I really appreciate how thoughtful and quick you folks have been to help me so far, so I thought I'd run this by you as well. I turned into my editor a version of the passage below, which is basically talking about the history of slavery in the colonial United States. She said I was "apologizing for slavery, saying that slaveowners needed to have slaves in order to survive, and that they only did it because they were slaves themselves. This is going to be a problem for readers. It made me extremely uncomfortable to read it..." I've re-worded it a bit from what she'd read, even if its justification is a bit on the nose now, and I apologize if I'm being a bit thick, but I'm still not totally sure if I get what she's saying. She wasn't entirely forthcoming when I pressed her on it. Can you folks help me out? Does the following passage make you feel uncomfortable/offended, or do you think it would make someone else feel that way? “What do you think’s gonna happen to us in there?” “Well, whenever the future’s uncertain, look to the past, right? It’s likely going to be how it was with the United States and their original thirteen colonies. Those colonists were promised salvation from the untenable situation they faced in their Old World. Promise of a fantastic new reality. And they believed what they were told. They didn’t need to question what was waiting for them in the brave new world. It couldn’t be as bad as where they were. Right? So when they made landfall in North America, they quickly found the situation so dire that it essentially became a prison complex, where their masters convinced them they had to enslave another race in order to survive. Rather than, y’know, forage bugs and roots. “Now, I’m not excusing slavery here in the slightest, Mitch. I’m just saying it was a shitty situation then, and it’s going to be a shitty situation now if we don’t learn from the past real soon. Because in the TYPHON, that 'other race' I was just talking about? It’s going to be lowScores. It’s going to be Black Satyrs. It’s going to be you and I. It’s going to be a colony powered by slaves, for slaves.” Thanks a lot! Giacomo
I'm commenting from a privileged position and might not notice all aspects of any offensiveness. But I think I do notice some, and recognize it is incumbent on us to educate ourselves and each other before asking. I'm inferring that this is a sci-fi story, and (from the editor's having kept it) that the overall structure this passage fits into isn't problematic. (which is a big inference) I'd suggest the analogy probably isn't doing that much for the story, so maybe it could be loosened and the word count reduced like:- That might let the reader take the first idea (America) as an analogy, and the second (characters might be enslaved) as a development from the first. If the reader's view of American history is similar to the speaking character's, they can then have some lightbulb moment: "ah, it's just like America". If it's radically different (and I suspect a lot of people's will be) they can get through the dialogue without so much abrasion. At the end, I think there needs to be removed the false comparison between the fantasy aliens' (potential, future) slaves and the European colonists - some of whom were economically deprived, or religiously marginalised, or in some cases indentured - but not slaves. It simply wasn't their legal or actual situation. A colony powered by, I don't know what - a subsistence workforce maybe. Lastly, why the Black Satyrs? If they are the carefree deer-legged bearded flautists of European mythology, changing colour to fit this analogy - take out Black. In general, it isn't the place of speculative fiction to comment on the slave trade - that's history's job, and the danger is even a supremely considerate treatment could distract from the history. If there are exceptional cases those stories need to earn the right. This speaking character's opinions of world events probably aren't uncommon, but why give them a platform?
