Exactly. I think it's a lot like asking yourself any question about a character in a story--did this guy play football or soccer in high school? or did he go to the dentist regularly? Was he a boy scout? Is he a registered voter? Was his mother from the south? or did he like grits with his eggs for breakfast? Did he ever go to a church or a synagogue or mosque or none-of-the-above--when none of the hypothetical answers would contribute anything in particular to the story you're reading. On the other hand, if the writer is skillful enough he'll have you asking yourself questions and maybe filling in some answers in such a way that they do contribute meaning to the storyline. It seems to me the fictional character's past history or culture or race or smoking history just doesn't exist unless it matters to the story itself. That's what makes the reader's connection to fictional characters different from relationships they have with real people.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee . . . race was a necessary element in the plot. BTW - great book and movie. Exodus by Leon Uris is another such novel, in which, ethnicity holds a critical role. In both cases, race or ethnicity drove the plot.
Of course, in some stories it's relevant and is mentioned. All I was saying is that in many stories it's not.
I agree completely HorusEye...I was simply giving examples of the rare story where race/ethnicity drives the plot. In most, it is simply not relevant.
Most books you just know they are Caucasian because they say "pale" or mention hair color and well the books that I buy/trade aren't exactly from the African-American section. (I really hate that they are separated...) and when I do try to find an AA book all I see is sex, crime, and drugs. Stuff that I don't have a desire to read.
Who says having holidays crop up isn't enough? We certainly do have enough of them. If you know someone who makes the culture a part of their every day lives, you'd be able to see it pretty quickly. Shabbat is every week, so it's hard not to include that in a novel, or daily prayers. Kashrut is about how observant Jews eat, so that's going to be a part of daily lives. If you understand the culture (and yes, it is a culture and religion because I know plenty of people who couldn't be less religious and still are very Jewish) it's easy to insert it in a clear way even without the conflict having anything to do with being Jewish. For example, in my story the MC is in a bad mood and decides to eat yogurt with a spoon that's not allowed to touch dairy cuz she doesn't care about kashrut anymore. And I have her wear a scarf because she wants to not have to worry as much about how her hair looks and uses the excuse that it she'd seen old pictures of unmarried girls who wore a scarf over their hair the way men wear kippahs. In a book I read a while ago, the story was about the MC coming to terms with her brother's death during Chanuka. And there was also the story about a magic dreidle. Another good example of a story within Jewish culture without the conflict being directly related to being Jewish or antisemitism is Are You Alone On Purpose, by Nancy Werlin. It's about a set of fraternal twins, one of whom has autism, and the rabbi's son. The culture just exists within the story. They attend shul, the rabbi talks about how things are done on Shabbat in a way that does occur naturally in the real Orthodox community, and one of the characters has a Bar Mitzvah. The point is, you can have characters of any cultural background no matter what the story is.
To me it is much less race and much more culture. As Rei was pointing out, the Jewish culture (though many are white, but so many Jewish people come from different racial backgrounds -- from middle eastern Israeli to Russian and around the world) is more than just an observance of a holiday. Much in the same way many religions are more than just a form of worship, they infiltrate the daily lives of the believers and become part of the culture. The color of a person's skin means less than we really make of it. It is the culture that matters. If you took an Irish man from Hells Kitchen in Boston and compared him with say a white man from Iowa, they would look like two completely different types of people. If you took a brown man from Harlem and compared him to a brown man who grew up in Cambridge MA they would look totally different. Class, culture, religion, ethnicity (not just skin color but heritage) all make up the relative background of any person, including character's in novels. I'm pale skinned. I live in probably one of the whitest states in America, save for Utah, and we have our share of thugs, drug dealers, thieves, single mothers dealing with deadbeat dads, ultra conservative religious folks, haughty wealthy people, granola munching hippies, and then the general working class...just like any other city with any type of racial mixture, however ours is primarily white. I grew up in Springfield MA, where there was a pretty straight forward mix of races, from black, Hispanic, Irish, Italian, French, Polish, Russian, Jewish, Christian, Catholic, white, Asian, and every mix there of. The difference I ever saw was the culture and beliefs that the people grew up in, not their race. While each race or ethnicity has their own cultural differences, the color of a person's skin didn't really matter, except to those who made it matter. When I write I focus more on their cultural background and less on their actual race. Speech, vocabulary, dialect, cultural references, beliefs, values and norms are what make a person fit into a type of character. An example that comes to mind for me would be Sex and The City (the book and the show) and the book Dirty Girls Social Club. Both are basically the same type of stories, successful women dealing with their love lives and their relationships with each other. SaTC was all white women. Dirty Girls were a mixed bag of races, black, hispanic, white, and something else...now I can't remember, there were five women total in that book. The difference? SaTC was written by a white woman, she wrote what she knew. DGSC was written by a Hispanic woman...but she wrote the varied cultural differences very well for each character. I personally prefer my characters to be different from each other, otherwise the story gets freaking boring. If you see a lacking of books written about a culture type within a racial group, then go for it. I'm sure there are people out there who would also like to read what you would like to read. There is a lot of crap out there on the bookshelves, it's up to us writers to change that.
