Race

All posts tagged Race

Important Truths We Must Face

Posted by Aibird on August 14, 2017
Posted in: Author, Blogging, Feminism, Race, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I am a pacifist at heart. However, not all ideologies and opinions are equal and okay to freely express, and sometimes one must take a stand even if it means risking it all to fight against hateful ideologies such as neo-Nazism and white supremacy. I’d like to hope we can defeat such destructive ideologies, bills/laws, and actions with peaceful means, but I understand and respect where others, based on historical evidence, state that hateful ideology can only be stomped out with violence. I don’t have an answer to the question of violence, but I will talk today about where I stand and the roots of the problem we face today.

In our current climate, there is a growing number of people trying to make hate speech  mainstream and okay to share and embody under the guise of “free speech.” But this is abhorrent and not okay as that hateful  ideology results in violence and deaths. People’s lives are at stake here. I must fight on the side of love, so I have decided to speak up against those that seek to destroy others.

The following points should clarify what I mean before I dig into the concept of white supremacy and how it fuels the hateful ideology of neo-Nazism and alt-right white supremacists such as the Klu Klux Klan.

  1. Saying that Nazi and white supremacist ideology is hateful and should be stopped at any way possible is not me saying I wish all Nazis dead and that I hate all Nazis. These are not equivalent at all. I am saying that Nazi Ideology is dangerous and is hate speech.
    • (Neo-) Nazi ideology (and its white supremacist roots) embodies the idea that there’s a “pure race” and “others should be killed or erased or oppressed into serving the pure.” There are many ways they may try to twist words to diguise it as palatable, but no matter the doublespeak, we cannot forget the root of Nazi and white supremacist ideology is based in ethnic/racial cleansing and genocide. Ethnic cleansing and genocide is a crime and requires justice not a free forum for folks to recruit others to join their cause. We must not normalize this ideology as this ideology is a crime against humanity.
  2. I will fight against Nazi and white supremacist ideology because it is the right thing to do. Such ideology is the anti-thesis of love. I live a life of love, thus I cannot sit idly by and not say something against destructive ideology that others are pushing to normalize and turn into law. Neutrality aids the oppressor. One cannot be neutral in situations like these.
  3. When I say “fight” I, personally, mean with words as I cannot physically fight anyone due to my health and how much violence triggers me. But I can write and speak, and use my words in ways to fight harmful and hateful ideology. I can provide emotionally support for those on the front lines of this fight.

I will stress this point in particular: fighting hateful ideology doesn’t mean I hate those who espouse this ideology.  I am disgusted and horrified by their words and actions, but I do not hate people. Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are infected with a dangerous ideology that has lied to them. It has stripped them from seeing the joy and love that is inherent in the beauty of our diversity, the beauty of our shared humanity, and the need for a more just and loving world, where all share rights and resources equitably and equally.

Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are trapped in thinking that if others gain rights then they lose their rights and power, that if others share resources then they lose access to resources, and that those who are not ethnically “pure” like them are not true human beings. That abhorrent ideology destroys others and it destroys them because it is based in hate and lies.

I don’t think I can cure them of it, but I can try to stop this ideology from spreading and  stop this ideology from carrying out destruction by enshrining their hatred into laws and horrifying violence. How does one fight such ideology?

To begin, we got to start at our roots.

In bell hooks’ “Writing Beyond Race,” the second chapter discusses how white supremacy has been built into America from its inception and socialized into all of us from birth, thus all of us must contend with its devastating effects.  She writes:

 

“If everyone in our society could face that white supremacist thinking is the underlying belief system informing nearly every aspect of this nation’s culture and habits of daily life, then all our discussions of race and racism would be based on a foundation of concrete reality. Everyone could move away from the us/them dichotomies which promote blame and prevent us all from assuming accountability for challenging and changing white supremacy. Unless we make a conscious effort to change thought and action by honestly naming all the myriad ways white supremacy impinges on daily life then we cannot shift from a politics of hate and create a new foundation based on a revolution of love.

