That's racist!

[SecondCircle]

Just because a person, author or otherwise, is a part of a group doesn't mean that the person really understands said group. Said person may understand correct response and such, without an understanding of the entire process. An outsider, may not have the in depth knowledge that in insider does, but the outsider may have enough outside experience to contrast the group lifestyle with other group lifestyles and see why the interactions between groups are the way that they are, while a member of a group may well not.

I think this pretty much sticks.

I'm a white guy, but if an Asian American woman writes something from the POV (in any type of story) of a white guy, its not going to bug me much. I mean I'm not the spokesperson for whites or guys just because I belong to said group. If she writes it well, it won't matter anyway. Hell, I probably won't even notice who wrote the darn thing.

Its why I'm not really comfortable with the idea of paying such close attention to race at all. Because in the end, I don't really think its accurate or even intelligent to assume people of a like color are all the same or have similar views on anything.

As pilot mentioned, we are individuals. So a black guys account of Chinatown is bound to be as accurate as my account of fictional horror creatures. (Not saying Asians are fictional horror creatures.)

 

[Handley_Page]

I have ventured to put some USA authors right about the English on occasion, either in the phraseology, spelling or culture.
But that's because I'm English!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

If you think about it a while the choice is propaganda vs anthropology.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I think this pretty much sticks.

I'm a white guy, but if an Asian American woman writes something from the POV (in any type of story) of a white guy, its not going to bug me much. I mean I'm not the spokesperson for whites or guys just because I belong to said group. If she writes it well, it won't matter anyway. Hell, I probably won't even notice who wrote the darn thing.

Plus, she has hundreds of thousands of examples available for white male points of view. It's almost impossible to get it wrong. If you want to write a white man who is sullen and violent? people will totally believe he's accurate-- and they won't assume it's because he's white, either. If you want to write a white man who wears dresses once in a while and never shuts up? He will be plausible. A lot of men won't like him, mind you. But he's out there, well-represented already.

Doctors, lawyers, race car drivers, wealthy aristocrats, nurturing fathers-- we know them all. And all of them are white in our mind's eye. Even black readers will tell you-- it takes an effort of will to see characters as black. (especially the wealthy aristocrat, right...)

Its why I'm not really comfortable with the idea of paying such close attention to race at all. Because in the end, I don't really think its accurate or even intelligent to assume people of a like color are all the same or have similar views on anything.

You are quite right about that. But-- what are those views about? people of a like color might have things to think about that would never occur to you.

As pilot mentioned, we are individuals. So a black guys account of Chinatown is bound to be as accurate as my account of fictional horror creatures. (Not saying Asians are fictional horror creatures.)

But whether they like or dislike him, that black guy's color will be brought up over and over again by the critics.

Also... there are no fictional horror creatures around to say your account is wrong. Just as no dogs can say how accurate "call of the Wild" really is.

 

[Bramblethorn]

You are quite right about that. But-- what are those views about? people of a like color might have things to think about that would never occur to you.

I saw an interesting illustration of this recently with two comedians:

Mitch Hedberg: “I don’t need a receipt for a donut. I’ll just give you the money, you give me the donut. End of transaction. We don’t need to bring ink and paper into this. I just cannot imagine a scenario where I would have to prove that I bought a donut.”

Patrice O’Neal: “I do a lot of stuff to protect myself. I keep my receipts. I collect receipts cause that’s a trail of where you been man. Everywhere I go I get a receipt. And I never go more than a half hour without buying something cause you could kill somebody in a half hour, and then you need an alibi.”

I'm a leftie liberal type, and I like to think I'm reasonably aware of racial justice issues. But I would have had exactly the same imagination failure as Hedberg there. It's one thing to be aware of that hostile relationship, quite another to anticipate the effects it has on people's behaviour. (Or in tech-speak: emergent properties are only obvious in hindsight.)

Having seen that post, I know more than I did and I could apply that piece of knowledge if I was writing about urban Black characters. But I'd still be wondering - what other things are there that I've missed? At the least, I'd want a sanity check from somebody of that sort of background.

 

[redzinger]

Having seen that post, I know more than I did and I could apply that piece of knowledge if I was writing about urban Black characters. But I'd still be wondering - what other things are there that I've missed? At the least, I'd want a sanity check from somebody of that sort of background.

