wongbal asked:
Your art style is so good! Also I can't remember if you started the Bajorans-as-gerbils thing but I love it so much, please never stop
c-rowlesdraws answered:
Thank you, I’m so glad you like my art! But drawing the Bajorans as gerbil/chipmunk-looking people was something I did early on that I’m trying to actually move away from. Someone wrote to me and told me how uncomfortable they felt with my giving rodentlike features to aliens written to be analogous to the Jewish people, since comparisons to “vermin” were historically featured in antisemitic propaganda, so I’m trying to be mindful by adjusting the way I draw them to be more generically mammalian, rather than explicitly rodentlike.
I feel like it’s worth noting that Michael Piller, one of the writers who first introduced the Bajorans, had this to say about them:
“The Bajorans are the PLO but they’re also the Kurds, the Jews, and the American Indians, They are any racially bound group of people who have been deprived of their home by a powerful force [….]”
So the Bajorans are written to be reminiscent of many real-world groups of people, rather than a 1:1 representation of any one group. But not echoing antisemitic imagery is the least I can do, so. Design adjustment.
It’s been almost two months and I’m still upset about this. Sorry, but you shouldn’t have to apologize for your art because of someone else’s headcanon. Very big of you to honour their wishes, but it’s so depressing to me seeing stuff like this. People on this hellsite need critical thinking skills.
If somebody’s art makes you uncomfortable, take a second and ask yourself whether the artist is actually promoting harmful imagery, or does it just feel that way to you because you’ve chosen to personally identify these fictional aliens with a real group of people. And if it’s the latter, you should think about unfollowing or blocking them and moving on with your life, rather than making it their problem.
