A lot of the popular stories on this site are ones that tackle prejudice and discrimination and naturally arguing fiercely against it. It makes sense, we live in a modern world where discriminatory attitudes such as racism, sexism, homophobia are increasingly frowned upon, and I'm totally in favor of that.

But there's something I see constantly that really rubs me the wrong way: a common method authors use to argue against prejudice and negative stereotypes is by using other, more socially acceptable stereotypes. It wouldn't bother me so much except some of the most popular stories on this site do it and people continuously gobble it up!

Examples. One of the most common and saddening ways in which homophobia is tackled in these stories is by turning the whole Apple Clan into flaming backward gay-bashing bigots. Basically, they're reduced to one of the cheapest yet still seen as mostly acceptable negative stereotypes: the backward-thinking/bigoted, ultra-conservative redneck. The majority of us know that not all conservative country people are like this, yet it's still seen as widely acceptable in media, especially when they're ironically using them to argue against a form of prejudice and stereotyping (be it homophobia, racism, etc).

Another example is, the matter of racism and xenophobia, be it the human or changeling OC of the week or other pony tribes like Bats. A common "solution" used by a lot of authors is just to turn on one side, ie Ponies or Humans, into the bigoted, one-dimensional villains. And if it's ponies, you can bet the textbook "evil, pompous nobility" and "oppressive guards" are going to be portrayed the worst, who I personally see as the most acceptable targets of the entire fandom. Now here's the thing; the ordinary goal in these stories is to put forward that the race of our regular underdog, non-pony OC is that their race is Not all evil or corrupt. Fair enough. However, you're not Really successfully tackling the moral when you simultaneously paint another group overwhelmingly as the ones who are the problem, if not a subgroup within them. So really, it's comes off as less "prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination on all levels are bad" and more "Oh, don't worry, it's not the main character's group (Humans/Changelings/Batponies) who are the bad guys, it's just the other, majority group (Ponies or at least the "evil Canterlot nobility" who are the REAL bad guys".

Or, alternatively, "It's wrong to hate all changelings or humans, they're not all bad. In fact, most of them are sweet and kind and just misunderstood. But the nobility, the royal guard and country folk? Oh, they're all evil, hateful bigots and for the nobility especially, greedy and power hungry too. You can utterly LOATHE them all you want."

So why is this matter of Acceptable Targets and double standards so commonplace? Is it because we just don't think about the implications of them? Do we really hold some of these groups in contempt in real life and know a lot of people won't give us a lot of guff for it? Or is it simply a cheaper, easier way of getting our messages across?

What say you? Also, can you name any other common acceptable targets in this fandom and site? Heck, why we're at it, why do you think some of these groups Are seen as more acceptable to target and ridicule?

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So why is this matter of Acceptable Targets and double standards so commonplace?

Normally I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. But... really, the answer is laziness. It's easy. You can make a villain that everyone will accept and understand is a villain. It's disgustingly simple and you don't have to think about it more or spend words on fleshing out the other side to make them three dimensional. They're just utterly without virtue.

And hey, I fell for the trap too. I had a 'Blueblood is a moron/nobility are short-sighted-idiots' moment in my first story too. Because it was the most expeditious possible way to piss Luna off to an explosive breaking point she was working towards, at the time.

I do regret it now, in my wiser years, though.

Also, can you name any other common acceptable targets in this fandom and site?

Bullies.
Rich ponies.
Merchants.
Griffons (aka feathered Klingons).
Non-Protagonist Changelings
Diamond Dogs

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People love simple good versus evil narratives. They don't like things that are gray.
That is why World War II is far far far more popular than World War I in various fictional stories.
The Nazis were red eyed demons that drank the blood of unicorns and shit out pure malevolence.
However WWI was just a bunch of alliances that went off like an elaborate mouse trap. There isn't really anything to demonize one side or the other with.

The rich. The show's made it obvious that Diamond Tiara is just a mean filly with a grudge against Apple Bloom, but she keeps getting turned into a Complete Monster in fanfics. What's more, Silver Spoon (who doesn't even really have the grudge, she's just loyal to her friend Diamond Tiara) sometimes also gets turned into a monster. And Filthy Rich, who in "Family Appreciation Day" is shown to be fairly nice and reasonable, is assumed villainous simply because he owns a chain of stores (from which, it's obvious, the Apples derive a good deal of income as an outlet for their farm products).

