fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #1293 ]

⌈ Secret Post #1293 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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Yeah.

Before LJ 'discussions' (more like stone throwing, but whatever) I wrote in more diverse settings. I used to care more about actual personality of my characters more than their skincolor. It was always secondary to me, but that's soooooooo racist of me apparently. Should I have instead of Bob, the teacher who likes to do that and is like this and also happens to be black, a black man, that is named Bob and is a teacher? Why is this so racist? Seriously?

Should I have instead of Bob, the teacher who likes to do that and is like this and also happens to be black, a black man, that is named Bob and is a teacher?

The point that this is not not good writing is always overshadowed by I'M NOT A RACIST makes me sad.

You shouldn't do it because it's a piss poor way of constructing a character. No character just "happens" to be something. Characters are creations built from the ground up. If you want to make a black character, you need to think about how being black affects the other parts of his personality, simply because his experiences will not always be the traditional default.

People aren't saying that PoC are defined by their color. They are saying that it shapes their experiences and who they are more than just slapping a coat of paint on their skin. It means you have to stop this mumbo jumbo author bullshit of pretending that characters just magically emerge from your brain like Athena popping out of Zeus and think about the parts you're actually using.

I should have added that I write speculative fiction and the world I'm building does not have the same problems as this world does. My Bob has dark skin because he comes from south. No one in that world is prejudiced against him being black. So the color is not that important. He just happens, yes happens, to have dark skin.

Why should I let that character's skin color dictate his personality when it's not important?

And even if I wrote contemporary fiction, the skin color issue is not the same everywhere in the world.

I wish more people realized it. But then, they do, just not on livejournal.

That's fine. But Bob still most likely comes from a culture that is different and that still needs to be kept in mind when writing him. It needs to especially be kept in mind when writing speculative fiction, because in speculative fiction, you also create the baseline culture.

I also write speculative fiction. That does not excuse me from writing a character from a different culture consistently, even if that culture is not entirely analogous to our own. Bob might look different from the people he's currently around. Being from the South means that he's not going to have the same outlook on things if he moves to a different part of the country. All of these things still affect his personality. Even if there was no slavery in your fictional world, it is likely that Bob's roots are from a different continent, and that means things will still be different for him in some respect.

But skin color =/= culture. Culture = culture and skin color = skin color.

Uh, yeah. My point is that when people say that black people aren't just black, they are discussing the culture around being black.

You know... I think culture nowadays, and particularly in the US, is more about class than skin tone, if only by a small percentage. Granted yes, the people react around you does change based on your skin tone, but I think how one dresses influences those reactions even more. At least, this has been my experience.

Well, I was talking about fanfic rather than original writing. Specifically, fandoms with existing black and Asian characters that people always say they love (and these are great characters) but hardly ever seem to write fic about. And every time a race wank goes down, even more people swear off writing those black and Asian characters ever because of "RACEFAIL!" and "PROBLEMATIC!" and it's easier to avoid the whole thing and write the white characters instead.

And yeah, yeah, I know what comes next because we've been here before. White woman's tears, tone argument, a few fanfic writer's feelings aren't as important as fighting racism, wokka wokka wokka, I get all that. But it's also a reason why the fic gets whiter and whiter.

Really? That hasn't been my experience at all. If anything, I see more fic about COC than I did three years ago. Maybe we're just in different sections of fandom.

I mostly lurk here (definitely not one of the anons you've been talking to), but I wanted to say this: I'm not a writer, but I've always agreed with the anon you replied to re: just happening to be black, and it's not an opinion I've ever thought to question. You've pointed out the problem with that argument clearly, and you're right. I need to work on changing my thinking on this issue. Thank you.

Um, not that I think it's your job (or anyone else's) to educate me on the matter.

I love this icon.

[ SECRET POST #1293 ]

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this is the "P for Problematic" anon

Re: this is the "P for Problematic" anon

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