I may be misunderstanding what you're trying to say. First, are you suggesting it's my obligation to educate myself before asking on this forum? Genuinely curious because I do not know. Also, I'm curious how you can suggest the analogy isn't doing much for the story, when you don't know the story. The whole point of the analogy was that the antagonist was going to create a slave colony, like they did back then, and the analogy helps to understand how people could allow that to happen. So to remove the slaves from the analogy kinda defeats the purpose of it. The whole point of the speaking character describing the US's colonial history was because I'm already assuming the reader's view of American history is not up to par with the speaking character's. Through the character, the reader can learn the history in order to have the lightbulb moment of, "ah, it's just like America." Why do you not think the reader would be able to learn that bit of history from the speaker and be able to easily apply it to the story? And why do you think cutting out the core part of the analogy would make that any more clear? And you seem to be thinking I was trying to draw an analogy between the story's slaves and European colonists who were down on their luck. I'm not. The passage mentioned the American colonists' slaves as being "another race." That would usually imply non-white in their case. I was talking about African slaves. The story's slaves are being likened to the African slaves that the European colonists were convinced they had to control in order to survive. And to address your final note, the Black Satyrs are a social group of misfits, wildcards, punks. They're carefree, animal-like ("deer-legged"), but are like the black sheep of the social family. Hence, Black Satyrs. Thanks for your input. G
And I didn't see your last point previously, but could you elaborate on how this passage could potentially distract from the history? How do you suppose this passage I've shared, if considerately treated, could potentially distract from US history? And are you suggesting it isn't speculative fiction's place to look back at history in order to see where it could lead? Because that's pretty much what spec fic is. Regardless of how far back you're looking in history. Thanks! Looking forward to your answers! G
Because it judges history without itself being a work of history. That can happen innocently, but it can also be a way of getting unpleasant opinions under the radar - and so it is more polite (and often editorial policy) not to open the question at all. Not the slave trade's history, no. Allude to it by all means, but putting a theory about it into the mouth of a fantasy character who can't be peer-reviewed or called to account is obviously problematic. No, I mean before asking - someone whose history the slave trade is - if they are offended. Arguably, the question "Is this passage offensive?" shouldn't come up in a public forum, since it's incumbent on the writer to have made sure it isn't offensive - through other self-education. The speaker portrays the history superficially and in a way that would be offensive to some readers: including because it minimizes the slave trade by drawing a false comparison between the experiences of slaves and free colonists. But the passage said: "their masters convinced them they had to enslave". What a writer is trying to do doesn't come into whether a work's offensive - it's simply nothing to do with it. Why do you make the social group of misfits Black rather than some other colour? Since the work is holding forth on the slave trade, that becomes marked.
I think the issue is whether this is the opinion of a character or the opinion of the book. Theres nothing wrong with a character in a book holding any view even if that view is abhorrent (far more abhorrent views are held by some characters than you have here... think for example of Humbert Humbert's views on sex and young girls) However it can become an issue if the book itself is an apologia for the view in this case the slave trade... unless your intended audience is people who want to see the slave trade dismissed. If that's the only problematic passage you probably need a different editor... but if that message pervades the entire book then your editor has a point unless you want to appeal to the demographic who's other favorite books include the Turner Diaries and Mien Kampf I'd also note that your characters knowledge of the slave trade into america is a bit iffy... the initial british and dutch colonists fleeing persecution in the old country didn't make slavery a thing because conditions were hard... the transatlantic slave trade was already well established by the Spanish and the Potuguese well before the British and Dutch settlers arrived they just took advantage of what was already the established norm
For me it's problematic because it's just simply wrong, which is distracting. As mentioned, if your characters want to have naïve opinions as a character trait, it needs to be more obvious. I don't think it's important enough to risk.
Also with my hat on premptively we know this is a touchy subject so we'd ask everyone to remember that this is plot development not the debate room and to conduct themselves accordingly
My understanding of the passage: the character is explaining his vision of the future using his particular interpretation of history as evidence. I didn't automatically assume that creating this character and this bit of dialogue is an attempt on the part of the writer to (ahem) whitewash historical slavery. I'm not a big fan of "Black Satyrs" as a gang name, but not because of the adjective. Thanks (or no thanks) to my weird mind and the odd bits of trivia that clutter its corners, "Black Satyrs" calls up a mental image of two-legged, upright Black Bengal Goats singing The Jet Song and rampaging through the social landscape in a permanent state of sexual arousal. Other nouns denoting wildness and lawless freedom include reivers and wildlings, neither one of which may appeal to you. I kinda like Black Reivers, but I'm not writing the story. Fiction can comment on anything it likes. Literature would be considerably duller if writers only created fictional characters who adhere to socially acceptable ethics or interpretations of history.
Oh, I absolutely think this might offend and cause some people unease. Race/slavery will always be a sore point from the get-go, that's its default state, but drawing comparisons from real-life historical wrongdoings and comparing it to fictional struggles will always leave a sour taste in people's mouths, especially if it's conveyed wrong or incorrectly. It's like, "Ah, you're using this historical event which actions and consequences still affect the population today to draw a parallel between the world you made up and an actual tragedy, but you didn't even put in the effort to research it correctly." Commenting on race/slavery can be done in literature, and it has been done time and time again, but there's a difference between commenting on race/slavery in an authentic, well-done manner and commenting on race/slavery in a very poorly, fake manner, and in my opinion, that difference is research and asking people of that race their opinion.
