White Characters Dominating Fantasy Worlds

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

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  1. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    At least thanks to self-publishing, that obstacle is removed.

    @MilesTro If you feel insulted, feel free to write the characters you want to see. Could it also be that you have, in your mind, white-washed some characters? I'm not doubting the genre is really quite white -- I'm sure it is at least book cover -wise -- but if media constantly feeds us white faces, I suppose it'd also bleed into our imaginations, while authors themselves don't always make a big deal out of their characters' skin colors. But I think e.g. in Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea most characters are actually of color...

    Also, as others have already pointed out, many fantasy stories take place in markedly Medieval-esque Northern European settings. Then, e.g. Andrzej Zapkowski's Witcher novels are influenced by Slavic mythology. In these parts of the world, it's pretty much just the Sami and Romani who are the least white ethnicities, so it's not really surprising to me if the descriptions explicitly point to blond hair and paler complexions.

    It also doesn't surprise me that if the majority of writers (and consumers) of fantasy are white, the majority of characters are also white.
     
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  2. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    It's removed if you're not only a good writer but also a good publisher, which is a completely different skill set.

    So now we're saying that people of colour have to be good writers AND good publishers in order to see themselves widely represented in fiction. Okay...


    Do we have any evidence to suggest that the majority of consumers of fantasy are white?
     
  3. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    I meant: you can get a book out there -- without being a good publisher (?) -- any book that might otherwise be stopped by a bigoted publisher, or a publisher who's wary of what's gonna sell, by self-publishing it. Then it's out there. People can read it. People can go: well, this is a great book. Awesome characters. Why the hell isn't it in the book store? etc.

    I don't know. I haven't googled. That's why I said if. Based on the assumption that in the west, blacks tend to be in the minority. Fantasy is popular in the west. I've been part of different SF/F communities in the past, and the majority of the fans seem to have been white.

    But ultimately, I don't know, I could google pictures from conventions and see if people of color are in the majority.

    I'm only speculating why white characters seem to dominate fantasy worlds.
     
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  4. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I think you're underestimating the challenges of getting "a book out there".
     
  5. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    I'm sure it's not easy. I only know-know two people who have self-pubbed, and it's a lot of work, I bet!

    But... Are you saying the obstacle of possibly bigoted publishing houses reluctant to publish and promote books with non-white character is not removed when the writer doesn't publish their book through them?

    Now of course, if we're talking solely about wide representation, then the hypothetical obstacle is not removed. If a writer who writes characters of color can't get the backing of a big publishing house that'd promote the book to a wide (what's our definition of wide?) audience, and it's due to racism or fear of financial losses, then we have a problem and, for example, have to find ways to convince decision-makers that a fantasy book with little to no white characters is a good investment and has an audience.

    Self-publishing and getting it out there for a wide audience is extremely difficult, I've understood.
     
  6. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Of course the obstacle isn't removed. The publishing houses still (maybe) don't want to throw their promotional and distributive power behind a writer of colour, or a writer producing characters of colour. Dodging around the obstacle doesn't remove the obstacle.

    Now, dodging around would work if the dodging path led to the same outcome, but I don't think it generally does.

    I mean, if Microsoft wouldn't hire people of colour, we wouldn't say, oh, that's okay, you can just go to RadioShack and buy a bunch of parts and make your own computers. The obstacle's been removed!

    We wouldn't say that, would we?

    So, I only have anecdotal evidence that there may be issues with characters of colour within the publishing industry. I sincerely hope the real situation is different. But if there IS widespread discrimination within the industry, then, no, I don't think self-publishing, in its current state, is sufficient to remove the obstacle.
     
  7. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    I think, by and large, we agree on this. For example, you wouldn't discourage people from writing the kinds of characters they want to see represented in literature, I'm sure. And I don't think merely writing them fixes the situation for those who feel the characters they want to see are currently underrepresented. Also, while I wouldn't pressure already established fantasy writers with a devout fanbase to diversify their casts, it's of course nice when they do that as they already have the power, so to speak, and can sell works with non-white characters.

