GattoConMagia13

His family literally owned slaves brother

Female. Information is scarce; it is possible that part of the family had them while he didn't—he didn't live there. That’s why flashbacks were needed.

If he's family owns them...he owns them too it's not a random ass uncle it's his immediate family

"When it finally ends, the family fortune is gone as well, leaving him with nothing but a ranch in a distant wasteland." -> it belongs to his family, in a distant land. In the first chapters, he implies that they lived in a mansion and that the ranch belonged to his father. So it's not necessarily true that it belonged to his son.

I'm crine so what do you think would have happened if they didn't lose their fortune

How the hell should I know? Maybe it was viewed from the perspective of his post-war life—set where he’d always lived—and the story wouldn't have been called that. There would have been other characters, and it wouldn't have caused such a scandal. Unfortunately, you can't tell much about the story from a single chapter—just the basics. (I don't know why Google Translate added "you"). Tell me, how would the story have unfolded if it hadn't been cancelled?

It would have been a slave x master trope babes

For heaven's sake, it was NEVER a master-slave dynamic. My English might not be perfect, but I understood—thanks in part to Google Translate—that Ezra says "I am your slave" just to provoke; the introduction says as much, too. In the chapter, Ezra also refers to "my ranch"—now, I don't know much about slavery, but since when does a slave own anything, especially in that historical context?

It doesn't matter girl it still falls under the slave x master dynamic

Can you explain this dynamic to me, exactly? Leaving aside that infamous, avoidable phrase, of course.

Sure the dynamic isn't determined by whether Ezra literally has legal ownership papers over the other character in chapter one the issue is that the romance is built on a history where one lead comes from a family that owned enslaved people and the other belongs to the group that was enslaved that power imbalance doesn't disappear just because the war ended or because the protagonist personally opposes slavery on top of that, the story immediately frames the white protagonist as the one who frees the enslaved people and establishes him as morally exceptional. That's why people call it a white savior/slave-master adjacent dynamic. It's not about whether he literally says, "You're my slave." It's about the historical relationship and the narrative framing if you remove the historical context, then yes, it isn't a slave/master story. But the author chose that historical context, so you can't separate the romance from the system it's built on.

Oops confused the names sorry Ezra the the native guy. I'm bad with names don't mind me

But perhaps that was just the foundation—the backdrop of the story—to establish the context. In the various mixed-pairing scenarios (whether realistic, fantasy, or supernatural), the "top" partner is almost always dark-skinned (side note: am I imagining things, or is the "top" in these pairings never white? Except for the guy who turns into a female and switches genders, that is). He always comes from a prominent family, and the stories are set in real-world locations—barring a few instances where the settings are fictional. My point is, you can't really classify him as a slave owner; aside from the "ending it all" aspect, we don't know exactly what he was like before. We only know about the war and the ranch inheritance—that’s it. The way I see it, the goal was to showcase the character's personality rather than portray him as someone who owned another person, given the context. Don't worry about the names.

the author tried to avoid the most obvious expressions of racism, but ended up feeding into it in the end. racism isn't always obvious acta of violence and exclusion, it can also take the form of flattening people's humanity into caricatures, or simply erasure from narratives.

of all the kinds of people and stories you could tell about this time period in this place, why are these the ones chosen? what's the appeal of their dynamic? how is the setting and time period relevant to that?

here, it looked like a very deliberate choice to write around the existence of Black people who lived during that time even though their presence is integral to the livelihoods of the MCs. maybe the author thought they'd avoid the backlash they got by doing that, but that's still an expression of racism, by ignoring that Black people are also people who want their stories and experiences told and treated with respect. and if the author didn't want to include Black people, which they're ultimately not obligated to do, they would have been better off choosing another topic and setting to write about, because like it or not, when writing about American history, you'll have to grapple with the racial dynamics of this country one way or another, to say nothing of the civil war era (even postwar) where the crux of the conflict was "what are we going to do with Black people (are they even people?)". to then make the only Black people in the story be faceless mobs seemingly only with the intention of making the white MC look good and ethical, just rubs salt in that wound. if the author wanted an interracial cowboy romance with this particular dynamic, they had other options for time and setting (and not to mention that those power and racial dynamics are present in other times as well).
every choice a creator makes in their story reflects their knowledge and interests, which are not free from bias.
like with your side note - you'll see a zillion tops with darker skin than their bottom because they're being typecast into the "wild, exotic lover" role, which makes many (colorist, racist) assumptions about intelligence, civility and masculinity (which is why it's 99.9% of times a top and not the bottom with darker skin). this series was kind of playing into that, too.

Just to clarify, I don't know what was going through her mind; maybe she wanted to use a different setting, rarely used by authors.
If you look closely, there are other faceless characters (see pages 2, 5, 6), and they're white characters. So saying that only black characters have no faces is false. I'm not saying this to justify her, but don't other authors usually do the same? Don't you show all the characters' faces?
Isn't every mistake or lack of information collected indicative of racism?

I'm aware that it's a common time/effort saving choice in comics. I'm saying that it's a choice that reflects poorly on the creator's intentions and priorities in telling this story, considering the setting and time period that was chosen. it's very suspicious to have a story where the civil war and its aftermath are significant to the narrative and characters, and then only feature Black people as background props to assure modern readers that the protagonist isn't a bad person by their standards. maybe there would have been actual Black characters done well in future chapters, but that initial presentation does not inspire confidence in the creator since they were not even aware of the implications of what they drew in chapter one. and if they were aware of the implications and making choices for shock value in the first chapter, like the "I'm your slave" line, then the response to those choices shows that the creator needed to reconsider their approach if they wanted better reactions.
it's not just one or two things in isolation, it's multiple choices adding up that leads me to conclude that there was some unconscious, subtle racism present in the formulation of this series, which wasn't a good sign that the creator would be able to do well in telling the story sensitively as it went on. ignorance by itself isn't a crime, but failing or choosing to learn and be informed is a problem, especially when it comes to the topics this series would have dealt with.

ignorance by itself isn't a crime, but failing or choosing *not* to learn and be informed is a problem, especially when it comes to the topics this series would have dealt with.

You are worst than racist, you all are fucking STUPID BY CHOICE

Look, I’ve just dealt with a fucking nightmare trying to send a document, so—without beating around the bush—I’ll just say this: re-read my damn message and tell me what you didn't get. Sure, I use Google Translate, but it seems clear enough to me. It’s a pain in the ass how people scream "racism" over nothing. By that logic, other comics with mixed-race couples would be racist too, even without slavery involved. Take it up with the trolls; you’ve seen their messages

A non-racist defending a racist is what ur saying rn

Are you the same person from my other comment? Can we, once and for all, stop crying "racism" at everything? Making a mistake out of ignorance—because one wasn't well-informed—doesn't automatically make a person a racist. Straight from the internet (keep in mind I use Google Translate and search for things in my own language): "Racists are people who believe in the existence of human 'races' that are biologically superior or inferior. This mindset breeds prejudice and discrimination, driving them to treat others unfairly based solely on skin color, nationality, ethnicity, or religion." I don't follow the author's profiles, but if she had written racist statements on purpose, I think the internet would have exploded.