To me it is much less race and much more culture I know where you are coming from, but without too many exceptions, Jewish culture is associated with the Jewish race, Inuit culture is associated with the Inuit race, and so on. The color of a person's skin means less than we really make of it. It is the culture that matters. Still, I would agree with that! And I would agree to the extent that if you call someone black, white, or whatever, it’s no big deal. In my mind it is racist to actively refrain from acknowledging someone’s race, on account of their race....
Sure, absolutely. You can flavor your story with whatever you like, so long as the details are relevant in some way to the story you tell or you make them relevant for some reason, by building your story around such details. I think I misunderstood your use of the word "overtly" to suggest that you were looking for characteristics or features that reflected "Jewishness" without integrating that Jewishness into the (written) story in some way. I kind of think The Cosby Show when it was on TV was a good example of a storyline that had nothing to do with the family's race (at least nothing I can remember). Because it was on TV, it was easy to see the family was Black, and that alone made the point that a middle-class family with professional parents ought not to be seen as inevitably Caucasian--which I think it was intended to do and did so exceptionally well. But if The Cosby Show had been written as a series of short stories, there'd probably need to be more evidence in the storyline itself of a culture, at least in part, tied to their race, which could be considered unique to that particular family. Otherwise, all you'd be left with would be just simply describing their Blackness somewhere and then getting on with the story. Without relevance of detail to story surrounding it, details drop out of a reader's perception if the story doesn't keep that perception alive in some relevant way. I think the whole point of The Cosby Show was exactly to prove to viewers that Blackness, per se, is completely irrelevant to situations in which this middle-class family experienced life. I think that'd be more difficult to do well in a written story than on a TV show.
I think oj means that sometimes being PC can be more racist because it's like trying to ignore the pink elephant in the room, thus making the racial tension more on the forefront, than a non-issue. If people would just stop being concerned with the color of their skin, the slant of their eyes, and the size of their noses, then maybe they could celebrate each other's cultural differences rather than looking at them as a conflict point.
Judaism is a culture and religion, not a race. The word race is a much broader term than that. And where do you get the idea that we're "actively refraining from acknowldging someone's race on account of their race." I'm not even sure what that means. We're just saying that most of the time, it doesn't even need to be relevant, expecially since being white/black or whatever does not tell you anything about a person but what one detail about their appearance. Many people just have a crappy habbit of manking assumptions based on that one detail. Unless you like going into details about what a character looks like, why bring it up? We're all human. Get over it.
I love to see the look on some folks' faces when I tell them that one or more of the historic lost tribes of Israel is black. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/israel1.html Ironically, those black tribes maintain kosher-like laws even to this day, so their culture displays a great deal of Jewish heritage. I agree completely with Rei on this.
