Race and Fandom

[browngirl]

I don't talk much about being Black in the context of my fannish involvements, which contrasts with how I talk all the time about being female. This is for many reasons, not least because whenever I do it tends to take over the conversation. I'm an African-American, but that's one facet of who I am, not the only or most important one. But more on that below.

It's an important facet of my identity, though. Like anything else in my ongoing experience of the world, it colors the way I view, read about, and write about my characters. Recently, I've been thinking about it, as I periodically do but most proximately because thete1 wrote an entry about Characters of Color, and how when TPTB do include them fandoms often underuse them.

This entry sparked several responses, including but completely not at all limited to:
http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/213836.html
http://mildredmilton.livejournal.com/18751.html

Through Te's entry I found the Remember Us? Archive, which deserves careful perusal and needs some David!fic, and through the ongoing discussion I found the community boom_tube, for discussion and submissions concerning an upcoming fanzine about race, class, and fandom.

I also found Pam Noles' essay Shame, which made me cry with the deep intense resonance I had with it. I haven't yet read the followup, where the reactions to it are addressed, in part because....

....well, in part because of the reasons I wrote this entry with trepidation. Reason #1: one of the common responses to this subject, which was told to thete1, which was told to Pam Noles, which gets said over and over again, is "I only have X amount of experience with People of Color [where X=either zero or some form of 'not enough'], so therefore I can't write them properly, and the consequences for getting them wrong are Just Too High, therefore I'm not going to try." As Tobias S. Buckell says here, that is ridiculous when said of a character who's another profession or gender or species from us, so why do we accept it about race? We shouldn't.

Reason #2: But we often do because race is seen as hugely defining and therefore walling-off in a way that other characteristics are not. I wonder if this has to do with the fact that race is both real and not-real, that it is a cultural construct, and therefore constantly and unconsciously gets shored up lest it fall right over. (You know how I said I'm African-American? That's both true and untrue: my family immigrated from Jamaica before my birth, and I grew up in a West Indian enclave in the Bronx. But I grew up in a city that considered me Black, expected to acculturate into and relate to wider US culture through being Black. And so I both do and I don't, depending.) I wonder if it's because people don't want to write stereotypes that'll offend people, but they don't trust their imaginations to let them into the heads of someone Just That Different.

Reason #3. Or, as Douglas Blaine said in his response to Pam Noles' "Shame", "I submit this is one of the underlying motives of authors for creating new races." It's certainly one of the reasons I concentrated on hobbits, and wrote interspecies, during my time in LOTR. Still, a metaphor only goes so far. I love Tolkien dearly, but I do remember the Haradrim and Southrons and "swarthy" half-orcs; in part, they stand out because so much of his worldbuilding is beautifully original and about the world of Middle-Earth, not metaphors for or otherwise transplanted wholesale from our own world. Because so much of the transplanted stuff (like the relationship between Rohan's poetry and Anglo-Saxon poetry) fits so neatly and well, but that identification between dark skin and bad guy reminds some fans (such as me) of such associations in the current world as so throws us out of Middle Earth and back here. As well as being dismaying for other reasons.

All of these are reasons I only think about this subject so often, and talk about it less often. I'm not looking forward to reading more reflexive dismissals of this subject, about seeing various kinds of incomprehension and unhappiness. I'm not writing this to make people unhappy, but I would like to see them think, and share thoughts with them. Not least because.... for me, it's partially about race in the real world, but it's also about something very important for fictional worlds, which is to say, creating characters and cultures who are accurately themselves, both in otherness and sameness with the creator, the viewpoint character, and the readers. In the end, we are all individuals, and simultaneously members of several groups, and the interactions of these memberships affect who we are in ways specific to our individualities. I think that leaving certain groups of characters out when they should be present leaves scars on the fictional landscape; in the end it's not about prevailing upon some sort of liberal guilt to get some perfect Character of Color created, but in seeing a more diverse cast of individual charactters who provide more room for different sorts of heroism, understandable villainy, recognizeable personhood, and ultimately identification.

As one of the respondents to Tobias Buckell's entry said, "What you want to research is not some universal experience of being 'another color' but the unique experience of YOUR character, no matter what race they are." Or, in my words, if you can create an alien, you also can make a realistic particular-person-who-is-of-color-among-other-characteristics. Just as you can make a realistic particular-person-who-is-of-another-gender-among-other-charaacteristics. Just as we've been asking, as feminists, for good diverse female characters who are themselves rather than The Girl, as proponents of LGBT issues for homosexual and bisexual characters who aren't evil deviants or hapless plot engines, so too should we ask as people interested in equality and as people interested in the widest possibilities of creative speculative fiction ask for for good characters of different races and ethnicities who are themselves rather than tokens, and so should we as fans approach the particular differences of race and culture as we would any other.

I mean, gosh, women who eagerly imagine the view from behind the eyes of men, Americans who feel not at all daunted tackling the perspectives of Australians and Brits, humans who feel up to the challenge of writing elves and hobbits and Vulcans --- and they think they can't imagine what it'd be like to be of a different race? I think they can. I think *we* can. And, honestly, I'm not asking anything of anyone I'm not asking of myself. The Gotham character I hadn't written yet whom I was most likely to is Renee Montoya, the next new POV I'm tackling is Cass Cain's, and I expect both to require exactly the same sort of work as writing Dick Grayson or Talia al Ghul or Koriand'r does. I have to get myself into someone else's head and surround myself with everything they are. And, I think, the operative word is "everything", not just any one characteristic.

