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jimhines added his own meditation yesterday: http://jimhines.livejournal.com/378335.hI am a white woman.
I tend to identify the race of my characters early on in their introductions. I don't say, "Jane Madison was a Caucasian female of approximately twenty-five years of age." Instead, I say that she has brown hair with a lot of red it in, and she has hazel eyes, and she has skin that is pale enough that her easy blushes show through.
In my work in progress, I describe a werepanther as having mahogany skin and a tight cap of close-cropped curls. I don't explicitly say, "Michael is African American." I do describe an ala (a weather spirit) as being Asian; his first name is Ichiro, and he's initially seen wearing a punkish takeoff on Hello Kitty attire.
Last night, I was reading a book, and I got to page 90 before I realized the first-person-narration main character is mixed race (her father is white; her mother is African American.) There was a hint earlier (I guess) - her hair is curly. But nothing before page 90 told me her skin tone, or had her self-identify her race. That race turns out to be important - it has an impact on her job, on her love life, and on her family relationships. I felt ... surprised that she withheld her race from me for one fifth of the book.
Is it racist to disclose the race of one's characters - either explicitly "The ala was Asian" - or implicitly "Michael's mahogany skin glinted in the dim light"? Is it racist *not* to disclose the race of one's characters? If an author does not describe the race of a character, do you tend to picture the characters as a Benetton ad? Or as whatever race you are? Or as another race? (I firmly believe that "racist" is too loaded a word for this discussion, but I don't know how to water it down appropriately. I trust you all to understand what I'm trying to say.)
Play nice, folks.
Mindy, who *does* tend to assume that non-specified, non-delineated characters are white, unless there are other aspects of the characterization, plot, or setting that would indicate other racial identities...
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Some writers don't really describe the physical appearance of their characters much at all, unless the detail is somehow important. So your mileage may vary.
I think as a whole, the politically-correct movement can go too far. It's not 'racist' to say 'so and so is Asian'. Are they Asian? Then you're merely stating a fact. Now if you start using slurs to describe the character, as a narrator and not another character, then that's another matter entirely.
A good example of this? H.P. Lovecraft. A lot of people love him, some call him a product of his decade, but I couldn't get past his descriptions of people of colour. 'Monstrous hybrids' or something along those lines, and I thought for a moment he was talking about some made-up Cthulhu creature for a moment, and then it hit me, he's talking about human beings. I had to put the book down.
That's just my two cents.
I guess my general stance on this, to sum up is, life is made up of all kinds of different people, and there's nothing wrong with assuming when you read a book that unless you're told otherwise, people in it are like yourself. That's just human nature. Racism is another thing entirely.
Edited at 2008-06-24 01:36 pm (UTC)
I'm astonished sometimes, when I watch old movies or read the original Nancy Drews, or whatever, and see what was absolutely, 100% acceptable, without anyone trying to make any argument or statement.
I tend to go with simply describing skin color when I'm not in "our" world--"moon-pale," "tea-colored," "honey-colored."
I'm not saying this is never the case, but it's not always the case, either. I am not my skin colour. I am not my gender. I have experience of being on the outside, of being bullied, of being part of a minority fighting for their cultural identity... and I have experienced of being a part of the majority, of being able to blend easily in crowds when I want to, of knowing many people will support me if I am attacked, of knowing that I am valued for my contributions.
And I know people of different outward configuration - race, gender, bodyshape, cultural background - who have had similar experiences; of being discriminated against and not discriminated against, of being part of the mainstream and not part of the mainstream.
In other words, if you scream at the captain of an aircraft to get off and find your lost luggage, you will be refused - whether you are black, white, male, female, or martian.
I don't think it's automatically racist to describe your characters. I think it depends on the point of view, and how the characters would notice these things. It certainly *can* be racist, if done badly. I remember when someone first pointed out how black skin tones are so often described in terms of food: chocolate, coffee, caramel, etc...
I do think that if we don't describe it, readers are going to tend to fall back on a racial default. In this country/culture, that default is generally white.
