Ah, ‘savior p*rn’ is what’s that called iirc. Like, stories that aren’t written FOR the people it concerns or even including them in the target audience, but being written for exactly those that cause all the crap to feel good about themselves.
A big example recently was Sia’s ‘Music’ which is just outright harmful and condescending and dehumanizing towards autists. And her reason for making that PoS even was because she wanted applause for being oh so inclusive etc.
Hell, there’s even publishing houses that are LOOKING for e.g. white writers to write (sob) stories about Black characters etc, all so the publisher can portray itself as ‘so inclusive and progressive’ (same happens with lotsa other groups).
And then you have the flipside, where authors completely shy away from letting anything bad happen to their non-white characters (often by heaping positive bias onto them) which is just as false.
My point exactly, the people that can best write us as humans is other black people. I won’t demand anyone else of it to put black people in your stories but if you’re going to at least write us as people.
This is another example. Like when characters are described like this I immediately know that the character isn’t black. Like obviously black people can have brown hair and even in rare cases blue eyes. But when described like this in literature it 100% means a white person. Especially when the black people in the story, or in this stories case the gens de couleur(free people of color) are usually described by their complexion. There’s seldom any mention of their brown eyes and hair color is seldom mentioned. The women aren’t called brunettes hair isn’t described with terms like mousey. Those are other giveaways the character described isn’t black.
Okay, I didn’t think I needed to make it clear, but apparently it’s not obvious to everyone that crossing physical boundaries to touch someone’s hair or skin, and comparing darker skin tones to food is still dehumanizing.
Consider the difference between describing someone as ‘chocolate’ or ‘coffee’ vs. ‘ivory’ or ‘porcelain’—which is, unfortunately, a very common occurrence in writing. Notice how the lighter skin tone denotes an object of value, as if it is something to be admired, while the darker skin tone implies that black skin is merely a commodity to be consumed. Both descriptions are objectifying, yes, but it is the food comparison that carries with it the horrors of hundreds of years of enslavement, of literal commodification of black skin to a society that stripped people of their very right to be seen as a human.
And it is within these slave societies that it was normalized to touch black people without their consent or without any regard for their comfort. If you see coiled or kinky hair and are fascinated, great. You have working vision. Congratulations. But this does not give anyone the right to disregard a person’s physical boundaries to sate their curiosity, nor does it excuse having done so without thinking. If you touch black hair or skin without thinking, ask yourself if you have ever asked a dog owner for permission to touch their pet. As much as I love dogs, I cannot imagine how dehumanizing it must be to realize that there are people out there whose concern over a literal animal’s physical boundaries is as much or even more than their concern over your own boundaries.
Racism is not limited to slurs, violence, or disenfranchisement, it pervades every aspect of the way black people are even perceived, which is why it’s important to have these conversations, because I’m sure there are many out there who never even thought to question these things before, because society never cared to even give voice to it before. So please, do not try to justify this, instead ask yourself how you can do better.
‘Nothing About Us without Us’ fells applicable, but I am unsure how much that line is used outside of autism activism.
In regards to using food to describe skin-colour, I find that it often feel rather sexualised and a little creepy, when I read it. I’m wondering if it feels that way to those of you who experience it?
What I would encourage everyone to do who wants to see less racially-coded stuff like this is to take some of these posts out of this thread and into WIP threads for stories where you have noticed such issues. Put it out there for the author, who almost certainly included it without any conscious decision to do so. Obviously you can’t control if they implement raceblind changes or not, but if you tell them, you’ve done what you could and the ball is in their court.
While definitely being rude it is racism in an the way of ignorance. Why would anyone regardless of how different they look be receptive to a stranger rudely invading their space? I can guarantee that if I did that to them out of the blue they would not find that acceptable. Racism doesn’t come solely from outright, blatant, “I want to harm you” hatred.
Firstly, no, I took no offense, I love hearing others’ views. Secondly, I grew up with these as well and (this is definitely an unpopular opinion here) I’m actually thankful for them. Don’t get me wrong, they are bad in their weird “savior complex” but it’s their bad example that we can use to say “hey, this is what you should not do” to other writers.
This is essentially what I’m trying to encourage. The simple fact of the matter is we are a minority, there will always be more white writers than others. Just as a heterosexual writer may not fully understand the perspective of a homosexual person, or a cis writer may not fully understand the perspective of a transperson, research can be done and a conversation can be had so that works can have better representation that respects an entire group of people. Diversity in creative works has always been a long process but it eventually does foster better understanding and productions over time regardless of mistakes made along the way.
Oh yeah I don’t demand it either. I figure writing diverse stories help make you a well rounded writer but it’s not like some kind of demand. I think that anyone can write anyone. I wholeheartedly believe that. The caveat is when you write about character outside your lived experience you need to research. The same way you’d research Magic systems, gladiator combat, like you’d research any other aspect of your story. Along with the research talk to people in that group. Really take your ego out and listen. Get sensitivity readers in that group. No one is perfect but alot can be avoided if you have an second set of more experienced eyes on it. Also specifically if you’re writing a story with black characters and it’s about being black do double the research. Usually it doesn’t end well. But there’s great examples of white authors doing it well. But thsts few answers far between. Like underground airlines. Great book.
