rewritten in canon? In many cases the sensible answer is no because there's no reason to. With Blaise especially you're talking about someone who was once only a name so fanfic authors did all the work. They'd be starting from scratch now for no good reason. That too, I think, got lost in the F_W cliche of young girls who were writing badfic to begin with saying they were going to continue to write badfic making him white with black hair (and probably calling him Zabini). That didn't seem to happen when we found out he was male and plenty of people continued to write him as female or say they were going to do that. It wasn't a sexist thing, it was just about their fic.
But I think the tortured etymologies put forth by some of the black Blaise supporters as reasons why he was never, ever meant to be thought of as Italian are equally fanciful and say just as much about their origins, especially when accompanied by artwork and icons that depict BlackPowah!Blaise as ebony dark with incredibly short tight hair as though he were no more than a generation out of Africa.
Wow--see, this is how clueless I am about Blaise in fanfic at all, because I didn't know anyone had tried to argue he was not meant to be thought of as Italian. For the reasons I mentioned above, that I don't get. I mean, *I* don't look Italian at all and have an Italian last name, but of course I'd assume that if all you had of me was my name and you were supposed to build a character for me based on those two things, I'd probably be more Italian than I am. Any fanfic writer has to come up with an explanation for his name, just as fanfic writers often come up with an explanation for the Malfoys having a French-y name.
And of course, having seem specifically like a black activist again goes against canon, because Blaise is supposed to judge himself based on his magical blood, not the color of his skin. It's again bringing our racial concerns into a place where they are not supposed to exist, even if they of course exist for the author.