A primary reason this nation refuses to offer an adequate political language to define racial politics lies with the insistence that this is the most democratic nation in the world, a place where freedom and justice for all is possible. Citizens of the United States had no difficulty naming the politics of white supremacy in South Africa because the extreme racial segregation and the concomitant violence deployed to protect the system of apartheid was overt and consciously supported by government and law makers. Here in the United States most folks want to believe the United States has never and does not currently have a politics of race based on the support and maintenance of racial apartheid.

Yet all children in this nation are inundated from birth on into adulthood with white supremacist thinking and practice. And it is a more insidious because it is often hidden socialization. The most powerful covert teacher of white supremacy is mass media.”

Due to Trump’s Administration and the events in Charlottesville, white supremacy has become more overt than covert, but is it enough for us to finally acknowledge we are all in this system? Acknowledgement isn’t enough. All of us must work to dismantle white supremacy in our thinking, our daily lives, our work, our government, our economic system, our mass media, and all other systems in which affect our lives.

Our nation has always been a harbor for white supremacy as it was built into our constitution, and although we’ve amended that constitution dozens of times, it cannot erase the roots — our Nation was not free for all where justice is possible for all — despite the best intentions of the “founding fathers.” Remember, the constitution originally allowed various rights to be granted only to white men, though as for who was allowed to be seen as white is rooted in white supremacy ideology. (Note further explanation would involve discussion that I will hand off to Angela Davis, bell hooks, and others far more qualified than myself. Seek out their essays to dig deeper into how white supremacy is codified and enforced.)

Thus, America never was free for all, and it certainly isn’t today. Folks of color have been declaring this truth for ages, but many white folk have refused to listen, and now Neo-Nazis are emboldened with Trump as their leader. This is not a surprise to anyone who understood the roots of this country and what we are up against.

But we can fix this. Angela Davis, bell hooks, and numerous other people of color have written about these topics and discussed in-depth solutions and theories on how to dismantle white supremacy within us, within our culture, and within our society’s systems and government. Read their words, listen to what they have to say, and recognize their leadership.

How can we implement what we learn?

By incorporating what we learn into our daily lives and adjusting our language and actions as needed.

This article gives some great tips on how to respond to the growing rise of hateful ideology as white supremacist becomes more overt: How White People Must Respond to the Disgusting Pathetic UnitetheRight rally in Charlottesville and Time for White Parents of White Kids to Bring the Resistance Home.

One of the tips involves calling-in (versus calling-out) people in your life whenever they say or do or support racist, sexist, homophobic, and/or transphobic actions and laws.

These conversations can be hard, yes, as most people tend toward the defensive, but there are ways to hold discussion in a way to break down those defensive walls. Again the leaders in this movement, especially bell hooks, has some great ideas on how to do this and I included the call-in and the tip article above to assist with this.

Another way is to show visually the ways white supremacy permeates our culture. Someone made a great graphic that focuses on racism in particular (if anyone knows who made it so I can give attribution, let me know!)

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There is also the Racism scale to help people identify where they fall in the spectrum of racist/anti-racist behaviors — the far right side is terrorism and the far left side is abolitionist, and there are many categories between them based on words we say and behaviors we do and what we support. You can read about it here: Racism Scale.

To be transparent, I have a lot of unlearning to do myself from the socialization our culture has done to all of us from birth. I am still dismantling that socialization and conditioning. This is part of my fight against white supremacy in our culture, our government, our daily lives, and within myself.

The words I write here today will hopefully make it clear where I stand and illuminate the roots of Neo-Nazism in America.  May folks read, dig deeper, and fight not only those that espouse the hateful ideology but also the conditioning society has done to us that allowed this ideology to fester.

Edited to include More resources for reading and understanding: Syllabus for White People to Educate Themselves and SURJ Talking White Supremacy Flyer (a pdf with tips on how to have discussions).

