Pulled over from the gender balance thread (hope that's okay), because this is a Real Issue.
The whole issue is tricky, right? Probably more than half of the writers out there are female, but a tiny minority is anything other than [English or American or Canadian] white. And with the best of intentions, you can come off as culturally imperialist if you try for a character of color. Especially if you're writing in a pre- or postcolonial environment and have mainly colonial sources to go by.
And then there are the groups who don't want outsiders touching 'their' stories at all.
I've talked to a number of thoughtful white writers who didn't want to push buttons without enough knowledge. And I personally am kinda wary about writing about comunities I don't know about or have resources in. But there is such a wealth of story and history and myth to draw on if you look beyondGenericFantasyland pseudo-medieval Europe.
And that's good for us, as aspiring writers, who want to be doing something different. As well as being, y'know, highly socially relevant.
And then they turned Earthsea into movies with... white people.
Repeatedly.
There are writers and characters of color out there, but like convincing women they're hard to find. However, there is hope. The Carl Brandon Society exists for
This society gives awards not only to people of color but also to writers of any ethnic group who write about characters of color. So their list of winners is probably a good place to look for sf/f stories involving non-white characters.
Perhaps I misunderstand you. It seems I've done it before.
...You don't really mean, do you, that the wealth of story and culture that's out there and isn't Eurocentric... doesn't add much? You might just mean, I guess, that adding in different colors to your characters' palettes doesn't add much. Like changing what they wear, or whatever.
But it does change how people look at one another, and that's... a hugely socially and culturally relevant thing at this point. And I would guess that in a society where everyone looks the same, they'd use other things to split apart and fight over. So the effects are still important, whether or not the cause is skin color.
One example of social relevance/blindness in the field is that we almost never see interracial relationships in sf/f (again, hats off to Bujold for proving an exception). Inter-species relationships are more common and less weird, somehow. This seems really really wrong to me.
I do wonder what the CB Society would make of that.
*heart Butler*
I still have to read Anansi Boys. I'm looking forward to it.
Has anyone read Nalo Hopkinson? I just read a short story of hers - wonderful. But I bogged down majorly in one of her novels. Might need to try it again, but I was wondering.
This sounds very cool to me. And yeah, we write in genres deeply rooted in parable; why would we need to play with skin color literally*? But cultural differences/clashes and the subjugation of cultures by others, and the way in which people deal with and are shaped by these things...
Well, I'm getting somewhat bored with stories that pretend none of this happens. They seem to me, increasingly, to be set in Suburbia.
The only thing I find worse than that is the token Wise Black/Native-American/Indian Plot Device
* Which isn't to say I think we shouldn't, just that there's no reason to be restricted to it.
The whole issue is tricky, right? Probably more than half of the writers out there are female, but a tiny minority is anything other than [English or American or Canadian] white. And with the best of intentions, you can come off as culturally imperialist if you try for a character of color. Especially if you're writing in a pre- or postcolonial environment and have mainly colonial sources to go by.
And then there are the groups who don't want outsiders touching 'their' stories at all.
I've talked to a number of thoughtful white writers who didn't want to push buttons without enough knowledge. And I personally am kinda wary about writing about comunities I don't know about or have resources in. But there is such a wealth of story and history and myth to draw on if you look beyond
And that's good for us, as aspiring writers, who want to be doing something different. As well as being, y'know, highly socially relevant.
And then they turned Earthsea into movies with... white people.
Repeatedly.
There are writers and characters of color out there, but like convincing women they're hard to find. However, there is hope. The Carl Brandon Society exists for
This society gives awards not only to people of color but also to writers of any ethnic group who write about characters of color. So their list of winners is probably a good place to look for sf/f stories involving non-white characters.
Perhaps I misunderstand you. It seems I've done it before.
...You don't really mean, do you, that the wealth of story and culture that's out there and isn't Eurocentric... doesn't add much? You might just mean, I guess, that adding in different colors to your characters' palettes doesn't add much. Like changing what they wear, or whatever.
But it does change how people look at one another, and that's... a hugely socially and culturally relevant thing at this point. And I would guess that in a society where everyone looks the same, they'd use other things to split apart and fight over. So the effects are still important, whether or not the cause is skin color.
One example of social relevance/blindness in the field is that we almost never see interracial relationships in sf/f (again, hats off to Bujold for proving an exception). Inter-species relationships are more common and less weird, somehow. This seems really really wrong to me.
I do wonder what the CB Society would make of that.
*heart Butler*
I still have to read Anansi Boys. I'm looking forward to it.
Has anyone read Nalo Hopkinson? I just read a short story of hers - wonderful. But I bogged down majorly in one of her novels. Might need to try it again, but I was wondering.
Doodlebug said:
This sounds very cool to me. And yeah, we write in genres deeply rooted in parable; why would we need to play with skin color literally*? But cultural differences/clashes and the subjugation of cultures by others, and the way in which people deal with and are shaped by these things...
Well, I'm getting somewhat bored with stories that pretend none of this happens. They seem to me, increasingly, to be set in Suburbia.
The only thing I find worse than that is the token Wise Black/Native-American/Indian Plot Device
* Which isn't to say I think we shouldn't, just that there's no reason to be restricted to it.
