I thought the article "defending race privilege on the Internet: how whiteness uses innocence discourse online" was really interesting. I think Kanjere does a great job outlining an showing all of the different ways that this type of white fragility or innocence discourse plays out with certain articles or pieces of media. The topics of white vulnerability, real world, common sense, and even color blindness ways of responding to these types of articles is really interesting because I think this is something that many people come across in comment sections at one point or another, and the author categorizes and analyzes these things well, to where I can understand what each type of response means (Kanjere, 5, 7, 9 ,11). What is interesting is that these pieces of media that call out white supremacist behavior or pillars are taken as threats by the people reading these pieces, and this lack of awareness, or just unfamiliar feeling of being left out of something is cause for people to get angry.
One of the things I was thinking about, especially in this article was the piece article the author referenced about Game of Throne's racist tropes. I think about the way that media, especially media with certain levels of diversity are ridiculed in internet comment sections, with most of the hateful comments coming from positions of a desire for the erasure of this diversity. The two scenarios that come to mind the most are with the new Lord of the Rings series, and the casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel in the remake of the Little Mermaid. This discourse is thinly-veiled racism, outrage about how "its not the same" as the older originals, or that a piece of fiction isn't "realistic". It's weird to see people get riled up about this sort of thing because the excuses white people use to be mad about the shows of movies comes from an odd and disingenuous place, coming up with outrageous ways to hide the overtly racist undertones of the comments. The one I see the most is that the diverse casting of this media makes it "unrealistic". As Kanjere mentions, these types of comments are just ways people try to "de-legitimize criticism of the racial status quo", white supremacy veiled as concern and vulnerability.
Michael, I think that the example of the backlash that the new Little Mermaid movie as well as the Lord of the Rings series received was good to incorporate because of how recent it was as well as the relevancy in compared to series such as game of thrones. Both of those productions also crossed my mind when I was reading this article. I was recently made aware of just how noninclusive the realm of fantasy is. I had no idea just how much diversity was lacking in this genre. The most recent Game of Thrones show "House of Dragons" included (what I believe to be) the first prominent black family/casting that the show has seen since the beginning.
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