On Race

The other day, as I was working on the novel, I was debating on the merits of including race - Elves, dwarves, snake people, etc that are are human-like, very Tolkien and D&D. Yesterday, I read a blog post by a fellow Fantasy author, Marshal Ryan Maresca, talking about the difficulties of including race in fantasy and sci-fi. But it's not your typical Fantasy Race distinctions, but Race as subcatagories of humans. 

In his post, he only touched upon the topic in terms of clarity and description, avoiding the deep-seeded cultural, societal, and emotional baggage that comes with Race and Race issues.   He goes on and describes two characters in an exercise to describe racial traits... and I immediately saw a reinforcement of American societal "norms" in terms of race - the light skinned, light haired, light eyed character gets an easier time because he can pass for "local." To that, I'd like to point you to the follow YouTube satire that captures the sentiment of race/ethnicity and "local normal" sentiments.

And then there was racist, vitriolic reaction when Miss New York, a woman of Indian descent who was born in the US and grew up in New York, won the Miss America 2014 title. Many of the people who were outraged felt that Miss Kansas - tattooed blond beauty who is in the National Guard and hunts is more representative of "American" than the dark-skinned "foreigner."

So, authors, when you're considering race in your work, take a deep pause and research the loaded history of racism and ask yourself if you want to give your world that amount of cultural depth. If you are writing a world where race doesn't matter anymore, take an example from Suzanne Collins. She did a really good job of it in Hunger Games when Katniss meets and describes the District 11 tributes - Rue and Thresh, who are black. But even though you describe a character as dark skinned, your readers my picture the character totally unlike how you pictured her, as evident by the racist reaction to how Rue was cast in the movie. 

Also, writers, be cognizant of your word choice and connotation when describing physical features that has racial tones.  You may be reinforcing racial "norms" of your society, undercutting it (what if dark-skinned was the norm and light-skinned was the "other"?), or attempting to show that race is no longer an issue for a culture/society (often seen in "future" settings).

Writers, ask yourself - what purpose does race have in my work? If I have race, do I need to include racism and what purpose does it have in my world?


Here's more food for thought -

 What if Captain America was a Sikh man?

How do you deal with race in your work? Do all Humans look the same? Do all Humans enjoy the same ranks/privileges, etc despite the differences in their physical features? Does the racial norms, hierarchies, and [insert colored/racial majority here] privilege exist? How do you react as a reader when you see it in others' works?