One of the reasons I love speculative fiction, why I love SF and fantasy and historical fiction, are the limitless possibilities of exploring other ways of being sentient. When we close off consideration of a group of sentients and their lives, such as people of a different race than we are, I think it does damage to the realm of creativity, and that makes me just as sad as the perennial effort to find myself in fictional universes that seem to exclude me do. It's an ongoing effort; an example of a wonderfully diverse fictional universe is that of Firefly/Serenity, and it is in many ways, but in others it isn't. I love Book and Zoe--- I love them all --- but why in a universe where Mandarin is a lingua franca are there so few Asian people onscreen? Now my point in this example is not to disparage Firefly, which I love, but to point out that we keep moving onward, moving upward, and getting better and better as we keep creating, but we can only do that if we're mindful and take risks. Zoe's part of the same tradition as Uhura, and they're both part of the same tradition as Lois Lane, and in his way Clark Kent too; the tradition of expanding the possibilities for characters in fictional universes, and simultaneously in our own.

*looks back over entry* Well, that got longer than I'd thought it'd be when I started it, but I think I'll let it stand, and hope for the best.

Comments

[ficbyzee.livejournal.com]

This is a really beautiful, eloquent post on the subject. I'm not sure I have much to add without going into my own personal history--if I do end up doing that, I'll make my own darn post about it.

I understand why some white fans don't want to think about and/or discuss this kind of stuff. Fandom is an escape for a lot of us, a place where you don't have to deal with RL stuff, where you can write or draw or vid two guys cuddling with each other and no one gives you strange looks. Part of that might be the opportunity to just put the white liberal guilt down for a while and focus on what makes you happy. Which is understandable, but sometimes that results in other fans' escapism impinging on my own fun and games, whether or not they realize it, because it results in behavior that isn't acceptable when it comes to race. (Gender too, sometimes, but that would be a whole different essay.)

I have sympathy for people that get squirmy or defensive or just plain don't want to think about it when this topic comes around, but not much. I'm no Einstein, and if I can pause and think about it and make an effort, so can others.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*grin* Thanks.,

I understand why some white fans don't want to think about and/or discuss this kind of stuff. Fandom is an escape for a lot of us

Oh, I know. *agrees* I mean, looking over my own stories, I write the Batkids more than anyone else. I write a bunch of blue-eyed White guys in part because it's fun to *not* deal with this stuff. I wrote this entry from the POV of someone who's as culpable as anyone else --- and I realized I forgot to write about how if I ever write a Josie Mac story I'll have to do as much work on her as anyone else, despite looking superficially like her.

Heck, I'd have to for Amanda Waller, and I really do look like how she's supposed to, down to the short natural hair. I'd really have to *work* to write Amanda Waller. She's completely unlike me in almost every way except appearance.

But yeah, I know. I almost didn't write this in part because I didn't want to stress people out, but my head was full of thoughts, you know? And in the end because I think contemplating how to write a character who's not like us, whatever the differences are, makes us better writers. After all, in the end, we're all different. (Special unique snowflakes. *begins giggling*)

[jubilancy.livejournal.com]

The thing I find amazing about slashers who claim that they're just not comfortable writing about people of a different race is that, at least in the DCU fandom, they disproportionately tend to be heterosexual women writing characters as queer. It's really odd that they would be "comfortable" writing about what's currently the most marginalized minority on Earth, but that inability to realize the hypocrisy there probably explains why it seems like their queer characters appear to live in a world I find unrecognizable.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

The thing I find amazing about slashers who claim that they're just not comfortable writing about people of a different race is that, at least in the DCU fandom, they disproportionately tend to be heterosexual women writing characters as queer.

I know what you mean --- and the DCU fandom has actually been a *lot* less like this than other fandoms I've been in. It's not that there's anything wrong with being X and writing Y characters, except that approaching a character as a Y character rather than a character-who-is-a-person-one-of-whose-characteristics-is-Y leads to many different troubles, not least fearing certain values of Y or writing them completely unrecognizeably.

[blackbird-song.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this post. I don't know whether or not I should respond, but I'm going to anyway, as I have a tendency to stick my nose in where it doesn't belong. Apologies in advance.

I have to say that the main reason that I haven't written about people of color is that I've only written in very limited subgenres of a few fandoms whose characters are not of color. I have not written much of Sala or Lawrence in Lotrips because I don't know enough about them to feel comfortable doing them justice, and I can't seem to find much about them that fills in the gaps I'd need to do that. (If I ever meet them, that could change pretty easily!)

One other thing that might make me very nervous about writing a person of color is the fact that so many of my friends of color tell all of the white people they know that they could not possibly have any idea what it is like to lead their lives, and that if they don't know, they couldn't possibly understand, so one should not even dare to ask questions. My life history is quite a bit more complex in that regard than that of most of the white people that I know (though I'm as pasty-faced as they come), and some of my friends of color have told me that I do have a better personal understanding of racism from the receiving end than do many, but I still worry greatly about being disrespectful.

I am also a heterosexual female, and therefore do not have the personal background to say, 'I know what it's like to live as a gay male', but I don't run into that sort of resistance or resentment from my gay friends. They tend to be dismissive of slash fiction generally, as most of it doesn't appeal to them at all, but they don't give me the impression that I'm being disrespectful when I try to write from the point of view of a gay man.

