Race!Fail or not?

[valarltd]

I have three men in a tri-bond. Commander Cliff Cody, Lt. Commander Frank Stett and Lt. Commander Jake Maggert. Jake has brown hair and blue eyes. Cliff has wavy blond hair and hazel eyes. I am considering making Frank black.

My problem: In the established canon, Cliff and Jake are maimed in an accident that takes Frank's life. Have I yet again killed the black guy in the third reel, so my handsome white heroes can have their happy ending without him? (It takes a lot of work to come to any accommodation, to the point that Cliff asks Jake if it was only Frank he loved)

This takes place before the accident. Although Cliff is in charge by virtue of rank, it's clear the men regard each other as beloved equals.

I don't want to write a future that is all white corn-fed farmboys being heroes in space. I'm subverting the genre and worried about the fact that all my readers know of Frank, at the beginning, is that I killed him before the last story started.

Am i making sense?

Comments

[moons-storm.livejournal.com]

To me, the question is: Do you just want to write Frank as black so you can say, 'Hey, look, I wrote a black character!' In other words, if Frank could be played by someone white or of any other nationality, and it doesn't change the story at all, then I don't know why it's necessary. If him being black is integral to him as a character or to the story as a whole, then he's not a token character, and his death will be meaningful.

That's my $0.02. :)

[celestinenox]

Agreed with moons_storm and also adding: does Franks death add to the plot, and must it be his character that dies? Why is it his character who must die, and why is he the character you're considering making black? How do all these things come together?

(Obviously do not want to know the answers, just food for thought.)

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I want to write Frank as black so the envisioned future is not all white, so that it's not all "multi-ethnic planet requires White Aryan Heroes to Save the Day."

His death is already meaningful, having saved several dozen Ranger cadets, and it doesn't happen in this story. It happens somewhere between this story and the one in QUEER DIMENSIONS.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

He doesn't die in The Algol Disaster.

He dies before Plumbing the Depths starts and his death drives most of the interpersonal conflict between his surviving husbands.

He must die at some point in the future because he has already died. The story which is already published in this 'verse has him dead (and says nothing about his color). The story I am writing now comes before that on the timeline.

I was thinking of making Frank black because Cliff is already established as very white and Jake's blue eyes kind of (but don't necessarily) disqualify him. (Mainly because Cliff is the Errol Flynn muse, and Jake is a sane Nick muse) It doesn't change the plot at all if he is white or black. But by making him black I avoid the All-White future.

[ginamariewade.livejournal.com]

If your idea is that the future isn't populated entirely by white people, that's fine - but I don't think I would make the choice for the guy who dies to be black, just *because* that is such a trope.

The space plumber or the pilot or the mailman could be black, too.

[thetammyjo.livejournal.com]

I don't know this canon you mentioned so I can't speak to that.

But in terms of making your world "non-white" you comfort as a writer often reflects your own background. Pushing your own comfort level is a good thing but unless you have an understanding of other groups -- race, ethnicity, religion, gender, whatever -- the characters won't seem real. Research what you don't know and don't work about the main characters as you stretch your own knowledge and comfort level at the same time.

[trobadora]

I hear you about avoiding the all-white future, but yeah, you'd be contributing to that trope whether you wanted to or not. Is there any reason one of the surviving men can't be black?

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

The grief!fic is already published and Jake's blue eyes and Cliff's blond hair make the survivors unlikely to be black.

Screw it. I'll make their commanding officer black instead. and a bunch of the scientists needing rescue as well. The villains are blue.