Racefail 09

[leana106]

You know, I've been watching Racefail 09 on the sidelines for the last few days because people more eloquent than I had already stated what I could have ever wanted to say about it. And by the time I came in, it seemed to be winding down--the overarching discussion has been occurring for many years before, but this incarnation just blew up at the

Comments

[charlycrash]

I realise how potentially inflammatory this is, but with the whole "POC" thing - I have yet to meet anyone who would use the term to refer to themselves. Every black person I've known would refer to themselves as, well, "black

[leana106]

I use Black to refer to myself and other Black people, and whatever descriptor other people of other races want to use for themselves, but POC is a good catch-all for Black people, Asians, Latinos, mixed/biracial people, people from the Middle East, Africans etc. I don't think I've ever heard an individual call them selves a person of color, it's always been in the plural. YMMV, obviously.

It may be cultural, but I've usually only seen POC used in an academic sense, or during diversity training.

I think as long as you treated your characters like characters instead of confining them to stereotypes or tropes (negative or positive) then you're probably okay.

I'm curious though, have you been following the Racefail '09 stuff? I just heard about it about a week or so ago and really got into it in the last couple of days. It seems that before March it had been pretty confined, and I can see that a lot of people have just got into it.

[charlycrash]

POC is a good catch-all for Black people, Asians, Latinos, mixed/biracial people, people from the Middle East, Africans etc.Ah, I figured it was something like that. Y'know though, I do happen to rather like the phrase, as it goes some way to illustrating how (ignoring culture for a second) race is kind of a silly notion to begin with. Obviously some people look different to others, but as biologically-speaking it's not a case of stark categories but a multi-dimensional continuum.. I dunno, it seems a bit crap to cram people into one box or other because of some vague similiarity to a tendency in phenotype in people with a heritage form a certain locality

[leana106]

Oh man, race is possibly one of the stupidest constructs I've ever come across, but no one can deny that it's been useful for a certain suite of people and shaped a good chunk of how things are now. =/ But you run into a different sort of stupidity when well meaning people proclaim that they are color-blind and that they don't see race.

Even though I look (and identify as) black, I know that I'm at least 25% white (thank you Grandpa) and probably a bunch more going by what I know of our nation's long history of engagement with other races. That documentary sounds cool though. I'm surprised that the idiots changed their tune though, that they didn't deny the DNA tests or come up with some other explanation. I do wonder though how their fellow idiots treated them once it was revealed that they weren't 100% white.

There's stuff in my writing that I am very worried about in terms of subtext and implication - but I won't list it here, as it's probably not very interesting :/I don't mind. In for a penny, in for a pound, I always say

[charlycrash]

But you run into a different sort of stupidity when well meaning people proclaim that they are color-blind and that they don't see race.Well.. I'm usually willing to give them the benefit of the doubt there. If they mean they don't actually notice race at all then yeah that's pretty dumb (and frankly, almost certainly a lie), but maybe they mean they don't tend to load a certain set of preconceptions when they deal with someone of a certain race

[charlycrash]

To clarify, once more:

but because they've all been alive so long most of them are past caring about things other than just doing what they're told to.

I meant it's more that, in response to "go kill these cute kids", they'll just kinda shrug and go, yeah, okay. As opposed to being generally submissive, which they typically aren't.

The main character kinda wakes up to it though, and goes, "Y'know what, this is fucked-up, and I'm not going to do it any more, repercussions be damned".

[leana106]

Yeah... when I've seen people say that (I've never had anybody pull the colorblind line IRL), they usually mean the former. =/

Thank you :) It's always fun to talk about this stuff.. but I suspect far more fun for me than the victim listener.

Heh, I'm sure some of my friends feel the same way when I go off on tangents about my research.

For reasons that are too lengthy to include here they're all basically east-Asian, and due to the fact that the cloned bodies have been monkeyed with at the genetic level quite a bit, they're all born female.

- which is of course a trope in itself, but what concerns me is that pretty much all of the female characters are members of this organisation and the fact that they're not actually human (due to having 54 chromosomes and being incapable of breeding with humans even if they weren't almost all sterile, which they are due to their genes being screwed with) is a moderate issue.Huh. Why are the soldiers East Asian (more or less)? I mean is everybody that way, like, the traits show up in the

[charlycrash]

Why are the soldiers East Asian (more or less)?

This is really lengthy and complicated, I'm afraid :S

The story is set in an alternate universe where the Axis won WW2, although that fact is never stated as it's set in the twenty-ninth century or thereabouts and.. well, how often do we mention the Battle of Hastings?

WW3 (at the time of which there were numerous extra-Solar colonies either run by Imperial Japan or the Reich) was Japan v. Germany and ended in a horrific and very quick MAD scenario.