Rei, I thought Jewish people fall into the minority race...that Judaism was look at as a culture, a religion, and a race of people. Would a Russian Jew say "I'm Russian" or "I'm Jewish." Would an Israeli Jew say "I'm Israeli." or "I'm Jewish." Would an American Jew say "I'm American..or what ever country your ancestors herald from." Or "I'm Jewish." Do Ethiopian Jews say "I'm black, African, Ethiopian." or "I'm Jewish."? Someone asks me what I am, I generally respond with English, Irish, Scottish, and Native American...I don't reply an Atheist. Or when I was protestant, "I'm Christian." But most Jewish people I've known refer to the Jewish part of them as their race, not just their culture or religion. Maybe race should be replaced with nationality, or genetic heritage, rather than race. I mean take Hispanic for example. That could mean any type of person descending from some sort of Spanish speaking culture, from Mexico to Spain, or any central American and many South American countries, though some South American countries speak Portuguese, and a few of the Caribbean islands speak mixed languages of native and Dutch and Spanish. Is Hispanic really a race? Or is it just a pretty little box we like to stick large amounts of people in due to their language? Black isn't a race, it's a color, the same as white is. They aren't actual races. Asian isn't really a race, because Russia is part of Asia as well, but Russians aren't considered Asian, but anyone with slanted eyes is, however there are many variations to that depending on the country and culture. So is Asian really a race? We're all freaking human. That's how I see it. We come from different places, different backgrounds, different family trees, but we're all human no matter what our outsides look like, our DNA is basically all the same. Our external differences come from the climate in which our ancestors lived. Our cultures also come from our distant past, and have been added to and changed as we moved. To me much of the PC crap is there to try to limit people's perceptions and opinions. People are jerks. We know this. I know and have known people who stereotype not just based on the way a person looks or the culture they come from, but gender and class as well. People stereotype, and obviously there is a lot of stereotyping done in what is considered the African-American book genre. You would think people within that culture would not want to stereotype their own culture in a way that is unappealing to their own culture (their target audience) but it happens. Just like chic-lit tends to be that of the stereotypical types of women. Most genre books have the problem of falling into stereotypes. They aren't the books that hit the best sellers lists that's for sure, but there are enough people that read them or they wouldn't be published. To me, the reason this happens, is because our monkey minds love to put things into nice little boxes. Boxes that can be checked off where race and gender and class is concerned. Even vampires fall into a typical stereotype...so we even like to categorize our mythical creatures. Great writing comes when the chains of stereotypes are ignored and the carefully crafted molds are broken. Writing in a genre with stereotypes doesn't make it bad writing, but it makes it typical, unspecial. The ones people remember are the ones that don't follow the crowd.
That was kind of my point. Anyway, the definition of race is so vague. It seems to be more of a combination of cultural and genetic backgrounds, which is not true for Jewis That's why I don't like to use it. Jews exist in all genetic backgrounds and nationalities, just like Christians do.
From a writer's point of view, the distinctions of race or ethnicity must be weighed carefully because many readers do not understand the differences. Do you write ethnic/racial characters in such a way as to present reality, or do you pander to vague stereotypes, attempting to make your story more universally appealing? How many people would believe a character described as a black Jew from Ethiopia? Would a white, middle-class American woman make a convincing Muslim terrorist? Might be a fun exercise (and challenging) to develop such conflicting character traits in a story.
Genetics is real keen interest of mine, but my knowledge is admittedly patchy. But from what I understand, the Y-chromosomes of Jewish populations across the world are far similar than statistics would allow – and indicate a strong origin to Near Eastern genotypes. ( I don’t think the same can be said about Jewish mtaDNA however – indicating considerable intermixing down the female line, I would think – hopefully someone who know more about this is out there?) Another telling marker of a genetic relatedness between Jews is the predominance of certain diseases over others – why do Jewish people suffer certain genetic diseases more frequently than non-Jews? Granted, the Jews are a complex case, and not the best example that I could have chosen. But they are telling all the same… Culture and race generally go hand in hand, but of course there is intermingling between both cultures and races, and in time, culture can begin to separate from race. Perhaps the Jewish religion / race divide is the best example of this – given they have had centuries of movement. Given time, and movement, I would assume all human populations would follow a similar trend. But still today, we don’t get too many white people living by the laws of Kalahari Bushmen, and we don’t get too many black people hunting seals in the arctic with Inuit cultures. On further thought, I would say, with increasing frequency, race and culture are tending to separate from one another. Personally, I find that a little sad. And where do you get the idea that we're "actively refraining from acknowldging someone's race on account of their race." I'm not even sure what that means. If you are not sure what it means, you can neither agree or disagree with the statement. Likewise, I am not sure who you are speaking for when you say ‘we’ (we’re), but the idea came from my mind, and it was general in nature rather than a comment on a particular group of ‘we’. expecially since being white/black or whatever does not tell you anything about a person but what one detail about their appearance. Not all ways true. If I am in Nigeria ( which I happen to be at this minute) and I see a white man on the street, wondering about at night without a dude with an AK47 beside him, ( I say man because I’ve never seen a white woman on the streets here) I can make some assumptions about him, based purely on his skin color. Chances are he is not Nigerian! Chances are his either very brave or very foolish! Chances are he is about to get kidnapped, chances are black dudes will be looking at him because he is not black..blah blah. Maybe not a great example… Anyhow, a my point is, appearance can tell you things about people, and what can tells you will vary on the setting you see them in. Sometime it won’t tell you much at all, of course... We're all human. Get over it. I am not sure what you mean here…who is to get over what? I think the differences is race and culture are wonderful, and it would be a shame if everyone was mashed together in one lump. Would a white, middle-class American woman make a convincing Muslim terrorist? No. Because few white middle-class American women have engaged in terrorism in the name of Islam – in comparison to young men of middle eastern origin. Another question, just out of curiosity, would a white dude of African origin be accepted in America as an African American?
