if you can't write anything good ...
Jan. 29th, 2009 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kuangningI have very carefully not participated in most of the race/cultural appropriation discussions, because there's a great deal of hurt (and a great many people I like and respect) on all sides, as well as a lot of good things already being said by others that I wanted to listen to and think over. (If I added you during this, it's because you said something that was said well, and which made me think. I probably also added someone you disagreed with, and that doesn't mean I agree 100% with them, or with you.) So this post is not about the majority of it, but about just one little corner of it, that being ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
davidlevine's post about how, as a result of all this, he doesn't think he wants to write non-white characters into his stories anymore.
From where I'm sitting, Levine still has the same three choices he started with: he can write non-white characters well, he can write them badly, or he can choose to not write them at all. Writing them well is the best course of action for everyone concerned. He, evidently believing that he cannot write them well, is choosing to not write them at all over writing them badly and taking the consequences of that. I get the impression he feels that's a Bad Thing; in fact, the Worst Thing Possible, and the anti-racists who made him feel this way Should All Be Very Sorry Now. I can't speak for everyone, but here's my story, and we'll see if I can explain why, to me at least, this is not a negative outcome.
Most of you know by now that I was born and spent my childhood in Trinidad. We read British books, we eventually got some American TV, but except for Sanford and Son and Sesame Street, I can't remember watching any foreign TV that had non-whites in it, and most of the books had nothing in them about non-whites either. To counteract that, though, we had two local TV channels, full of people just like us, and if I devoured Tolkien and Shakespeare and Enid Blyton, I was also fed a steady stream of Earl Lovelace, Paul Keens Douglas, V. S. Naipaul, and Michael Anthony, who were darkies or coolies or douglas, just like us, and they were our people doing brilliant things. (And I'm willing to bet that if you didn't grow up in the Caribbean or make a study of Caribbean literature and writers, you've never heard of any of them.) We still "knew" equestrian sports and ballet were for little white girls and boys, but I could turn on Panorama after my homework was done and see people like me dancing and singing and acting and reading. I had very few toys, but one of them was a doll with skin the colour of mine, and my aunt had several more that she crocheted beautiful clothes for and displayed prominently. Carnival, despite the influx of white tourists, was all about us: it was our calypsonians bringing out their new works, our creativity and joy and history on display. The near-silence from abroad let us fill the gap at home and not have that much to undo.
Then I turned twelve, and we emigrated. That near-silence turned overnight into a dull roar, almost all of it purely poisonous: here is what people who look like you are, and here is what you're expected to be and do. Christal was four; Candace was six. By the time we had been here two years, neither of them would have voluntarily owned a black doll. Neither of them ever expressed any wish to be anything but the highest accessible, acceptable profession for black girls -- nurses. They played instruments only because I had already fought to play the violin, and won the fight to not be shuffled off to the chorale (funny how that sounds like corral) where the rest of the black girls were.
This is not, in any way, shape, or form, to say I got off scot-free: I didn't. You can't swim in the water without absorbing some of it and drinking more. For instance, that short story Douen was my own first try at writing non-white characters, in a story from home, and I made all the same mistakes you'd expect; Tante Odile is as stereotypical as they come, even if she wasn't entirely two-dimensional, and nobody's skin colour is obvious but hers. Papa Bois, in fact, speaks and acts in such a way that though I didn't envision him white, that's the way he'll be read. I've got a great fascination for and desire to write stories based on the mythology of other countries, but I'm afraid of doing them badly; it's one thing to do a disservice to what's mine by birth and nurture, and something else entirely to drop someone else's babies. (I believe I got pointed that way bykynn, but I've lost track of who's made which great post, so please forgive me.) I'm fairly comfy with my skin colour, but that isn't saying much, because my different background gives me an out. When the pressure from outside gets too rough, as in the looks I still get for dating whomever I please, including the white man I plan to marry, I can step back in my head and say: "Wait a minute. That may apply to you, but it doesn't apply here, not to this island girl." But I'd at least seen what clearer water looks like, even if it wasn't completely clear. Trinidad has racial tension too, it just happens (or happened, when I was growing up) to be focused more on black vs East Indian* than white vs non-white because there were so few whites. (I only knew about four white families at all while I was growing up.) East Indians were clever and grasping and good at making money, blacks were shiftless and lower-class because we came over as slaves and not indentured laborers, lighter skin and straighter hair were still better, but because they made you look more East Indian, not more white. My mother, though, is half and half; there's no winning that struggle for her or any of her children, so we didn't participate in conscious ways. The less poison there is, the easier it is to dilute.