Its not uncommon for editors to fail to differentiate between character views and book views... when i was writing darkest storm my first editor had issues with the way some antagonists talked about gay people... using pejoratives like baby raper and so forth... the rather large point she was missing was that these guys are treatment (read concentration) camp guards at a facility where gays are being concentrated by a fascist government... so of course they are bigoted homophobic asswipes... their views are not the view of the book which ought to be obvious since the basic plot is about the hero rescuing his friend from the facility. Pretty much all the homophobes get shot or blown up or otherwise dispatched with extreme prejudice... but that seemed to pass said editor by and she couldnt be moved from the view that "readers would find it problematic' So i paid her thanked her for her time and got a different editor... its been out several years with several thousand sales and so far precisely zero readers have found it problematic
I don't find it offensive as I think you meant to ask about, but as a senior citizen who grew up with grandparents who knew a lot about the history of the founding of the United States, I have to say that I find the notion that "... when they made landfall in North America, they quickly found the situation so dire that it essentially became a prison complex, where their masters convinced them they had to enslave another race in order to survive ..." to be intellectually offensive -- by which I mean that I have no idea where that notion came from, but it's not congruent with anything I have encountered in my 77+ years on the planet, so it offends me in that it strikes me as either misinformation or disinformation.
That depends on whether it was deliberate on the part of the author... if the character is intentionally naive or misguided I'd be inclined to make it more obvious... if it was in there because the author believes it to be true (or appears to be) then it speaks volumes in an entirely different way Given the the OP talks about his character educating the reader about american history i'm not convinced that he meant him to be naive and misinformed.
I see your point. The character's statement struck me as so ludicrous a view of history that I didn't imagine it might be the result of writer misunderstanding rather than deliberate portrayal of a character's own self-serving interpretation. So, Giocomo, care to elucidate?
If i was writing a book about someone wanting to create a slave colony i'd look elsewhere for my analogy - Ancient rome would be both more accurate and less contentious. But to be honest i don't see much point in the analogy at all - analogies in writing are there to explain things that the reader wouldn't otherwise understand... since people are able to understand the concept of slavery just fine there's no real need for an analogous explanation "What do you think’s gonna happen to us in there?” “Well, whenever the future’s uncertain, look to the past, right? Too many times back in history there's the masters and there's the others yeah? and the others serve the masters as not much more than slaves. If we don’t learn from the past real soon in TYPHON, those 'others' I was just talking about? It’s going to be lowScores. It’s going to be Black Satyrs. It’s going to be you and I."
Your editor suggested you were making an apology for slavery? You're asking us what we think, relating to an altered text to that read by your editor? You're questioning where editor may have got the notion. respectfully, I'd suggest here: That is entirely a rationalisation of a complex barbarity into a fight for survival. Arguably, Australia was a far more forbidding environment for European settlers but didn't, I understand, have a similar trade in slavery. Even the convicts served their time and many returned to country of origin after so doing. Whatever the rights and wrongs of that penal system, it doesn't equate to slavery as practiced in Americas. Also, people often state a position that quickly proves to be at variance with their actions, such as, "I am not a violent man," etc. Your character says: and then proceeds to do exactly that I think you got good advice all round and suggest you give it due consideration.
