fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2637 ]

[ SECRET POST #2637 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2637 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 070 secrets from Secret Submission Post #377.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
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As a white fanfic writer there is no way I would ever write about a character of colour*, because they would simply be a white person (based on me) wearing darker skin, and the only reason the reader could know that they were meant to be a person of colour is if I regularly, and inappropriately, mentioned the colour of their skin.

You may call that racist, I call it showing respect.

*Though, incidentally, as a woman, I don't have any problem writing male characters, mainly because my ex husband once told me he was sure he was more like me than like some of the men he had to deal with.

white person (based on me) wearing darker skin

This is 100% the problem with SJWs, IMO; that they think skin colour automatically makes people different, in incredibly specific ways, based on what specific colour each person is.

THAT IS RACISM YOU NITWITS.

/yeah yeah preaching to the choir

Not sure if you're agreeing with me or not!

Ultimately, all people are people (even straight white men ;-) but experience can make significant differences and the nature of a person's experience is influenced by the colour of their skin. I think that my experience as a white person will be sufficiently different from that of a person of colour -- I've never, for example, experienced racial discrimination -- to make any attempt on my part write a character of colour ~~inappropriate~~ wrong. This may not be the case in the future; otoh, it may still be somewhat the case if we figure out a way to achieve equality without simply erasing cultural differences...

POC here. Look, I can tell you mean well, there's no argument about that. What I find weird is that you somehow imagine that having a different skin color makes a person soooooo drastically different from you that you couldn't possibly write them well. I'm not sure I feel respected to know that white people consider me so alien, I can't possibly be very similar to them underneath because my skin isn't white. That's a very clear and uncomfortable way of saying I'm Not Like You.

"...and the only reason the reader could know that they were meant to be a person of colour is if I regularly, and inappropriately, mentioned the colour of their skin."

Really? When you write male characters, is the only reason the reader could know they were meant to be male is because you regularly, inappropriately mention their genitalia/self-identification? How do they know you're writing a man, then?

What I'm saying is, this is not the impossible problem you're making it out to be. It's okay to be nervous about writing POC characters. I am too! I'm nervous about doing anything well when it comes to writing! But it's not a "I can't even attempt it because it's disrespectful" thing.

da

Unfortunately the male analogy doesn't work because pronouns are pretty obvious :-/
I think anon is referring more to a character's influencing experiences as being different rather than innate characteristics.

Depends, the analogy works a little better if you assume one is writing in a language that doesn't have gender specific pronouns - reminds me of how I thought Glorfindel was a woman until I read LotR in English for the first time.

I agree with you, but - the people who will dogpile and hate on a white person for *daring* to imagine they can ever possibly understand one tiny aspect of the life of a person of color are, sadly, pretty damn vocal.

So it makes a lot of white writers really, really nervous.

To never write a person who is not the same as you is silly, because that's kinda boring and the world isn't like that, but i can understand the reluctance some people have to do that. (Though it's funny how nobody ever calls out a poc for writing a white person....)

Though it's funny how nobody ever calls out a poc for writing a white person

The media, the news, the internet, history, the majority of any information around me have trained me to know the middle-class white straight US American perspective better than I do my own. When I first started writing as a kid, every character fit that description because I sincerely believed that's what stories were supposed to look like.

So the idea of being called out for writing that seems super odd to me. I mean, I guess I could get it wrong, I could get anything wrong, but really, writing my own actual experiences gives me more anxiety than yet another story about an awkward white US American kid in a suburban high school.

If you think that tv and movies is 'every white experience' - or even the news, or history, well...that's not accurate. I mean yes, broadly, it is, but then you could say that about most people.

But everyone has weird secrets, family pasts, odd things, different perspectives. (And isn't 'awkward kid in suburban hs' as a 'white only' trope kind of belittling?)

I didn't say "TV and movies", I said "the news" and "the media", which includes nonfiction. I also didn't say "every white experience", but "white straight middle-class US American" - I went to school with poor, white, LGBT kids and representation of their stories wasn't commonplace, either. I also didn't say "awkward white kid in suburban HS" was a white-only experience, just an experience that's represented far more often than most others, and therefore can be the easiest of all to write. It was never representative of my reality, or probably even the reality of most white people in this country, but it's the reality we are fed.

No, you didn't, sorry, i misspoke. But you did say "...have trained me to know the middle-class white straight US American perspective better than I do my own..."

To which i replied - but that *is not* every wsUSa persepctive, just the one pushed out there, and in writing, one hopes to *not* follow the lock-step of popular media (which includes tv and movies), but imagine a little bigger (or at least, less white-bread&may), darling.

Then perhaps I should rephrase that to "the popular middle-class white straight US American perspective". And also add that I'm aware, as an adult, how not to lockstep with what I'm fed - but when I was an impressionable grade-schooler writing my first stories, I didn't realize my perspective was just as valid as the one above, even though it wasn't the perspective I actually lived. So, my point remains that the idea of someone calling me out for writing that very specific - but extremely overrepresented - perspective strikes me as odd.

