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I think I'll quote somebody out of context, because that's always worked really well for me in the past.
Saying "black characters are written too broadly in New Who, making them resemble stereotypes" rather ignores the fact that white characters are treated the same way.
Look. This is the problem with trying to raise white people on Sesame Street in order to cure racism: you get a generation of white people who think it's to their credit that they hold everyone to the same standard, and run around operating like the world is one big, happy block party -- people who think they're complementing themselves when they say they're "colorblind."
BLIND is not a moral positive. BLIND is an inability to perceive what the non-blind people around you can clearly fucking see. My grandfather was red/green colorblind. His family also had a strawberry farm. His father used to beat him for not obeying instructions to pick only the RED strawberries and leave the GREEN ones on the bush.
Now, I'm not recommending regular beatings for the colorblind. That wasn't a nice thing to do (my great-grandfather was not a nice person in general, for oh so many reasons). But the thing is, my grandfather's colorblindness? Was a problem, because there is actually such a thing as color when it comes to strawberries, and it's easier to work on a strawberry farm when you can see it.
And there is actually such a thing as race. If you can't see it, you're not doing yourself or anyone else any favors. There are cases where you can give the EXACT SAME script/character arc/iconography/etc. to a white performer and to a performer of color, and the overall effect WILL BE DIFFERENT. Race is real. People respond to it, often on levels they aren't entirely aware of. So it actually misses the whole entire point of discussing race and racism if your sole defense is "but we're just treating them the exact same way we treat white characters!" It may be true, or it may not be true, but either way it's singularly useless.
Some fans seem to find gender easier to understand than race, so think of it this way: if there's a character that isn't very bright but always uses sexuality to manipulate other people, does it make a difference if that character is a man or a woman? Isn't it more of a stereotype in one case than in the other? And if some writer or producer said, "Oh, it's not sexist -- this is just what we were going to do, and we thought we might hire a male actor, but we went with a woman instead, so we kept the same stuff!" that doesn't magically make her not a sexist cliche, does it? If they'd cast a man, the character would read one way; when they do cast a woman, it reads differently. Same character. Different, because of the baggage we bring surrounding gender. If you were somehow magically oblivious to any and all gender issues, you might not notice that. But you wouldn't thereby be a better person than the rest of us. You'd just be oblivious.
Unfortunately, in our culture, we are conditioned to see white people as Real People, and black people as sort of thin slices of people, operating in one of a very few available modes and with only a very few emotions and interests. Therefore it's just different to write a white character "broadly" versus a black character. It's not enough to write the black character "just like" all your white characters, because race is not invisible to most of us and it doesn't have no consequences. In order to challenge people's already racist assumptions about black characters, writers have to work that much harder, and they have to work not blind. They have to work with their eyes open and their brains engaged and with the awareness of subtle signals and context and connotation that anyone who writes for a living should damn well be conversant with. To do less than that is to write lazily, to write foolishly, to write contemptuously of one's characters and one's craft, and to do all that because you can't or won't go the extra mile to bring race into the universe of stuff that factors into your writing does, in fact, have racist implications.
"Colorblindness" may be one's reason for making all of those mistakes, but it isn't an excuse, and it doesn't magically make the product impervious from criticism. Be less blind.
Saying "black characters are written too broadly in New Who, making them resemble stereotypes" rather ignores the fact that white characters are treated the same way.
Look. This is the problem with trying to raise white people on Sesame Street in order to cure racism: you get a generation of white people who think it's to their credit that they hold everyone to the same standard, and run around operating like the world is one big, happy block party -- people who think they're complementing themselves when they say they're "colorblind."
BLIND is not a moral positive. BLIND is an inability to perceive what the non-blind people around you can clearly fucking see. My grandfather was red/green colorblind. His family also had a strawberry farm. His father used to beat him for not obeying instructions to pick only the RED strawberries and leave the GREEN ones on the bush.