Remember: We can fight this, and we can dismantle this and create a more loving, more equitable, more just, more sustainable, and more equal society for all, but we got to — especially white folks — recognize the role of white supremacy ideology within our daily lives, our words, and our ways of thinking. No one is immune, and we all got to detoxify ourselves and work toward liberation together. It will be hard, but nothing worth doing was ever easy.

Expressing oneself is a revolutionary act

Posted by Aibird on July 27, 2015
Posted in: Art, Author, Philosophy. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

My partner, who is an artist, discussed with me the other day the types of artists. There is the artist who is creating art with an agenda, who is often a political activist and their medium is art. But then there is the artist that simply creates art to express themselves. My partner discussed how modern art today is focused more on the statement said through art, where it becomes a metaphor for some type of political agenda. As much as this is celebrated, it also causes tension and frustration for those that seek to simply express themselves through art. Often times, those artists are criticized for not addressing the issues of today, and it seems that people often don’t appreciate the aesthetics of the piece and instead seek out hidden meanings. This was a valid point, but I added that expression and the aesthetics of a piece is in of itself the revolutionary act. Sometimes people forget that in their search for hidden meanings and metaphors.

One way to really see this is in the discussion on race and art that was hosted by the Art Center this past weekend. Dread Scott and John Sims were the two artists giving talks that day. As I listened to how they created their work and what influenced them, I noted a discernible and interesting difference. Dread Scott presented himself more as an activist artist, while John Sims presented himself more as an artist expressing himself through various art mediums.

Dread Scott discussed the political aspects that influenced his work and how he creates art in order to challenge the viewer into re-imagining the world in which we live into something radically different. He examined the past and reinterpreted it into the issues of today, for in regards to race, there is a lot of parallels with the past that are still sadly prevalent today. This examination of the past within the present was incorporated through a variety of mediums — painting, screenprinting, photography, installations, and performance. His hopes and dreams for a better future was realized in his activism in communities and in his art that deliberately challenges his viewers to interpret the world differently.  Much of his work held deeper meanings and metaphors concerning the history of race relations in America, but he also created works that could only be interpreted in one way such as the lynching flag of the early 20th century updated to reflect police brutality today. His activism and art were coupled together, a vehicle for his ideals.

John Sims, on the other hand, discussed how his art originated as an expression of his thoughts, interests, and emotions.  He began his discussion with how he was a math artist, and how he expressed his thoughts and contemplations about the nature of math and art into artistic forms that utilize mathematics. Much of his math-art explored aesthetically pleasing iterations of mathematical ideas. He organized conventions and classes to show others the relationship of math and art. This was part of an expression of himself but also a desire to help others find new ways of expressing themselves and the world around them. He spoke of how people, especially women and people of color, are often told they cannot do math, and so he sought to circumvent society’s programming — to re-ignite the enjoyment of math and art. It started from him expressing himself and evolved into the activist realm.

The latter half of his presentation swerved into him confronting the reality of the Confederate flag in the south, particularly Florida, and the intense emotions it caused. In order to process these emotions, John Sims took the confederate battle flag and began to transform it through the use of his math-art techniques. He found new ways to deconstruct the flag through color alterations and to display it so that it echoed the memory of the brutality in which the flag was birthed. This personal journey started with somewhat aesthetically pleasing color alterations and evolved into more abrupt (and for some jarring) expression of complex emotions. Through this expression of his emotions, he created a project that challenged Southern ideology regarding the flag and its relation to race. During this journey, John Sims interacted with the issues of race in society today, to really grapple with it on a personal level, and in turn to help others in their own journeys with these same issues. This act of expression was revolutionary — just as much as Dread Scott’s more activist art was revolutionary.

