You are probably right-- I don't read a lot of SF. But if he's so wrapped up in the fact that the black character grew up in a black neighborhood, and the Asians don't have muscles, it sounds like he is creating an allegory for contemporary world, whether he realizes it or not. And yes, no one should even think about writing about racism without a full understanding of the issues.
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How to go about making races for your MC
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You are probably right-- I don't read a lot of SF. But if he's so wrapped up in the fact that the black character grew up in a black neighborhood, and the Asians don't have muscles, it sounds like he is creating an allegory for contemporary world, whether he realizes it or not. And yes, no one should even think about writing about racism without a full understanding of the issues.
I agree. If my story is in the far future than it could be possible that more races would be mixed and having a black MC or Asian mixed MC without having to represent them from a particular ethnic community should not be a problem. I've met a black person with green hazel eyes I'd imagine in the far future it wouldn't be that rare to see. And not all black people are from an only black community anyway even today. Same with an Asian American being only from an Asian community.
Who me? I wasn't saying it wasn't. I was referring to there being some possible history based on television fact during the Meji era that Americans and European's did interact with Japan and there was a French guy that faught alongside the samurai but that's about it. I agree the movie was a little whitewashed like Great Wall was kind of.
IMHO, even in a far-future setting, it's still worth understanding the human tendency to racism (and sexism and culturism and all sorts of Othering -isms); it may be that skin color no longer is the prime indicator of Us versus Them, but classes, spaceborn versus planetborn... H. sapiens seems to have a social quirk about lumping large groups of people together, often for purposes of exclusion. Barring some manner of mental evolution or tinkering, that tendency would likely carry forward in different guises, leading to different "races" one identifies as/is identified as, and different Others.
In the book series and TV series The Expanse, for instance, all manner of skin colors and genders and such are not generally remarked upon, but people still separate out by Earth/Mars/Belter origins, not to mention the ever-present class divides. (The third season does a great job showing how one Belt-born character changes her affect and accent when she was no longer in a diverse crew and back among Belters, the subtle masks one switches out in different social situations to be included in the group.)
(Interestingly, I read a Twitter thread where readers/viewers were discussing how they visualized the book characters versus TV casting; a number of people seemed to have the impression that one character, who was clearly described as white, was black in the books. I have to wonder if it was because of his lower-class Earth origins on the rough, gang-run streets of Baltimore, creating a subconscious connection with the "inner city thug" social stereotype.)
JMHO, as usual...
Let's not get into "Great Wall".
It was the "white man leads the (Chinese) savages to victory against an overwhelming foe" storyline. It was offensive. And it was way off point: Dragons, in Chinese culture, are beneficent beings.
And if "Asian" comes into a story at all: Define the term "Asian"!
Me? Angry? Oh, yes, incredibly ticked off. But this is not the thread for such a rant.
As Westie said: Research.
Far future settings, SF settings, still require research to make sure you understand the nuances and subtleties that exist in today's world to be able to create a believable far future society: some things may have disappeared, e.g., distinct ethnicities, but others may have arisen because of this, e.g., pure breds vs. mixed.
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If you want an example of how race can be handled terribly in SFF, read the negative reviews of The Continent by Keira Drake, which was published by Harlequin Teen...an example of how even a major publisher can badly mishandle this stuff. They delayed release of the book for a year so they could make changes after it started getting bad reviews, but apparently the changes weren't very significant.
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