Race to the Fail - thoughts about racial issues and diversity

[lucilla_1789]

Typical to today's discussion about racism is that none of the participants know what racism means. They mix it with human tribalism and tendency to have mixed reactions on strange things, particularly strange cultures. When we talk about race, we usually talk about culture. When people think they are celebrating cultural diversity, they usually

Comments

[lucilla_1789]

I've always had difficulties writing about any culture. I could not write a good story about white Finns today, if my life depended on it, and same goes to every ethnic group in the whole planet. That's why I write fantasy and sci-fi, where I can tackle difficult issues of identity and culture. Or very distant historical story.

For me Orientalism means the study of the Orient. Those boring white guys who traveled there, learned the language, wrote a bunch of books about the Farsi or Arabic grammar and translated some folktales. Or the artists who painted the pictures that Europeans find offensive now but oil sheiks love and buy for large sums of money.

Of course we see things from our culture's point of view - I filter new experiences with my Finnish eyes and by boyfriend with his Singaporean ones. But there is no "Western way" of seeing other cultures, as every Western country is different from each other (as in Orient, would be Iran and Iraq, for an example). Coming from small country, that has short history, Finns might see things totally differently than, say, French.

I remember this postcolonial book that said how we even see a landscape trough our "conquering, colonizing" eyes (this was written by a Finn, which is weird as we never had colonies)
That reminded me of my St Petersburg trip where I traveled in a buss with many other Finns. As we arrived to the city, some woman said "How ugly it is here" (it was not in very good condition) and I started to cry, because I was overwhelmed by its beauty. How we see things, and represent them, is affected by so much more than our culture.

I agree with postcolonialism in that our view is Eurocentric, but I don't see anything wrong with it. As long as you don't start writing about magical Indians giving spiritual advice, that is.