Does anyone feel pressure to add characters of a different skin colour (to your own) to your writing?

I live in a London borough. I have a broad circle of friends, but due to my background and interests, they're primarily white (I come from an isolated town, I watch rugby and cycle long-distance, and don't work in an office any more.)

If I look at the characters in my writing, about 98% are white/European.

I want to add balance but tbh, it wouldn't sound realistic coming from me. This is a reason I don't have teenagers in my writing either; I know nothing about them and the way they talk is foreign to me.
(Although I'm learning a bit watching my current favourite programme on BBC3, Some Girls http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p010f0cc ; http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p011v4wf )

Should I feel obliged to learn more? Should I try and risk sounding disingenuous? Is it racist/racially insensitive to be so unaware?

The novel I'm currently writing has scenes in South Africa, a place I travelled extensively (for a tourist) ten years ago. I've inhabited youtube, picked friend's brains, done a fair bit of research but compared to writing scenes based in the UK, it's a lot more difficult. Doesn't flow as well, and I'm getting so distracted with making it believable, that the story is getting lost. (Luckily, most of the tough stuff is done, and the next book will be based in much more familiar surroundings.)

Which just brings me to a Mark Twain quote, “Write what you know”...

 

[sr71plt]

Does anyone feel pressure to add characters of a different skin colour (to your own) to your writing?

I don't. I let them fall in where they naturally fall. It helps that I, like a lot of readers, see black men with big cocks as an erotic turn on. (And not a myth in my experience.)

But I do have in the back of my mind to write something that doesn't reveal that the characters are something other than Caucasian until the end--in some clever way that hasn't hit me yet.

I do mix races in my stories, though, and also use the stereotypes that resonate with readers--differentiating even among Caucasians (e.g., between Scandinavians and Mediterranean types) and even between the various Arabs (with many readers not having a clue that there are variations here). I don't shy away from stereotypes because they quickly bring an image up in the reader's mind and the context effort can be devoted to other elements of a story. Conversely, I don't shy away from standing a stereotype on its head and using reader misperception of same in a story either.

 

[Stella_Omega]

...
But I do have in the back of my mind to write something that doesn't reveal that the characters are something other than Caucasian until the end--in some clever way that hasn't hit me yet.
...

Not an uncommon notion among white writers.

And for most people, it does solve the problem of not feeling able to write authentic characters of color--simply pretend that this society treats non-whites the same way it treats white people.

Our white readers can take pleasurable refuge in their willingness to contemplate what-ifs. Our readers of color can read yet another story that ignores the fact that skin color really does affect the way we live.

Ihave the feeling that you, Pilot already know these things, and that's what you mean when you say you haven't figured out how to do it

 

[sr71plt]

Not an uncommon notion among white writers.

And for most people, it does solve the problem of not feeling able to write authentic characters of color--simply pretend that this society treats non-whites the same way it treats white people.

Our white readers can take pleasurable refuge in their willingness to contemplate what-ifs. Our readers of color can read yet another story that ignores the fact that skin color really does affect the way we live.

Ihave the feeling that you, Pilot already know these things, and that's what you mean when you say you haven't figured out how to do it

I'm not sure what you're saying, but the reason why I'd write something like that would be to set the reader up for facing their own false preconceptions. (And in that vein, I don't see why a writer of another race wouldn't attempt the same thing.)

It would be like what I did in a story about a young man slamming out of the house of his older lover and going on a sex binge--helping the reader to assume they'd had some sort of older-younger fight and that the younger guy was all surface and "me, me, me," when the end reveals that the older guy has died unexpectedly and the younger one is angry at him for dying and has gone on a denial binge--that the story isn't about older-younger lust but about love and loss.

 

[Bramblethorn]

But I do have in the back of my mind to write something that doesn't reveal that the characters are something other than Caucasian until the end--in some clever way that hasn't hit me yet.

One of the earlier Harry Potter books made passing mention of a character named "Blaise Zabini". It wasn't until a couple of books later that JKR established that Zabini was male and black, which caused quite a ruckus among fans who'd been assuming otherwise.