I guess it doesn't me, since i, as a white person, would be called out for writing that if my characters were black. If i wrote the black stereotype of the pimp, i would certainly be criticized, despite *that* kind of thing being pretty much a staple of *my* childhood tv viewing (i grew up in the seventies).

I mean - i was pretty aware as a kid writing stories that the stuff on tv wasn't *real*.

Did you also think the news wasn't real? That history, social studies, and current events classes in school weren't real? Because that's also where many of my impressions about Le Normal American Experience came from, not from stereotypes in fiction, but from very limited representation in real stories.

I mean, in any case, if ever I've written a white straight middle-class American white character and some white straight middle-class Americans take umbrage with my portrayal, I'd take it seriously. I just find it highly unlikely to happen because of the reasons stated above. But anything's possible.

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darkmanifest - 2014-03-24 04:14 (UTC) - Expand

This. A lot of what the media tells you in a non-explicit way is that white is the default norm. It's neutral, so everyone can identify with it... and to a certain extent, that was very true for me. I grew up surrounded by mostly white people and when I started writing, most of my characters were white, too. I felt nervous writing about someone like me because it felt (and still feels too autobiographical, as though people are going to be scrutinizing that character more closely than the others, checking to see if it's an author insert.

To be honest, that makes me feel so twitchy I haven't shared much of my writing that contains POC characters with anyone. It's not just white people who worry about messing them up, after all. And If I mess up a POC character who looks like me, I feel like it's going to look really, really bad and people will question how I can screw that up.

It's not just white people who worry about messing them up, after all. And If I mess up a POC character who looks like me, I feel like it's going to look really, really bad and people will question how I can screw that up.

Seriously, I worry about this all time, to the point where the voices of characters like me, or like people I actually grew up with, feel more unnatural compared to the voices of those I have no personal experiences of. Like I'm faking it or something, even though I lived it (to a certain extent, last I checked I didn't have magical powers). It's very weird.

Pratchett got more rolled eyes for writing a novel that was overly indulgent of Vimes and had bad pacing, than for the fact that it was about the English abolition of slavery.

Which one was that? I'm getting back into DW after a half decade hiatus.

Snuff.

Curiously, people take for granted that I can write about fairies and lovecraftian tentacle monsters but get uncomfortable when I write characters who look like my neighbors.

anon you quoted...

I've said, further down the thread:

I would never attempt to write an OC of colour because I have no experience, either cultural or social, of what it's like to be a person of colour, so the character would simply be me (a white person) with darker skin.

You [the anon I'm responding to] are arguing that (in a fantasy context only?) that doesn't matter, and five years ago I might have agreed with you, but the discussions I have seen online, and the opinions expressed by people who I have no reason to doubt are persons of colour, have persuaded me that, at present, it would be an inappropriate thing to do it.*

Is that racist? There's no simple answer. To some people (including me), it is, because it means I'm assuming that persons of colour are somehow different from me. But to other people (also including me, looking at it in a different way), it's respectful, because I'm not assuming that I (a white person) am some sort of archetype.

I hope that's clearer and sounds less crappy!

* Until what is generally known as 'RaceFail 2009' happened, I would have thought that, far from being Not Like Me, you were Just Like Me, and I wouldn't have thought it disrespectful to attempt to write a POC character, but the anger I saw in those discussions was so intense, I was forced to revise my opinion. It's a difficult line to tread. I lost faith in my own instincts then and, honestly, I've never got it back...

As for writing male characters, well, yes, I do tend to write about their genitalia quite a bit, actually, but -- more importantly -- I have no idea whether any of my stories have ever been read by a man (I've certainly never had any feedback from a man), and I pretty much assume they aren't, so I tend deliberately to write men from a woman's perspective, and don't feel at all uncomfortable about that... Though it's undoubtedly sexist at some level and one day a man will probably come along and bash me over the head with a virtual shovel for it.

SA

the anger I saw in those discussions was so intense, I was forced to revise my opinion

Just to clarify: I don't mean 'they got angry because they were Not Like Me, I mean they got angry because they believed that I and people like me were ignoring important issues.

I do recall RaceFail, yes, though I wasn't actively involved in it. A great deal of anger and frustration there. I realize that I don't speak for all POCs, but I wouldn't necessarily call a white author writing a POC "inappropriate". Risky, hell yes. Inappropriate? Hmmmmm. I'm not much in favor of rules (spoken or unspoken) that go, "If you're ________ you can't write ______". I also tend to believe that good writing is always the last word on these matters.

At the same time, I have quite a few white author friends who are now too nervous to write a POC character for many reasons. That's completely their right, but I think that if everyone felt that way, we're missing out. All writing is a gamble. Some writing is a riskier gamble than others. That's the perspective I try to maintain.

ayrt

I also tend to believe that good writing is always the last word on these matters.

I used to think that, but I've been disabused! I've had someone call me a 'bad writer' for having an elf -- an elf -- behave in a way they didn't approve of, LOL!

As I've said elsewhere in the thread, I've come to the conclusion that my reluctance to write characters of colour is more about self preservation than racism, is grounded in the current climate, and will change when the climate changes. But I can't see myself pioneering the change.

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