The show's actually been pretty good in depicting that rich Ponies aren't inherently evil, but may be nice or nasty like any other Ponies. When it's shown rich or upper class jerks, it's usually also shown nice rich or upper class Ponies: for instance, Fancy Pants (nice rich guy) and Upper Crust (obnoxious rich guy), or Shining Armor and Blueblood. (For that matter, Twilight Sparkle herself clearly comes from a wealthy and upper-class Canterlot family, and thus was top-drawer even before her brother married a Princess and she became a Princess). One clear theme of the show is that Ponies are good or bad based on their personal natures, rather than their origins in Class or Kind.

The Man with Two Names comes to mind.

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Oh, it is exceptionally frustrating when I see such blanket reversal of characterization just to promote the chosen protagonist. Some stories I still read because such things are marginalized (not interacting with the nobles because they're all unpleasant) but some I have to drop because the story hinges on such a reversal (following Luna's loyal cadre in the pursuit of downing her evil sister, Celestia).

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So why is this matter of Acceptable Targets and double standards so commonplace?

In short: Because the same thing happens in the real world. In many cases, someone's got a chip on their shoulder and it doesn't much matter which side of the argument they're on.

It's also easier to get the train rolling if it's not a matter of one side or group not being wrong but in the wrong.

As for the Apples specifically: It's actually a pretty new thing that rural communities are as up to speed as cities. Hence, farmers aren't so much 'backwards' as 'traditional.' Religion aside, farmers are/were absolutely dependent on having children to continue working the farm after they can't and to continue their family line.

Seriously, old timey (read not that long ago, really) social security was a healthy womb. Adoption wasn't frowned upon, per se, but usually the adoptee wouldn't be considered an heir.

Ergo: Breed or starve.

Double standards exist everywhere. And that's part of the problem here however the other part of the problem is simply lazy if well-intentioned writing. Most people don't understand or can't accept because of their preconceptions that most of the prejudice that exists today is unconscious but still learned. Portraying unconscious preconceptions realistically is probably quite difficult, because most people are unaware of them. Part of this is because they occur automatically and we have no control over them.

If we did we be one step closer to becoming like the ponies and other selfless and noble heroes we know and love. This unawareness is often misleadingly referred to as white privilege, because at least in theory white people founded and and shaped Western society through intentional and unintentional domination and oppression.

However, this narrative misses the point that any group can be dominant and intentionally or unintentionally transmit their values and social norms from both one generation to another and to any minorities that exist within the territory they occupy.

The problem lies not with in our character but with the way the neurons in our brain work together to create the mental patents but allow us to see the world. These categories are often the result of ignorance and can interact with the emotions of hate and fear to cause great pain and suffering.

We may not be able to get rid of hate and fear but we can either a race our own memories of a destructive stereotypes and preconceptions we have acquired, or we can blind our children from these horrifying ideas. However, in the long-term these may be only temporary solutions.

From the point of the evolutionary goal to survive and reproduce this system works quite well, but if we ever master genetic and neurological engineering we might not need the system anymore. We would have to self-control over our genes and in how we see the world. Furthermore we would be able to control our vices and encourage but perhaps not necessarily guarantee our virtues.

Even if we don't have free well right now, we may yet some day come across another mental system that gives us that ability.

Also, a lot of those in unconscious preconceptions are subtle, often even to the extent that most white straight males are unaware of them. You can insult someone because of their race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, religion or lack thereof unintentionally as easy as you can intentionally.

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And yeah -- the depiction of the Apples as an inbred clan of dumb hypocritical bigoted hicks grates on my nerves, because it goes directly against the evidence from canon. In the show, Applejack is one of the nicest members of the Mane Six in her treatment of her friends -- she is strongly supportive, emotionally and physically affectionate, and goes far out of her way to help them (that's what gets her into trouble in S1E4 "Applebuck Season" -- she overcommits her time to her friends, and doesn't give herself enough time to rest. What's more, she's also thoughtful -- she recognizes that what her preferences are not those of everypony else. Her immediate family are similarly nice Ponies.

Note that in the show she's probably Twilight Sparkle's best friend out of the Mane Six. Now, Twilight Sparkle is a cosmopolitan intellectual, who was raised around the highest of upper-class Ponies. She's also a perfectionist. If she approves of Applejack, then it is unlikely that Applejack is intolerant and ignorant.