    However, I think fantasy is, as a genre, particularly inclusive. There is quite a lot of diversity in fantasy books -- heroines, PoCs, queers etc. -- and the genre's fans seem really quite open to all kinds of stories and characters. E.g. I've mentioned Patricia Briggs on the forum before: one of her heroines is Native American, whose close friend is black and gay, and whose boyfriend seems to be of Hispanic descent. But could just be my impression.
     
  8. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Yeah, I don't have hard data to suggest that there IS an obstacle. Only anecdotal.
     
  9. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I don't think it is an issue in SF/F, given what is out there. I doubt any of the major publishers would be reluctant to take on a work for that reason.
     
  10. Nilfiry

    Nilfiry Senior Member

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    Personally, I just like light skin tones.

    This is not something I put a lot of thought into except for specific environmental settings. I find that people will find fault in everything and try to make a big deal out of it. You say one thing, and people will extrapolate ten things out of it. For example, if I said the first line of this post to my old classmates, someone is going to cry racist for sure. I pay it no mind.
     
  11. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    It's more the thought that writing non-White characters in the first place is something that author's "have to" do instead of something that they "want to" do.

    Yes, you can look at just one book and say, "This story doesn't have any non-White characters because it didn't need to." That doesn't change the fact that a lot of reasonable people have come to the reasonable conclusion that the vast majority of all of the stories don't have any.

    Let's say that the average book has 5 main characters (1-2 leads and a few supporting), each with a 10%* chance of being non-White. This means that samples of randomly selected books would each have an average of 0.5 non-White main characters per book, while a single book would have a (90%)^5 ≈ 59% that all of the main characters are White and a 41% chance that there are others.

    Now let's say that we sample 1000 books. We would expect 590 books to have only White characters versus 410 books to have at least one non-White character each (totaling 500 between them for an average of 1.22 each).

    Now let's say that somebody looked at 1000 books, found 900 with only White characters, and only 110 non-White characters among the other 100 (averaging 1.1 each). Would they reasonably be able to say "This is just an accident of probability, there's no problem here"?

    Nobody's complaining, "This book doesn't have enough non-White characters; the author should've forced other characters into the story where they would've fit."

    They're saying, "Almost none of the (dozens, hundreds...) of books that I've looked at have enough non-White characters; most of the authors are clearly forcing other characters out of stories where they would've fit."


    *Funny thing is, a lot of the defenders of White-only stories claim "it wouldn't be realistic to write non-White characters in this story." In the real world, 75% of the population is non-White, so the fact that they went out of their way to pick stories where only White characters would be realistic is itself unrealistic.

    Even if there was only a 10% chance of a main character being randomly made non-White, then the present dominance of White characters would still be too high for a reasonable person to think that it happened by accident.

    Would you like to re-calculate my previous assessment, using the actual 75% of a random character being non-White instead of my overly-generous 10%, or do you want me to do it?
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2015
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  12. MilesTro

    MilesTro Senior Member

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    I read plenty of Conan books already. They are my favorite fantasy books.
     
  13. Lae

    Lae Contributor Contributor

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    Maybe i've misread your post but are you saying that in the real world, 95% of the population is non-White. As in 95% of the 7-8 billion people?
     
  14. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    Mmm...
    Meditate on this, I will. A better answer, will I have later.

    Preview: the race of a character should matter, because it's one of the multiple things that make them who they are.
     
  15. Vrisnem

    Vrisnem Member

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    Be the change you want to see.

    The reason I started writing was because the types of characters and stories I wanted to read about weren't there on mainstream shelves. It took me years to even realise that some indie publishers catered exclusively to what I was looking for, but after reading a dozen or so of them the majority just seemed to follow the same rigid formula which didn't quite meet my expectations. So I kept on writing.

    I'll admit that I've read very few fantasy books - and most of those are more urban fantasy, not high fantasy. However, strangely enough, the fantasy books that I can recall reading off the top of my head have involved (at least half-)Asian characters or descendants of Native Americans as their protagonists. I borrowed most of the fantasy books I've read from a friend though, so maybe this is what she actively looks for in a character. I'm not sure. My point is though that there are books there with more racial diversity - but they may require a bit of a search to acquire.

    Try looking into indie publishers and self-published writers if searching mainstream stores for what you want proves futile. You're likely to find more diversity that way.
     