If one writer who, by his own apparent evaluation, would have been poisoning the water a little more, decides instead to be silent on the subject, we haven't gained anything, but we haven't lost anything either. The water may not be clearer, but at least it's no worse. American culture and media is filled with poison, and a lot of it's poison that's been around long enough that it's now considered classic and can't be pulled -- ie, Huckleberry Finn. Is the writing great? Absolutely. Is it poisonous in the way it deals with non-whites? God, yes. But you can't get rid of it. So the best you can hope for is to apply filters to the newer stuff so that eventually you get so little poison coming in fresh that you can start to work on the effects of the older stuff, and you can say "well, people used to think that way, but it's not okay anymore and we know better now." I wish Levine had decided to try his hardest to do it right, and accept (and learn from) a little criticism if he stumbled, but if he wasn't up to that, then his not doing it wrong is not a tragedy.
* East Indian, as in descended from natives of the country India as opposed to West Indian, which everyone was, or Carib Indian, which some people, myself included, can still trace back to.
davidlevine's post about how, as a result of all this, he doesn't think he wants to write non-white characters into his stories anymore.From where I'm sitting, Levine still has the same three choices he started with: he can write non-white characters well, he can write them badly, or he can choose to not write them at all. Writing them well is the best course of action for everyone concerned. He, evidently believing that he cannot write them well, is choosing to not write them at all over writing them badly and taking the consequences of that. I get the impression he feels that's a Bad Thing; in fact, the Worst Thing Possible, and the anti-racists who made him feel this way Should All Be Very Sorry Now. I can't speak for everyone, but here's my story, and we'll see if I can explain why, to me at least, this is not a negative outcome.
Most of you know by now that I was born and spent my childhood in Trinidad. We read British books, we eventually got some American TV, but except for Sanford and Son and Sesame Street, I can't remember watching any foreign TV that had non-whites in it, and most of the books had nothing in them about non-whites either. To counteract that, though, we had two local TV channels, full of people just like us, and if I devoured Tolkien and Shakespeare and Enid Blyton, I was also fed a steady stream of Earl Lovelace, Paul Keens Douglas, V. S. Naipaul, and Michael Anthony, who were darkies or coolies or douglas, just like us, and they were our people doing brilliant things. (And I'm willing to bet that if you didn't grow up in the Caribbean or make a study of Caribbean literature and writers, you've never heard of any of them.) We still "knew" equestrian sports and ballet were for little white girls and boys, but I could turn on Panorama after my homework was done and see people like me dancing and singing and acting and reading. I had very few toys, but one of them was a doll with skin the colour of mine, and my aunt had several more that she crocheted beautiful clothes for and displayed prominently. Carnival, despite the influx of white tourists, was all about us: it was our calypsonians bringing out their new works, our creativity and joy and history on display. The near-silence from abroad let us fill the gap at home and not have that much to undo.
Then I turned twelve, and we emigrated. That near-silence turned overnight into a dull roar, almost all of it purely poisonous: here is what people who look like you are, and here is what you're expected to be and do. Christal was four; Candace was six. By the time we had been here two years, neither of them would have voluntarily owned a black doll. Neither of them ever expressed any wish to be anything but the highest accessible, acceptable profession for black girls -- nurses. They played instruments only because I had already fought to play the violin, and won the fight to not be shuffled off to the chorale (funny how that sounds like corral) where the rest of the black girls were.