Yet in a lot of fanfics, Applejack is assumed to be stupid, and violently opposed to any form of non-conformity (this, the Pony who hangs out with five rather obviously weird mares and a young Dragon). This is not consistent with what we've seen in canon -- the only evidence for this is S1E9 "Bridle Gossip," and everypony (save for Twilight Sparkle, who knew about Zebras) was suspicious of Zecora. The obvious reason is that Applejack is characterized as coming from a Fantasy Counterpart Upper South culture, and a lot of people are prejudiced against Southern whites.

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What I don't see is any rational reason to dislike Applejack (or for that matter farmers in general) for apparently wanting to marry and have children. (I say "apparently," because Applejack has actually displayed zero interest in canon in either, though lack of display is not the same thing as lack of interest -- it's more likely that she simply has very high standards regarding both a potential husband and her own behavior). Does Applejack have some obligation to be promiscuous yet avoid having children?

3785454 I have to agree with Lumie on this. 80-90% of it is just laziness. I particularly hate it when Granny Smith is suddenly a raging homophobe, for heaven's sake, and tosses out her own granddaughter. Not in a thousand years of ever. I'd think they'd be way more likely to close ranks behind whatever member of their family was running into prejudice. If the Apples do have a blind spot, it's probably the "my family/my kinfolk/my land" thing. She doesn't care if you're a unicorn or an earth pony or what, but do not mess with her family or her land, because they amount to the same thing.

I had a lot of fun with this with Braeburn once. I was writing him as straight and everyone assumed he was clueless and/or would be upset if a stallion hit on him, and he was absolutely cool. He pointed out that because he came from a small town, absolutely nothing surprised him, because nopony could keep a secret if they tried. (He did, however, turn down Trenderhoof.)

3785513 Yes--you put this very well. Blueblood is a jerk because he's a jerk, I think. I don't like Griffons or Changelings, but I also don't use them as villains. I just don't find them compelling to write about.

3785544 Filthy Rich is closer to a villain in the comics--see the Rarity micro, where he basically is driving the all-natural organic farm out of business. I guess he was a villain in Looking Glass World, but I tried to make him believable. He wasn't doing anything illegal, or anything most actual business people wouldn't do. Scooping up unregistered trademarks and registering them, trying to produce cheaper replicas of popular products: that's what people do. It may be unethical, but it's not illegal. Nor is twisting the arm of a competitor to sell or come in on the business. From a certain point of view (not mine), it's almost wrong NOT to take advantage of this, like leaving money lying around on the street. If you don't do it, someone else surely will. And he's a loving if blind daddy to "my Diamond," who is partly the motive for his heaping up as much money as he possibly can.

I do plead guilty to making Diamond Tiara as close to Paris Hilton as I dared, though. It was the teacup chihuahua they gave her. Heck, she wasn't even particularly mean to the CMC!

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I'm assuming that's an in-general as opposed to mine. And I've never really seen any stories with issue to her wanting to settle down. There've been plenty where she _doesn't_ for a number of reasons, most of them having to do with her spending most of her time working and not, well, putting herself out there, so to speak. Basically that she just doesn't know anyone she'd like to settle down with and hasn't put effort into meeting one.

From what you'd said above, I do actually argue that Applejack is extremely selfish when it comes to her family, but I suspect that that's an artifact of an episodic show and a character quirk regardless, not a stereotype.

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I particularly hate it when Granny Smith is suddenly a raging homophobe, for heaven's sake, and tosses out her own granddaughter. Not in a thousand years of ever. I'd think they'd be way more likely to close ranks behind whatever member of their family was running into prejudice.

Oh yes. Granny might be unhappy if Applejack turned out lesbian (mostly because she's probably hoping for great-grand-daughters from her), but she wouldn't hate AJ. And she'd definitely not cast her out of the family -- AJ would have to morph into the Flim Flam Brothers for that. (And maybe not even then == recently, she actually helped Flim and Flam when she ran into them in the comics -- Granny's just nice that way. It's easy to see why all the stallions wanted to marry her when she was a young mare. and not just for her beauty!)

If the Apples do have a blind spot, it's probably the "my family/my kinfolk/my land" thing. She doesn't care if you're a unicorn or an earth pony or what, but do not mess with her family or her land, because they amount to the same thing.

(*nods*) In fact, her two best friends include the former unicorn (now alicorn) Twilight Sparkle, and the pegasus Rainbow Dash. But she would be very torn if (say) Rainbow Dash and Apple Bloom seriously quarreled, because it would be friend against family then.