  16. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    When I wrote that, I'd thought for sure I'd remembered a statistic that said 5% of the world population is white (with 95% everybody else), but I just tried to find sources for that and apparently the number is closer to 15-35% (with 65-85% everybody else).

    I'm not sure where I heard 5%, but I just edited my first post, so thanks for making me double-check. Do you at least see the basic point I was trying to make (despite my messing up one of the details)?
     
  17. daemon

    daemon Contributor Contributor

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    Believe it or not, yes.

    Consider a similar phenomenon: racial self-segregation of neighborhoods. Sometimes, the racial divide is just so striking that there is no way it could happen by chance. Obviously, white people are intentionally avoiding black people, right? I mean, we even have the phrase "white flight" in our vocabulary.

    Well, that is not so obvious once you understand Schelling's model of segregation. Turns out, there is a mathematical explanation of how people segregate themselves even when they like to live near people of a different group. The pattern that emerges from many people's behavior cannot be attributed to any single person.

    Granted, I do not have a mathematical model to explain how the pattern of white overrepresentation in fantasy emerges from individual authors' decisions. But such a model probably exists. Once you see one cry of systemic racism mathematically debunked after it seemed so obviously true, it is hard not to be skeptical of other "obvious" examples of statistical racism being caused by individual racism.

    Your use of probability as evidence is commendable, but you fall short of drawing from that evidence a valid conclusion about people's motives.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2015
  18. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Intriguing. I'd never heard of Schelling's Model before, and - I'm not going to lie - my faith in humanity took a bit of a nose-dive after I found it: mathematical proof that humanity can discriminate even when humans don't.

    (For anybody else who hadn't heard of it either, https://class.coursera.org/modelthinking/lecture/16 shows that the assumption "when people don't have enough neighbors who are similar to themselves, they move someplace else more comfortable" means that even if the individuals only want 30% of their neighbors to be like them, they still end up with neighbors that are 72.4% like them: low social diversity despite high individual tolerance)

    However, I believe I've found something that the model doesn't take into consideration: people's acceptance/rejection of "the way things are." The simulation gave people a maximum desired diversity (and even a desired maximum of 70% diversity only led to 27.6% actual diversity), but it didn't factor in the people who have a desired minimum.

    The people in the 30% simulation were all thinking "I don't want to make a lot of segregation happen, in fact I would be perfectly happy with most of the people in my neighborhood not being like me; however, if segregation happens on it's own, then I'm not going to do anything to stop it from getting worse." The same thought process doesn't even need to stay in sociology:

    "I don't want to destroy the building, I just don't mind letting it corrode on it's own" => the building collapses with hundreds of people inside

    "I don't want to destroy the forest, I just don't mind letting it burn on it's own" => the fire reaches a major city

    "I don't want to destroy geographic/literary diversity, I just don't mind letting the neighborhoods/publishers segregate on their own" => the next generation doesn't grow up with the same tolerance for diversity that their parents did.

    Schelling's Model was a fantastic description of geographical segregation, there could very well be an equally fantastic description of literary segregation, and I'm glad that you're bringing legitimate scientific description into this discussion.

    Even so, this is still be description, not prescription. Once the reason for a problem (underrepresentation) is described, the next step is not to accept the description as inevitable, but rather to use the description to fix the problem.

    "All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing." There were no evil people in the 30% simulation, but geographic segregation grew anyway because nobody stopped it. @MilesTro is trying to get more people to help stop literary segregation.

    That doesn't strike me as something to complain about.
     
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  19. NigeTheHat

    NigeTheHat Contributor Contributor

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    Fortunately, we have the technology to play with this:

    Polygons

    About 2/3 of the way down the page there's a model where you can set minimum and maximum thresholds. The moral of the story is that you don't need much of a desired minimum to have a fairly large effect.

    Lovely bit of maths as Schelling's model is, it's rather harder to apply techniques like that to a literary context. I'd guess the explanation is more to do with the usual upbringing and culture of the prominent fantasy authors - most authors seem to write about the history of the culture they grew up in, and we don't tend to think of the past as a multiracial place. So even if there was actually a 50/50 split of white/POC characters, I wouldn't expect them to be evenly distributed throughout each book. It seems rather more likely you'd have some all-white, some all-POC.
     
