From a clueless white woman, on RaceFail2009

[lalouve]

I have not been posting much, and commenting sparsely, but two things have now annoyed me sufficiently that I feel the need to vent. I know I still don't understand much about racism, but some of it should be blatantly obvious to anyone who's ever opened a book on feminism.

One thing was reading davidlevine 's entry on writing CoC, and especially this comment

Comments

[fierceawakening]

You know, I'm probably going to lose any and all cred I once had by saying this, but honestly, I've had the thoughts you quote too

[lalouve]

I don't think it necessarily entails loss of cred to admit that one has had such ideas and rections - I think the loss of cred occurs when one is a)not willing to see them as problemaic and b)gets passive-aggressively whiny about them.
Personally, I find the power issues easier to discuss when they're explicit. Does the depiction of a black bottom carry problematic connotations? Yes. But there is at least no doubt that the connotations are there, and that this is about power imbalance. I find it much more problematic when the power imbalance is camouflaged and hidden, as when (to use one example I read somewhere) NY in Sex and the City is entirely devoid of Jews until Charlotte falls in love with one. The absense is invisible.

[lalouve]

Also, I'm not sure that, in the current situation, there is a right way we can depict people we have been trained to see as Other. Some writers seem to succeed, but then in writing you can produce a lot more context. Maybe we need to see that the world is fucked up, and so will our art be, and work to change the world for future generations, also through being honest and sincere in our art - which I think you were being.

[fierceawakening]

Maybe we need to see that the world is fucked up, and so will our art be, and work to change the world for future generations, also through being honest and sincere in our art - which I think you were being.

Yeah, this is my view. And honestly I think this gets lost in some of these discussions. I think some of the people who (rightly) are so upset about how people like them are depicted miss the point hidden in what the defensive white folks are saying: that sometimes even when we've agonized over it, there's something that will come off wrong unless we yank POC from our worlds entirely, and we've made the choice to let that be.

Of course, in some cases, people are just ignorant and silly, romanticizing their savage bruisers or dreaming up we-sha-sha. But some of this stuff, sometimes... sometimes I do think it becomes an unfair pile-on

[green_knight]

researching cultures of color and crafting a character totally faithful to them

I think in a very rounabout way that, too, is a way of continueing the myth.

Because no two experiences are the same. I know of people who encountered very similar situations and came away with totally different subjective experiences, and overlays are happening in many different situations. Growing up poor in a trailer park - one kind of experience. Growing up black: another kind of experience; but the overlap between a white and a black kid in the same trailer park will be greater than that of a black kid there and the cherished only child of a doctor or lawyer. You need to find out *what is a likely experience and background for that character* and approach it from as many directions as necessary - culture, background, family history, gender...

I think it's important to remember that there is no single label that 'identifies us' just a hodgepodge of exeperiences, background, character traits...

[green_knight]

I'm not sure that, in the current situation, there is a right way we can depict people we have been trained to see as Other

Not when the alternative of 'I try to see people as people, not as draws the remark of 'that's easy for you, you're priviledged

[lalouve]

The problem is that trying to see people as people has the trap of turning them all into someone who had similar experiences - like some writers who write women that are clearly men in drag, sometimes strangely combined with clichéd ideas of what women are like. We are both individuals with our unique experiences and sharers in cultures that brought us up in specific ways. I think it can be done, but there will always be a certain amount of fail. It should be easier in SF and fantasy, since after all you can decide what kind of culture people come from. And yet it doesn't seem to be easier.

[green_knight]

the trap of turning them all into someone who had similar experiences - like some writers who write women that are clearly men in drag, sometimes strangely combined with clichéd ideas of what women are like.

That's bad writing, and falls under the 'try. Fail better' label - there are a million and one ways of getting it wrong; but I still think the basic idea is sound, and better than the alternative of trying to avoid writing about difficult characters (their absence is *also* problematic, after all.)

It should be easier in SF and fantasy, since after all you can decide what kind of culture people come from. And yet it doesn't seem to be easier.Writers - and readers - bring their own preconception to the table. I think it fails most often when a writer thinks in categories - the noble desert dweller, the wise shaman - or draw on real-world cultures and geographies as easy stereotypes. (David Eddings, I'm glaring at you.) So you get the European Knight, the gipsy, the jewish moneylender, the Native Indian, the Roman Legionary, etc

[lalouve]

I'll stick to gender, rather than race, as an example here, as that is what I know best and where I have personal experience

[green_knight]

sometimes those objections just don't seem answerable.That echoes an experience I had the other day. And in one way the discussion is working, because I might not have thought about it otherwise

[fierceawakening]

I think the only solution is to have a varied source of images - where _all_ kinds of characters are depicted across all kinds of situations. So if you have a black bottom, you'll also have black characters in any other kind of situation.

*nods* Yeah. At the time, I was primarily drawing bottoms. But, well, my novel has a black top in it, so I guess I'm good. :)

(sorry, needed a bit of levity for a moment there :) )

[fierceawakening]

*nods vigorously* I'm not trying to say the reaction wasn't understandable; it was and is. I'm just saying that I have a choice, and that given the likelihood of that reaction and the "why do white people act like only white people exist?" reaction if I refrain -- both of which have precedent and totally make sense -- someone will probably be unhappy somewhere.

[fridgepunk]

Part of the reason I'd made one of my sketches a black woman, though, was that I was acutely aware that if I depicted only white bottoms, I'd be selling myself as a "safe" desirer in one sense -- my desiring white bottoms isn't potentially laced with weird. But I'd also be selling the idea that to catch my eye, someone has to be white.

*blinks*

Can I ask where you got the notion that your art would be selling that idea?

[fierceawakening]

Which one?

[fridgepunk]

But I'd also be selling the idea that to catch my eye, someone has to be white.

That one, the idea that by presenting an all white portfolio you'd be also presenting the idea that you only like (? possibly not entirely the right word) white people.