All that having been said, I have seriously been considering writing SG-1 fic, and I fully intend to include Teal'c very prominently if I do. He is one of my very favorite characters, and I cannot see doing anything but making him a very prominent presence, even if the central relationship I write is Jack/Daniel. It wouldn't be close to canon, and frankly, it wouldn't be as interesting.

I'd love to write something exploring Teal'c's experiences as a Black alien on earth (I can't call him African-American, as he is neither), particularly in this country. I'm scared to death to do it, as I'd hate to get it wrong and insult African-Americans with my ignorance. Needless to say, I'd find out all I possibly could before setting fingers to keyboard, but as a white person who fights actively against racism and ignorance, I really don't want to cause further harm.

Thank you for tolerating my useless rambling on your thoughtful post. I'll crawl back under my rock, now...

Catherine

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

One other thing that might make me very nervous about writing a person of color is the fact that so many of my friends of color tell all of the white people they know that they could not possibly have any idea what it is like to lead their lives, and that if they don't know, they couldn't possibly understand, so one should not even dare to ask questions.

They say WHAT?!

I--- just--- argh! I completely, completely disagree with them here! Every single thing I write or say about my race to someone who isn't of it is in part a way to show them what it's like to be me so they can see our common humanity across our differences.

Plus, well, that's just.... ok, maybe they've said this because they got tired of explaining, one does. Or of people making mistakes, or thinking they understand when they don't, which can be really annoying. But I really, profoundly disagree with them when they say that to you. I completely disagree with the concept. I think we can come to understand each other across any divide. I think we *must* if we're going to keep from killing each other.

God, and with that echoing in your memory you must have really been full of trepidation about writing this reply. Thank you for trusting me!

And, yeah, I said, "I think that leaving certain groups of characters out when they should be present leaves scars on the fictional landscape" the way I did because one of the major criticisms of this concept is, "you want token characters of color just for them to be there!" I'm not going to write a Black hobbit. (Although now I have an idea for a fascinating AU...) But in SG-1 fandom, I think it'll be *awesome* that you write Teal'c, just as it's awesome that princessofg does, not as any particular feature but as himself in everything the show has shown us of him, and everything you can extrapolate from that.

[capra-maritimus.livejournal.com]

I have to say that the main reason that I haven't written about people of color is that I've only written in very limited subgenres of a few fandoms whose characters are not of color. I have not written much of Sala or Lawrence in Lotrips because I don't know enough about them to feel comfortable doing them justice, and I can't seem to find much about them that fills in the gaps I'd need to do that. (If I ever meet them, that could change pretty easily!)

I had the same problem writing Barriss/Luminara (Star Wars Ep 2 Jedi) - not being a great fan of the extended universe books, it took me a while to find any information - and at the time I wasn't flush enough to go out and *buy* the damn things.

I assume that writing Sala and Lawrence (and Lani and Fon and...) in the later parts of Trees will be just as problematic for that reason. I'm hoping that the Costa Boates documentary will be able to fill in the gaps somewhat.

[mariole.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this post, Ruby. Great discussion about a sensitive topic.

so many of my friends of color tell all of the white people they know that they could not possibly have any idea what it is like to lead their lives, and that if they don't know, they couldn't possibly understand

Nicely put! I have heard this too, Catherine. I was talking to a black male coworker once, and he told me (I forget how we started discussing this) that race overshadowed _everything_ for him. He said, giving me a level look, that I would never understand. I thought that was a rather twitty thing to say, because I am a woman and a minority, and I think that I _can_ understand. Only, here's this guy saying that I can NOT. He's black, I'm white, who am I to argue?

So those kind of things are offputting. I actually rather fall into rabidsamfan's category. I don't always notice race, first off. I tend to notice male, female, profession or general appearance. Attitude. The guy I was talking about in the discussion above is a programmer. So I would classify him as geek, intelligent, reserved. To me, his race was immaterial. To him, it was paramount.

As a writer, I have often written about minorities. Since most of my work is science fiction or fantasy, this has not presented a very great problem. My characters all reside in some alternate universe, so they come from a culture that I have invented. However, friend of mine has just started writing a novel where we have Mexicans as one of the major subplots. Their dialect, religion, dress, slang, you name it are all extremely important to get right. It's like any other topic that I don't know. If I were writing about a Chinese person from Beijing, I would have to research it.

If I write about a minority, I try to base the character on a city I have visited or some people that I know, to give it that ring the veracity. That is what we do with fiction; try to suspend disbelief, so someone can fall into our world. I'm sure that my descriptions of the male sex act might put off some male readers. I can't help it; I'm a girl, I don't know these things personally. I read about them and try to get them right. Similarly, I don't know what it's like to be a black person or a Chinese or a Tibetan. I do my best in service of the story. But since race is such a hot button for so many people, it's tough to handle it correctly. I can understand why people want to stay away from it in fanfic, simply to not have the bother.

Thanks for opening this discussion. Cheers!

[monkey5s.livejournal.com]

Not being a writer, I can't respond to much of this, but I am glad you wrote it. I did have a whole, poorly-constructed, glaringly stupid, lengthy comment written about how our differences should be celebrated every bit as much as our similarities, but I had to give up when I realized I had talked myself into idiocy. (We Who Are Not Writers should know better than to try some things.)