Both challenge society and the racist norms of our time, but they started at different places and took a different path to that similar end point. Often times, people will focus so much on the former — those who are activists that use art as a medium, that they often fail to see the power of the latter — those who use art as expression. In marginalized communities, the expression of oneself is the revolutionary act; it is a challenge to society. This is because society perceives their agency as a threat to order and often punishes those that try to freely express themselves. So, through the act of expression, the artist becomes a revolutionist. This is why expressing oneself can speak to the issues of our times just as powerfully as any activist act. It is this tension between expression and ideas that creates a visceral reaction in the viewer, one that births discussions such as this. Art is revolutionary no matter its birthplace, whether it be in political ideology or in the emotional realm.

The Bullets We’ve Taken

Posted by Aibird on February 17, 2015
Posted in: Author, Blogging, Feminism. Tagged: , , , , , . 3 Comments

When I was a child, I used to walk along the cracks in the pavement at recess. Carefully walking as if on a tightrope. Each step I took a vivid reminder of the fine line I walked at home and at school, where one false move and I might garner attention. Whether it was good or bad attention, I could never guess, and there were times when being invisible seemed the best option. I often dreamed of flying in space, of going to Mars, and it didn’t bother me that such an endeavor could take months if not years. I’d read those words and think, “I could be myself up there. And it’d be safe.” I may not have understood some of the more dangerous aspects of space, but I did understand it’s isolation. There in space I could be by myself, away from the scary and dangerous aspects of life on Earth, and look back on the beauty of the planet without fear.

It was sometime in second or third grade I decided I would seek out good attention by being everyone’s friend. I’d become Samwise Gamgee, who was loyal to a fault. When my friends started to falter, I’d channel my inner Samwise, pick them up, and carry them until they could walk again. I adored the verse in the New Testament that read, “No greater love has one than this, than to lay down one’s life for a friend.” I imagined the many ways I could die, saving the life of another. There in the streets of a large city, a gunman would start shooting at my friend, and I’d leap heroically into the line of fire. My friend would run to safety, and I’d kick the gun out of the attacker’s hands and somehow win the fight despite the multiple gunshot wounds.

If I was anything, I was ambitious. Heck, as a young child, I wanted to not only be the first person on Mars but also the first person to write a novel in space on the way to Mars. I always had lofty goals, even when it came to defending my friends against the terrors of the world.

But there are some terrors in which you cannot defend. How do I fight an oppressive system that views people of color as less than human? That strives to strip them of their humanity and often their lives, without warning? I have no defense against a system that de-values the lives of transgender people like myself, where it misgenders us, violently attacks us, and tries to strip away our humanity. No matter how hard I try, I can’t demolish a system that tries to rape, demolish, and exploit anyone who identifies as female. How do I stop a culture that treats rape as a joke, vilifying survivors, and sympathizing with rapists? How can I defend those I love against toxic forms of religion that seek to strip away our rights, steal our humanity, and leave us for dead on the side of the road?

I’m just one person, and a flawed one at that. I’ve been an outcast in every group I’ve tried to join. I have been that friendly person that people admit is nice but never stop to truly see me as me. I am just a wall decoration, a friendly atmosphere, a hopeful sentence or two that uplifts their spirits. I am nebulous and undefined, and when they turn to look at me, they force labels on me, often against my will, where I am confined to their version of me, their version of reality. There is no room to breathe, and if I speak up?

Speaking up is out of the question, for now, as I struggle with my gender and seek transition, I’ve lost that right. I am the one that fell between the cracks. The survivor that never really had a support system, not even when I presented as a woman. I am not a woman, but I’m not a man. How can I walk into these women-only spaces seeking safety and healing from the horrors of our rape culture? I can’t for I don’t belong. How can I enter into feminist discussions about sexism in society? I lost that right the moment I injected testosterone into my system. I had no voice to begin with, and now that I finally decided to be myself, I find that I still have no voice. Many demand I stay silent, but hasn’t my entire life been silent? Written in bits and pieces and scattered through a thousand journal pages, many of which will never see the light of day.  Instead, I try hard to amplify the voice of others, but in the end, it is never enough.