Someone please step in to clarify my memory lapse!
In The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, race doesn't matter on the moon, but people's skin color is mentioned, and racism on earth becomes a plot point.
Race does not define who people are, but it certainly informs identity. Overlooking it is not wise.
Easy in theory, but harder in practice - especially when writing short fiction, where we try to make quick character sketches, or when writing a foreign-to-us culture...
(True story, from my husband's Navy days: Scene: the Base Exchange. Enter a Navy Mom with a Cute Little Toddler -- about two or three years old, mobile and verbal but still very young. The spouse/daddy of the family was somewhere in the Mediterranean on month five or so of a six-month cruise. Suddenly the CLT let out a delighted shriek of "daddy! daddy!' and dashed across the BX toward an officer in uniform. Cue much embarrassed laughter all around, because not only was the officer not the off-in-the-Med daddy, he was decidedly the wrong color match -- but he was wearing the same uniform and the same rank insignia as the absent dad. Seems that nobody had yet told the CLT that the first-level sort for daddy-recognition was supposed to be on skin color.)
On the other hand, I get really annoyed when a writer starts playing "no, I'm not going to tell you the gender of this character" games, because it's something that I have trouble believing that a viewpoint character isn't going to notice and make a call on. And if the viewpoint character doesn't notice something like that, it's going to be a major, major characterization detail, one that says more about the viewpoint character than about the person being observed.
†I'm not sure that there are any satisfactory answers to this one. Some people believe that we won't have true racial equality until the whole question becomes a non-issue, and that the best way to get to that point is to write as though we're already there; other people believe that we won't have true racial equality until the roots of the problem have been exposed and dug out of the American (or wherever) psyche, and that the best way to get to that point is to write about it in depth and with conscious awareness. I'm not sure the two are reconcilable.
(I also agree that there is an essential split between the "equality comes with perfect sameness" and "equality comes with perfect discussion/awareness" - the melting pot/salad bowl dichotomy... I truly don't know where *I* fall in the debate.)
I think I tend to assume that characters are Caucasian, but maybe that's because the majority of authors I read happen to be Caucasian, rather than because I happen to be, too.
Basically, you seem to be asking whether it's racist to describe the colour of a character's skin and I have to vote no. I think it's difficult for a mere description of skin colour to be racist (unless of course you describe it as: "Cecily was proud that her skin was the same sickly white as a Klan sheet"), but when you start ascribing character traits based on skin colour (e.g. all your African American or Asian characters are described in the same way and show the same behaviour traits), then you're starting to cross the boundary into potentially racist writing. If that makes sense?
If an author does not describe the race of a character, do you tend to picture the characters as a Benetton ad?
At the risk of how this sounds, if there are no clues as to a character's skin colour, then I tend to assume that they're like me (i.e. caucasian), purely because it's the easiest way for me to start identifying with them. However, I read Pig Heart Boy by Malorie Blackman last year and didn't realise until about half way through that the main character was Afro-Caribbean. The character's race wasn't relevant to the plot, which is why it wasn't brought out earlier, but it did make me face a few unpleasant home truths about the ease with which I make assumptions.
This concept factors prominently into Andrew Sean Greer's newest novel, The Story of a Marriage. The premise is that the woman's husband is sleeping with another man (and it's set in the fifties) but the wrench you find out about halfway through is that the main character is black. I just didn't find it believable that I read the whole first half, especially in that time period, and there was no inkling of her race... so I ended up not finishing the book because I was cheesed off. If anyone read it and enjoyed it and can shed some more light on this, please do.
I am the same way, Mindy, in that mostly I assume that the characters are white if it's not said. But then, I tend to read fiction written by Caucasian writers. A lot of the "street fiction" and such I select for the library is explicitly for African Americans, and it has to be said if a character is Caucasian (otherwise, it's assumed that the characters are African American).