But I'm right there with you on the Firefly/Serenity confusion. And I will be hoping, along with you, that the writers of fictional characters keep pushing the envelope, to help us all see farther than our own lives.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*grin* Thank you.

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this thoughtful, thought-provoking post! Sometimes I think that talking about race is a bit like the big pink elephant in the room. And it shouldn't be like that. It's kind of like the idea that no holidays should be celebrated at all in the schools because we might offend someone. But in reality, what better way to open up communication and understanding if instead we celebrated ALL holidays instead of none. When I taught first grade, I was always about talking frankly about these things, and the kids loved it. They loved that we could learn about each other and be respectful and curious, despite differences in race, culture, etc.

Anyway, with regards to fandom. One of the reasons I adore writing interspecies in LOTR is because I love exploring the differences that two people of two very different races and cultures would have. I love exploring the richness that would come to them, what they would learn from each other, the misunderstandings, etc.

I think it would be challenging (in a good way) to write from the viewpoint of someone of a different race from me (and I think I only barely manage to do the writing from a man's POV since some people tell me my Frodo is too girly, but oh well, lol). But anyway, I think whatever we can do to stretch ourselves as humans and writers is never a bad thing!

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think that talking about race is a bit like the big pink elephant in the room.

*nod* That metaphor has been used a fair bit in these discussions, with good reason.

But anyway, I think whatever we can do to stretch ourselves as humans and writers is never a bad thing!

So much word. In the end, I think considering this stuff can only make us better, you know?

*cheers us all on*

[widgeon7.livejournal.com]

I have read the above comments with interest. As I'm not very good at writing myself, I suppose I will tell you this instead. I have one drawing that I made a while ago, and when I was working on it in black and white, I intended the girl in it to be Indonesian. But when I made a color version as an exercise for a class, I made the girl white so as not to cause anyone to think I was making a statement about race or colonialism or being otherwise patronizing! Gah. I don't know what that makes me besides waffly.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

It makes you human.

*hugs you like he's hugging that bottle*

[vass]

I love Book and Zoe--- I love them all --- but why in a universe where Mandarin is a lingua franca are there so few Asian people onscreen?

Word. And how come the lead character is *still* a heterosexual, able-bodied, white man? What quality is it in Mal, or in his and Zoe's relationship that makes him the captain and not her? I can try to make up hypotheses in my head for it, but none of them are good enough to differentiate Mal from Jack O'Neill, Cameron Mitchell, John Sheppard, William Adama, John Crichton, Jonathan Archer, and look, I even limited myself to recent science fiction!

Zoe's part of the same tradition as Uhura

Speaking of Uhura, did you see that amazing photomanip Jack did? *drooool*

I think *we* can.

I think you're right. To that end, I'm going through my to-write list and my fandoms, and checking what characters I'm overlooking, and bumping the characters of colour upward on the list. (There are more of them than I thought, now I look - I just have to write the bloody things. I'm not good at completing fanfic.)

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

All I can really do is nod and grin helplessly, because you *so* get it when it comes to these subjects.

Also, Jack pointed out that photomanip to me, and she looks so *intelligent* and therefore so hot. Makes me happy. :)

[serai1.livejournal.com]

The main reason I don't write people of other races (at least in fan fiction) is that I really have no interest in the wank that would undoubtedly happen around it. I'm a DLDR reader, and when I read something I object to, or don't like, I either stop reading it or I ignore what I don't like and concentrate on what I do. But there are a lot of people who feel they have to jam their objections down everyone's throats, especially the author's, and thank you very much, I'd rather have some egg rolls. Plus wank about race can be so much more exasperating and insane than wank about almost anything else.

The other reason is personal: as an LOTR writer, in order to write about humans of other "races" (I'm one of those that doesn't believe in separate races of human), I'd have to create original characters. And sadly, I've finally come to understand that that kind of originality is not one of my talents. Ideas for original characters/stories do occur to me, but they never come to fruition. I'm more of an adapter, an editor, a storyteller as opposed to a story creator. I can write about what's underneath, in between, on the other side, very well (I think). But comeing up with a whole new tale about what happened to Frodo when he was ten years old on a trip to Bindbole Wood - can't do it. It just never works out.

There is a wonderful Harad character in the back of my mind, Chale, and there's a story associated with him. I have bits of it figured out, and if it ever came together it would be great. But I doubt it ever will. I've had others like that too, including the character that gave me my internet name, but they just sit there and stare at me. I can never get it going. Which is a pity, because I'd love to explore their stories. *sigh*

Oh well. You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

The main reason I don't write people of other races (at least in fan fiction) is that I really have no interest in the wank that would undoubtedly happen around it.

You think it really would be that much worse than the wanks about slash vs het, or adherence to canon, or any of the other things people like to carry on about? Sufficiently worse to make it not worth it? Because.... one, I would have loved, in my LOTR days, to read more stories about the Haradrim and Southrons and *their* perspectives on the Great War. I saw a couple, and loved the premises, no matter the level of execution. That kind of exploration is a wonderful use of fanfic, I think. And, two, well, applying that caution across a whole fandom ends up making the characters of color untouchable, and I think that would be an awful shame in terms of limiting the scope of imagination and creativity, let alone in any other ways.

