People who are not closeted homophobes are not afraid of being called/becoming gay.
...seriously? Because in that case, I don't think there was a single straight person at my middle school.
(I'm also twitching at (a) the implication that all closeted homophobes are male/masculine and (b) the way your analogy puts "being called gay" in the same slot as "being called a rapist.")
Look, I know the scales are tipped in favor of privileged people on any given spectrum, but they aren't tipped so deeply that fear is automatic proof of guilt.
Especially in the case of racism, where so much of the stuff fandom calls out is unconsciously ingrained in society, there are plenty of people who fit the prevailing anti-racist movement's definition of "saying something racist" without realizing it. The fear isn't necessarily "I'd better not do this because someone will falsely accuse me"; it could just as easily be "I'd better not do this because I don't trust myself not to say something hurtful unintentionally."
Which is not to say wrong accusations don't happen, or are some kind of mysterious once-in-a-lifetime sighting. On the contrary, every extended race debate I've seen has had at least one or two fans of color getting told they're being racist - which under this particular theoretical framework is a wrong accusation by definition, to say nothing of the identity erasure that comes along with it.
no subject
...seriously? Because in that case, I don't think there was a single straight person at my middle school.
(I'm also twitching at (a) the implication that all closeted homophobes are male/masculine and (b) the way your analogy puts "being called gay" in the same slot as "being called a rapist.")
Look, I know the scales are tipped in favor of privileged people on any given spectrum, but they aren't tipped so deeply that fear is automatic proof of guilt.
Especially in the case of racism, where so much of the stuff fandom calls out is unconsciously ingrained in society, there are plenty of people who fit the prevailing anti-racist movement's definition of "saying something racist" without realizing it. The fear isn't necessarily "I'd better not do this because someone will falsely accuse me"; it could just as easily be "I'd better not do this because I don't trust myself not to say something hurtful unintentionally."
Which is not to say wrong accusations don't happen, or are some kind of mysterious once-in-a-lifetime sighting. On the contrary, every extended race debate I've seen has had at least one or two fans of color getting told they're being racist - which under this particular theoretical framework is a wrong accusation by definition, to say nothing of the identity erasure that comes along with it.