Now, I'm not recommending regular beatings for the colorblind. That wasn't a nice thing to do (my great-grandfather was not a nice person in general, for oh so many reasons). But the thing is, my grandfather's colorblindness? Was a problem, because there is actually such a thing as color when it comes to strawberries, and it's easier to work on a strawberry farm when you can see it.
And there is actually such a thing as race. If you can't see it, you're not doing yourself or anyone else any favors. There are cases where you can give the EXACT SAME script/character arc/iconography/etc. to a white performer and to a performer of color, and the overall effect WILL BE DIFFERENT. Race is real. People respond to it, often on levels they aren't entirely aware of. So it actually misses the whole entire point of discussing race and racism if your sole defense is "but we're just treating them the exact same way we treat white characters!" It may be true, or it may not be true, but either way it's singularly useless.
Some fans seem to find gender easier to understand than race, so think of it this way: if there's a character that isn't very bright but always uses sexuality to manipulate other people, does it make a difference if that character is a man or a woman? Isn't it more of a stereotype in one case than in the other? And if some writer or producer said, "Oh, it's not sexist -- this is just what we were going to do, and we thought we might hire a male actor, but we went with a woman instead, so we kept the same stuff!" that doesn't magically make her not a sexist cliche, does it? If they'd cast a man, the character would read one way; when they do cast a woman, it reads differently. Same character. Different, because of the baggage we bring surrounding gender. If you were somehow magically oblivious to any and all gender issues, you might not notice that. But you wouldn't thereby be a better person than the rest of us. You'd just be oblivious.
Unfortunately, in our culture, we are conditioned to see white people as Real People, and black people as sort of thin slices of people, operating in one of a very few available modes and with only a very few emotions and interests. Therefore it's just different to write a white character "broadly" versus a black character. It's not enough to write the black character "just like" all your white characters, because race is not invisible to most of us and it doesn't have no consequences. In order to challenge people's already racist assumptions about black characters, writers have to work that much harder, and they have to work not blind. They have to work with their eyes open and their brains engaged and with the awareness of subtle signals and context and connotation that anyone who writes for a living should damn well be conversant with. To do less than that is to write lazily, to write foolishly, to write contemptuously of one's characters and one's craft, and to do all that because you can't or won't go the extra mile to bring race into the universe of stuff that factors into your writing does, in fact, have racist implications.
"Colorblindness" may be one's reason for making all of those mistakes, but it isn't an excuse, and it doesn't magically make the product impervious from criticism. Be less blind.
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Re: Here via metafandom
Date: 2007-07-15 07:11 pm (UTC)From:That's a fabulous point, and thank you for making it. Yes, I agree entirely!
I guess where I then run into trouble is if I want to put every, say, black person into the 'oh, right, black, must have XYZ issues' drawer, and treat them not as individuals but as a racial... uh, stereotype?
This is NOT to invalidate your point, because I think you are totally right! Everybody should be treated as an individual, and when we interact with people we ought to make sure we learn enough about them to do just that. Taking into account their colour AND sex AND age AND whatever else is relevant... but surely we only know which of these matter to *them* most by getting to know them? And surely there's an enormous danger in assuming things about them just because they're in one particular group? That's what I worry about. I guess it's the thing about the social and cultural experiences; I'm incredibly wary of that.
(Speaking as a woman who absolutely loathes pink and shopping...)
And about the 'othering'... isn't that exactly what's going on here? I'm really sorry and I'm *NOT* out to seek trouble (god, I know better!), but isn't that what we are doing when we say this character needs to be treated differently from this other one just for being a particular colour?
Re: Here via metafandom
Date: 2007-07-16 02:17 am (UTC)From:Well, I'm pretty sure I never suggested that! However, in terms of writing (which isn't all we've been talking about on this thread, but it's probably the major part), I think you want to consider all aspects of your characters. If he's a military guy, what does that mean to him, how does he get treated by different people because of it, what are his expectations? Not that *every military guy* will answer those questions the same way, but I bet most of them will not say that being in the military does not inform their life experiences in any way because, after all, he's just an individual! And, yeah, he might have an easier time relating to other military folks because they share certain frames of reference and experiences, even though they aren't identical to one another and probably disagree on some, even many things.
