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There's a really interesting and multi-layered discussion going on right now about writing the Other, started by Elizabeth Bear and captured in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rydra_wong's link posts here and here. Every single post is worth reading; I took the time to do it today because I usually don't, and I'm posting this reponse even though I'm scared to, because I still feel like I'm probably blind to what I'm actually saying--how I'm showing my privilege, in other words.
I am a babe in the woods of racial privilege. I am a white, middle-class woman, and I lived in such a white place growing up that the idea of privilege never even crossed my mind. I still think I probably don't really have a good grasp of what my privilege really means. The only way I can get at it is to relate it to my lack of privilege as a woman, which I felt and feel keenly for all its subtlety (and lack thereof).
I was part of a writing group in high school, a group of four, five, seven, or eight girls (depending on who you ask, what time you're talking about, and what you really mean), and of course all of us were white. We all had representative characters more or less stolen from our own favorite characters at the time--an embarrassing list I won't go into because of many reasons. They were all (with one notable and confusing exception) white. I remember us thinking about our characters as we got older, and realizing that they were, in fact, rip-offs (or, at best, Sues), and making a conscious effort at changing their skill-sets and settings and back-story and abilities to make them our own. I remember realizing that the name we'd chosen for an alien race was an actual Native American tribe, although we hadn't known it at the time. I remember the day when we realized our characters were white. I remember the steps we took to diversify the cast--a move I was not sure about, since these had been representative characters, and gradually came to think about as a good move, partly because it helped further separate us from the fantasy.
You know what, though? I can't write the Other responsibly yet. I am that person who honestly had no clue that something was a stereotype until it was pointed out to me. I have to keep my eyes open and watch out, because my nifty pseudo-culture is really just a mash of racism waiting to happen. I have a lot more work to do before I will feel like I have a start of a grasp on the subject.
When a whole bunch of us were doing those "secrets" posts, I wrote that I research my fics as little as possible. Oh, how I wish I felt I could still get away with that, especially here. The problem is, ignorance isn't an excuse. It's just ignorance. It's laziness on my part. It's refusal to think about someone else as myself, to (and here's the Christian lingo in me dying to get out--hang in there) to love them, value them, understand them and treat them like I want to be treated. It's removing myself from the center of my universe.
It's not at all comfortable. I like being the center of my universe. I liked not having to see racial stereotypes in funny commercials. I liked the simplicity of reading Tolkein and not getting skeeved out by the racial overtones. I liked not feeling guilty.
On the other hand, I'd like being able to point to something on TV and say, "Wow. I think they did that right." I'd like to fall in love with a diverse cast in all respects--age, race, beauty, weight, sex, etc.--with characters who weren't defined by those things, but in whom those things were also not ignored. I'd like to see a book adapted into a movie without whitewashing the cast, and fewer remakes of films with foreign casts. I'd like to see a protagonist who is a CoC who isn't depicted as white on the cover of his/her book.
I may be white, but that doesn't mean that I have to be uninterested, and it certainly doesn't mean I have to be ignorant. It just means I have to work at it.
rydra_wong's link posts here and here. Every single post is worth reading; I took the time to do it today because I usually don't, and I'm posting this reponse even though I'm scared to, because I still feel like I'm probably blind to what I'm actually saying--how I'm showing my privilege, in other words.I am a babe in the woods of racial privilege. I am a white, middle-class woman, and I lived in such a white place growing up that the idea of privilege never even crossed my mind. I still think I probably don't really have a good grasp of what my privilege really means. The only way I can get at it is to relate it to my lack of privilege as a woman, which I felt and feel keenly for all its subtlety (and lack thereof).
I was part of a writing group in high school, a group of four, five, seven, or eight girls (depending on who you ask, what time you're talking about, and what you really mean), and of course all of us were white. We all had representative characters more or less stolen from our own favorite characters at the time--an embarrassing list I won't go into because of many reasons. They were all (with one notable and confusing exception) white. I remember us thinking about our characters as we got older, and realizing that they were, in fact, rip-offs (or, at best, Sues), and making a conscious effort at changing their skill-sets and settings and back-story and abilities to make them our own. I remember realizing that the name we'd chosen for an alien race was an actual Native American tribe, although we hadn't known it at the time. I remember the day when we realized our characters were white. I remember the steps we took to diversify the cast--a move I was not sure about, since these had been representative characters, and gradually came to think about as a good move, partly because it helped further separate us from the fantasy.
You know what, though? I can't write the Other responsibly yet. I am that person who honestly had no clue that something was a stereotype until it was pointed out to me. I have to keep my eyes open and watch out, because my nifty pseudo-culture is really just a mash of racism waiting to happen. I have a lot more work to do before I will feel like I have a start of a grasp on the subject.
When a whole bunch of us were doing those "secrets" posts, I wrote that I research my fics as little as possible. Oh, how I wish I felt I could still get away with that, especially here. The problem is, ignorance isn't an excuse. It's just ignorance. It's laziness on my part. It's refusal to think about someone else as myself, to (and here's the Christian lingo in me dying to get out--hang in there) to love them, value them, understand them and treat them like I want to be treated. It's removing myself from the center of my universe.
It's not at all comfortable. I like being the center of my universe. I liked not having to see racial stereotypes in funny commercials. I liked the simplicity of reading Tolkein and not getting skeeved out by the racial overtones. I liked not feeling guilty.
On the other hand, I'd like being able to point to something on TV and say, "Wow. I think they did that right." I'd like to fall in love with a diverse cast in all respects--age, race, beauty, weight, sex, etc.--with characters who weren't defined by those things, but in whom those things were also not ignored. I'd like to see a book adapted into a movie without whitewashing the cast, and fewer remakes of films with foreign casts. I'd like to see a protagonist who is a CoC who isn't depicted as white on the cover of his/her book.
I may be white, but that doesn't mean that I have to be uninterested, and it certainly doesn't mean I have to be ignorant. It just means I have to work at it.
