Making fandom great again: silencing discussions of racism in reactionary and transformative fandoms

This article examines comments about race, racism, and fandom from the far-right comics fan subreddit r/WerthamInAction and on stories tagged "Don't Like, Don't Read" on progressive fanfiction sharing site, Archive of Our Own. We find significant convergences between the two groups despite their ostensible difference in ideology. In particular, both groups deployed racist stereotypes and resisted re-casting characters portrayed as white in media texts as people of color. Both groups also argued that fannish spaces were for escapism and fantasy and that discussions of race and racism brought unwelcome "political" concerns into the space. These cases thus demonstrate how online communities that discourage politicized discussion provide hospitable conditions for both subtle and overt racism.