I am not a woman, but I’m not a man. I lie somewhere inbetween, lurking in that grey area that lacks definition. My body is my own, and the alterations I seek aligns it more with my brain and my own self-image. But society and parts of my family would not see it that way. To them, people like me are the problem, the reason for the war.

People want black and white depictions of the world, where everything is neatly ordered and fits into simply defined categories. That’s not how reality is. Nothing is ever neatly defined, and there is a whole spectrum of color beyond these narrow two-sided definitions. Our culture scorns diversity, and those that dare to fight against its tyranny, hostility, and discriminatory transgressions — they are met with a war that seeks to destroy them through a mountain of misinformation, death threats, and loss of life. For people like me, we are the casualties in a fight society wages against anyone who doesn’t fit the narrow cisgender, white, straight ideal. We ask for equal rights with those who already have them, and we are shot down and painted as monsters and freaks.

When I stand up in those dreams and take those bullets, the bullets are the transphobic remarks, racist diatribes, homophobic slurs, sexist actions, harmful words that society hurls at us by the minute.

I stand here shattered into a million pieces. For years I kept trying to piece myself back together, to try to see the whole again, but now I stand here amongst this shattered glass, amongst the streams of blood, and raise my hands toward heaven. I can’t fight an oppressive, sick system that seeks to destroy the marginalized and anyone it deems ‘not good enough’ to live. I keep trying, and in the end, I have realized my own deception.

My death will not save anyone. No matter how much I love, how much I try, my death is not the greatest love of all. And what about my life? Will it mean anything in the end? Will my words, my actions, my dreams ever matter to anyone? Will the bullets I’ve taken, help others in their journey? Will the trauma I’ve experienced ever truly heal? Will I ever be able to feel safe in this world? Will those I love ever feel safe? Will they ever be heard and respected as they are? Will I?

I don’t know. I walk along the cracks, balancing precariously between hope and despair.

Traveling the Internets Again

Posted by Aibird on September 8, 2014
Posted in: Author, Blogging, Feminism, History, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I may make this a regular post. I read a lot, and sharing what I read may be helpful to some. So without further ado, here is what I’ve read this past week:

Writing

How to Structure a Premise for Stronger Stories <— Great article to help you strengthen your stories.

The Different Levels of Editing <— An awesome article from an editor on the forum I help moderate. It explains in detail the different levels of editing, and this can be very useful for writers to understand. Each level has its place and its purpose, and knowing when and where to use each can be helpful in how we utilize editors and how we edit our own work.

“We have always fought.” Challenging the Women Cattle and Slaves Narrative <— By far one of the best articles I've read this week, especially in pertains to writing and other forms of media. Must read.

PSA: Your Default Narrative Settings are not Apolitical <— Also a must read.

Culture/Society and Us

Things I’ve Learned from being Transgender that aren’t about being Transgender <— Can relate to this article a lot.

What President Obama has done for Transgender People <— As the article name says, he has been heralded as the first transgender president. To be honest, I would say he is the only president that cared enough to act. For him to stick his neck out like this for people like me is pretty huge, especially in a culture that still vilifies us as monsters or curiosities that are publicly stripped apart.

The Militarized Mind: How a Narrative Becomes a Weapon <— A must read for everyone.

Violence Against Indigenous Women: Fun, Sexy, and No Big Deal on the Big Screen

What if we all carried that weight? <— If we all carried the weight of injustice, then we would not be able to bear it, and maybe, just maybe we would stop tolerating what we have forced others to carry alone. It is a good wake up call for us all.

How Men and Women are Critiqued in Performance Reviews <— I see the gender bias every day, and since I sit on the border of both genders, being trans, I notice it even more heavily. Here is yet more proof that gender bias exists and it hurts people.

I am not Afraid to Die: Why America Will Never be the Same Post Ferguson

The Police Violence We aren’t Talking About

The Brutalizing of Women in Video Games, and its Apologists

Science and Technology

Laniakea: Our Local Supercluster <— A fun article that explores our place in the universe.

