Oh, I do, for flavor. But the story wouldn't change if I took it out, nor would the essentials of the characters. For example, Yuki Fujikawa may happen to be of Japanese descent, and her family may be trying to build Shin Nihon (new Japan) on an island chain over the next couple of thousands years in order to preserve Japanese culture in case Earth should be destroyed, but even though she wears kimonos and runs an onsen, what's important is that she's Matron, and the things that make her Matron that are important to the story have nothing to do with that Japan-related stuff. It no more matters to the story than the color of the main character's eyes. Brown, by the way. And although I try to get the Japanese culture right, I'm not portraying modern Japan, so I don't have to.
Yeah; I've noticed that sometimes people argue more respectfully until they discover I'm just a woman who doesn't know her place.
You see, that's called including diversity in your story. That's what it usually looks like. Your story doesn't need to be about a multinational power squad smashing the patriachy and fighting inequality to appease most people, but having some basic diversity like this does actually help.
I just put it in because it was fun, and in far-future SciFi is no one can accuse you of getting the culture wrong. There's other diversity. The most gorgeous man in the books is black (descended from Montanans) and married to the MC's Scots/Unknown eldest adoptive sister. You get occasional comments about his skin color from others in the family, but not very often and always in good-natured humor. I haven't even decided what skin tones and hair colors that couple's four young children have. The series MC is genetically engineered so not of any race, but her mother is of Greek descent, although you probably can't tell. The MC for specific reasons has albino skin (but with a colorless substitute for melanin to block UV) and black hair and fur. Her mother didn't model her after a human being, but on a fantasy creature -- for reasons you learn over time. I'm not opposed to diversity, I married it. I'm opposed to discrimination, even if well-intentioned.
Use this to fuel a novel. It would be interesting to have a character struggling with this issue and as you have personal insight into this (feelinf this way) why not express it in your art as I’m sure many folks out there are likely to feel the same too due to recent trends in the media and general political discourse. I imagine this would be a great base from which to write a black comedy. I’m reminded of Dave Chapelle’s black KKK member who is blind. Haha! Generally no matter what you write you’ll offend someone. If you have a large audience and no one is offended then you’re probably not offering very rich material - that is not to say you should (or shouldn’t) try to offend people. Human being generally aren’t all that “diverse”. We’re pretty generic in respect to our feelings of self-importance, self-righteousness, and meandering ignorance
Half and half. As a minority myself (Chinese raised in the UK), I certainly see some truth and significance in putting value on having people who are actually from the minority group voice what life is actually like for them. Any insight and empathy shown by someone outside of that minority group probably got their understanding from the actual minority group - so the minority group, in this sense, would I guess count as the primary source of info. Passive discrimination, which is rampant, has a tendency of dismissing the minority's experience. Because this trend is real, the reverse emphasis that people want to hear directly from the minority group themselves is welcomed. On the other hand, I am against this trend where you can only write about the minority group if you are from the group yourself. It's usually not difficult to see when something is done with respect or not and with any insight. If someone has gone to the trouble of speaking with the group they are writing about, researching, empathising, and then puts their reasonable interpretation on what they have found, I think that's fine. Here it's a matter of discretion rather than black and white standards, which is probably why it's so difficult for people. Token diversity - that's a whole other issue really. There are arguments that you should have say, a gay or black character but that these traits have no impact on the story, because it shouldn't be about these traits. Then there are people saying that's just tokenism. I think here it's best to just stay true to your characters - again, if proper empathy and research had been done prior about the minority group, I would hope that minority group's unique viewpoint and experience would show through without the need for it to necessarily take the spotlight in the book. It would affect how the character thinks and behaves. These things do come through when you are dealing with diversity and have an interest in actually showing it. I'm pretty international, work at an international school, previously worked in a Japanese school, have a mixed-race bilingual daughter, currently don't live in either of the two countries I was raised in, and none of my close circle of friends share the same nationality (as me or as each other). Culture impacts heavily on a person and it shows. How sometimes our personalities fit better into certain cultures, rather than culture moulding us, is another interesting phenomenon (as is the case with my sister, I believe, or even myself). So, having said all this, again, I think it's just about why you have the diversity in your book's cast. If it's really as flippant as giving someone brown hair over blonde hair, then meh, I'm not offended, I don't really care, but it does feel like a missed opportunity for a more interesting character. Also begs the question of why have you chosen this trait that absolutely should not be as trivial as hair colour. As for personally, as I said, I'm Chinese myself. So this #ownvoices thing is something I could actually participate it. Write a mixed cultured Chinese MC set in a fantasy Chinese world? Sounds like fun. I already often insert Chinese and Japanese elements into my fantasy. My world-building could be improved so if the need to really focus on creating a world with flavour was there, it would benefit my writing. I am familiar with elements in Asian fantasy and honestly often find them more interesting than western fantasy. If all this means there are agents looking specifically for #ownvoices and Asian fantasy, well, that's good for me. In a way, I feel like the diversity in my thinking has already been reflected in my WIP - there isn't any physical diversity, but I am fascinated by multiple perspectives of seeing the world. I have come across a great many perspectives in real life and it's just fun and interesting to also have it in my book. You don't need to be from a minority group to have a different viewpoint - but that appreciation of it, I feel, has been amplified in my case because of my background. It's always interesting to me to see two opposing viewpoints that both make equal sense, but I have no desire to say which is "correct" or which I "agree" with because - it just doesn't work like that. Now I am not saying unless you're international like me you can't possibly think like this - of course you can. But I have life experience that has shown me the truth of this - it's not theoretical. It's not just an interesting thought. It's not just something I am passionate about. I have seen it and I have lived it, and this experience is insightful and will inform my writing in ways that someone else can't, without the same or similar experience. ETA: discussing viewpoints with friends of the same culture as yourself, while valuable, in no way challenges you to the same extent as discussing things with friends from different cultures, and then to live and immerse entirely in a different country is still another league. And these differences, and therefore insightful experience, should not be discounted. I think the problem with all this is that a white person who may be just as diverse by virtue of having been raised or lived for extended periods elsewhere wouldn't be valued in the same way as someone with a different colour. So I do see value in #ownvoices and support it. But equally it is not without its problems. But I guess when discrimination and dismissing minority voices really are real issues, before they become non-issues, people tend to go to extreme ends until, with time, they find some balance. It's just the nature of society changing. The change is good. How the change is coming about may not always be, but it's necessary, to a point. It's simply not black and white.
