I don’t think it’s offensive, i can see a man helping a woman so my point is that we all help others no matter their skin color
2 Likes
Um.
I don’t think it’s offensive. When I look at it I see one person helping another person, not white savior helping a black woman. 
I think if people would look less from this perspective it would ease dialogue from both sides, u know?
If it was reversed, it would be okay from those offended people’s pov. That’s what drives me mad.
3 Likes
Okay, I can understand why some people might have an issue with it based on the comments above, however, I think it’s fine the way it is, I have no problem with it. To me… It’s just a character helping another character. There’s no need to racially define them. People are people, we should all strive to help others in life regardless of any differences physically or otherwise.
Why see a poc being the one who is helped as a bad thing when its a white person helping them… Neither race is superior to the other regardless of any belief or history, so in my opinion, saying that it’s something that should need thinking about makes people feel like it isn’t allowed which in turn causes people to change basic things to tilt the scales and make a higher status for one than the other.
Which sure will please some, to see the situation reversed, but isn’t that being biased against the other side in the same way it’s being felt by poc people. As long as it isn’t done in a degrading manner to any specific person, be it man, woman, white or poc, I say create what you want and how you want. We are all people, as soon as you look beyond that, you find issues.
3 Likes
As I said, I wish this was the case. However, at the moment, there’s a real prevalence of the person helping being white and the person being helped being a POC. In an ideal world, this would be fine because we’d see this from both sides. At the moment, though, it’s a trope that we don’t get to see enough of the other way around.
While I would love to ignore race and just see two characters, I feel I have to be pragmatic about this. It’s such a common idea that, realistically, it’s one we need to break away from before we can just see two characters. And I do think we can get there one day! I just don’t think it works right now. To me, it’s like ignoring the problem and pretending it’s solved already.
6 Likes
There’s nothing offensive about this front cover. It’s not like the guy is beating her up and shouting racist words.
Also, love has no colour (if the story involves interracial relationships). The people who find this ‘racist’ are the ones being racist.
1 Like
That’s a fair enough view from your point, however I still think that the reaction that you have in that moment, is one that in the larger theme can cause issue where there is none intended.
When, in some cases, there is an issue made out of something unintentional, having a negative response to such a thing can cause a larger knock on affect.
I haven’t seen instances, from what I have seen etc, where it’s an unfair number or white/light skinned people, being the ones who are helping poc’s.
Of course if you look for a scale, I’m sure you can find instances where either side is unfairly depicted in certain ways. But to look at that, means having the negative outlook enough to seek it out, and me personally, especially when the piece itself isn’t offensive or negative, see no sense in turning it into something bad.
I would never have had an idea of characters helping each other, where the skin colour impacted who was more advantaged than the other.
**Perhaps it’s such a common idea, in some people’s views, simply because they choose to view it as such, for example, you look and see a white person helping another person, I look at it and see a man helping a woman, we have different view points, but these can influence an outlook and idea and negative thing to arise.
4 Likes
I didn’t comment on this part! I don’t think it’s biased. I think it’s simply being like “POCs often play this role. Why don’t we switch it up.” It’s good representation for both white people and POCs to mix roles like this up from time to time. I mean, a lot of white people speak about how it’s stupid to say they’re privileged when so many white people struggle with things like poverty. That’s a fair enough point and I personally don’t use the word privilege because I think it’s a right, not a privilege, for someone to not judge you negatively because of the colour of your skin.
But if that’s true, then I don’t see how it would be biased to portray things the other way around. It’s unrealistic for white people to always play the saviour anyway! It’s ok to be saved from time to time, right? If it wasn’t ok, POCs would really have something to be upset about.
As far as I remember, my reaction wasn’t that bad. I don’t think, anyway. I remember being approached and asked why other people saw it as offensive and I explained. I still don’t think it’s that big of a deal, but it’s something writers and artists should be aware of. If it doesn’t negatively affect the story for the roles to be reversed, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to do it on occasion!
And I personally agree with you that people overreact. I hate when that happens because it pushes people away from the cause when they really meant well. I do get angry sometimes, I admit. Although it’s usually when I’ve given someone some well-meaning advice and they’ve gotten angry and thrown it in my face. They aren’t obliged to change their content for my sake. But I’m trying to help them to not get the angry outcry they could get. They could at least not be an ass to me.
I don’t think it’s any one story. But we don’t write our stories in a vacuum! We write them in the context of everything that came before. So in the grand scheme of things, there are way too many white people saving POCs and barely any for the other way around. If it were just this one story, I’d be angry with anyone saying it was offensive. But if the author/artist can be aware of a negative trope (that’s only negative because it happens too often), and it doesn’t affect the story, it is a good idea to think about switching things up. They don’t necessarily have to take that advice, but at least consider it and understand the issue.
I don’t personally think that being saved by someone is an unfair depiction. However, in general, unfair depiction happens a lot more to POCs because we haven’t been equal for that long and we do still have some growing pains. If the saviour trope was an unfair depiction, then I think POCs would have a reason to be outraged by this cover.
That is true to some extent. However, on the scale it is, I think it’s naive to not at least consider the white saviour trope. It’s definitely there. And when there are just as many black or brown or Asian saviours out there, then we can say people are nitpicking
6 Likes
The white saviour trope is incredibly prevalent, but it’s not necessarily a bad trope? If there were some examples of it the other way round.
