“You guys know about vampires? You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, “Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t exist? And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might seem themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.”
—
Junot Diaz, Speaking to students at Bergen Community College, (via aliceincrohnsland)
#This is why. #This is why we need canon femslash and not just rule!63 characters.#This is why we need more stories—media fanfic whatever—about POC. #This is why fandom exists. #To build all of the fucking mirrors that the original authors never made or only half-silvered. #Because if the creators of the original work won’t make us visible we have to do this work ourselves. #And when fandom overwhelmingly shows me that I am invisible not just in the media but within my own fandom… #…I never feel like I existed at all. #fandom
(via minionier)
