Just chiming in here because, yeah, I've talked offline extensively about what I did with Raven, and why, and how now I wish I hadn't started off with Adrien Brody as a PB, because . . . white.
And some of that is hard, because I have taken the myth/story/person and put my own spin on it, and there is a feeling of guilt for co-opting that character the way I have, and I suppose sometimes I don't feel I have the 'right' to use the whole Native thing, because--I think it's liberal white guilt. Which is ridiculous, because it is far more disrespectful to do what I did than it would be to just . . . choose a Native PB.
And no matter how often I know/remember that it started because I could not find ready-made Native American icons, and needed someone to put in as a PB so I could just start playing before I chickened out--the thing is I did it.
It still makes me embarrassed and kind of ashamed, but it has made it more likely that I will think about Characters of Color in my own writing and in others. Even if I get the culture wrong, and someone has to smack me upside the head and go 'dude. you're looking kind of racist there'--at least I try.
I have a character of Indian descent in another game, and I have tried to make the choice of Indian or Turkish or Kiwi PBs when they were not specified in text. I have not yet defaulted to black or asian yet, but I live in hope that one day my brain will get there.
So that's something, even if it came from a GINORMOUS FUCK UP. I just (we just?) have to keep working at it, I guess.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2007-09-30 12:10 am (UTC)And some of that is hard, because I have taken the myth/story/person and put my own spin on it, and there is a feeling of guilt for co-opting that character the way I have, and I suppose sometimes I don't feel I have the 'right' to use the whole Native thing, because--I think it's liberal white guilt. Which is ridiculous, because it is far more disrespectful to do what I did than it would be to just . . . choose a Native PB.
And no matter how often I know/remember that it started because I could not find ready-made Native American icons, and needed someone to put in as a PB so I could just start playing before I chickened out--the thing is I did it.
It still makes me embarrassed and kind of ashamed, but it has made it more likely that I will think about Characters of Color in my own writing and in others. Even if I get the culture wrong, and someone has to smack me upside the head and go 'dude. you're looking kind of racist there'--at least I try.
I have a character of Indian descent in another game, and I have tried to make the choice of Indian or Turkish or Kiwi PBs when they were not specified in text. I have not yet defaulted to black or asian yet, but I live in hope that one day my brain will get there.
So that's something, even if it came from a GINORMOUS FUCK UP. I just (we just?) have to keep working at it, I guess.
And try not to be an asshat.