I personally love Tom Cruise’s ‘The Last Samurai’ but the white saviour trope is very strong with that one, and it’s especially egregious considering what America did to Japan >.< But the difference is that there are exmples of Japanese people saving America (Albeit in Japanese media) so it isn’t as huge an issue as with American PoC
6 Likes
Where there are no examples, definitely no popular ones
3 Likes
I want to keep stalking and reading this, but with stupid timezones, I’ll have to say: Night 
7 Likes
There are loads of films I love that use the white saviour trope! But in the past, one of the reasons the white saviour trope was so prevalent was because Hollywood (and the media in general) thought that audiences needed a white protagonist in order to find the story relatable. So they even had stories about other nations told by a white perspective. Naturally, the protagonist is usually a proactive member of the story – the hero – so they were the one helping the tribe or nation or community.
I think that the media underestimated white audiences. I think loads of people underestimate white people’s ability to put themselves in POCs shoes!
We don’t need to have our hero be white in order to relate to them. Not now – and I’d argue not ever. This idea is changing slowly over time (although I still know of publishing companies my friends turned down because they asked if the protagonist could be white for the sake of relatability). So we can broaden our horizons now! Not all of the people doing the saving need to be white now and not all of the people being saved need to be POC!
There are so many ways you can change up that trope. POC saving white people. POC saving their own people. White person saving white people.
6 Likes
I would stand by the old proverb of ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’, but I’m also an artist. I know how much a single piece can tell a story, and it’s naive to think it can’t. Art is an integral part of history and society for a reason. It portrays emotion and it tells a story.
This cover has some pretty iffy society-influenced connotations that need to be talked about, both in terms of the story it tells apart from the story it’s a cover for and the emotion it invokes
5 Likes
As silly as this might sound, I react in the same way to the white saviour trope as I do in games when my friend has played the same character for the past 100 times and I want a go
4 Likes
I roll my eyes and say “How about you give someone else a turn, Karen?”
5 Likes
Its the white guy helping/saving the black lady.
It’s not really a thing many people like me enjoy seeing.
It kinda annoys me sometimes but that’s just me >.<
Regardless the cover looks nice.
It’s just the issue that many people have wanting to break that stereotype and trope. It’s not one we appreciate a whole lot.
5 Likes
alright, that’s 1. Anyone else?
1 Like
By me saying about it then being biased it’s more of a reference towards if everyone who suddenly hears that it’s time to switch it up then flips the roles due to a racial decision it’s favouring one over the other for something that, at the end of the day should never be a reason for someone to be treated differently. That was the only part I was referring to being biased, not the act itself, the being helped/saved etc part is of no importance to that issue that I raised there.
Where you touched on privilege, I am sick of people saying that anyone has it because of the colour of their skin, I have had people throw “white privilege” in my face. Me being white has sweet f all to do with my life or who I am. They know nothing about me or what I have been through and the same goes for anyone and everyone. People of all races and upbringings have struggles, all of different matters of severity etc, the racial privilege card is utter trash that people shouldn’t use on others.
But hopefully that cleared up what I meant in reference to my biased comment 
Onto the next part, it wasn’t specifically to you, your personal reaction, more like a generalised version of the word (please excuse my less than clear phrasing today, I have had about 4 hours sleep in 72 hours, my phrasing is a certain way in my head that may not be coming out exactly the way I mean in typing today 
) But anyway, your reaction isn’t bad at all, and for what it’s worth I understand why you might think a certain way.
I am just more towards the case of if everyone looks at something simple like two people helping someone, and then rather than just see the two people overall, start to hightlight the differences between them, then it can be more harmful than good in the long run. When you can draw out the differences in search of equality, it can in some cases cause favouritism and the opposite effect for the other side. This wasn’t saying don’t bring it up or never think of using a white person as the one being helped up or whatever in the art/story or other, just that in some cases, most cases probably, these are nothing more than coincidental things and are innocently done. Perhaps where this is most likely, just try to leave differences aside and see the people.
I mean otherwise it could be moved as Men are always helping Women, although in this case it is somewhat more realistic, it can be seen the other way around. I myself was there for a guy in my life, through many of his hard times, so it could be shown more in some cases, but I appreciate that these are totally different situations and examples, so it’s of little relevance, just saying it could be brought up, however as it’s not done in a harmful way, then it’s not something, to me at least, that I would bring up as I choose to not look at the differences when something is innocent
Overreactions will always happen and can always be negative as well as annoying. I find this happens so often these days that in many cases significant and important issues are then cheapened and discarded because people throw accusations or keywords around like nothing, whilst also complaining about small or irrelevant things relating to issues.
I will take your word for it that there are more white people helping poc’s in stories etc, as I don’t even recall seeing one instance, at least off the top of my head, I probably have seen instances of both, however like I said, I choose to see the characters and situation as a whole and do not specifically look at their differences.
I never meant to insinuate that being saved by someone was the unfair depiction, merely the general way that someone could possibly be shown unfairly based on their skin colour. For instance a poc being from a ghetto or being loud and bolshy or a white person being high class or a rich snob. So again not the “saving” thing being specifically referenced in that comment that I made there.
Again, I don’t look at it that way, so I don’t know the actual number of times this has been used or not, I know for some people it’s an annoying thing to hear, but I see the character/scene and bahaviour overall. The race/status and sex is of no importance to me in the situations like this in a story.
I think we should all be aware of stereotyping any character or person based on anything that is specific to a person, skin, culture, background etc, but in simple realistic, everyday moments, I don’t see any need to pay extra attention to a harmless moment between two characters that just happen to be from different races etc.
Again as long as it’s not done in an offensive manner to begin, like for someone to assert themselves as a dominant person/status over the other.
Hope that’s a bit clearer now lol.
6 Likes
I don’t really see how pointing out the trope which is a racist one indeed will consider us “racist.”
2 Likes
Not us of course, it’s just these idiots that are making a huge deal out of the picture.
2 Likes