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  20. Lae

    Lae Contributor Contributor

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    This is all getting a bit technical! The mathematics etc i wont get into, not my cup of tea.

    However the summing up, that's where my nostrils flared.

    Doesn't sound like a genuine attempt to stop literary segregation, if i didn't know the community here i'd suggest trolling. However, giving the benefit of the doubt i can only leap so far as to "he's having a bit of a moan"

    Trying to encourage more diversity in the stories within the community and the mainstream (by leading by example, sharing great works, holding/suggesting contests etc etc) is helping stop literary segregation.

    Stating you feel insulted that there are too many white folk in fantasy novels is not.
     
  21. daemon

    daemon Contributor Contributor

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    @Simpson17866

    You are right, there is a difference between actively causing a pattern to emerge and passively doing nothing to prevent the pattern from emerging, and Schelling's model does not include individuals who resist the pattern. (Nor does it need to in order to function as evidence of the conclusion I draw from it.) And I can commend someone for resisting the pattern by producing a good thing that does not fit the pattern.

    I like that you distinguish between descriptive and prescriptive statements. The fact that segregation or racial underrepresentation does happen does not mean it is good. On the other hand, in order to call it a "problem", we need a convincing reason to think it is bad. Understanding why it happens can help us narrow down the reasons why we think it is bad. The two overarching reasons we might call human behavior bad are because the motive is wrong and because the consequence is undesirable.

    Motive: one might say underrepresentation is bad because it is a reflection of authors' racist motives. The OP says, "most of the authors are clearly forcing [non-white] characters out of stories where they would've fit." And it seems to me that this belief is pretty common. But I doubt the belief is true. I am sure we all agree that racist motives are the wrong motives. However, I am always skeptical of any claim that an emergent pattern of human behavior is due to individuals intentionally causing the pattern; therefore, if someone wants to persuade me that underrepresentation is bad, then I need a reason other than authors' motives.

    Consequence: there is a pretty persuasive case to be made here. The most persuasive arguments have to do with the human psychological need to belong to a group, the negative consequence of feeling excluded from a group, and the feeling of exclusion that can come from seeing the underrepresentation of people with whom you identify yourself based on something you share in common with them.

    My intent in posting about Schelling segregation is to distinguish between those two different reasons for calling underrepresentation a "problem". It is a fundamental distinction and it is very consequential. People who make the distinction approach the problem much differently (and solve it so much more effectively) than people who do not make the distinction.

    And that is just general advice for life in general: the first step toward solving a problem is understanding exactly why it is a problem.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2015
  22. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Bingo. Underrepresentation isn't a problem because of the 5 loud voices telling minorities "You're disgusting," it's a problem because of the 1000 little voices telling minorities "You're not real."
     
  23. Enyo

    Enyo Member

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    Thank you! I wish more people would realize this instead of falling back on the simplistic "write it yourself" mantra that, in my opinion, comes across as being dismissive. We need established authors and publishers to start the movement so that it opens up more opportunities for new authors to add their piece.

    My current project has a small fantasy element (say maybe 15%). All of my main characters have hair, eye, and skin colors described very clearly partially because I want people to understand it's not just a bunch of white folks. Really, I'm just following the demographics of the world. Statistically, the people of Earth are more likely to be non-white anyway. A lot of my characters are generically tan or brown, but I do have a few very strong Asian and white characters. But I truly believe that, even if my work is amazing, it won't get published because it's "too ethnic" for the general population.
     
  24. Lae

    Lae Contributor Contributor

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    Surely when there is a lack of description the reader just imagine what they want?

    If the writer doesnt say "xyz, white this, white features, white background blah blah" then the reader pictures whatever they want? if you picture a white character thats hardly the writers fault
     
  25. NigeTheHat

    NigeTheHat Contributor Contributor

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    I once gave a load of my stories to a friend of mine, and she told me it felt like they were full of white people.

    That surprised me a bit, since I'd barely mentioned race at all. It wasn't something that seemed worth doing, if it wasn't relevant to the story.

    What she told me then was that since white is basically the default in Western culture, a lack of description like that effectively makes the character white. If they come from another culture, you've got to show that.

    None of that's to say you should be including the Token Black Guy for the sake of it, but if you want diversity in your stories, you can't just assume the reader will fill in the blanks.
     
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