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.

I've had people object to characters of color that I've drawn or written, and sometimes those objections just don't seem answerable.

For example, on my old web site, one of my drawings (out of many) was of a black female bottom, wearing a collar. Of course, this got the predictable response that I was "for" slavery, or at least "for" white people getting off on it.

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.

I decided the hell with it, and I'd make the art I wanted to make. But now, even going through that site, I'm struck with how that piece is A Problem no matter what I do with it, because what I meant by it just isn't immediately apparent unless it comes with a disclaimer about who I am and why I made it.

Sometimes it *has* seemed to me like the solution is hiding that image and letting people say of me that I've not noticed POC exist, or think none are kinky, or the like. It's a solution laced with privilege, but I do think there are reasons it seems easy to some people... especially people not well-versed in these issues, who've found themselves suddenly deluged by Criticism From The Internet that they weren't expecting.

[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.

I don't know if you're reading my novel, but one of the major non-main characters, and hopefully one of the most likable characters, is a black man. And in many ways, I can see someone deeming him a Magical Negro. He's helpful and kind in a way most other characters, embroiled in politics, are not. He cares for a character everyone else hates (who is white), and tries to protect her.

He has sex with the courtesan-character, and I haven't shied away from mentioning they've got different color skin there, too.

I don't know what people think; I've not heard anyone so far comment on the racial dynamics. But I know that someone sensitive to this stuff could find things not to like. In the end, though, it came down to, just as I said with the drawing, painting the character white for security or saying to hell with the "there are no POC in space" convention of way too much SF.

I think I chose wisely. I think there are some people for whom no choice, there, is a good choice.

Unless, perhaps, it be researching cultures of color and crafting a character totally faithful to them, no matter how irrelevant that would be to the plot.

And the thing is... I can see why people want that, but not every story demands it. And it bothers me when people claim politics does. (Besides which, there are a LOT of people who are bothered by people assuming they identify always and only with "Their Culture", too. When people assume I'm Greek Orthodox, it baffles me.)

[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.'

What makes someone 'other' is a different question. In many ways I have more in common with the eighteen-year-old gay writer from Bulgaria than with my mid-thirties housewife neighbour; and I resent being lumped in with people who happen to share external attributes simply because someone else decides to divide up humanity in that manner.

I think 'honest and sincere' is the _only_ way to be. If you're going to fuck up whatever you do - at least in the eyes of _some_ of your audience - then you might as well fuck up doing the best you can and attempting to do the right thing.

As a reader, I don't just want to read about... well, I can't say 'people like me' because there are damn few people like me (and a lot more people I want to share my life with, people I'm interested in, people I like to hang out with, and people about whom I would like to learn without being in close contact with them.) What 'people like me' too often means is 'people like a boring, white, middle-class fairground mirror image of what authors *think* I am like. I'm a grown-up. I don't need to be shielded from the experiences of minorities, members of other cultures, people who are oppressed, or people who disagree with my beliefs.

I want to be able to read about them, and I want to be able to write about them, and I want everybody else to also choose their writing and reading matter according to their own, individual tastes of that moment.

[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 etc - and with it, you get the stereotypes.

That's sloppy writing, and while this often works to get the story moving (and the reader will go along with it for a fast, shallow skim that has plenty of adventure/action) I don't feel its good enough; but it's due to each individual writer to work at it.

One of the most Other characters in SF is Tully in Cherryh's Chanur series - he's white, male, human, and boy, is he OTHER.

[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.

I think the problem with the bad writing is not really lack of writing skills, but the inability to see that women are not, in fact, men who are just less rational, or more nurturing, or whatever cliché they choose to believe in, but people who, due to their gender, have different experiences from men in similar class/race/age/sexual orientation bracket. Those writers cannot grasp that other people have experiences that differ from theirs (I submit all the men to whom I've tried to explain how women go through life fearing violence from men, and who refuse to believe that this experience exists). It will inevitably lead to bad writing.

Stereotypes are, in my opinion, also a worse problem than the bad writing produced; they are tools for the closing of one's mind. Every reproduced stereotype strengthens the impression that it is an image true to life. As I think writers (like the rets of us) have moral obligations about their work, I think they have an obligation to avoid stereotypes, both because they're bad writing and because they are dangerous.

[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.

I do 3D art, and I have made a point of ensuring my Runtime is *not* Whitey McWhite - I will not purchase another fair-skinned character, but I am still on the lookout for other ethnicities, plus older and less beautiful models. I also render every item I purchase to get a feel for it.

So the other day I had three items I needed to render - a white character, a very sexy nightie, and a warrior outfit, and there was just no way of rendering this that would not be offensive in one way or another.

My options were

- only white characters
- the white character as strong and able, the PoC passive
- the PoC as primitive warrior, the white one being sleek and sophisticated

This art will never see the light of day, but still.

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.

[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.