This is not, in any way, shape, or form, to say I got off scot-free: I didn't. You can't swim in the water without absorbing some of it and drinking more. For instance, that short story Douen was my own first try at writing non-white characters, in a story from home, and I made all the same mistakes you'd expect; Tante Odile is as stereotypical as they come, even if she wasn't entirely two-dimensional, and nobody's skin colour is obvious but hers. Papa Bois, in fact, speaks and acts in such a way that though I didn't envision him white, that's the way he'll be read. I've got a great fascination for and desire to write stories based on the mythology of other countries, but I'm afraid of doing them badly; it's one thing to do a disservice to what's mine by birth and nurture, and something else entirely to drop someone else's babies. (I believe I got pointed that way by
kynn, but I've lost track of who's made which great post, so please forgive me.) I'm fairly comfy with my skin colour, but that isn't saying much, because my different background gives me an out. When the pressure from outside gets too rough, as in the looks I still get for dating whomever I please, including the white man I plan to marry, I can step back in my head and say: "Wait a minute. That may apply to you, but it doesn't apply here, not to this island girl." But I'd at least seen what clearer water looks like, even if it wasn't completely clear. Trinidad has racial tension too, it just happens (or happened, when I was growing up) to be focused more on black vs East Indian* than white vs non-white because there were so few whites. (I only knew about four white families at all while I was growing up.) East Indians were clever and grasping and good at making money, blacks were shiftless and lower-class because we came over as slaves and not indentured laborers, lighter skin and straighter hair were still better, but because they made you look more East Indian, not more white. My mother, though, is half and half; there's no winning that struggle for her or any of her children, so we didn't participate in conscious ways. The less poison there is, the easier it is to dilute.If one writer who, by his own apparent evaluation, would have been poisoning the water a little more, decides instead to be silent on the subject, we haven't gained anything, but we haven't lost anything either. The water may not be clearer, but at least it's no worse. American culture and media is filled with poison, and a lot of it's poison that's been around long enough that it's now considered classic and can't be pulled -- ie, Huckleberry Finn. Is the writing great? Absolutely. Is it poisonous in the way it deals with non-whites? God, yes. But you can't get rid of it. So the best you can hope for is to apply filters to the newer stuff so that eventually you get so little poison coming in fresh that you can start to work on the effects of the older stuff, and you can say "well, people used to think that way, but it's not okay anymore and we know better now." I wish Levine had decided to try his hardest to do it right, and accept (and learn from) a little criticism if he stumbled, but if he wasn't up to that, then his not doing it wrong is not a tragedy.
* East Indian, as in descended from natives of the country India as opposed to West Indian, which everyone was, or Carib Indian, which some people, myself included, can still trace back to.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 07:05 pm (UTC)... I haven't thought about Panorama in YEARS. Wow with the instant homesickness! *g*
I'm trying to remember if I ever watched it much, though; I seem to recall being more interested in highly-white programs. Part of this is probably because I lived in North America for six years before going to T'dad (with my Indo-Trinidadian parents), and so I *felt* like the white culture on tv was a part of my culture, as well. Man, every time I think I'm getting somewhere with understanding my subjectivity vis-a-vis being an Indo-Trinidadian Canadian, some new piece of memory troubles it all up again! But thank you nonetheless, heh.
East Indians were clever and grasping and good at making money, blacks were shiftless and lower-class because we came over as slaves and not indentured laborers
My mother STILL carries this idea with her and I don't think she'll ever give it up. The other day she was talking with a friend who had come back from visiting T'dad recently and the two of them were talking about how there's so much crime and everything's so awful since a bunch of "small-islanders" (AKA BLACKS, of course) moved there. Sigh.
Anyway, despite all my blathering about myself, I wanted to thank you for writing this post and articulating all of the half-formed thoughts I've had about existing in a place of postcolonial limbo and growing up (at least for a while) in a place where white wasn't/was the Default.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 07:17 pm (UTC)It's sort of ridiculous on its face - taken to its extreme it means archaeology, classical history, etc., are no longer 'allowed,' and puts severe restrictions on what people are allowed to be interested in ("but you're gay! why aren't you studying GLBT history?") - but I also remember being pretty surprised at first at the intensity of the whole thing. I got some pretty severe and successful pressure not to do any historical work in a town this summer because I had the wrong skin color to do data entry.
I dunno, I'm just more bemused than anything else that it's flaring up in SF fandom and similar places, though it does at least seem less doctrinaire than the stuff I've encountered in classrooms and the field the last few years. I still do think it sucks when people are intimidated into not even trying due to the certainty of a backlash, though.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 07:25 pm (UTC)1) Non-white person offers criticism of non-white characters in white person's book to the author.
2) Author, instead of accepting criticism and thinking it over, gets defensive.
3) Author's friends rush to defense of author and some say really racist things.
4) Non-white people and anti-racists get unhappy about that.
5) Hilarity (for, y'know, sucky definitions of hilarity) ensues, with lots of people getting hurt on all sides.
And then along comes David Levine, going, in essence, "Well! If *that's* how you all feel, I'm going to ignore you people from now on. So there!" Is he worried about getting it wrong? Probably, yeah. Is the kind of fuss he's worrying about avoidable? Completely. All he has to do is do his best and not respond to criticism with attacks on the critics. If he's not up to that, then no, he shouldn't touch this subject.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 07:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 05:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 05:23 am (UTC)Again, though ... that's me. I can trace my ancestry on my father's side back to the Carib Indians, who barely exist any longer, and I know there's so much there I'll never know that I wish they'd entrusted more of it to someone, even white people who didn't really get it.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 09:43 pm (UTC)Anyway, I really like this post: thank you for making it.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 09:45 pm (UTC)Argh.
