I'm feeling suicidal just having to read SU discourse from Lily in 2024. But it's a decent place for me to get most of my grievances with her stupid racial takes out.
First of all, pure irony to call Hiding in Private as being uncritically devoted to a show that ended ten years ago but Lily is still fucking talking about it and the criticisms she got for being clearly bad faith years after the fact. I'm losing my mind. She is never going to let SU go. Rebecca Sugar, if you're reading this, please do not make a new cartoon, Lily is gonna pop a brain vessel.
Alright, so, I'm a black woman so I can certainly vouch for myself and many circles I'm in that Garnet has gotten damn near universal praise. I'm not gonna deny there hasn't been some backlash, because there's that one
article Lily immediately thought was every black person's consensus because we're totally a hivemind, but Garnet as a character has received a lot of praise. You see many black women who poof up their hair like hers, many speak about how she breaks down the strong black woman stereotype, and I hope I don't lose anyone here but generally Garnet is believed to be a great character. You cannot fact-check these things, but neither can you fact-check that all the right-wingers beating down SU stopped existing to gripe over Star Wars.
I also want to point out how interesting it is to accuse the characterization of a black character as racist when Ian Jones-Quartey was quite literally the fucking co-developer of the show, and also Estelle would have had to be made known of many of the writing decisions, as she collaborated frequently with Sugar on music. It's also just telling in general how the scrutiny is never on Ian Jones-Quartey despite him being, again, the
fucking co-developer.
And also also, the prevailing attitude that Pearl is white and Amethyst is Latina or black is funny - Deedee Magno Hall is Filipino. Michaela Dietz is Korean. The whole "coding" thing makes little sense to me as Garnet is a literal shade of magenta but is understood to be black, but nope, Pearl is shaded white so she has to be white and Amethyst is piggish and sassy and abrasive so she has to be black. But that doesn't fit the argument that all black women are abused and mistreated in the show.
Lily, if you read this, look. Having two black friends on standby to feed you your opinions is not as progressive as you think it does. Just call me a slur next time, it feels far less dehumanizing than to be used as an argument because one showrunner pissed on your crops and killed your dog.
Last thing, here, but when I read about interviews from Sugar I never not feel bad for her. If I ever got this much backlash for a relatively harmless show, I'd honestly never recover. Lily is just so hateful solely because Sugar is a successful queer woman who didn't make a career out of being bitter and spiteful. Good on her, but it just makes me feel bad when I read articles on her about how she feels about the show and the passion is so innocentlike and meant a lot to her and it juxtaposes with the horrible insults Lily was spewing at her and continues to years later. All over a fucking cartoon.
Adoring