I mean, I didn't write this to demand that everyone immediately write a character of color today, or explain to me why they don't, or something like that. I wrote it to be generally encouraging about the possibilities for and potential of writing them, writing us. And yet, general trends are the summation of, and can only be changed at the level of, individual people's actions.

(I'm one of those that doesn't believe in separate races of human)
Oh, that's a whole discussion in and of itself. :) But I didn't use the term "social construct" unmindfully. How do we simultaneously deal with and dismantle such a thing?

[mhari.livejournal.com]

It's an ongoing effort; an example of a wonderfully diverse fictional universe is that of Firefly/Serenity, and it is in many ways, but in others it isn't. I love Book and Zoe--- I love them all --- but why in a universe where Mandarin is a lingua franca are there so few Asian people onscreen? Now my point in this example is not to disparage Firefly, which I love, but to point out that we keep moving onward, moving upward, and getting better and better as we keep creating, but we can only do that if we're mindful and take risks.

tiamatschild made me read this post to stop me wibbling, and lo, she is wise.

Because I always come out of these discussions feeling like -- it's not even so much the implication that I am the by-now-proverbial Little Bit Racist. Because I know that. But someone always brings up how Firefly is problematic and Star Trek is even more problematic -- which they are -- and the nonwhite characters in them Aren't Good Enough or whatever -- which upsets me, because oh, well, you're a fan of said nonwhite character but that's just part of the problem. Which is seriously the vibe I get sometimes.

I just feel like-- we're not going to achieve the Perfect Diverse Show anytime in the immediate future. We're going to have to work toward it. How is enjoying the good parts of the current compromises a bad thing?

Bleh. Anyway. Is an excellent and thinky post.

*uses Zoe icon, because there is never a bad time for Zoe*

[vass]

How is enjoying the good parts of the current compromises a bad thing?

I'm not Ny, but I'm going to have a go at this anyway: there's nothing wrong with enjoying the good parts, so long as you don't use them as an excuse not to listen. Which some people do - they're like "What are you talking about? There can't be racism in Firefly, they're so non-racist that they speak Mandarin!"

I just feel like-- we're not going to achieve the Perfect Diverse Show anytime in the immediate future.

No, but we can improve the status quo. And talking about the problems keeps them from festering, and keeps the people whose voices aren't being heard from, well, being silenced even more. And what we don't talk about we can't change.

It's not like blaming Zoe (God, no!) for being not being enough of a Credit To Her Race, it's like saying to Joss Whedon "You're a talented writer, you can do better than this."

[thete1.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

(Jack and I were specifically hoping you'd talk a little about what it was like for you to be in LotR-land, considering... well. *rueful smile and reflexive cane-beating for Tolkien*)

It's a beautiful post, and I'm so glad you did it.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*blush* Thank you, a lot. For your original post, and for telling me I did well by the subject.

(And for the archive!)

Oh, please don't beat the Professor, though. Both in his universe and outside, he did think about these things and did try. (Have you ever heard about his response when the Nazi government contacted him and said, "we'd love to publish a German edition of The Hobbit, if you'll just prove you're not Jewish?") Noticing what got past him and where he made mistakes is a way of seeing that the point isn't to get it perfectly right, because that's subjective and probably impossible, but to do as well as we can manage by our characters and our readers, and thus by ourselves. To keep striving to do better.

I sound like a wannabe motivational speaker. *laughs at myself and hugs your knees*

[berreh.livejournal.com]

This post really made me think -- none of my major fandoms have an abundance of non-white characters, but in my original fiction there haven't been many either. None, to be honest. And yet, I do write from the POV of gay men a lot, and a lot of my original fiction is from the POV of males. Why does it feel safer to write the experience of another gender or orientation, but not another race? I think it's that fear that blackbird_song described. It's hard for me to articulate, but it's just more... scary, somehow. So much potential for offense. Like Claudia said, the pink elephant in the room. How many times have I made gay jokes in my journal? But remember that time I made the joke about Clan McRuby? I was so scared you would be offended by that. Maybe it's cause I'm from the South, where color is still a big issue. I really don't know anything about what it's like to be non-white. But then, I really don't know what it's like to be a gay man, now do I? This gives me a lot to think about.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Did I see the Clan McRuby joke? I don't remember it. I know I'd've found it funny if I did.

Oh, I'm from the North, and this is a big issue there too. *wry grin* It's part of the legacy of the ways the current US came to be, and I can't think of a country I know anything about that doesn't have some version of issues between people of different ethnicities. I think it's human. I just think we need to deal with it, and we can.

I wrote this (rather rambly) entry to be encouraging, really. I mean, with regards to The Froot, I've read part of Dilse and lots of your other writing, and unless you have a time machine I know you can recreate times you haven't been to, places you haven't been. I have utter faith in you that if you had a plotbunny you wanted to develop involving a character who wasn't White you'd do as well by him or her as you have by all the characters in your awesome body of fic to date, using the same methods of research, identification, imagination and writing skills that have already served you so well.

*hugs you encouragingly*

[tiamatschild.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you. I know I don't write characters of color as often as I might - I think. Maybe. I keep trying to sort the matter out and coming up very confused, which is due to the fact that I have trouble remembering what I've actually written and what I just want to write.

It feels really good to engage with it honestly, though, and to try to deal with the problematic elements in the source text. I write a fair bit (by which I mean About As Much As The Two Other People Who Do) for Jules Verne's novel The Mysterious Island, which is about five men and a dog who get balloon stranded on a desert island after escaping from the Confederacy. One of them is black.