I think Stella's point about this device was that it can be tricky to write a fully-developed character while leaving them race-neutral, because race can be such an important part of a character's background/context.

That can be advantageous for the sort of story you're talking about, where you intend that the final revelation makes readers re-evaluate everything else that's happened so far.

But if the author just isn't aware of how race would influence things, it can undermine suspension of disbelief. If I wrote about a guy who's studying at the University of Mississippi in 1966, and I establish him as a thin-skinned slacker who makes out in public with his dorm-mate's blonde sister and who doesn't care about politics - well, I may not have explicitly indicated the guy's skin colour, but readers who know anything about that era will understand that he's not black.

I certainly don't advocate that people should only write "what they are". I think it's desirable for white authors to include non-white characters, and vice versa, but if we're trying to make them convincing then we need to put some thought into what their background means.

That, or write sci-fi in a utopian future where racism no longer exists...

 

[sr71plt]

I think Stella's point about this device was that it can be tricky to write a fully-developed character while leaving them race-neutral, because race can be such an important part of a character's background/context.

I don't develop characters any further than is needed for the storyline. If I needed it to be a black or Asian character early on (although I sometimes make characters "of color" just for the hell of it), that would be covered when needed. What I'd look for was the "when needed" to happen near the end and for the reader than to trace back and think, "Oh yeah, that is important because . . . and I missed it because I expected to be flatly told the character wasn't white if he/she wasn't."

Something like a romance where there was "something" in the air that was tension over something but never pinned down and near the end have some old aunt tell the woman that she thought she was quite brave to be marrying a black man in Virginia in the 60s (when it was illegal to do so. In 1965 I was told that I should stop seeing my then-Japanese-American girlfriend or move out of the state because we couldn't legally marry or cohabit in Virginia).

 

[SecondCircle]

I think one thing we kind of overlook is that race CAN be a crucial element of their background personality, but not ALWAYS.

Just because a person is black or white or Asian doesn't always mean that they are going to adhere to a certain culture or way of life. Sometimes this is the case, but not in every single case. That's too broad of a stroke. We've come a long way from a time where "whites are this way, blacks are this way" etc. For lack of a better way to put it, I know some black guys that act "whiter" than I am, and if you read them on paper or in a story, you wouldn't really know the difference. And the difference isn't really important unless the story was specifically central to the theme.

I also see nothing wrong with pilot's "race twist". I've read such a story where it utilized the same concept but with gender, where you had preconceptions of the character being a male and they turned out to be female. It came off clever, kinky, and surprising. No one raised any hell about it being sexist or anything like that. Like he said, he'd just have to figure out how to do it really. I wouldn't see anything wrong with it.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I really don't want to be discouraging anyone (as if I had any power anyway) , and I'm sure I come across that way.

Just came across this transcript of Junot Diaz speaking at Word Up Bookshop, 2012 which is somewhat germane.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

Does anyone feel pressure to add characters of a different skin colour (to your own) to your writing?

Should I feel obliged to learn more? Should I try and risk sounding disingenuous? Is it racist/racially insensitive to be so unaware?

The novel I'm currently writing has scenes in South Africa, a place I travelled extensively (for a tourist) ten years ago. I've inhabited youtube, picked friend's brains, done a fair bit of research but compared to writing scenes based in the UK, it's a lot more difficult. Doesn't flow as well, and I'm getting so distracted with making it believable, that the story is getting lost. (Luckily, most of the tough stuff is done, and the next book will be based in much more familiar surroundings.)

Which just brings me to a Mark Twain quote, “Write what you know”...

No, I don't feel an obligation to include a different skin color in my writing. Feeling that pressure smacks of "white guilt" syndrome to me. Honestly, I seldom think about it. If a character is noticing/interacting with a person of color in a story - then I'm revealing something about the primary character's perception. In general, it seems as if your dilemma is more a POV issue than anything else. How Joe White perceives Joe Black will tell your reader volumes about Joe White. Personally, I've never tried to write from an alternative race's POV and I don't think I would try. I doubt I could nail a Londoner's perspective on the world any better than I could a New Yorkers or someone from the Middle East. But give me a vanilla voice from the Midwest or a relatively generic southerner and I get close enough.