Well, there was a certain amount of hubris involved
Date: 2009-01-31 11:05 pm (UTC)It was definitely a case of Fishing For Progressive Compliments, and when a bit of ConCrit was the result instead of an Ally Cookie, her response was to side with those who were giving her Ally Cookies - no matter that they weren't entitled to be *giving* out Ally Cookies any more than I am.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 10:22 pm (UTC)actually, it *started* when the white author took it on herself
Date: 2009-01-31 10:59 pm (UTC)Here via Rydra's links, btw. It really is tragic how little knowledge and/or interest there is in the US about our neighbors on either side and their cultures - all that the Caribbean exists as is as a place to go for cheap tropical vacations, sigh. And I absolutely agree with you that this "Well if you're going to be like THAT then I'll just take my toys home and sulk!" is well, not the worst tragedy in the world. --Gee, I might have to shut up, listen and learn before opening my mouth again? Gasp! It's the end of the world! Might as well retire from the public for good, alas, alack! (The funniest take I heard on this was someone suggesting the replacement of "minority characters" with "science" and considering how that would go over in fandom. Personally I never heard of him before, I've only read two of Levine's stories, and since they're in the wake of this I'm biased now, but I'm not really impressed with the level of all-round discomfort with anyone not a straight white American male that they seem to display, at least to someone who cut sfnal teeth on Norton and Cherryh and Verne...)
Re: actually, it *started* when the white author took it on herself
Date: 2009-01-31 11:08 pm (UTC)You are very charitable 8-)
Date: 2009-01-31 11:38 pm (UTC)not a nice persona little less favorably disposed, shall we say, as a result of the last several times I saw her respond to criticism (not just of handling of race, either) with "I can write anything I want anyhow I want to and nobody can tell me a THING otherwise, nyah!" Plus it gave me a bit of a shiver, as would reading an essay by a guy on "How to write those Mysterious Creatures, Women" - *yes*, maybe it could be done in a way that wasn't insulting or Just Plain Wrong, but it's telling that the guys who do best at writing female POV don't generally take it on themselves to lecture about it. I just felt that it's smarter/safer/less presumptuous for white writers like me to let *you* tell us *how* to do it right/not fail-ly in the more subtle ways of fail, and us to try to *do* it in accordance with your advice!Re: You are very charitable 8-)
Date: 2009-01-31 11:47 pm (UTC)Re: actually, it *started* when the white author took it on herself
Date: 2009-02-01 05:04 am (UTC)Re: actually, it *started* when the white author took it on herself
Date: 2009-02-01 05:26 am (UTC)Re: actually, it *started* when the white author took it on herself
Date: 2009-02-03 12:20 pm (UTC)() There are plenty of times in the race discussions when white people say "So tell me how to do it right" and POC person responds with "It is not my obligation to teach and educate you on something you created and I'm so tired of teaching/explaining the same thing over and over to people who don't get it."
() One could take the stance that as a white person she might have some experience with what worked for her and which therefore might help other white authors, because she knows the fails and traps and workings of a white author mind.
Granted this is not how it turned out, plus, stuff she got wrong in her own books, but in theory I don't see why it should always be wrong for white people to talk amongst themselves too about how they can make their fic better/less horrible. (to use a metaphor: male writers giving other male writers advice on how to write zmg women, might in a lot of cases lead to the blind leading the blind or to just carrying on and even amplifying existing stereotypes; but I would like to think that at least in some cases it can lead to them finding out ways to make something more accessible to themselves since they know of themselves what makes them tick and what is accessible to them)
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 03:53 pm (UTC)For example, if I write about a white person and another white person says, "You idiot, white people just aren't like that!" is that person right, just because they are white?
Sometimes, racism works both ways. Sometimes, a writer is criticised, not for being racist, but because he is white, and therefore assumed to be in the wrong.
I'm sorry if any writer, of any colour, is bullied into silence.
I realise this makes me extremely unpopular, but I'd rather be unpopular than support bigotry of any kind.
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 04:18 pm (UTC)I notice you're not saying the criticism wasn't apt or correct, either, just implying that the only reason the correction got offered was because the writer was white, because we all know that negates any value in the criticism itself.
Also, for the purposes of this discussion, racism requires a position of power or majority to back up bigotry. No matter how bigoted a non-white person is, in this country, they are not racist because they are not the majority unless they have a position of significant power to work from.