Verne tries. Verne is trying. You can tell he’s trying. Neb is eternally confident of himself, never made a buffoon of in the way some Victorian authors might, and is considered an important contributor to the group by the other four, but… There are still some problems with the text, uncomfortable intersections of the things Verne does with class, and the things Verne does with youth (Neb seems to be younger than anyone else but Harbert), and some slipping into stereotype. It can get facepalmy.

It made me really, really, really uncomfortable for a long time, because, well. It does, you know? I love the text, and despite some of the weird issues Verne’s writing has Neb is still a fun character, but. But.

And then rainbowjehan asked me for a crossover story involving Neb and Zara, a character from Lloyd Alexander’s Westmark and I said yes, because I love writing for her, and begging off because Verne’s issues make me twitch was wimpy…

And whoa but I love writing Neb. If you keep thinking, it’s possible to fanwank the problematic elements into something kind of neat, something that’s Neb instead of Victorian cultural baggage. I think what I wrote works, pretty much, and dang I love Neb, and it feels really, really good to have set aside the nervousness and written for him. :D I need to write him more, plotbunnies permitting!

Part of me thinks I should post about it, or something, because it does feel really really good to just deal with the nervousness straight on, and work through it, instead of tiptoeing around it. I think we don’t talk about that much, but it’s true! It’s not always hideously uncomfortable and scary – a lot of the time it’s really great. :D

This is not particularly coherent, probably, and might sound a bit self congratulatory, but I'm not trying to be! I'm trying to say - it doesn't need to be an excruciating chore to face internal anxieties about race. It can be freeing, and lead to writing you're really kind of fond of.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, exactly!

This is not particularly coherent, probably, and might sound a bit self congratulatory

No, it's *awesome*! It's a look at your creative process, and how you successfully tackled just these issues. And it's an inspiration.

Often characters are problematic in canon, whether or not they aren't White, but it can be particularly charged in some ways when they aren't (just as it can be for female or gay or disabled characters--- basically, anyone off the "norm" that isn't really a norm and yet is seen as one anyway). Frex, one character I have only written a little of so far is Cassandra Cain, an Asian girl who, when she first shows up, literally doesn't talk. I want to write more about her, and part of doing so is dealing with the metatextual issue of a "quiet Asian girl" in terms of who Cass is as a person within her own story. Just as you dealt with both where Verne succeeded and where he stumbled in his depiction of Neb, as you tackled the character, which began with a *willingness* to take on the character. Thank you for telling me this! It's a perfect example, and a great inspiring story about the writing process.

(Oh, Verne. I still remember not realizing Captain Nemo was Indian till Reread #3, and being so delighted to see that. And that was with the fact that my parents did *not* encourage me to identify with people from India, due to their issues with being from the British Commonwealth-- we're from Jamaica. Which reminds me that I wanted to talk more in my original essay about how discussing racism isn't just a matter of guilt-free people of color lecturing about it; we all have issues with this subject. But I digress.)

(Also, thank you for the compliment. *blush*)

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

The fannish shows are improving.

Uhura, for all her background position, was groundbreaking. There was great trouble from the network. A black character would be offensive in the south, an Asian one on the west coast, and a Russian one EVERYWHERE. Roddenberry stood tall. (and the manip? is to die for)

I think it will improve more and more. Blade came to TV this summer. While I don't know how it did (I don't watch TV, just billboards) I think it was big step.

I write original same-sex erotica.
My characters have gotten more diverse in just the last year. Adrien's blindness and vampirism, for example, are much more important than the color of his skin.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Oh, things definetely are. I'm not saying they aren't.

I guess I'm... things are improving, but they improve because people think about them. Roddenberry is definetely to be praised for his efforts, which were groundbreaking, and for thinking about it first of all. I wrote this entry to encourage people to keep thinking, keep making the efforts, because otherwise things will stop improving; progress is not as inevitable as we sometimes think it is.

A blind vampire. Was he blind before he became a vampire? *is intrigued*
(And have you heard of Circlet Press? They publish a lot of fascinating sorts of erotica, and a blind vampire and his attendant world would be right up their alley.)

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Just as men have to be made aware of their unthinking privilege in the world they walk, so do whites need to be made aware of what's before our eyes and which we've learned not to see.

One exercise that helps me keep aware is to call out race and gender during the opening credits of an ensemble show. "Starring...White Guy! White Guy! White Guy! Black Guy! White Woman! Exotic Asian Girlfriend! And...White Guy!" This helped me to turn off the syndicated TV show SINBAD during the opening credits (Sinbad's falcon received billing above the sole female actor in the cast.)

Being snarky helps too. "I'm the white straight 30something good-looking American male here, and that means I'm in charge!" Jim/Jack/John Fillintheblank to the rescue!

Biggest thing that helps me, though, is simply living and working in the Pacific Rim, in an office environment where I'm one of the few pale or round-eyed people in the meeting. Good training for sitting down, shutting up, and *listening* to folks who don't share your skin color, life experiences, or privilege. Your reactions begin to change from "Jeepers, that shouldn't be happening!" to "Pay attention, junior - this is what life can be like if you don't wear the magic Elven cloak of whiteskin." It can't help but reflect in your writing, when it begins to permeate the consciousness.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

What does your icon say?

