Despite the fact that it very much is not, if you listen to any racialized person.

What's a Solution?

Best I've seen is the "Stupid Defense". Put on cow-in-headlights eyes and ask "Why's that funny?" and make them explain it. Potentially ask, "Isn't that racist?"

It's the culmination of decades of work. Graying out photos that are available in colour. Constantly using Past-Tense language in history books.
(Any Native practice as ALWAYS talked about as if it's an extinct artifact from a bygone age.)
It's created and fortified the idea that racism is past.

(I was very fond of Red Shoes!)

I've been writing a lot of mystery and horror stories lately, and I've been playing a lot with recursive narratives, but I also find joy in telling simple stories well!

Yes! It reminds me of the conflation of "Protagonist" with "Good Guy".

Although, by making a character a protagonist, the framing is that we should be empathizing with a character. One of my biggest issues with "Killers of the Flower Moon" is how they framed a villain as the protagonist.

It's not that these tropes don't show up at all in other cultures and story formats. But they show up MUCH MUCH Less!

Usually, heroes have to earn the title.

Even with special births, it's viewed as an obligation to live up to. Not a privilege to enjoy.

It's a little different when they DO have to Earn it. But in those cases, they're normally not called Chosen Ones!

It ties back to the MC Syndrome because many people feel they're Special so their actions are justified.

We become Chosen Ones for our own reasons and use stories as justification.

Or Coincidence of Place.

Too Often, they didn't have to DO anything to be Chosen. They didn't have to demonstrate Competence, or Virtue. They just had to Exist, or Be in the Right Place at the Right time. Or be Picked by a higher power, because Reasons. (Often Because "Fate")

Meanwhile, the Chosen One narrative is a related issue.

Too often, the Chosen One isn't Chosen, but Born. They are "chosen" because they were the son of god. They were born because of midichlorians. They were bitten by a radioactive spider.

No Choice in it. Just accident of birth.

(This is partially a tangent I have of "Why should we do anything if we're just playing out something that was destined to happen?" If I am sitting here, acting out a part that was already pre-written, then nothing I do ultimately matters.

But that's neither here nor there.)

Fate is such a copout. Same with destiny. Especially when paired with our societal view of Bootstraps and Personal Accountability. "This was fated to happen!" "It was just Destiny" "God Has a Plan!"

All of it is so contradictory to the idea of personal agency. ("If you're poor it's your fault!")

The MC Syndrome comes as a part of how our society is so individualistic. "Get yours and fuck the other guy!" doesn't lead to much community building, (likely by design).

A lot of our stories encourage this. We're very reliant on "Fate" and "The Chosen One", both of which are tropes I LOATHE!

Ancient Aliens answer too often was "Well, the white folk in Europe didn't know how to do this, so there's no way these brown folk could have figured it out! I mean, come on! You know why!"

That's a trope practically as old as stories themselves. "That inferior groups Heathen Gods helped them!"

Looking at stories from other cultures, you have different formats and different act structures, each of which have their own pros and cons. But, especially in America, we view Europe as the "Proper" way of things and anything else as "lesser".
(It's a big reason Ancient Aliens was so popular.)

Well, the reason it's easy to write is because it's so familiar. We've been told it's either the only, or the best way to tell a story.

It's very Eurocentric.

That's really cool! It reminds me a little of Glass Town, a fantasy world that the Bronte sisters created and maintained basically through their entire lives.

One of the things I do for fun is just to write little vignettes about comic characters from Bystanders' perspectives.