This means to me that the black college professor who mistreats her white students is being racist. The students may not have much choice about being in her class, and she's abusing her power. The Hispanic boss who won't promote or who automatically pays less to any non-Hispanic employee can fairly be judged racist. John Non-white Reader who offers criticism of Jane White Author's work has no position of authority and is not a majority. I trust you can draw the conclusion for yourself. Thank you for voicing your opinion, however. I'll let it stay here for the record.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 11:06 pm (UTC)Also, hi. I'm here from the linkspile, and as a Jamaican waving to you across the metaphorical waters.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 02:25 am (UTC)Frankly I was boggled by the arrogance of his implication that if PoC were going to scare all the white writers away, then there just WON'T BE ANY CoC IN THE WORLD. Like there are NO writers of color who'll be writing them? Pff.
Here via metafandom, btw
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 04:33 am (UTC)*laughs out loud.*
Date: 2009-02-01 04:52 am (UTC)Re: *laughs out loud.*
Date: 2009-02-01 04:54 am (UTC)(Ever notice how NRIs are only the successful motel owners and restaurant runners in UK and US, and not, for instance, the workers in UAE?)
Re: *laughs out loud.*
Date: 2009-02-01 05:11 am (UTC)While I'm thinking about this, it always made me a bit sad that we kids weren't counted Indian enough back home. My grandfather's (and my mother's aunt's) surname was Cato; I'm not giving my mother's maiden name for obvious reasons. ;) My cousins have names like Usha and Una, but my dougla mother married a man without any East Indian heritage, and that made us children black, as if we had to pick just one label forever and deny all the rest.
Re: *laughs out loud.*
Date: 2009-02-01 03:56 pm (UTC)As long as we see people as merely a member of a "race", racism will flourish.
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2009-02-03 05:58 am (UTC)(frozen) no subject
Date: 2009-02-03 06:40 am (UTC)However, there are any number of places that give a primer on this, including this one that took me less than five minutes to find. These are not secrets; they're things that non-white people have been saying again and again for years on end. If we don't break it down into step-by-step instructions, it's for two main reasons.
First, it's because we respect you enough to believe that you don't need to be led by the hand like a three-year-old; that you're willing to and capable of educating yourself on it. You're capable of looking for the many places we've talked about racism in the past, and of remembering that you're dealing with people. Also, aside from the basics of "be respectful," there is no one-size-fits-all twelve-step program for dealing with __ minority group any more than there is for dealing with whites.
That said, I don't have the energy or time right now to host a Race 101 discussion in my journal. The link I gave you has many more links and is a great starting point. I'm unscreening your comment but freezing the thread; thanks for dropping by.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-03 08:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-03 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-03 10:37 am (UTC)As a white person I think anybody can at least aim for the are between not actively bad and actively good. Of course this opens up a whole new area of kind of bland characters of color, but it seems to me that we still aren't over actively bad/insultive depictions yet, so it seems to me that people could at least start aiming for not getting things wrong even if they are not capable of completely getting things right.
I think the problem comes in where as a white person one writes for oneself (either for ones own peace of mind or out of fetishation or what not) or whether one writes actually FOR the POC. Because there is probably a fairly wide gap between "passable" and actually getting it right in the "OMG, yes, yes, yes, this hits the spot perfectly, this is exactly my experience, this is expressing what I have always thought or always wanted".
In my (limited to issues of history/nationality/religion) experience this kind of getting it just right (as opposed to getting it kinda right or at least not getting it completely, offensively, spreading bad stereotypes wrong) is pretty hard to achieve from an outsidee, though I do think it should be doable (at least based on how it is with some men doing female characters that are popular with women and occasional slash stories written by straight women that appeal to gay men).
Now the easiest way would probably to just give more money and advertising to actual non-white authors/producers/whatever. But it doesn't necessarily completely resolve the issue of the white writer who for whatever reason wants or need to and *will* write a character of color (I'm a fan of character X in canon and I want to write about them or I want to give a honest portrayal of the city or job I'm writing about). [of course the question is if there actually was more funding for writers of color, hence, more books by them, if it wouldn't be easier to just ignore the "nice, but missing the point" white authors because you have a wider pool of stuff you might enjoy to choose from; but since that situation is not there yet, there is still the question of whether white authors can or should try to pick up the slack and what if any positive side effects might come from it (like if influential scifi author X writes a story with a non-white main character, maybe the publishers would be more willing to eventually pay an actual non-white author to write a series around a non-white character, etc. Or maybe they wouldn't. I guess one would have to try and test it.]
no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 02:37 pm (UTC)