helpful hint for the colorblind: BE LESS BLIND

[hth_the_first]

I think I'll quote somebody out of context, because that's always worked really well for me in the past.

Saying "black characters are written too broadly in New Who, making them resemble stereotypes" rather ignores the fact that white characters are treated the same way.Look. This is the problem with trying to raise white people on Sesame Street

Comments

[liviapenn]

Oh god, SO MUCH agreed

[hth_the_first]

The trouble with "colorblind casting" (or genderblind, for that matter) is that it doesn't apply to the leads. It just doesn't.

I've heard it said that before they decided to import the McKay character from SG1, the chief scientist on SGA was written as a Dr. Ingram, and the intent was to cast an African-American actor. I really, really wonder what the fandom would look like if that had actually happened. I want to travel to the alternate universe where it did, just to see!

It's like, ok, suppose you have a 22-episode season and just *coincidentally*, whenever there's a need for an admirable, kickass, brave, self-sacrificing, heroic character, the best actor for the part is a blue-eyed blond, and also completely randomly, there are three or four parts for "thuggish animalistic rapist" and the best actor for the part in each case is black.Right, but I'm thinking more of -- I guess a more genuine kind of lazy foolishness, which is what I see in a lot of the Dr. Who debates. It seems like a lot of the defense that's been going

[liviapenn]

I really, really wonder what the fandom would look like if that had actually happened. I want to travel to the alternate universe where it did, just to see!

Yeah. Presumably, they'd have cast a cute, young white guy as Ford, right? And then... well.

Actually, on SV, they originally wanted to cast a black actress as Chloe, but then when they found Allison Mack, they switched the "black character" slot over to Pete. I always wondered what the *show* would have been like if they'd gone with their original thought.

well, what if the actress just didn't happen to be black?*nodding* Right, totally. It's like saying, "Well, we killed Tara, and people are complaining because, hey, Tragic Lesbians, but what if she wasn't a lesbian?" That's missing the fact that Tara's death isn't JUST about Tara, it's about the fact that just once, just ONCE, it would be nice to have lesbians who weren't inevitably Tragic Lesbians, and you had the *opportunity* to do it better than it had been done in the past, and you didn't

[kaethe]

Found via

[poisontaster]

Some time ago, I lost a friend over a discussion on racism. Your post here pinged with me so strongly that I seriously considered emailing her the link, even though I've had nothing to do with her in over a year and don't particularly ever want to speak to her again.

Race is real. People respond to it, often on levels they aren't entirely aware of. So it actually misses the whole entire point of discussing race and racism if your sole defense is "but we're just treating them the exact same way we treat white characters!" It may be true, or it may not be true, but either way it's singularly useless.
Just...yes. Exactly.

[hth_the_first]

It's sad that we're really at that point, still, where even people who are actual friends can't honestly hear each other and take these concerns seriously. I mean, if one of my friends said to me about ANYTHING, "You know, this makes me feel really uncomfortable and angry and bad about how the world is," then I'd try to understand why. And even if I never saw it the same way, I think I'd be able to say that, you know, it was a real and legitimate concern that real and legitimate people did have, and therefore it was worth thinking about.

The way in which people shut down even on folks they would otherwise trust and listen to once the topic becomes race is really a tragedy.

[hth_the_first]

Not at all! I'm glad it resonated with you. It took me some time to stop being very uncomfortable with the fact that I *do* notice and react to race, because I was so used to hearing that rhetoric, that either, "if you're really evolved and liberal, everyone will become Just a Person to you, and you won't see their race!" or else "everybody knows that white people have white privilege and therefore can't see racism and don't believe it's really there." Which, like -- of course I can and do, because of my eyes? And I wasn't sure if that made me really weird and secretly a terrible racist, or what. Now I'm finally to the point where I don't aspire to be blind anymore, and it's quite a lot easier for me to work on the great strawberry farm of life. *g*

[intheyear2004]

Oh god, thank you. I always say I'm a racist and proud thereof, because of course race matters. It does matter the same way gender matters or sexual preference matters. It's there and has to be dealt with. And it's not at all bad! Differences are good. Differences are great! I do definitively not want a world where everyone is white, blond and blue-eyed like myself. I also believe that not everyone should be treated equally. I strongly believe that everyone should be treated individually. If that makes me a bad person, I can't help it.

[wendynever]

The fact that Ronon has knives in addition to a gun just means he's better-prepared than his colleagues. Thus, in an AU where everyone works in a newsroom, it'd make a lot more sense for him to be the reporter with pencils and tiny recording devices and cameras in his hair.

Exactly right. Also- ha ha- I love that image.

[ivvydolamroth]

I would add that the reason Ronan's got the pencils and recording devices in his hair, is because he spent years as a war correspondent. That would parallel the canon Ronan's life where he was constantly on the run even better.

[thete1]

Oh, this is *excellent*. Thank you!