Thread by @mel_thegreat

Here's the thing about Siempre Bruja and its ilk. There are a thousand different choices one could make to tell that same exact story. I mean down to the motivation arcs, scenes, dialogue.

So question the reason it has to be the slave owner as the "lover."

Example: Heroine is waiting to be sold. She meets a man who is being sold. They connect. Or even just make eyes and there's this pang of What if, If only.

'Cause here's a shocker, enslaved individuals had families. They loved. They did experience joy.

You know how I know?

Mutherfucker I exist. Black people gotdamn exist. So somebody was fucking somewhere. At some point in the past. Our ancestors were raised by folks who looked like them. They created their own culture. WE GOTDAMN EXISTED in spite of enslavement.

*breathes*

But back to my main point. This is a valid choice to make. Will the heroine or the hero who is enslaved fall in love with another enslaved individual?

What can I do to raise the stakes? Get to the point where the heroine chooses to travel in time to save him?

You don't even need to be a history buff to think, Well, shit being sold off was a common thing and being ripped from your loved ones was a way of life. Yes, there were many times when whole families were sold together.

But again, we're trying to give the heroine a reason.

So with all of those rich choices, just surface history gives you, why choose the slave master?

It's not more conflict-y. Imagine falling in love with someone who could be lynched if he so much as gets accused of being too close to a white person? How fraught would it be to think any child you give birth to could live the same existence?

SO WHY THE SLAVE OWNER?

Happiness, laughter is so much sweeter when juxtaposed to some seriously dark shit. It can feel forbidden to be that happy when your life is shit. And you can write those experiences with two enslaved individuals.

So why choose the slave owner? Again and again and again.

Why choose to show a white person as benevolent when they own HUMAN BEINGS?

What is the compulsion to do that? Unpack that shit. Question why you think that is remotely romantic. In the universe of okay.

Why chose it when it's weak fiction. A cheap choice. It's the choice of a hack writer who can't imagine.

Yes. I said it. You're a shit writer.

The reader, the viewer shouldn't trust you if you can't think outside of centering whiteness in a story about a Black enslaved woman. I don't care if it's America or South America.

If you're so dead set on it you could choose the stable boy. The butler.

Any random man who doesn't own slaves and in particular owns her.

But you do. Again and again. You're a gotdamn hack.

And the finest point to put on it is people who were descended from those people you're writing have told you those narratives hurt. Those narratives erase not just the pain but the real joy our ancestors experienced.

They managed to find JOY. Can you fucking imagine? Putting put on a ship to God knows where, sitting in your period blood, urinate shit and likely next to dead bodies and only to arrive for more inhumanity.

And somehow you still find joy.

When I say this, I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

FUCK YO ANCESTORS. And fuck you for trying to turn them into a good guy.

And know until my last breath, I will not let you take my ancestors joy. You goddamn hack.

If you appreciated this emotional labor, you can buy me a ko-fi: ko-fi.com/melissab