I'd be curious about that too. But I would imagine he would be considered English or Dutch, or whatever northern European culture brought his family tree to African generations ago...and would not be considered truly African. American's don't seem to keen on calling themselves simply American, except for Native Americans, and then you have the Native tacked on to the front.
Maybe he would be a Dutch-African-American! So what about a dude from say Egypt, who’s ancestry is Egyptian, and who has white skin…If he moves to the USA, would he be considered an African American?
The story comes first comes first comes first sorry for being repetitive, but I believe it is important to drive the issue forward because it is so simple a thing that it often gets easily overlooked one of my favorite writers is Octavia Butler (a black woman), and yes, she has black characters as main and supporting characters (I deliberately said black and not African-American, because one of her characters is an immortal being originally from Africa thousands of years ago) it also urks me sometimes when there are not many minority characters in novels, but I cannot complain too much, because when I write I rarely put minorities in:redface: sometimes it's because I don't wanna feel like I'm just throwing in blatant tokens and also because the story comes first and things like race are secondary - luckily my stories range time and space, so I have minorities, women, and even alien or mythical creatures. also, some very progressive writers sometimes break the mold and represent variety (apparently the MC of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Johnny Rico, was Phillipine; not even I knew that reading it) I don't care what anybody says, I know for a fact that race and gender play some factor in readership and preference (for example, one of the most award-winning and celebrated writers in SF history, James Triptree Jr., is a woman who wrote under a pseudonym because of sexist discrimination in the early days of the field) but don't ever let that discourage you or make you feel like you have to prove anything. the best way for me to prove anything is to get published so that there's another hispanic name on a book cover besides DelRey otherwise, I'm glad to see another minority writer
I couldn't help but answer A dude from Egypt would more than likely identify himself as an Egyptian rather than African, regardless of his race or skin color An immigrant from an Africa country would likely identify with that country first That's why Nigerians call themselves Nigerian-Americans if they live in America An immigrant from Latin America doesn't call themself a Latin American-American. the reason why we say Asian-American these days is because terms like mongoloid and oriental fell out of favor for PC reasons, but an asian who is Japanese, for example, usually prefers to be called Japanese-American rather than just Asian, I would think. and the reason why African-Americans call themselves African-American and not negro or something like that is because bigots hijacked the term and abused it and it became sensitive. They can't say for certain what country their ancestors came from, because they were forcibly enslaved by people who didn't give a damn what their culture was. let's not get silly about labels people, we're all human but this is getting way off topic
I don't see how my race deals with much of my writing at least with the last book I wrote. That came from my passion and experiences with fantasy, movies, anime, and video games. my cultural background does have somewhat of a part though because just a little bit of that goes into at least two of my characters. I don't know what you mean though when you say you only see black stereotypes in black novels just read a couple that didn't.
FYI - "Mongoloid", despite its etymological connection to Mongolia, does not refer to a person from that region of the world. It is a term that used to be used to describe people who are now referred to as having Down's syndrome, and is based on the facial features associated with the condition. Those people were also labelled "Mongolian idiots" by men and women with more letters after their names than they had common decency. You can trivialize such changes in language as Political Correctness. Put words do have power, including the power to hurt. Better to lose racial and ethnic labels completely from our vocabulary, but I, for one, applaud the efforts to remove insensitive terms, and terms with perjorative connotations. /rant
