White Characters Dominating Fantasy Worlds

Discussion in 'Fantasy' started by MilesTro, May 25, 2015.

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  1. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    This assumes that non-straight-white-male characters would result in lower profits. That assumption is not necessarily backed up by reality.

    https://thehathorlegacy.com/why-discriminate-if-it-doesnt-profit/
     
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  2. NoGoodNobu

    NoGoodNobu Contributor Contributor

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    There is no historical or legal documentation that supports this

    Indentured servants are indentured servants: under contract by both parties, Irish entered into a legal agreement that in exchange for passage to US, they serve a period of years as the servant of another—generally 7 years abouts. Yes it was often in favour not of the Irish but their employers, and often took advantage of the poor, uneducated, or young. But it was not a raiding of peoples and forced slavery.

    After their served time (yes, often treated poorly & abused during) they are free to go and their descendants were not forced into bondage or considered property.

    Also, Irish were considered scum, but they were seen as human.

    They were not merely beasts or 3/5 of a person in population censuses.
     
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  3. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I think that to some extent it depends on the setting. If your story is set in an environment where there is substantial discrimination against certain races (like, say, the United States of today) and nobody discriminates against your character, then your character is pretty obviously of the racial group that has the power.
     
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  4. Kingtype

    Kingtype Banned Contributor

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    You're fine, man. If that's part of your style let it be.

    lol

    Perfectly cool.

    Most of all if race isn't even like a big focal point of your story and all.
     
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  5. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

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    But, what if that character just doesn't encounter discrimination in the story that I've written. Like, I have a story about a little boy who's sent to buy drugs for his mom. I never really decided what color skin he had, so I didn't mention it. At no point in my story does the kid face discrimination for his skin color. He does for his age, but not skin color. His lack of being discriminated against could be because he didn't go to an area in the story where that would happen. It could also be because he is the majority color in the neighborhood in which he lives, but not for the US as a whole.

    Does this make sense? I mean, what I'm getting from this statement is that if I don't write the character being discriminated against, then he's not a minority, but that ignores a TON of factors about why I didn't write a discrimination.
     
  6. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Do you have documentation for this? This site clearly disagrees with you:

    http://public.gettysburg.edu/~tshannon/hist106web/site18/Conditions%20of%20Indentured%20Servants2.htm

    "Servants had some advantages slaves did not though; they were allowed access to and could testify in courts and could acquire their own land and property. They received a cash payment of freedom dues at the end of their term, and their children did not inherit the status of servitude."
     
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  7. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Open your eyes, look up to the skies and seee....

     
  8. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    I thought James Joyce's Araby was pretty good.

    ≈85% of Americans are straight, ≈63.7% of Americans are white, and ≈49% of Americans are male. 0.85*0.637*0.49 ≈ 0.265 ≈ 25%
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2017
  9. rktho

    rktho Contributor Contributor

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    "Substantial"? I think you need to set your calendar ahead about fifty years.
     
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  10. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Would you like to start a new thread about racism in America?
     
  11. rktho

    rktho Contributor Contributor

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    I'm good
     
  12. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    OK, I'm going extremely specific here. I collect perfume. I often enter expensive department stores to look at perfume. If I walk into the perfume department at Neiman Marcus with my somewhat obese white middle-aged self dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, I will be civilly ignored. If I'm better-dressed and carrying a moderately expensive bag, I will get friendly affable service. Those relatively minor details of my appearance make a tremendous difference in the way that people treat me in that context.

    I've obviously never gone perfume shopping as another race, but I would bet that the experience would be different again. I just Googled the phrase "shopping while black" and, yes, there are tons of links. One of them mentions that President Obama is one of the black men who has been followed, treated as a potential shoplifter, while shopping. (Before his presidency, of course. After it presumably he would have been followed by a flotilla of Secret Service.)

    Speaking of the Secret Service, "In another case, six black Secret Service agents assigned to President Clinton's detail were refused a table at a Denny's in Annapolis. Md., while their white Secret Service colleagues were seated and served."(http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/25/us/denny-s-restaurants-to-pay-54-million-in-race-bias-suits.html?pagewanted=all)

    If your character is the majority race in his neighborhood, and he's a minority, that also immediately suggests segregation in his city. If he's the majority race in his neighborhood and he's not a minority, it tells us less about his neighborhood and his city.

    No, not every scene will involve any interaction with a character's race, any more than it will involve any interaction with a character's gender. But wouldn't it feel weird to not even know if your character is a man or a woman? Wouldn't you want to know, so that you know to keep an eye out for situations where it might matter?
     
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  13. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Denial. Immense denial.
     
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  14. rktho

    rktho Contributor Contributor

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    Name a substantial instance of racism then.
     
  15. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Didn't ChickenFreak and I both just post substantial examples?
     
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  16. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    As suggested, Google "racism in America". I have no interest in debating with you whether the Earth is flat, whether the moon is made of green cheese, or whether there is racism in America. Debating the utterly obvious is a waste of my time.
     
  17. rktho

    rktho Contributor Contributor

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    I didn't say there wasn't racism in America. I just said it wasn't substantial. Discrimination is illegal. In fact, there's a real problem with creating the bogeyman discrimination where there is none.
     
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  18. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Denial.

    Theft is illegal. Murder is illegal. I assume that those things don't happen any more either?
     
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  19. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    White Killers Apprehended Alive
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2017
  20. rktho

    rktho Contributor Contributor

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    Again, I didn't say racism didn't happen. But it happens less than murder these days what with all the shootings.
     
  21. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    "Happens less than murder" is a totally illogical and irrelevant response.

    I understand that it feels good to believe that racism isn't a huge problem in US society. But however unfair it may seem to you, I don't advocate ignoring it just because doing so would make you feel good.
     
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  22. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    @rktho @ChickenFreak We should probably start a new thread now.
     
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  23. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Or I could get a grip and ignore. OK, @rktho, for any further posts that you make in this thread on this topic, please take it as given that I have responded "Denial." Then I don't have to.
     
  24. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    No, but that implies that businesses are run by rationality and not people.
     
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  25. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Moving on! And responding to my own post. My point is that our society is not blind to, well, anything. Anything at all. Those nuances of interaction are a large part of what makes fiction interesting to me. I want to know everything about my character. Only a tiny tiny fraction of that knowledge will actually land in the book/story, but I want to know. Because anything at all could be relevant, in any scene.

    Now, "want to know everything" for me doesn't mean that I all write it out in advance; it more often means that I discover it while writing. This is part of why I suspect that I will always write a whole lot more words than actually land in any finished piece--because I don't know the character until I've written some about them, and there's no assurance that what I've written will have any actual useful role inside the final piece, rather than just as discovery writing.
     
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