“[T]he characterization of fans who critique the whiteness of fan spaces as ‘policing activists’ rather than people invested in communal pleasure is fundamental to how white supremacy maintains itself.”
This part accords exactly with my own experience (emphasis mine):
This experience [of having Black fans point out the racism in anti-Spuhura arguments] was extremely foundational because once I was made aware of the racialization of my choices it gave me the chance to work through my own defensiveness. I realized that fandom had always encouraged me to be self-reflexive about my attraction to certain character archetypes and shipping dynamics in terms of gender and sexuality but had worked to elide their whiteness. This in turn helped me to value characters of color who also offered me the exact same modes of pleasure but which fandom had deemed to be uninteresting. This was a huge turning point for me, not because I was being policed into appropriate modes of fandom, but because I was able to actually expand notions of my own fannish pleasure.
The bolded part I think bears emphasis because of the common and very, very calculated conflation of fandom criticism with “bullying” and "policing.” In fact, a fandom racism denialist tried to explain my own experience to me by claiming @diversehighfantasy had “strong-armed” me into shipping Finnrey. This, despite my emphasizing from the start how calm and courteous Holly had been when pointing out the racialized way media portrays romance. Forget tone policing, it doesn’t even seem to matter how gentle the tone is. Mentioning race in any capacity in fandom at all is by itself characterized as violence, and by extension Black women who speak up are characterized as scary bullies.
I mean if Holly had somehow twisted my arm to change my shipping preference that would be to her credit because fuck yeah Finnrey, but I’m afraid she can’t claim that much credit. :P Much like Rukmini, my preferences weren’t diminished or controlled in any way by racism discourse in fandom, they were expanded once I was able to get over myself and look past my own defensiveness.