A note to my fellow white feminists about the renewal of Agent Carter

medievalpoc:

karnythia:

gearsofpleasure:

knitmeapony:

Okay, remember when there was a lot of criticism about the lack of PoC in Agent Carter, and remember when everyone was freaking out about how that might mean it doesn’t’ get renewed?

And you see now how it’s renewed?

It’s time to own the ‘it’ll get better in season 2′ and ‘give season 2 a chance if we get one’ and every time we suggested that folks who wanted better representation in that show should wait.

Start talking about it now. Start writing to the network now, and the writers, and get the word out there.

We’re SO EXCITED about Season 2, and we can’t wait to see a lot more diversity.  Where’s Jim Morita?  Where’s Gabe Jones?  Where are plots dealing with racial issues in the era?  Where are all the women of color?  It’s NEW YORK CITY, FFS.  By both actual reality and comics canon, the show is about 8000% too white.

SEASON TWO IS A LOCK, SO LET’S START ASKING FOR EVERYTHING WE SAID WE WERE WAITING FOR.

Push.  Push hard.  Because a LOT of us told the women of color who complained about the lack of intersectionaliity to wait.

The wait is over.

There was no diversity in the 40′s, people of color couldn’t drink from the same water fountains or ride in cabs. No need to fake it, if the show is about the 40′s well they were correct in season 1 i do not think any poc were agents of any kind in the 40′s 50;s 60′s 70′s The show is about agent carter not race relations.

You’re wrong in the MCU and in reality. There were Black Congressmen from the 1870′s on so this myth of
complete segregation has never been true or possible. The first Black
FBI special agent was James Wormley Jones who was appointed in 1919. Basic American history, federal jobs were integrated (not that they were ever really completely segregated) by Roosevelt with Executive Order
 8802 in June 1941. In fact after WWII Truman continued to support desegregation of the armed forces and all other agencies, going so far in 1948 to appoint the first Black Federal judge among other high ranking positions, and issuing Executive Order 9981 which stated that
 "there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in
 the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.“ By the end of the Korean War almost every unit in the military was integrated.

That’s before we get into how Jim Crow actually worked. Black & white people didn’t necessarily socialize in all places (though that list was mostly schools and church), but they worked in the same places, went to the same movie theaters, white people frequented clubs in Black neighborhoods like Harlem, Black people worked and performed in clubs with white audiences etc. Black and white people ate in the same restaurants, just at two different counters or sides of the same building. Their communities were side by side, they used the same transit systems, the idea was separate but equal even if the execution missed the mark. So the MCU was integrated as a reflection of the reality of the 1940′s. Some hotels didn’t allow Black people, but many did, especially at the lower end of the economic scale like the boarding house where Peggy lives. There’s literally no canonical or historical reason to erase the diversity of New York City in Agent Carter.

I think we all owe karnythia a debt of gratitude for the free history lessons, and I want to acknowledge that the painful need for them remains. “There was no diversity in the 40′s”? In New York City? The 20th century isn’t my area of expertise, but even I know that’s a ridiculous inaccuracy meant to silence justified criticism of a show being made right now.