Part of my frustration with this debate has been the utter LACK of willingness to listen to people. How many fans of color have to stand there waving their arms saying, Look, I feel trivialized, I feel insulted, I feel patronized, I feel XYZ by show/character/arc/pattern/fandom/whatever -- how many do white fans need before they say, oh, hey, maybe there's something racially sketchy happening, even if it's not obvious to me? We DO only know what matters to people most by getting to know them...and it seems like the vast majority of the FoCs' attempts to be *known* and to speak honestly about their issues have been met with "well, I don't see that, so it must not exist" or "race doesn't matter to me, why don't you try just not letting it matter to you and see if that helps?" If people are SAYING "my social and cultural experiences as a person of color are affecting the way I view this by making it painful instead of fun," then it's not assuming anything to listen to that, and it's just basic human decency to wonder if there's not something we could all be doing to help make fandom a less painful place for our fellow fans.
And, no, that's not othering. Othering is not a recognition of difference, it's a way of placing some variations inside a protected circle and banishing some to the outer limits. Trying to bring *everyone's* needs and interests inside, saying that *everyone's* perspective can be valuable even if that means embracing multiple perspectives and giving up one's own place of protection to make some room -- that's not othering, that's inclusion. People are not "just" some particular skin color -- they are a bundle of identities and experiences and perspectives, and I think it's unintentionally quite unkind to say, well, I deem *these* things important about you but *these* things "just skin color," even when you're telling me these are significant pieces of who you think you are.
I know you're not trying to cause trouble! I understand the kind intent behind your words, but the reason I wrote this post at all is that I think that, as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and good intentions like yours (and all the rest of the nice folks who want to be colorblind) are making it monumentally harder for fans of color to be heard and taken seriously. That idea probably bothers you -- and I would hope it does! because being bothered by how things are is how things start to get better.
I read in another comment that you felt like no one was trying to answer your questions. I'm sorry you feel that way; I do have like 190 comments, so I'm sure I'm not giving my all to them -- and to do the job properly I would really have to A) *have* all the answers, and 2) work at it for a lifetime, as many people have been working at it. But you really are my target audience here -- I know you're concerned about racism, or you wouldn't be reading this at all, and I believe that you know a racist world requires change. What I'm asking you to do is to consider including yourself in that process of change by listening to PoC's who feel diminished and patronized by the rhetoric of "colorblindness" and consider some different ways to approach being an ally.
Re: Here via metafandom
Date: 2007-07-17 12:56 pm (UTC)From:Let me first of all point out that when you say:
"People are not "just" some particular skin color -- they are a bundle of identities and experiences and perspectives, and I think it's unintentionally quite unkind to say, well, I deem *these* things important about you but *these* things "just skin color," even when you're telling me these are significant pieces of who you think you are."
-- I don't actually disagree with you at all! Yes, of course colour is one aspect of a person's identity, and perhaps depending on their experiences a weaker or a stronger one, and if the role colour has played (or still plays) in constructing their identity matters to a person it should matter to the rest of us and we should take their concerns seriously.
It's with what that is supposed to mean in terms of character construction that I run into trouble, because people are by definition individuals but in character construction (and interpretation of such) we are almost instantly dealing in generalisations. Maybe I just struggle with that aspect of it. I'm not sure. I need to think about this more.
Your last paragraph makes a lot of sense to me, and yes, I do take the comments by people of colour who feel diminished seriously, and I will continue to try to find a way to be an ally in terms I, too, can understand.
(BTW the comment about nobody trying to answer my questions wasn't so much a complaint directed at you as a reflection on getting the usual snark-attacks that crop up in these discussions. *g*)