Just as men have to be made aware of their unthinking privilege in the world they walk, so do whites need to be made aware of what's before our eyes and which we've learned not to see.

Very true. We all do, I think; part of the reason I write journal entries is to make note of things I want to remember, and I want to remember this when I think about my reasons for picking characters to write about, too.

One exercise that helps me keep aware is to call out race and gender during the opening credits of an ensemble show.

*giggle* Now I want to watch TV with you.

And you're on the Pacific Rim? That sounds incredibly cool! I've often had friends tell me the story of their experiences being somewhere where they're not the majority, and it makes me nod and smile. Nod, because I know what they mean: it's been my life since I started going to school, being one of a few Black kids, or the only one, wherever my interests and personality have led me. Smile because the stories that emerge are about understanding and connection, and that's a wonderful thing.

[arch-schatten.livejournal.com]

...*lurks* Uhm, hello! I found your post fascinating, and I just wanted to throw my two cents of.. delusion. When writing, I dwell on the white side of the character spectrum, probably because good canon for the diverse characters is lacking. With some exceptions, of course, but they are still very few and heavily underused.

As a writer, though, I don't think I see much trouble writing someone from a different race as much as writing someone with a vague canon. It might have to do with the fact that I belong to one of the cultural/race facets that gets sucky stereotypical characterizations. I'm a girl of latin and asian blood, born and bred in Mexico, and everyone around here is the result of some mix or other. In my perspective, writing a colored character is no different from writing a white character - I write mostly males, so... it's just an exercise of imagining I'm in someone else's head. I never really thought about why the colored characters were underused, and I still find it surprising that people would think it's easier to write a different imaginary race than another human race. I guess I'm a little out of the loop like that...

There’s a Mr. Terrific plot bunny hopping around that needs doing. Your post has encouraged me to try, and see if I get slapped on the back of my head for messing it up. It doesn’t hurt to try!

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

When writing, I dwell on the white side of the character spectrum, probably because good canon for the diverse characters is lacking. With some exceptions, of course, but they are still very few and heavily underused.

Oh, I hear you. I wrote this entry as much about myself as anyone else, after all, and I do the same thing for many of the same reasons.

In my perspective, writing a colored character is no different from writing a white character - I write mostly males, so... it's just an exercise of imagining I'm in someone else's head. I never really thought about why the colored characters were underused, and I still find it surprising that people would think it's easier to write a different imaginary race than another human race.

OK, next time I'm sending my longwinded post to you to summarize, because that's it, right there and perfectly.

There’s a Mr. Terrific plot bunny hopping around that needs doing. Your post has encouraged me to try, and see if I get slapped on the back of my head for messing it up. It doesn’t hurt to try!

It totally doesn't hurt to try! And I've heard good things about your writing, so I for one have faith in you. :)

(And, where in Mexico are you from?)

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

I've lived and worked in ethnically/racially diverse neighborhoods for most of my life -- after I was seven anyway -- and every once in a while I bump into someone who thinks I'm behaving the way I'm behaving because I'm white and they're black/chicano/vietnamese/etc... Heck, the only time I ever got beaten up in my life it was because of the color of my skin. (Some girls were cruising for revenge because some black kids had gotten beaten up the day before. Remember Cake Cutters? Those things were *sharp*!)

But to tell the truth, I'm pretty damn oblivious most of the time. I have to remember to mention someone's race if I'm describing them to another person. They're short/tall, female/male, young/old, funny/grouchy/airheaded and like to read books about A, B, or C a long time before they're black/white/brown/ or whatever. When I was in basic training in the Air Force I screwed up one of the exercises - we were supposed to play a game of telephone about a drawing and the TI handed it to me to be the only one of us to see it and start the description around the circle.

Well, it was a drawing of a couple of guys on a subway train, with a bunch of horrified commuters around them, one of them in a business suit and the other in construction type clothes and the business suit was holding a knife on construction guy. So I waaaay overdescribed this thing, and described the five or six horrified witnesses and the next person fought to remember what I'd said and after a minute the TI interrupted because I hadn't mentioned that the white guy was holding the knife on the black guy. The telephone game was meant to come out after fifty women that the black guy had the knife, was what she told us. But it wasn't going to work for lack of data.

It isn't that I don't notice. I'm not blind! And I do try to be aware that I need to ask whether people are acquainted with something before I start explaining stuff because I've had people get shirty about their college degrees. But most of the time it isn't what's important.

Besides, so many of the kids I work with are of mixed races and cultures it's an insult to their parentage and history to try to slot them into one place anyway. One of my favorite kids from Haiti was named Fritz Gerhends -- a great grandfather was from Germany, apparently, so although Fritz and his brothers were the color of a really good bar of bittersweet chocolate, they got a kick out of getting books about Germany when they were asked to write about their family's heritage.

Any rate... Does writing fanfic about Tonto count? I always liked him better than the Lone Ranger anyway...

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*facepalms, laughing* I totally didn't post this post as a demand that people justify themselves to me, really. And RSF, I *know* you. *hugs your knees*

Any rate... Does writing fanfic about Tonto count? I always liked him better than the Lone Ranger anyway...

Actually, it *totally* counts. My post was sparked by a post which talked about the underutilization of Coc's in fanfic and other fannish activities, after all.