I've read 1984. It's an interesting concept and full of clever ideas, though I find Orwell's prose dry as fuck. I haven't read Animal Farm, though it's on the (rather long) list. I know the plot and ideas behind it just through cultural osmosis.
Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! I know this one! Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, was Shakespeare's patron, and through him Shakespeare also had connection to the major court factional leader, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. I don't think Shakespeare's references to Henry were sexual so much as part of the patronage relationship. The "fair youth" connection where people believe Shakespeare was praising Henry's appearance with two sonnets does involve talking about pretty men, but that doesn't have to be sexual. I mean, it could be I guess. I ain't afraid of some good ol' gay.
Elizabeth was not directly Shakespeare's patron, although her courtiers did commission some and Shakespeare worked for one of her courtiers (the successive Barons Hunsdon owned the Lord Chamberlain's Men).
'I've read 1984. It's an interesting concept and full of clever ideas.' 'Thanks Henry, anybody else? Class? At the back? I know, I know. I thought we agreed @XRD it is a very pretty picture. We WILL study your picture again as a group. I don't know, maybe he used conditioner? Let's move on.'
Yeah, I recall something along those lines being mentioned. As I said somewhere a few pages ago, I think it's largely down to textual interpretation and context. It's just that now - as I understand it - more experts interpret them to imply bisexuality than not. Could well be that'll change again in the future. The whole thing clearly starts fires, though I'm not really sure what makes people so precious about it. I'm not aware of anyone claiming Milton, Dickens, Marlowe etc were anything other than straight because there's no evidence they were. With Shakespeare, there is. Doesn't feel like straight-person-erasure to me.
Of course I'm a fan. I'm always your fan, Nigel. And Orwell/Shakespeare, but mainly you - if we could get more personal then I would, that's how much fan. Sorted. But, but 1984?
I've skimmed over most of the off topic discussion, but I have thought about diversity in my life and how to translate that to fiction. I think we should question ourselves and our biases, not because it's some kind of moral deficit to be biased in ones worldview, but because it's natural, so natural its automatic. It's good to question anything that comes without any conscious thought. Anything that comes along with a whole heap of unexamined assumptions or even beliefs. The idea of 'the savage', still has quite a hold on us. Perhaps its better that writers and filmmakers watch out for where this idea creeps into their work with the monstrous baddies (not just overtly). Certainly in the adoption of dark skin colours, bone and feather adornments, piercings, dreadlocks, painted skin and so on. Both black and gay people, have and do feature in my life, all my life, to some degree or another (from childhood neighbours to close friends). Yet, on recognising this, I've also noticed that they don't figure at all in any of the fiction I'm currently writing [ETA: my main dragon protag is a small, black dragon, shunned and othered somewhat for being 'lesser than' the others, but I don't think that counts really]. I wonder why. Maybe it's because there are certain unexamined defaults / filters for a white straight person, in an overridingly white straight culture. It's something I will be considering and challenging more as I continue to write. And I hope it will increase my insight into both my life, my writing, and my thinking.
Uh, from what I've heard Marlowe was a stronger candidate for the "the gay" than the Shakespeare. But maybe that's just me. Yeah, it shouldn't be a flame topic.
This is such a dumb, reductionist argument that ignores all historical, cultural, and industry context. But, to humour you, one person is looking for works by a minority who tend not to be published within the genre, mostly as narratives presented by them are generally lacking and, due to their position as minorities, will have a differing viewpoint on the subject matter due to coming from a different cultural and often economic background. In other words, they're attempting to help an underpublished group establish their own voice. And considering at the moment institutions like these are often the only way for minority authors to get published, it is the only way to establish a cultural precedent where they exist within the genres that'll make larger publishers more open to be accepting of them. White supremacists are specifically trying dehumanise and portray groups other than them as lesser. They've historically run large parts of the writing industry to the point that many minorities authors either can't get published, are forced into specific, acceptable boxes.
Could be. It's not something I study a lot, I was just repeating something I heard on the radio. They didn't discuss Marlowe, and I tend to default to 'probably straight' when I've got no other information because odds are that's the case. When there is some evidence he probably wasn't - or, as in this case, people who know more about it than me say there is - I'll change my view on it. I feel like that's how evidence should work.
Is that true? I'm still reeling about the 'green book' and planning a drive in 1950s America [shrill, apols].
Good lord I hate those kind of sanctimonious hypocrites. Worst part of socially charged issue is the number of jerks and morons who have a prominent, sometimes dominating say.
I mean, I sympathise with your concern. The over-emphasising of race and its significance is certainly a pet peeve of mine among SJWs. However, there is some validity to the idea of a "rebalancing" and that less historically represented voices can be considered "different" and providing something useful, even if the difference in perspective isn't great or or always present the same way. The mentioning of whiteness is also icky, but not necessarily wrong. As I often find, wording make the big difference between the extreme and the reasonable. And relatively small divergences in actions and policies.
I still haven't encountered something that can't be written by literally any group. As far as I can tell, every time this discussion is brought up, it's an anti-climactic fart of hot air.