This thread has been a blessing, these links are getting bookmarked left and right. I’m a frequent user of Writing with Color on Tumblr, but these new links are amazing, and immensely helpful.
Another thing that I’ve stumbled upon during research phases is something less discussed: How about portrayals of PoC with dialects and accents? I admit that I have a hard time conveying an accent and end up writing dialogue for my PoC characters that feels… off, at times. That’s not saying that there’s anything wrong with writing dialogue without any accentuation, but accents and dialogues are a part of the culture that I really, really wish to respect and portray accurately.
For example; AAVE is something I’ve researched passionately for the past week, but I don’t think I’ve seen it used in any of the games I’ve read. Same goes for Creole, and other pidgin languages. Just vernacular languages (that’s the word, right?) in general, actually.
So, what would be your opinions on including those things in games? Should it be avoided, or would you like to see more attention given to it? Like, mentioning an accent as “You note the way they speak, gleeful and inspiring; It’s Creole”, leave it at that and let the reader imagine the rest, or would you prefer actually adding words and expressions from the language?
Firstly, and this all is strictly in regards to black people, read about the ones from that particular region, and listen to the ones from that region. See how they can talk, the diction and syntax of their speech. Use them as inspiration for characters.
Secondly, include it respectfully. You know of someone is from Philly and they don’t say “jawn” it might sound inauthentic towards their character.
The same way you’d write a character with a southern, French, or British accent. Give the same reverence and respect.
I have a genuine question, would comparing skin colour and food still be distasteful or racist as long as it’s not limited to darker shades? In my outlines and ideas, I almost always use foods/drinks as skin colour descriptors, such as “milky white” and “liquid caramel” but I obviously don’t want to have it like that if it’s something that would deeply offend anyone.
I would also like to pre-emptively clarify that I started doing it for consistency sake, like milk is the same colour no matter where you are from and it gives a indicator of just how pale a person is but if I had simply said “pale”, it’s much vaguer, largely due to the fact that everyone has different ideas of what classifies as “pale” and etc. I had no intentions of using it to subtly place value or to dehumanise anyone but it’s been really eye-opening to go through the various links and responses within this thread.
As for me, I don’t find food based descriptions disrespectful at all. I love chocolate and most any edibles that contain chocolate, so why would I get mad at being compared to something I love? It’s not what you say, it’s the intent behind it imo.
I think you could benefit from looking up words to describe subtle hue and value shifts in color. Caramel is a fine word, but how about russet? Or chestnut, or hickory or umber for example? There are many a beautiful words to describe color in the English language, a lot of which I rarely see used.
I’m not a POC, but one clear difference I can see, is that ‘milk’ is not nearly as sensual a food as ‘caramel’ or ‘chocolate’, so it has a very different feel to it.
Having my pale skin described as ‘milky’ doesn’t make me feel like the one saying it is some thirsty creep.
Also a black reader here. This discussion has made me realize how much I just sweep so many story elements under the rug that take me out of the story. I would also inform of two other issues when writing black characters.
Ancestry (unique to African Americans): We usually cannot trace our ancestry before slavery. Slavery was such a wiping out of our culture and history, that if I am reading something and it tries to describe family records, or powers running down a family of anything older than a great grandmother I can be taken out if the story. This is not the case with Africans who has a very unique culture and history that has just been devalued thanks to colonialism.
Monolith: We are not a monolith so please don’t write us as one, it is ok to have two minority characters disagree and come at an issue from different sides.
As someone who’s Afro Caribbean/ West Indie, I’m pretty much caught in between. We no longer have that strong tie to Africa and can’t tell what tribe we came from anymore but we created and made our own culture.
Also I very much agree with the monolith statement!
I do love me some cookies, but I wouldn’t appreciate being called a succulent shade of Oreo stuffing. Or having someone describe my skin as a smooth, delicious tone of flan.
Another great conclusion I read somewhere was that describing someone’s skin as desserts and sweets especially (chocolate or caramel) comes off as a craving, something that’s indulged in for the pleasure of it. And that’s just creepy vibes all around.
I like your question and I would say, if the story is taking place in Louisiana for example, don’t make that only the PoC character in the story speak a certain way. I recently visited New Orleans and a lot of people talked the same regardless of the color of their skin. The same will happen also in Jamaica because the way of speaking pertain to all of the people living there.
So introducing a PoC character by having them say, “yall be trippin.” or their dialogue is full of typo because it’s supposed to represent the slang language, when everyone else dialogue is neat could leave a bad taste in my mouth. Now that is just me, I don’t talk for everyone. But I think the link provided are useful, hell even I will take a look at them.
PS: Yes a lot of PoC do speak slang language but using it in a story just to single out that is the PoC is weird to me.
Edit: Realized that I didn’t offer you an alternative. Let’s say you do want to include the AAVE dialect, have it done in a way where:
If it’s an NPC, have the PoC interacting with another PoC. It will feel natural for them to speak like that with one another.
if it’s the reader, make it a choice, because not all PoC speak AAVe believe it or not lol.
or their dialogue is full of typo because it’s supposed to represent the slang language, when everyone else dialogue is neat could leave a bad taste in my mouth. Now that is just me, I don’t talk for everyone. But I think the link provided are useful, hell even I will take a look at them.