discussion--race and racism in the UK
First, a confession: I've recently begun speculating about writing a short fanfiction story based in a British fandom. I'm from the United States. The plotline I outlined included the birth of a multi-racial child (White mother and Black father), whose father was not present, and who was raised by the White mother and her White husband.
Before I sat down to write the story, I felt that it would be helpful to get a better sense of how such a child would be received in the United Kingdom. In the United States, some of the most explicit and shocking racism I've personally witnessed has been towards multi-racial people--not only in the form of derogatory terms, but also comments like "You're not really really white, because your mom's Japanese!" and similar.
I'm nervous about this aspect of the story and don't want to ignore the real racism that multi-racial people face; at the same time, I don't want to mishandle the issue.
So I posted to a community with many British members to get their input. Some interesting comments resulted:
Honestly most people know more than one child who has parents of different ethnicities these days and to refer to it at all would be considered racist.
The taboo against referring to race would be far greater than the desire to insult.
I'm not sure why anyone would want to [refer to race]. Aren't we all people, and isn't skin colour a thing of the past?
Being racist, even if in a story, seems to be to be extremely out of date and very un-PC. Sorry.
What do you guys think? Is it "out-of-date and very un-PC" to address racism, even in a story? Are things really so much better in the United Kingdom? Or are the people who made these comments just as naive about race as "colorblind" Americans?
Before I sat down to write the story, I felt that it would be helpful to get a better sense of how such a child would be received in the United Kingdom. In the United States, some of the most explicit and shocking racism I've personally witnessed has been towards multi-racial people--not only in the form of derogatory terms, but also comments like "You're not really really white, because your mom's Japanese!" and similar.
I'm nervous about this aspect of the story and don't want to ignore the real racism that multi-racial people face; at the same time, I don't want to mishandle the issue.
So I posted to a community with many British members to get their input. Some interesting comments resulted:
Honestly most people know more than one child who has parents of different ethnicities these days and to refer to it at all would be considered racist.
The taboo against referring to race would be far greater than the desire to insult.
I'm not sure why anyone would want to [refer to race]. Aren't we all people, and isn't skin colour a thing of the past?
Being racist, even if in a story, seems to be to be extremely out of date and very un-PC. Sorry.
What do you guys think? Is it "out-of-date and very un-PC" to address racism, even in a story? Are things really so much better in the United Kingdom? Or are the people who made these comments just as naive about race as "colorblind" Americans?