I had a lot of fun with this with Braeburn once. I was writing him as straight and everyone assumed he was clueless and/or would be upset if a stallion hit on him, and he was absolutely cool. He pointed out that because he came from a small town, absolutely nothing surprised him, because nopony could keep a secret if they tried.

That's actually true. And few behavioral minorities are so uncommon that they don't have at least one or two representatives in a town the size of Ponyville (2000+ and growing). I was actually surprised when I researched gender dysphoria as background for writing Glittershell, and realized that there are probably a couple of other gender-dysphorics already in town -- Snailsquirm simply might not realize it because gender dysphoria is not exactly a visible condition from the outside. As for mere homosexuality or bisexuality, if we take very low estimates of 1% gay and 4% bisexual Ponies (2.5% and 10% seem more likely to me) then Ponyville would have 20 exclusive homosexuals/lesbians and 80 bisexuals -- that's enough for them to patronize a small gay bar or club.

The ethos of Equestrian culture seems tolerant -- behavioral abnormalities that don't harm others seem unlikely to be persecuted. (Yes, in some cases they might lead to personal rejection from others, but part of toleration is accepting the right of others to choose with whom they will and will not associate).

(He did, however, turn down Trenderhoof.)

Trenderhoof has no luck with the Apples. Say, isn't there a Cherry who's feeling lonely?

Filthy Rich is closer to a villain in the comics--see the Rarity micro, where he basically is driving the all-natural organic farm out of business.

Yeah, he comes off nastier there. Though note, he's not sending goon squads to torch the place or beat up the staff or customers. He just wants their land and is willing to do anything legal to get it, IIRC.

And he's a loving if blind daddy to "my Diamond," who is partly the motive for his heaping up as much money as he possibly can.

The tragedy here, of course, is that he's probably harming her development by over-spoiling her. He would be very sad if she turned out seriously decadent, especially because she probably wouldn't appreciate the hard work that went into building the wealth she would waste.

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And I've never really seen any stories with issue to her wanting to settle down. There've been plenty where she _doesn't_ for a number of reasons, most of them having to do with her spending most of her time working and not, well, putting herself out there, so to speak. Basically that she just doesn't know anyone she'd like to settle down with and hasn't put effort into meeting one.

Oh no, I'm just saying that some people think that people who want to marry and have children are stupider and less tolerant than those who want to be single forever and have no children. Though there's some (very weak) justification for it in this and this alone: smart people may become so obsessed with their artistic or scientific work that they avoid marriage; and people who get married are less tolerant of things which they believe endanger their families.

My Applejack has an Intention with a stallion who disappeared two years before Luna's Return: she still loves him and considers herself bound in honor to her agreement, at least for some more years. She greatly fears he's dead.

3785454

So why is this matter of Acceptable Targets and double standards so commonplace? Is it because we just don't think about the implications of them? Do we really hold some of these groups in contempt in real life and know a lot of people won't give us a lot of guff for it?

You kinda hit the nail on the head with that last one.

The funny thing about anti-descrimination is that it tends to only go for the people likely to raise a fuss about it. Nostalgia Critic and his cohorts often get onto people or their works for racism towards blacks, but then he posts his Sailor Moon review which is basically twenty minutes of "you should hate Japan because they're all pedophiles" and that somehow is okay... because Japanese people aren't known to raise a ruckus about it (in fact they're unfortunately submissive).

There's also that very often, people are only taking a moral soapbox in order to get popularity for their views and position, which includes making the other guy look bad. You yourself noticed that its often the "conservative" ones who are made out to be the bad guys. It's almost like the author has liberal sympathies. You see it all the time in politics. Guy doesn't wanna ban guns? Oh he's just a gun crazy wild-eyed paranoid maniac who loves killing things for fun! (I once got this one, and I in fact do not even own a gun).

Quite frankly, moralists are hypocrites. Its the people who claim to have no morals that you should trust.

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You know, now I want to read something with Griffins as feathered Kingons. I'd love to see them fighting with bat '​leth...

--arcum42

3785454 Not that I particularly care for homophobic Apple Family interpretations, but some of the sweetest, kindest, most giving people you meet can sometimes be raging bigots just under the surface, and completely shift gears when you're a member of the wrong group.

(Source: Some parts of my extended family.)

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bat '​leth

Forged by a genuine bat (pony), in the genuine river Lethe.

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Genuine bat-ponies, anyways. And, of course, used in honorable duels according to principles laid out in ancient times by the first Griffin Emperor, Clawless.

