𝒜𝔩𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯 ; Background stuff

Anyways, that human Alastor post made me wanna throw down some thoughts about Alastor's "background" cause racist zoomer antis in the fandom are wild. I've never gone too hard or deep into Al's history and stuff like that, or rather I've never spoke about it in detail because I didn't want to get attached to my own concepts if canon came along and contradicted anything but none the less I've had plenty of thoughts about Al and I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO TELL YOU HOW HAPPY I AM that he really does seem to be almost everything I imagined so far, but its still early days as far as actual canon goes so we have a lot to cover and theres a lot we haven't seen yet and honestly might never and there is nothing wrong with that. But, like, ultimately, its really insane to me that people out here will claim that if Alastor's history doesn't paint like some "empowering" django unchained esque picture of in your face racism and oppression that he's not a "real black man" or that anything about him is "racist" or "inaccurate" and w/e because like ... Heres the thing, history isn't as black and white as that ( no pun intended ! ) and while Alastor's time period was good for some epic racism and he undoubtably would have had to navigate it throughout his life regardless to anything, Alastor also lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. Which is pretty fucking important to get an ( accurate ) idea of what Alastor's life as a mixed person would have looked like.

Louisiana had a pretty big population of free blacks. Socially and  economically this was a "good" place for black people going as far back as around the 1760s, maybe even earlier. Black people lived and prospered there, often enjoying similar freedoms as white folks way before that was even getting thought about in other places. This was especially true for black women. At a point, it was recorded that a quarter of the houses along the main streets of New Orleans were owned by free black people and MOST of those were SINGLE BLACK WOMEN. Which is really something to note, especially for this time, this being in the 18th century so this is much earlier than Alastor's time period.

But bringing  us  to  Alastor's  time  of  being  alive,  which  would  be  around  the  1900s  to  his  death  in  1933,  yeah,  its  highly,  highly  likely  Alastor's  ancestry  has  a  lot  of  free  blacks,  its  likely  Alastor's  mother  was  a  land  owner  or  of  higher  class  which  meant  yes,  despite  being  a  person  of  colour,  Alastor  likely  had  plenty  of  privileges  and  not  just  because  of  being  "white  passing",  but  because  this  was  relatively  normal  for  black  people  in  this  area.

And  thats  pretty  much  how  I've  seen  it  for  Alastor.  He's  well  aware  of  racism,  he's  experienced  period  typical  racism  toward  himself  and  toward  his  family  as  that's  unavoidable,  but  he's  never  had  a  real  concept  of  being  "lesser"  to  whites,  he's  never  seen  himself  as  such,  there's  no  point  of  reference  in  his  family  for  him  to  look  to  and  see  this  up  close  aside  from,  again,  the  attitudes  of  whites  around  him,  if  that  makes  sense.  In my HC Alastor's father was white but he wasn't in the picture, he doesn't really know him but it honestly doesn't matter because Alastor's mother owned their home and, in my hc, ran her own small hair salon as a business. She tended to have bad relationships with men but all in all she was a strong woman and Alastor's immense respect of women very much started with her. ( And Alastor's dislike of men started with his mother's lame ass boyfriends. ) So Alastor's articulate, educated and high-class demeanor comes from here. Yes he "acts" and "talks" "white" in a sense, but this isn't to intentionally emulate whiteness as such, it was just the "standard" of the "upper class" at the time which is what Alastor's actually emulating and what was widely considered desired regardless of race as this was what made someone come across as powerful and affluent at this time.

Alastor's main concern throughout his life is appearing powerful, though not necessarily to follow the status quo, which he's actually always enjoyed subverting. But a lot of his outward presentation has to do with this, from his mode of dress to his constant smiling. This could be considered another hallmark of his time period but also, yeah, sure, that aside Al does have "issues" and you could probably say they DO stem from a place of paranoia and aversion toward being looked down upon in life, which again is also likely due to the unavoidable racism of his time and the consequences of racism still being much greater here in spite of his freedoms.

I also think I made an older post mentioning this and it was something I wanted to babble about after I watched the eps and decided not to because I got side tracked squealing about things on discord but Alastor saying to Vaggie his face was meant for radio was something I really loved because while it might have been JUST a gag, I read into it as someone whose been headcanoning this kinda shit since day one, and again I'm pretty sure I mentioned it in an older post, but him saying that felt like a nod to the fact that it was very common for people like Alastor ( poc ) to do VERY WELL on radio due to the fact no one could actually see them to get any impression they weren't white and thus discriminate against them based on this. This, I hc, is true for Alastor and a big reason why Alastor did so well as a radio host in his time. Basically in my HC Al picked up his radio job kind of by accident but unlike Alastor's other projects, it really took off and he embraced it fully. By the late 1920s he was a big name on the air and honestly he was doing really well for himself and probably would have lived a long and prosperous life if he didn't pick up the habit of murdering people. But yeah this idea he isn't black enough and that he doesn't look / act / talk etc "black enough" and that this is somehow racist etc is actually whats racist and kinda mad ignorant too so yeah thats my thoughts on that ! Like I don't know what, if any of Alastor's background is gonna get shown, but so far everything about Alastor seems correct to the time period and none of it regardless to what way it goes is "racist" or "not black enough" especially for Alastor's era, location and profession.