Blogging Against Racism, better late than never

[adiva_calandia]

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. It's our work. Last night, Coalhouse Walker from Ragtime entered and summed it up: You travel beyond the reach of the sun, to whatever world lies beyond, and it's full of white people.

I'm as guilty of it as everyone else. I was thinking this morning as I walked back from getting coffee, composing this in my head, Why didn't I cast Epimetheus as Greek? Well, because I'm playing off Prometheus' PB, who's white, and whose music partner is white. So why is Prometheus white?

For that matter, why are all of the mythical, seperate-from-general reality characters in Milliways white? The only exceptions I can come up with off the top of my head are Coyote and, on occasion, Raven (varadia talked about that a lot). Why are these pups that are half personal canon white? Why did I assume Tom would be white? Why are none of my pups in The Wasteland non-white?

I don't feel that I can use the excuse that I'm white, and that I therefore can't write a non-white perspective. I'm female and I write guys fine. I'm straight and I write lesbian okay. I'm young and I write middle-aged or immortal okay.

And to be fair to myself, I play two non-white characters: Carmela Rodriguez and Nirupam Singh. But I still come back to that question -- why are the characters I create white?

Not like I'm going to change my PB selection on Epimetheus and Tom and Russ and Journey all of a sudden, but it's worth keeping in mind when I write.

Comments

[jothra]

...man.

First of all, very interesting discussion and comments from everyone. Mostly I feel like I am simply Not Intellectual enough to make any serious points about racism and the study thereof that someone else has already made.

This is because I've never seriously studied the subject, and I live in one of the whitest states in the freaking union. It is a problem of invisibility here, frankly. I have very few friends who are not white, because I don't often meet people who are not.

However, this does make me very aware of when I am the only white chick in the room. It also makes me interested in other people's cultures and experiences just because they are different.

It's that difference that attracts me to characters I roleplay. I don't want to play a white twentysomething middle class girl who has a nice house in the countryside. I want something else. One of those differences is bound to be race at some point. But I have not (as of yet) made it a conscious decision to play a character of another race just for that reason.

It just sort of happens, I guess. Lynne talked about her choices with Raven, I guess I chose to make Coyote's PB a native american woman (or man)...but I didn't think about it. I want to get her stuff right, but I have a certain amount of leeway there just because there are so many sources to pick and choose from. I would specifically enjoy some easily accessible information on Navajo culture and religion.

Daniel is a whole 'nother topic. He was Chinese from the start, and I never pictured him otherwise. However, the stereotypes he has floating around him I did pick deliberately. Daniel himself is pretty aware of being one of the only asian kids around, especially in a small Texan town. Some of this is blahblah backstory that hasn't come out yet, but his guardian (who is white) made a deliberate if slightly misguided effort to get Daniel to learn more about his heritage. Thus, his continued fluency in mandarin, even though he doesn't use it much. Also, the kung-fu. He finds the whole thing more than moderately humorous.

I'm sure that someone could point out something from either of them and say Native American and Chinese Culture: You're Doing It Wrong. I would actually probably appreciate that, even if it stung at the time. But I can't do it right if I never try it.