Blogging Against Racism, better late than never

[adiva_calandia]

Reading criticism, and criticism on criticism, is ruining my ability to be entertained. Oh, not entirely: I can sit down and read and giggle, or watch TV or movies and gasp and laugh and cry, but even while I'm doing that I'm analyzing why I'm reacting, how I'm reacting, how others are reacting.

And especially, lately, how difference is being presented and how I'm reacting -- or not reacting -- to that.

This isn't going to be a very well-organized post; I'm just writing, and writing.

My hometown is actually the second most diverse city in the US, after Honolulu. Obviously, we have a large Native population (and more on that in a moment). We also have a large Pacific Islander population, and a decent-sized Asian population. I don't remember the numbers on Hispanic and black populations, but I think those are the smallest. Europeans are, of course, the largest.

This doesn't mean that I have that much experience being in a diverse social group. My school, which admitted on a lottery system, practiced -- there's a more politically correct term, I think, but -- affirmative action in its admissions, up until a few years ago. I think the seventh-grade class coming in the year I graduated was almost entirely white. My circle of friends over the years was mainly white, with a couple Hispanic or mixed race kids at times.

And the theatre community wasn't significantly better. Until ATY moved to Mountainview, a largely black area of the city, its casting pool was overwhelmingly European. The only mainstage show I can remember being in with more than one black actor was The Miracle Worker -- in which there were three black actors. There's self-segregating going on there, though I hesitate to try and name a cause for it.

Part of that, I suppose, stems from the plays we did, and do. A Christmas Carol doesn't have much in the way of non-European parts. Audiences go to that expecting Britishness, which, as my homework pointed out today, is white. Duh. But doing Otogibanashi: Japanese Folktales without any Asian actors? More problematic. (That's a kneejerk reaction, which Doc tells me should be analyzed. Well, then: casting a Japanese princess with a blonde actress not only negates the visual impression that this is taking place in Japan, it also reinforces the idea that beautiful princesses are blonde Europeans.)

In that respect, at least, ATY is correcting itself. Two summers ago, we did a play called Inuk and the Sun, based on an Inuit story. Raven introduces and closes the play. The girl who played Raven, Mya, is black, which may be why she was cast as she was. She stole the show.

And this summer, she played Creon. (I love this girl. If I can direct her someday, I will put on the best goddamn play ever, thanks to her.)

But I'm not in Alaska anymore. I'm in Pittsburgh, at a university that draws people from all over the world. I heard someone claim that 25% of the student body is Asian. The school of drama is primarily white, though, so I won't talk about it. I'll talk about my hall.

There are five girls I spend a lot of time with on this hall. One is black; one is Indian; two are white (one is blonde-haired, blue-eyed, tan, and generally a poster girl for the American Beauty Ideal); one is Asian and I, one of her friends tells me, am the only white person she likes. That last bit just boggles me. Additionally, I have a black teacher in an academic class for the first time ever (and she's teaching her almost-all-white class about racism. I have a ton of respect for her).

But mostly -- and I am very, very hesitant about saying this, for any number of reasons, but here goes -- it doesn't matter. I'm cognizant of it. Very cognizant of it. This post proves that, if nothing else. Talking with Phyllis, I often get struck by the thought I'm the only white person she likes? Seriously? Talking with [Adiva] and knowing that while she wasn't raised Hindu, she probably knows the religion more than I can ever hope to, I suddenly become very self-conscious about the glass Ganesh sitting on my desk behind my computer.

But those thoughts always get subsumed by the fact that Phyllis makes fun of me for spending all my time on the computer, and that she's a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan, and that she's freaking tall; and that [Adiva] is a Doctor Who fan and a PTerry fan and a Supernatural fan and a DWJ fan, and that she writes poetry, and that she's from Seattle and knows what I mean when I talk about Pike Street Market.

The irony of this occasional color-blindness, in light of the criticism I've been studying, does not escape me. And while I cheerfully do my best to treat the color of my friends' skins as material but not essential, I'm staring at every piece of fiction around me in detailed consternation.

For instance: the longer I look at Heroes, the more it worries me and encourages me at the same time (difference is ambivalent, my readings say, capable of being positive and negative at once).

It's easy to identify prejudices in another's work, though -- that's why we have editors, because it's too hard to find our own problems in our own work. Which is why, I think, the representation problems in Milliways go largely unnoticed.

There are, like, three other topics I wanted to cover (Supernatural, TV in general, and why I don't notice these problems in novels as much and why that's problematic too). I'll have to do those some other time -- the issues aren't going anywhere.

ETA: Oh hai Heroes premiere spoilers in the comments of this post (no specific ones in the post itself)!