--arcum42

When planning my story I tryed to avoid things like that at all costs. Instead makeing it an individual who has a problem instead of an entire group. I also would like to know where the idea that gryffons are warmongers comes from since the 2 out of 3 times we'ev seen them in the show they seem to have a friendly relation with ponies.

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I guess he was a villain in Looking Glass World, but I tried to make him believable. He wasn't doing anything illegal, or anything most actual business people wouldn't do. Scooping up unregistered trademarks and registering them, trying to produce cheaper replicas of popular products: that's what people do. It may be unethical, but it's not illegal. Nor is twisting the arm of a competitor to sell or come in on the business. From a certain point of view (not mine), it's almost wrong NOT to take advantage of this, like leaving money lying around on the street. If you don't do it, someone else surely will. And he's a loving if blind daddy to "my Diamond," who is partly the motive for his heaping up as much money as he possibly can.

So in other words, you turn him into The Onceler.

3785827 I don't think so, since he's not exactly destroying the planet or anything. It does happen that I think a lot of ordinary business practices are immoral, but let's be truthful: they are also perfectly legal. A LOT of things many of us find unconscionable are legal, especially when it comes to intellectual property law. Sprinkles, for example, sues the heck out of ANY cupcake shop with "sprinkles" in the name in any market it wants to expand into, claiming it will cause "confusion," even if the other place was there first. (It's usually settled out of court.)

If I'd really wanted to make him vile, I would have modeled him after Donald Trump. But I didn't.

3785895 Well, I'm refering more to how he is as a villan. The Once-ler was a villan, but he was the type of villan who never truly did anything really irredeemable, despite destroying the enivronment. And he tried to justify it in the 1972 and 2012 adaptations by saying that it was simply a byproduct of his business, and that if he didn't do it. someone else would. The Once-ler is the kind of villan that, while still evil, is arguably more human and three dimensional. A villan that we can understand, and perhaps see a bit of ourself reflected in. A kind of person we should strive not to be.

We inherently see the rich and country bumpkins as evil in our society and it transfers to fiction. I think we all think of rich people as folks who can get away with anything because they're rich and all country people are bigoted, or secretly murderers who slaughter city folk they invite into their homes. Basically, we view both groups as corrupt in real life, so it transfers to fiction. It's a tragedy.

I'm actually worrying if I may be going wrong in the opposite direction of this in something I'm writing.

I noticed that dragons are consistently portrayed as colossal, monstrous jerks who are either actively malicious or apathetic to the needs of other sapient beings in the show. It's even shown that a dragon being a greedy jerk is something that exists within their bodies from birth and requires intense willpower to overcome (Zecora even said that a dragon's heart is prone to greed in a manner that a pony's heart isn't)

In a story of mine I'm planning on this trait being something that's being unintentionally inflicted upon the dragon race by the antagonist of the story. And when he's defeated, that dark impulse is purged from the hearts of dragons across the world.

The problem with this is that I might be seen as simplifying the issue down and making it the fault of a single individual and implying that all dragons are actually nice people and they're born to turn bad at some point. Which isn't my intention at all. I'm just worried that that's how it might come off.

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It's a vicious double standard my friend. Where one has to be the victim, the other must play the role of the villain. Someone has to be the bad guy in a story and people will always use the most common stereotypes (i.e. the Apple Clan for being 'southern) to play the part. There's no hero without a villain to fight and overthrow. It's a low brow tradeoff of who's evil or who's a poorly misunderstood creature.

What say you? Also, can you name any other common acceptable targets in this fandom and site? Heck, why we're at it, why do you think some of these groups Are seen as more acceptable to target and ridicule?

Zebra's are usual compared to Africans, I think it's mostly due to the accent that she has. Earth ponies are looked down upon by unicorns because they weren't lucky enough to be born with a horn and are just mud ponies. Funny because I honestly believe Equestria would've starved without the Earth pony's crops to feed them. Blueblood, he's probably one of the biggest one's we've seen. Rich, ungrateful brat unicorn who wields his title as a prince like a sword and berates and spits on anypony who isn't worth his time. He's usually the biggest ignoramus and common villain you'll find in any story that features him as a main character. The there's Diamond Tiara. With her, she mostly has a sad back story as to why she's a bully, broken family, constantly neglected at home or acting out to get attention. A kind child striving for attention stereotype to explain her less than stellar attitude.

All in all, I think stereotypes are going to be in a majority of stories but are often overlooked because it's such a common practice to write certain characters like that. Comments, question or concerns?

