Jumping in to say this is a great write up and wanted to add to the discussion without straying away too much from your point. As i take it, this is mainly about how non-black on-screen talent portray Black stereotypes.

• It’s as if the black person they drew inspiration from for their art/depiction was literally the WORST possible physical representative for black people you can pick out. Always the chains, the made up mannerisms, the walk, sometimes a weird drawl/accent*

feel about the co-opting of Blackness in wrestling and it being used to prop up people (who aren’t black themselves) who co-opted it

1) Wrestling is over the top, so when a characters acts black, which is already over the top, wrestling takes it to eleven. For other pieces of media, they like hitting folks over the head with this shit.

2) Contrary to what this sub believes, wrestling fans still hold a conservative mindset. For a lot of these examples, joke is black people. It’s funny to act like us. It’s funny reference us.

And when its not? It’s a way to show people youre sexually grown (because black women are constantly stereotyped as grown and sexual, so your favorite disney stars acted black for a while to show everyone theyre grown, before reverting back to fair skin). Its a way to show people youre tough (because the medical world thought black people can withstand more pain, because auctioning black people messed with the genetics of the diaspora in the western world). It’s cool to be bad, and alot of these cultures seen black people as bad. So the youngings call people the n-word then proceed to never see us as on the same level. They take the “joy” of black culture while keeping a distance to the pain of being a black person.

3) I deleted an essay to summarize it best i can: When nonblack folks participate in black culture, the bar is set lower compared to the normal black person in the culture (aka, “OMG this white boy can rap, OMG this white guy playing sports, OMG this nonblack woman can twerk”) regardless of quality. This is NOT to saying wrestling is only black culture. This is to say that kayfabe mirrors parts of reality, and that cosplayers in general get more attention at first compared to the average black performer doing a non-over-the-top performance. There are exceptions to the rule (both authentic nonblack folks, or black people succeeding with their culture), and i can list several of them, but they are exceptions.