A bunch of people made faces at the Paladin Handbook for listing Keith’s ethnicity as “Human/Galra” because we all know that “human” isn’t an ethnicity, right?

So why is the fandom okay with treating Galra like an ethnicity?

Please stop treating Keith’s being part Galra as an analogue for him being a mixed-race/multi-ethnic human being.

Being part alien is not the same thing as being part human racial minority.

Ignoring the difference between ethnicity and species actively perpetuates damaging stereotypes of mixed-race people as “aliens” and, given that the Galra are also the show’s villains, aggressively correlates human racial minorities with being evil, in the same way that racist scare tactics have long painted this-or-that minority group as violent, uncivilized, invasive, and a threat to the greater good.

Does Keith’s experience discovering his heritage and being ostracized for it bear strong emotional resemblance to the experiences of real mixed-race people? Yes, of course.

But if you’re reading Keith being part alien as perfectly analogous to Keith being a mix of two or more human races or ethnicities and expecting the show to make meaningful social commentary on that, you’re reading something into the show that just isn’t–and should not–be there.

Just sayin’, Voltron fandom, “mixed with alien” =/= “mixed with another human ethnicity.”