Elaby's LiveJournal - 57 Academics

All I can say is YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES.

From fuckyourwritinghabits.tumblr.com, copied in full:

Sigh

Imagine you’re reading a book, or watching a movie, or flipping though a comic. Imagine that these stories are great and wonderful, but you keep noticing the same thing over and over again. None of the heroes look like you, not even remotely. In fact, the only time someone does look like you, they’re either villainous or from some “savage” culture. Oh, and everybody’s straight. Not even a hint otherwise, not even from the tiniest of characters. Even though you yourself might like boys, girls, both, neither, etc, your stories all end up with the same sexuality each time.

How does that make you feel?

Nobody is taking away anybody’s straight white fantasy characters. Nobody is, in fact, saying they are a bad thing! But in a genre where you can literally have anything happen, dragons and elves and magics of all sorts, why on earth can’t you have not-straight, not-white characters?

But it’s based on a specific time period! Yes, with elves. Or magic. Or dragons. Those are all possible, but a non-villainous POC isn’t?

But my characters aren’t human! Then why do they all have to be straight? Wouldn’t non-humans have different orientations too?

But I don’t know how to write gay people/POC/women! You never will if you don’t try.

But the tone was mean! And I’m gonna write a five page post on how you can’t tell me what to write! Well, this is the internet, a wonderful place where everybody can express their own opinions. And the thing about the internet is that I’m not telling you what to do, nobody is, because we don’t know you. Opinions are being typed out to the ether, expressed in various ways to a general, not specific, you. Sometimes that is easy to forget, because we see something that makes us angry, and when we are angry, we want to speak out.

Nobody is telling you what to write. I, personally, am not telling you what to write. I’m just saying, there’s a good lot of people out there who would love to see people like them in the genres they love.

So why not consider it the next time you sit down to write out your fantasy story? Someone out there will be happy you did.

I've been trying to educate myself about my areas of privilege and how to stop perpetuating stereotypes and stop participating in the perpetuation of oppression, and I think this article has a lot of helpful things to say and links to other helpful articles besides.

The article is this guide for privileged fans by rhipowered. Not only is this article full if useful links, it also points out several things that I found very helpful as a privileged person wanting to read and understand discussions of privilege. Among these are the idea that people can be privileged in some areas and underprivileged in others and we have to accept being uncomfortable because of the privileges we enjoy; that someone saying "this thing you said is racist/ableist/sexist etc" does not mean the person pointing this out thinks you are racist/ableist/sexist etc; and that it's everyone's own responsibility to educate themselves and not the responsibility of the underprivileged person you want to discuss issues with. These are only a few of the helpful-learning things I've been reading about :)

I found the whole post, as well as the articles I read that it links to, understandable and helpful as someone who is new to this and wants to learn what to avoid and what to do in discussions on topics like this. I'm also pleased that, personally, I've moved past the "OMG the world is filled with horribleness that makes me want to hide under my bed instead of learn more!" stage in my reading of this kind of discourse.

Ohgod, I just used the term "discourse" in seriousness and automatically and without cringing. Could it be that the grad school stigma has worn off?