Its also as various people have pointed out , inaccurate... over half of the anglo European settlers were indentured servants (essentially people who performed slave level work to settle debts) initially there was no line drawn between indentured servants and african slaves (or native american slaves) until 1641 when the africans were stripped of their rights - twenty years after the settlers arrived. and mass employment of African slaves was about plantation work - not subsistence level survival... so the idea that the settlers had to enslave another race to avoid having to hunt for roots and grubs is inaccurate... transatlantic slaves were purchased and you don't pay a slaver if you don't have the money for basics In essence the thesis that the transatlantic slave trade started because settlers were so poor they had to enslave africans to survive is woefully inaccurate and does come over as an apologia for what really happened.... i'd really suggest that if you want to persist with this analogy you need to do some serious research to improve your understanding of slavery in the colonies
I just realized that while I did give a generic response to this, I did not respond as to whether I found the passage personally offensive/uncomfortable. I did. Now I'm aware that this is only a passage and not the entire work with all of its context, but as it stands by its lonesome, I can see why the book editor may have had the reaction they did. The last line in and of itself is very jarring. There's a reason most sci-fi/fantasy shows don't do direct comparisons to (relatively) recent historical events. By bringing up the real world, the author is evoking a very specific image and using a historical event to draw a direct comparison. The author is also implying that their fictional world is as systematically, morally, and overall AS complex as this historical event, and if the author doesn't deliver in that implicit promise, then there's a kind of back-handedness to it, implying that the historical event was actually very simple all along. So right off the bat, that's not a very good start. So the inaccuracies here are just too big to really go through. The thing that really jumps at me from here is, "they didn't need to question what was waiting for them in the brave new world". Now I wasn't alive when the pilgrims touched down in the 'brave new world', but something tells me uprooting their lives to go to a relatively recently discovered continent and leaving all their loved ones behind consisted of a lot of questioning. Also, "so dire that it essentially became a prison complex, where their masters convinced them they had to enslave another race in order to survive". First off, I very much doubt it became a prison complex. Second off, MASTERS. What masters do they have? The British empire? I don't think the British empire convinced them to enslave another race. I'm pretty sure they did that of their own free will, and at one point the British empire banned slavery before they did. This isn't modern-day America where middle managers are being bossed around by corporate CEOs. Already, the text is simplifying the past incorrectly, and not delivering on an implicit promise of complexity. As someone who's grown up in the south, I hear statements like this all the time. "I don't hate women, but I don't think they should be allowed to vote." "I'm not a homophobe, but I don't think gays should get married." "I'm not excusing this, this, and this, BUT--" This is how one gets people to hate their character in less than a sentence. First off, using the American Slave Trade in an analogy that ends with "It's going to be a colony powered by slaves, for slaves," is just... not a great analogy because in no way were American pilgrims slaves in the same way slaves were slaves. Calling people who quite literally had the luxury to own other people isn't a "slave powered by slaves for slaves", it's "slaves being owned by slaveowners." There's no 'gotcha' about that. Plus having the comparison drawn to black people to a race called the Black Satyrs is just going to, I don't know how else to say this, but be cringe. It's hitting the nail on the hammer a little too hard. So on its own, yes it's very uncomfortable and could read like an author trying to desperately justify their racism and be 'woke' about it. Now if your goal was to make the character unlikable/viewed as ignorant or react, or maybe convey a VERY naive guy, then you've accomplished it! You should probably explain to your editor that it's purposefully that way because this is a flaw that this character has, and to maybe--if there isn't already--outline some scenes where it shows more of the main character's flaws more blatantly. If you're trying to establish that this character is "wise" or "has life experience and knows how things really are" then I'd say this passage has fallen short of that on multiple accounts and you should listen more to your editor. And also do a lot more research.
It might -- but I don't have enough context to assess whether it's a misguided opinion of that one character, or if it's the author's opinion and it permeates the entire book.
One difference is that indentured servants were indentured because of a contract, not because they were loaded onto a ship at gunpoint. Some indentured servants entered into their own contracts, and I believe in other cases minors were indentured by their parent or guardian. Either way, it was a contractual relationship, and there was (in theory, at least) a mutually agreed-upon term of service, with an established date of termination or other agreement as to when or how the contract would be fulfilled. None of that applied to slavery.
(Virginia, 1619) Colonist Mitch: "It's been a hard winter. We're out of food. How will we survive?" Colonial governor: *pounds fist on table decisively* "Well, that settles it. We've tried everything. We're going to have to enslave some Africans." Colonist Mitch: "...what?" Governor: "You heard me. We're going to buy some slaves in Africa, ship them over, teach them how to farm here, set them up with land and tools, and they'll grow food for us. In a couple of years the harvests will be more bountiful than we'll know what to do with!" Colonist Mitch: "In a couple of years?! And won't the slaves just have to eat too?" Governor: "Now, I’m not excusing slavery here in the slightest, Mitch. I'm just saying we have to do it or we all will die."
I didn't want to get into this, but wanted to mention myself that slaves were expensive. Anyone who needed slaves to survive had no chance of being able to afford them. Most, if not all, free settlers did not have the means to purchase and maintain African slaves. It was the industrial plantation owners and spice traders. ie: The already wealthy.
