Time for some crankiness and unabashed privilege

[valarltd]

I've been pissy all day, so why not blog it?

I stayed out of RaceWank09. Yes, wank. It degenerated from an important discussion to a bunch of people shouting in corners.

What I learned:

There aren't enough characters of color in genre fiction.
White writers not writing characters of color is racism by omission.
White writers writing bad characters of color is racism by comission.
White writers writing any characters of color is appropriation.
And there is no way to do it right.

Yeah, I'm a racist.
I was raised in a sundown town. My father fought in the '68 race riots with his National Guard unit. I grew up not knowing any black people. When I moved to the South, it was pure culture shock. Suddenly every face I saw on a daily basis was black. I developed some very unpleasant attitudes based on this contact. During my involvement with fandom, I refused to write characters of color. I would not vid them. I was attempting to create a media buffer zone between me and reality.

Things change. Attitudes and behavior change.

Now, I wonder...
If I write characters of color, am I fucking it up?
If I don't write them, am I omitting them from convenience, from a messed-up idea of how reality should look or as a deliberate act?

Basically, my take on RaceFail: If we're told every depiction of characters of color is wrong, but that not depicting is wrong as well, shall we then be silent?

Frankly, I've had enough of people, all colors, shapes, sizes and genders, telling me I'm doing it wrong.

I do what I do. If it doesn't suit you, find someone who does.

Comments

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

I frankly agree with you in most ways.

I also grew up with very little contact with blacks, although my mother made it clear that any prejudice was wrong.

Conversely, my daughter has grown up in Buffalo, which is over 90 percent black, and is totally comfortable with it. I am not. I find that what concerns me is so-called black culture. The culture of wearing expensive clothes while not taking care of your kids, of deliberately using incorrect english and calling it eubonics, of not getting an education because it's whitey's job to take care of you.

Not all blacks are like that, though, even here. There are some who want to make something of themselves. And *these* better educated ones are the very ones that present the dilemna you have above. Because they don't know what they want, they're just feeling things out. They feel 'downtrodden' and don't know how to fix it other than blame it on us. (I'm hoping that Obama's example will begin to change that.)

I know that for my part, I'm tired of coddling them. They should just get out and work, and ignore anything they consider criticism. *That* is the indication of an ethnic group beginning to actually take it's place in society. When the Irish and the Italians started laughing at themselves is when they were becoming accepted.

I do what I do. If it doesn't suit you, find someone who does.

Yep.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

My husband's students are mostly black. He will hand them a test and half of them won't even fill out the one line they are capable of: name.
He has 2-3 good ones per class, and a bunch of goof-offs.

That said, we are a racist society. One of my son's kindergarten classmates was shot by cops last summer for "Being in Public While Black."

And yes, everyone looks for reprensentation of themselves in the media. I want smart women. I want bisexual women. I want pagans. I totally get how depressing it is to read book after book and movie after movie about people who have nothing in common with you.

As writers, we have a responsibility to get it right.
But everyone needs to be telling their own stories and not insisting someone else tell them.

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

was shot by cops last summer for "Being in Public While Black."

Now *that* is extreme! Where do you live that they got away with that?

I'm working on a book with a group of main characters. I've got at least one set of gay men and at least two sets of lesbians. (Mmmm, sort of ...) And a couple of scorching het. Oh, and I concienciously brought in a black man and an hispanic one. Not sure yet, but I think they're probably going to get it on.

Being me, my own favorite characters are gay men.

Hmm ... I think they're all pagans ...

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

West Memphis. The DeAunta Farrow case.

My son went to kindergarten with him. Son is now in 8th grade. DeAunta will not be rejoining him for high school

[saraphina-marie.livejournal.com]

Agreed.
Even though I had the complete opposite up-bringing in a super culturally diverse area of the country where I was brought up to NOT self-identify as white.

Me, I just write the characters as they come to me, girl, boy, white, non-white, whatever. I don't write races, I write people.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Except that's privilege as well, and cultural appropriation and all of it.

Or so I'm told.

Me, I write as the muses move me.