The centres of power for both superpowers being knocked out, the colonies became more inward-looking and, being so used to autocratic rule, started to develop their own royal families or equivalents deriving from either ouke - minor scions of the Japanese royal family who moved off Earth to try and be bigger cheeses than they could on the homeworld - or de facto Nazi "royals" like relatives of the Reichsleiter

[leana106]

Don't worry about the length, your story sounds fascinating. And I can see all the typos I made. Foo.

[charlycrash]

Thank you :) If you're interested at all, I keep a Wiki of it all, pretty much entirely for my own sake as I have a lousy memory and need to keep track of it all as, as you can see, it's not so simple. Here's the entry for the organisation I've been talking about.

I always worry people feel obliged to read stuff I've written, and I understand it can be a bit ugh feeling compelled to read not-so-great amateur prose so.. yeah. Tis all good :)

And I can see all the typos I made. Foo.

Eh, I habitually do even better - I have a habit of leaving out words entirely in sentences, and usually the most critical/embarrassing one e.g. "Do you think I'm stupid?" "Of course I think you're stupid". ... ... "DON'T think". Arrghgghh -_-

[leana106]

That sounds really useful; I have a notebook because I like to handwrite but it's rather horridly organized because I can never tell how much space to leave for certain topics.

I always worry people feel obliged to read stuff I've written, and I understand it can be a bit ugh feeling compelled to read not-so-great amateur prose so.. yeah. Tis all good :)

Hon, I've been reading fanfiction for about 10 years. Trust me, your prose can't be as bad as some of the stuff I've slogged through.

I have a habit of leaving out words entirely in sentences, and usually the most critical/embarrassing one e.g. "Do you think I'm stupid?" "Of course I think you're stupid". ... ... "DON'T think". Arrghgghh -_-

Hee, I just have extra words in mine because I was writing something else and didn't erase it fully. Or I didn't complete my thought so the statement just ends abruptly. I did that in one of my finals last semester, more than once even. -_-;;

[charlycrash]

That sounds really useful; I have a notebook because I like to handwrite but it's rather horridly organized because I can never tell how much space to leave for certain topics.

I really really recommend setting up a wiki if you do much worldbuilding stuff. MediaWiki is kind of a headache to install and get working properly, but it's totally invaluable.

Hon, I've been reading fanfiction for about 10 years. Trust me, your prose can't be as bad as some of the stuff I've slogged through.

Haha, gotcha.

Hee, I just have extra words in mine because I was writing something else and didn't erase it fully. Or I didn't complete my thought so the statement just ends abruptly. I did that in one of my finals last semester, more than once even. -_-;;

Oh man, I totally do that all the time too, ha -_- Oh, and Jeez, I remember I kept forgetfully slipping into Japanese in my Spanish oral exam many years ago. That wasn't good.

[leana106]

That does sound easier. I had been thinking about setting up individual documents by topics--I already had general ones for characters, organizations, etc. but they get a little unwieldy once they hit a certain size.

Jeez, I remember I kept forgetfully slipping into Japanese in my Spanish oral exam many years ago. That wasn't good.

Ha, I can do one better. I've taken Spanish for a number of years, but I still can't speak/listen to it very well. Every once in a while, I'll have a dream where everybody's speaking Spanish and I can't understand what they're saying when I wake up. I understand in the dream, although that understanding isn't because I can translate the Spanish. The best part is waking up, remembering the Spanish conversation and having no fucking clue what I said or the person I was talking to said.

[charlycrash]

I already had general ones for characters, organizations, etc. but they get a little unwieldy once they hit a certain size.

Yeah, I found that too.. and I found myself having to explain stuff (for who?) over and over again, when I could just have a little clicky link.

The best part is waking up, remembering the Spanish conversation and having no fucking clue what I said or the person I was talking to said.

Haha, that's kinda weird. Often I'll have times when I make up songs in my dreams, and then wake up and struggle to remember them - although I guess maybe we're actually just feeling like we're saying something coherent in Spanish or writing full songs, when we're actually just producing goddledegook.

[charlycrash]

Oh, a point from about 9000 years ago:

Heh, it's funny, I was going to have a bioengineered, enhanced human military force that was disproportionately female as well and I hadn't really considered how cliche it sort of is--it was just an outgrowth of an old short story centered around Amazons.

As they say on TVTropes though, tropes only really suck if they're boring and predictable, and every story out there ever falls into at least one.

I kinda fretted about cliché initially but I dunno, I don't think it matters that much if you manage to wring an interesting story out of it, or do something interesting with the existing trope.

This covers both of us:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmazonBrigade

[leana106]

Oh man, you're trying to kill my evening by linking me to TV tropes, aren't you?