Watch Black Cosplayers Talk About The Racism In Comic Fandom

It's time we start talking about fandom diversity. Spend any time online, and you can see that plenty of fandoms are pretty classist and racist when it comes to cosplay, but #BlackCosplayerHere is proof that WOC are absolutely killing the game when it comes to recreating their favorite characters. 

“These are fictional characters at the end of the day,” cosplayer Panterona explained to us outside of New York Comic Con. “You should be allowed to cosplay whoever you want.” 

#BlackCosplayerHere was started by Belema Boyle, @CluelessxBelle on Twitter, to create a visible community for black cosplayers. And it's been incredibly successful—just take a look at all the incredible images on Twitter and Instagram. 

Cosplayer Izzy Saeko spoke about the pervasive racism that still occurs in the cosplaying community, explaining, "Black cosplayers, we’ve had tons of issues in real life and online where people will say, ‘Oh, you can’t cosplay that character because your skin is too dark or it’s not canon,' when in reality it’s racist, and it’s not okay to say stuff like that." 

Check out all the incredible cosplayers we linked up with at NYCC, and learn more about #BlackCosplayerHere in the video, above. 

Credits:

Produced by Gretta Wilson

Shot by Charlotte Prager and Gretta Wilson

Edited by Madeline Stedman