Writing the Other

[Pipe]

Hi everyone!

Have you guys seen the on-going heated discussion concerning the portrayal of non-white characters in Speculative Fiction?  To summarize, author Elizabeth Bear wrote a post on her blog that touched upon, in her words, "Writing the Other without being a dick." There's been a firestorm of reaction to her post, much of it passionate but in a lot of cases very well-articulated. I thought I'd share the link to the index of the discussion with the rest of you because some really good points are made regarding a difficult issue which would face a writer who is trying to include perspectives not strictly his/her own.

Part 1 of the index of the discussion so far: http://rydra-wong.livejournal.com/135873.html

As a Filipino writer who hasn't traveled all that much (and who hasn't read any non-locally written spec fic that involves a member of my race), I found it very educational - but also, I must admit, quite intimidating. 

Anyway, just thought I'd share it with you guys.

[Silk]

Thanks for the links. I find this stuff very interesting, but I'll have to wait to take a look at them until I'm not quite so pressed for time.

Say, do you have the link to the original Bear post you referenced? I don't think it was anywhere on that list you gave us.

[Necroben]

I'm not sure that I really got the point of most these the articles.

I'll just follow the advice of WE, write what you know.

[Pipe]

@Silk - I think it's the first link on the list.

@Necroben - Ahaha, true. But what do we really know? I think the point raised in a lot of the articles is what a person writing about the other -thinks- he knows about the other may not be as much as he'd first assumed, so that a treatement the writer thinks is unbiased may be read otherwise by parties concerned.

[Necroben]

True, you can't please everyone.  Somewhere along the line you're going to offend someone.

That said, how hard should a writer try not to?  I'm not talking about going out of your way to make people mad, but you can only do research for so long before your just not writing any more.

[Silk]

Right you are, Pipe. I was looking for Bear's name in the URLs, so I totally missed her handle.

I've only read a couple of the articles, but the different perspectives are really quite fascinating. And I think it is something worth thinking about in terms of one's own writing.  Where does writing stop and appropriation begin? Is it easier/better for one to not TRY writing the "Other", to stop that appropriation from happening, or is that just as bad as doing it badly? What's the balance between treating something with too much reverence and not enough?

Man, I could probably write an essay on this stuff. But, since I'm supposed to be writing my books right now, I should probably go do that instead.

(Incidentally, I totally don't remember any albinos, evil or otherwise, in any of Guy Gavriel Kay's books. Anybody know what's that about? Granted, I haven't read the Summer Tree... And nobody mentioned Abercrombie's Practical Frost.)

[Necroben]

(Incidentally, I totally don't remember any albinos, evil or otherwise, in any of Guy Gavriel Kay's books. Anybody know what's that about? Granted, I haven't read the Summer Tree... And nobody mentioned Abercrombie's Practical Frost.)

Nothing off hand in the Summer Tree...

[maxonennis]

I have several "minorities" in my latest work, though I don't call them such or focus on their appearances, instead I concentrate on who they are as characters. That is what most speculative fiction writers do rather than say "this is a black man" or whatever. After all we are talking about making them fit into their background, so if you're writing Tolkien-eque fantasy you probably shouldn't lable someone of color as such. It would make them stand out in a bad way.

[Silk]

That's basically Bear's argument in this post. A lot of the debate seems to be on whether that's sufficient. 'Cause really, culturul appropriation is a lot more than just a badly characterized minority.

[Necroben]

But in a world full of elves and dwarves, who are actually a different race, human to human racism tends to disappear.

Its theorized that if we ever meet aliens, all our problems over race will disappear almost over night.  We would have someone who is truly different to hate; instead of looking for superficial differences in each other.

[Renoard]

Seems to me that Humans are resilient enough to find racism even in a world with subspecies.  People resent the neighboring tribe for not being the same tribe.  You have to remember that for a good bit of European history, people really did believe Fae folk, gnomes and Djinn were lurking about.  That never stopped Anglo-Saxons from referring to dark-skinned Caucasians (Arabs, Scythians, Jews, etc.) as black and calling Africans, Nubian or worse.  People have an amazing capacity for prejudice and discrimination.  These lead to conflict and as EUOL likes to point out that is the stuff of good fiction.

[Renoard]

I reread your initial post and it hit me. "Three From Manilla and the Vicious Gene-splicing Madman"  Feel free to plagiarize.