I am trying to be charitable, but, before I explain, you did notice that I literally wrote that that the idea is a lie a line after, right? Like you didn't miss it on your way through the thing?
Erm... yeah, I might have done...
I am trying to be charitable, but, before I explain, you did notice that I literally wrote that that the idea is a lie a line after, right? Like you didn't miss it on your way through the thing?
Sure. Do anyone but ignorable dickheads complain about a lack of white characters?Then that means if I write something, I don't want no complaints if it doesn't have any major Caucasian characters
Then that means if I write something, I don't want no complaints if it doesn't have any major Caucasian characters
Of course. If anything, maybe it's time to turn around the complaints about tokenistic inclusions. For example, Black Panther is an awesome Reverse-Hamlet story about a succession crisis in the African nation of Wakanda, but has a tokenistic inclusion of two North Americans in the form of Everett K. Ross (the CIA dude I had to look up) and Killmonger, even though North Americans are grossly overrepresented already (particularly among blacks on the screen), and such tokenism is a flaw of the film, as it gives an ugly impression that Africans can't even have a cool plot without needing North America to kickstart it.Then that means if I write something, I don't want no complaints if it doesn't have any major Caucasian characters
If it's well written, there'd be no reason to complain. I liked Leopard's Daughter by Lee Killough, and it's a fantasy with no non-black people in it at all.So Basically, it all boils down to "Stop complaining black people, Just write your own fiction and stop demanding representation in ours"
Okay.
Okay.
Then that means if I write something, I don't want no complaints if it doesn't have any major Caucasian characters
You're not representative.
You're claiming that most SV users would complain if there no major white characters in a story? Do you have any evidence to back it up?
Since it's been claimed that people of color don't count if they are in fantasy settings where there was never European Imperialism and racial slavery, wouldn't that mean that characters from such settings can't be considered white either, since there's no framework for that to effect their cultural identity?
I brought it up because this thread began with people complaining that there aren't enough black people in fantasy and scifi, only to then say that they only count if they have the exact same experiences as African Americans.You could maybe make that argument. In that situation you are basically saying that a character's race doesn't have the same meaning as in real life and is therefore not relevant to real life discussions of race. Which is fine as long as your worldbuilding and storytelling works. The likelihood is that, unless you were an absolutely amazing writer and worldbuilder, you would piss someone off though, because they would either assume an ulterior motive or see an allegory that may or may not have been there.
So Basically, it all boils down to "Stop complaining black people, Just write your own fiction and stop demanding representation in ours"
Here's the thing, though. You are perfectly justified to demand more black representation in fiction. But when you at the same time complain about people who don't really read as black, even when they 'officially' are... well, that creates a trilemma for people:
1) Write no black people. Bad.
2) Write black people without specific cultural markers. Bad.
3) Write black people and try to code them black - but mostly likely fuck up and offend people because you relied on stereotypes. Obviously also bad.
So what are people supposed to do? Of course the ideal would be to write black people who are properly coded as black, but well, it's not like we free time writers can hire a consultant or anything. We can ask black people, of course, but well, I wouldn't even know enough to know what questions to ask. I wouldn't even know where to begin.
There iz no messages in ze game. No meaning at all! Iz just gaem!Honestly? I'm 100% fine with dark skinned people in fantasy stories unrelated to real earth, same for sci-fi stories. They just have to be well written, and not be a racist drawing.
... I have bigger problems with Sci-fi stories that try to, say, use white androids in the near future as stand ins for and as an allegory to African Americans and the racism that effects them on a day to day basis. Even more so if that story is being written by, say, people in France without any people of color working on the writing whatsoever.
Skin color is only part of being a different ethnicity. If you have a black character, but he acts like he's just a generic white dude who happens to be black, That is just a *bit* frustrating.
Which means Rivers of London would be bad because in the first few books I needed to remind me very often that the character is black, and even now I mostly read him like someone from one of the Turkish immigrant families.
Could you specify what makes a black character come over as a generic white dude? Like what would be required to make a black character act black because I feel worried that might lead into stereotypes.
It's like, a character who is *just* a white guy in black face would have us be told he's black, but he'd speak like an upper class British Nobleman- or he'd talk in a completely generic North American standard accent. None of the code switching that people actually do.
No, but orcs are never just orcs. They are the crude and barbaric WWI soldiers, or Native Americans, or British soccer hooligans. Fantasy and Sci-Fi cultures are our own, sometimes filtered through an interesting prism or a fascinating what-if, other times just a lazy copypasta or laden with unfortunate implications. For example I could do without all the hook nosed greedy Space Jews wherein "being ugly and greedy" are seemingly made into outright biotruth.One thing that amuses me about "writers write what they know" is that it can barely be applied to science fiction and fantasy. Are there so many writers who are secretly wizards or orcs? Is there some kind of a secret cabal of writers who are secretly aliens from outer space that write about their secret alien space cultures?
It's a matter of how they act, their outlook on life, and a bunch of little things. It's hard to explain, but when you see it you know you've got an authetic minority character. It's not speaking in some white guy's idea of what AAVE is and throwing around outdated slang while doing Stereotypical Black Things like Sports.
It's like, a character who is *just* a white guy in black face would have us be told he's black, but he'd speak like an upper class British Nobleman- or he'd talk in a completely generic North American standard accent. None of the code switching that people actually do.
No, but orcs are never just orcs. They are the crude and barbaric WWI soldiers, or Native Americans, or British soccer hooligans.