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I think the reason there isn't much black slash is because most movies/tv shows created where there are black characters - these are not exactly legion either - focus on their blackness more than anything else. Their race is often what the plot circles around. You hardly ever see black people or men in popular media ever really being vulnerable about anything else except their race. And even when black men are slashed it is often with a white character e.g Arthur and Ford, Gun and Wes and the boys from Scrubs (I confess I don't remember their names) with each other.

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...I don't know about Gun, but Ford (from SGA), Ford (from hitchhikers) and Turk (from Scrubs) really *aren't* defined by their race. The only one for whom it's a major part of his character is Turk, and it's *part* of him, not the only part. Ford (SGA) is first primarily a soldier with a man-crush on John, and then a alien-drugged vaguely psycho guy with a man-crush on John, and Ford (Hitchhiker's) is an *alien*. Mostly I see characters where their race isn't dealt with consciously at all. It's certainly possible I'm watching entirely different shows than you- I do scifi, mostly, no legal dramas or cop shows- but I can't remember anyone where that's their actively defining feature. Not saying there are none, but there are people in fandom-popular shows who are *not* defined that way.

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Ford (SGA) is first primarily a soldier with a man-crush on John, and then a alien-drugged vaguely psycho guy with a man-crush on John,

Oh good--it's not just me! For most of first season, Ford acts like John's the best thing to come along since the Stargate, and "Lost Boys" and "The Hive" are totally about him trying to get John's attention.

It pisses me off no end that Gero, Cooper et. al. couldn't seem to figure out what to do with a black guy who wasn't a thug, so they made him into a junkie.

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Ford's man-crush was adorable, and I was sad when he was demoted to bit character.

It pisses me off no end that Gero, Cooper et. al. couldn't seem to figure out what to do with a black guy who wasn't a thug, so they made him into a junkie.

I know. "Okay, we finally have a black guy who's not an alien! Soooooo... what do we do with him?" "Oooh, ooh, I know! Let's make him an alien-drug addict!" "Brilliant!" "Hey, can we give him a freaky eye?"
*headdesk*

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Ford's man-crush was adorable, and I was sad when he was demoted to bit character.

He was like a big, really really cute puppy. I loved the bit in "Rising" when he tells John that going through the gate hurts...and the little snippet of him saying goodbye to his grandparents makes me sniffly every time. You just know his grandma raised that boy right.

And the one other non-alien black guy gets sent back to Earth and we have no idea what happens to him.

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I think a lot of the slashing-with-a-white-guy comes from a lack of other black guys to slash them with. In fact, I wonder if some of it is people having an unconscious interracial-sex-taboo, which I am probably opening up some can of worms there, but there you have it.

There are only a few shows I can think of that have more than one CoC. The major one that comes to mind is Scrubs, which has a black doctor, a Latina nurse, and a black nurse as major characters, plus assorted other characters (Hook-Handed Security Guard, Snoop Dogg Intern...there are probably others that I am forgetting.)

Now I want Hook-Handed Security Guard/Snoop Dogg Intern slash, but I bet no one has written me some. Dammit.

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Who is asking for black on black slash?

What I have been interested in for the past few years is getting fandom to write the CoCs who exist in the sourcetext fandom is interested and posess characteristics fandom often gloms onto.

I don't want fandom to do something unnatural. In The Sentinel, for instance, there were two background male characters, Rafe and Henry. Rafe is traditionally attractive and white, Henry is rounder, not as pretty, and black.

I do not think the fact that there are more Rafe stories than Henry stories in TS is because of race. It's because of a pretty differential.

On the other hand, in Buffy fandom, Riley had two friends in his secret military cabal, Forrest and Graham. Forrest was a pretty black man (played by the actor who plays DL on Heroes) who explicitly objected to Riley's relationship with Buffy because it interfered in Riley's relationship with Forrest (i.e., he was pre-slashed for fandom's convenience.) Graham was a pretty white guy who didn't talk much.

When fandom chooses to write more stories about Graham than about Forrest, I think that's about race.

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Note about Ford from Hitchhiker's: most of the fic is based on the books or the radio plays, not the movies. The radio play says nothing about Ford's racial appearance (although it does mention some freaky alien things, like the not blinking), and I don't recall the books doing so, either. Radioplay!Ford was voiced by a white British guy. Short-lived TV-miniseries Ford was played by a white British guy.

So most HHG slash is white-looking alien/white British guy, not black-looking alien/white British guy--and Ford is first and foremost an alien. He doesn't identify as human at all, much less racially anything.

--

Anyway, generally agreed, but most TV shows don't have sufficient major CoCs (that sounds kind of dirty, eep) to slash them with each other--or they're in the wrong relationships to each other (Grey's Anatomy is full of CoCs, but not in terribly slashable relationships--two of the minor het couples are black, and one of the major couples is black & Korean, but these couples would not mix up well). Which is bad, but not directly the fault of fandom.

You hardly ever see black people or men in popular media ever really being vulnerable about anything else except their race.

Romance and class also, which I'd argue isn't terribly different from white male characters, who are usually vulnerable only about romance or possibly Family Issues.

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