Is this a culture thing? I recently wrote a piece that reflected negatively on characters of another race, and I felt nervous sharing it with my writers' group because I was afraid that they would think those were my own beliefs and not those of the character.
I, too, have had concerns about how my descriptions of other-than-I characters will read. I often want to write with footnotes, saying things like "No, really, I know someone this actually happened to" or "No, I don't think that *all* women behave this way" or whatever...
I don't go around thinking 'I am white' either - the only time I've been aware of it has been when I was in a distinctively non-white environment, because I stood out so much. And even then some of the behaviour I experienced (people not wanting to sit down next to me, people standing up and choosing a free seat elsewhere) that initially struck me as rude and racist turned out, on closer observation, to be culturally appropriate - not squeezing into seats and changing crowded seats for less crowded ones was something people *did* - whether the person next to them looked just like them or not.
In my culture, that's still rude, but there you go.
Unless it's relevant, I don't bring up my gender on my LJ, and I don't bring up my bodyshape, and I've been discriminated against because of both in the past. Equally, while I am pretty certain of the genders of most of my LJ friends, there are a number of them whose skin colour I am *not* aware of. It didn't come up. It's not important.
I don't think I would have reacted to the race reveal if it hadn't been plot-important after one quarter of the book had already gone by.
I did want to add that when race is not defined, directly or indirectly, by the author, I tend to assume the character is the same race as the author (Unless I am reading sci-fi/fantasy, then I picture them purple with green polka-dots!). When I read your writing, I assume your characters are white unless you tell me otherwise. If I am reading Blair Underwood, I assume they are African American.
Now, the purple with green polka dots just shows that you haven't looked at the author photo closely - they were clearly green with purple polka dots!
If race isn't important to the story, then it doesn't matter to me whether the author mentions it or not. It may never occur to me to wonder what the characters look like—I'm funny that way—or I may picture them in a way that the rest of the story never contradicts, so no harm done.
On the other hand, if race is mentioned early on, and it never turns out to be important, then again there's no harm done. My picture of the character will include that information, with no extra mental effort on my part.
The stylistic trick of revealing a character's race, or some other important detail, only after they've been in a book for a while, is a deliberate jolt to the reader. That's sometimes good—sometimes you want the reader to reconsider what they've already read in light of new information. ("Oooh, they're not on an alien planet, this is Earth in the future!") But it's a costly effect, and before using it, you need to be sure it's worth the price.
I'm not sure, though, that OSC is the best model for this conversation, in light of his social conservatism, with which I generally disagree :-)
I don't know why, but most people--even those who try very hard not to let prejudices of any kind rear their ugly heads--do like to know what "compartment" people fit into. I think this includes black/white/other, gay/straight, Christian/Jew/etc. It just clarifies and dispells the sense of wondering about it and lets you concentrate on other aspects of the character and his/her actions.
I think it can be stated plainly in many situations. And obviously there are tons of ways to hint: throw in a Spanish phrase for a Latino character, describe "bling" or "gangsta" clothing for someone who is a young, hip, urban black person, etc, have music of the appropriate ethnicity playing, etc.
my 2 cents!
Beth
I'm writing animal stories from now on. Brian Jacques, step aside! :-)
Edited at 2008-06-24 10:04 pm (UTC)
But at the end of the day - wouldn't you describe a inanimate thing that was important? The cat statue for example. Or a book cover. A complete picture is key to get into the verse.
And the only Benatton ad writer I meet consistently is Matt Ruff - Fool of the Hill and Sewer Gas and Electric both have a myriad of characters from Inuit to Manx
The only time it evey jerked my chain was a book, whose title I'm coming up empty on, where you don't learn until the end that the people from the future are animals and the horses in the future are humans.
I took a writing class with a woman who submitted the first 50 pages of a novel. The narrative was confusing, the characters were bizarre and strangely dated...
It turns out she's been working on the same novel since 1965. And all of the main characters were actually ghosts - something that we wouldn't learn about until the last chapter.
The class had several suggestions, but the most frequently voice was, "Start writing something new." :-)