[mildredmilton.livejournal.com]

Oh man, LotR. The second movie reminded me of "Birth of a Nation." Just creepy.

Zoe's part of the same tradition as Uhura, and they're both part of the same tradition as Lois Lane, and in his way Clark Kent too; the tradition of expanding the possibilities for characters in fictional universes, and simultaneously in our own.
Fab. Exactly the point of taking risks and making fiction examine the aspects of real life.
I think the reason why people will write Vulcans but not characters of color is:
1. You can learn all there is to know about Vulcans by sitting watching TIVO in your living room for a few weeks - it's an easier subject.
2. No Vulcans are going to say you did a bad job representing Vulcans.

I mean, it's never nice to have your ignorance or prejudices pointed out to you by your readers, but - have some courage. And then just be like, 'yeah, I screwed up. I'll work on it.' and move on. If DC did that I'd be dancing in the streets. Anyway, great post.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

think the reason why people will write Vulcans but not characters of color is:
1. You can learn all there is to know about Vulcans by sitting watching TIVO in your living room for a few weeks - it's an easier subject.
2. No Vulcans are going to say you did a bad job representing Vulcans.

Oh, I was in Star Trek fandom. I'd rather deal with irate vulcans themselves than irate fen. *grin*

Seriously, what can I say to your comment but, "word!"

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

I haven't read your comment threads yet, and I'm not a creator of art or fanwork in general, but I wanted to reply to Point #1, above: I only have X amount of experience with People of Color [where X=either zero or some form of 'not enough'], so therefore I can't write them properly, and the consequences for getting them wrong are Just Too High, therefore I'm not going to try

And the rejoinder included is that well, you can make up whole new species and cultures, and no one (in f&sf anyway) has a problem with that, why can't you cope with race?

For me, it gets bound up with fear of Doing It Wrong, whatever It is. If I write some new species or culture, I am by definition not Doing It Wrong because I'm the Author and what's right is what I say is right. If I were to create, and were to include in my creation someone of a culture or cultural experience significantly different than mine, I would have a permanent crick in my neck from looking over my shoulder for the ravening hordes accusing me of Doing It Wrong. And in that case, there is an objective reality and the experience of real people that contribute to the definition of Right and Wrong. It's not just auctorial fiat anymore. And the cultural differences that relate to the experience of race in this country are much harder to research than, say, the culture of 18th century Japan. Because I feel like I can ask about Japan. But, and here comes the White Liberal Guilt, I don't feel like I can ask about the contemporary experience of African-Americans. Because I feel like I should already know, and the fact that I don't reflects the suppression/opression of that culture by the dominant mainstream culture to which I belong, and...

And as I've just demonstrated, I bite myself in the small of the back for a while and then give it up as a bad job.

So if I'm making it up from whole cloth, I'm less scared of Offending Someone and Doing It Wrong because there's no one whose culture it is.. If I write about my own culture, I can stand on my own experience. If I write about someone else's culture, I feel like I would be walking on quicksand.

(Of course, not being a creator, all of the above is pretty moot. And I hope, having read your post and (eventually!) the comments, that should I ever set forth to create I would think about this issue.)

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

For me, it gets bound up with fear of Doing It Wrong, whatever It is. If I write some new species or culture, I am by definition not Doing It Wrong because I'm the Author and what's right is what I say is right. If I were to create, and were to include in my creation someone of a culture or cultural experience significantly different than mine, I would have a permanent crick in my neck from looking over my shoulder for the ravening hordes accusing me of Doing It Wrong.

*grin* Hey, brighteyes.

My reply may come off sounding stroppy, because I'm exhausted. If so, I don't mean it to. I'm really glad you read my entry, and replied to it.

In the greater LJ-wide discussion, a great many people have said what you said here, that they're afraid of getting it wrong. witchqueen in particular had an excellent reply to this, which I posted a link to in the next entry after this. As for me, I guess my reply is....

1) Within fandom, being especially afraid that people of color will form ravening hordes and descend on you accusing you of getting it wrong means, as witchqueen said in one of these discussions, that makes people of color scarier than people who conduct vast shipwars, people who plagiarize, people who flame writers for writing the wrong pairings, people who do all sorts of truly horrible things. I don't honestly think we are.

2) You said, I don't feel like I can ask about the contemporary experience of African-Americans.
Sure you can! Really. How else can you learn? Narrowly speaking, you can ask me, since you know me, and I'm an African-American, and I'll tell you what I know and what I think and as much about the holes and gaps in my knowledge as I can. More widely speaking, you can ask lots of people, by reading the books and articles and blogs they've written about their lives. People from Booker T. Washington to Toni Morrison to roadnotes. If you wanted to write about an Asian-American character, same thing. There's lots of resources out there.

3) In the end, each character is an individual, just like every person is an individual. I don't think anyone is asking for you to encapsulate The History, Culture, and Lives of All People of Color, but just that if you're writing a particular person of color that they be a person, with their background and culture and color part of but not all of their life. And that.... if the fear of Getting It Wrong means that people will write insectoid aliens but all their human characters must be White, well, writ large across fandom and speculative fiction, that means a dearth of characters of color, it means that people like me can't be part of these worlds. And that's kind of depressing.

I know you're not writing right now, but I think the Fear of Getting It Wrong is important to address in general, as a philosophy, and also in case you do end up writing or drawing or whatnot. I'm saying this to be encouraging. :) *hugs you*