Anything approaching Southern being in any way good or wholesome doesn't fit into the narrative, so obviously the Apples are horrible racist homophobic nazis. Jesus.

As everyone above me has already said, it's the 'good vs bad' narritive.

Problem with said narative is that it cheepens everyone involved, until no one wants to deal with either side. Like the ever so common theme that the main protagonist's only trouble is being hated on. Nothing else. Just random guys walking up to you and telling you off. If you've been subject to this for years by the time your an adult you wouldn't even notice anymore. The villains tend to be wildly inconsistant and loose any trace of who they were in the show. Also any logic or reasonings.

: "I hate unicorns becuse of reasons!"

: "Wait, half your friends are unicorns."

: "Uhhhh reasons?"

: "Wait, isn't about a third your extended family unicorns?"

: "Reasons!!!"

It's poor writing, that is all there is to it.

3785454 I am totally in favor of the media using prejudice to argue against prejudice: it's the brightest sort of satire.

3785454 Also, I think you hit on something important. And know that I'm not disagreeing with you, but I want you to make the experiment of trying and see things from a racist or prejudiced person's perspective. Humor social Darwinian arguments from two centuries ago, and eugenic arguments from the less than a century ago. Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn does something similar, and many people who have had a relative go off to war and come back home again with a few choice words about, ¨the bad guys¨ or who have a relative that is prejudiced for some other reason have experienced the same uneasiness that you get when reading Mark Twain: the sense that he sympathizes with both sides, and that he sympathizes with the side that doesn't sympathize with both sides, which seems a contradiction but is even more scandalous when you realize that your discomfort at this is the result of your own inability to sympathize with a side, namely, the prejudiced side.
I'm not sure what the point of my observation is. I think it is that the puzzle of prejudice is impossible to solve. At least, I have not solved it.

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Normally I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. But... really, the answer is laziness. It's easy. You can make a villain that everyone will accept and understand is a villain. It's disgustingly simple and you don't have to think about it more or spend words on fleshing out the other side to make them three dimensional. They're just utterly without virtue.
And hey, I fell for the trap too. I had a 'Blueblood is a moron/nobility are short-sighted-idiots' moment in my first story too. Because it was the most expeditious possible way to piss Luna off to an explosive breaking point she was working towards, at the time.

I guess that is a sad and bitter pill we have to swallow. I mean, it's just so unbelievably easy to turn such certain groups into the bad guys in any story ie it's unbelievably easy to demonize the nobility, the Princesses, and Shining Armor and the Royal Guards in pretty much any fanfic about changelings or humans. You don't even have to try when making them look bad, it just for some reasons works eerily too well.

Griffons (aka feathered Klingons).

Hmm, so I guess that then makes Equestria the Federation and the Changelings the Romulans or Borg depending on your interpretation of them?

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We inherently see the rich and country bumpkins as evil in our society

And worst of them all are the rich country bumpkins.

Evil incarnate!

3789395 No one disses poor Buddy Ebsen on my watch!

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Because it's easy and most people aren't fantabulous or experienced writers.

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And hey, I fell for the trap too. I had a 'Blueblood is a moron/nobility are short-sighted-idiots' moment in my first story too. Because it was the most expeditious possible way to piss Luna off to an explosive breaking point she was working towards, at the time.

Now I'm glad I didn't make that mistake with my first story. Although, I did fall into precisely the opposite trap: woobifying everything.

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Now here's the thing; the ordinary goal in these stories is to put forward that ... our regular underdog, non-pony OC [stories] is that their ... [genre] is Not all evil or corrupt. Fair enough. However, you're not Really successfully tackling the moral [issue] when you simultaneously paint another group overwhelmingly as the ones who are the problem, if not a subgroup within them.

I'm sorry. I couldn't help but notice how much you were generalizing, and then I saw this part of the paragraph and had to red-flag you for its hypocrisy.

I lied. I'm not even sorry. That is because I have both an answer, and an example to point to.

So why is this matter of Acceptable Targets and double standards so commonplace? Is it because we just don't think about the implications of them?

No. It is far more simple than that. A fundamental quality of our entitlement society is that we try to make everyone feel special, even when they're not, as a consequence people who don't feel special must arbitrarily define how they are different, better than, other people.

This is so pervasive in our society that it resonates with a lot of people even if they can't consciously acknowledge they're doing it. Subsequently, the MLP:EQG song "Battle of the Bands" perfectly encapsulates that message.

Oh. As for the example that fits my answer: re-read the first quoted text because it is as cyclical as this response.