Betelgeuse: Astronomers give it 100,000 years before it explodes <— A deep look into the science of astronomy.

Impact: Earth! <— Not really an article, but an interesting look into what would happen if an asteroid hit Earth. You can alter the parameters in various ways to see the differences based on size, density, approach vector, and so forth.

Books I read and am reading

The Four Agreements: A Toltec Wisdom Book by Don Miguel Ruiz (Finished.)

How to Know God: The Soul’s Journey into the Mystery of Mysteries by Deepak Chopra (1/3 of the way through the book.)

Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldredge (1/3 of the way through the book.)

Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Edited by Laurie Lamson (Just started. Will write a review of this in the future.)

Update on Blog

I am working on a few articles that are specific to worldbuilding and one specific to genres. This has been a painful and busy few weeks for me, so my posts are taking longer to write than I would have liked. Thank you for your patience, and let me know your thoughts on the above articles! If you have any interesting articles to share, leave them in a comment, and I will be sure to read them.

Diversity: Race

Posted by Aibird on July 24, 2012
Posted in: Characters, World Building, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , . 2 Comments

At Racebending.com, the article, “Frustration of an Asian American Whedonite,” expressed in vivid detail one of my biggest qualms with the Firefly universe – a show I dearly love.  Here is the fusion of Asian and American culture in the future, but there is no actual representation of Asian people outside of a few scarce faces in the crowd.

Even xkcd, the awesome stick figure comic that covers everything from culture, math, language, to romance, pointed this out: xkcd: The Uncomfortable Truths Well

So it’s been noticed by people of many different races, which brings us to some very pertinent and needed questions brought up in the article:

Shouldn’t it be a priority, if you’re trying to tell a believable story about a Sino-American future, to include Asian characters?

Isn’t it marginalizing to fantasize about a “mixed Asian” world completely absent of Asian people, especially when you live and work in a city that’s almost 1/8th Asian?

If you were to write a scifi show about a merged African and North American empire, do you think it would be acceptable to avoid giving a single spoken line to a black actor?

This question in particular struck me as the one most likely to hit home for Joss Wheldon and others like him:

Would you ever tell a story that purported to have major elements of American gay culture, without having a single gay  character in-frame for more than 3 seconds? What about a show that claimed some feminist themes, but cast only men, with women barely seen and never heard?

These are excellent questions that need to be asked. Joss Wheldon is one of my favorite directors and producers of television and movie storylines. He does a great job in fighting for equality; however, he is a bit blind when it comes to race.  All of our heroes have blindspots and weaknesses, and asking them to consider their blindspots are opportunities for growth.  It’s also an opportunity to seriously consider how one creates a story, builds a world, and what are the implications inherent within building that world.

As the article itself says:

The issue isn’t Joss Whedon. It’s the blinders. All the blindspots that make it tough to understand problems that you’ve never or rarely ever had to personally deal with. The blindspots that make it tough to understand why, sometimes, race should influence casting decisions. That sometimes it should be a mission statement – or, at the very least, a priority.

These blindspots is something everyone has, but in order to grow, we need to acknowledge them and confront them.  If we truly wish to create a more inclusive future, then we have to seriously examine our own blind spots.

When you create a world, there will be diversity. It does exist. Examine our own world, particularly American – which is my home country and the one I know the most about: Demographics of the United States, Census 2010 Report on Race in America.

So let us crunch some numbers specifically for Asian Americans: Census 2010 Data states the total population of the United States to be: 308,745,538.  Asians are listed as 4.8% of the population. Some may claim this isn’t a lot, but the 4.8% is misleading for if you crunch the numbers here and see how many people are represented in that percentage, you end up with: 14,819,786.  That is over fourteen million people that are being erased. That is a heck of a lot of people, and this number is increasing every year.  In 2000, only 3.6% of the population was Asian, meaning 10,242,998 people in total. That is a 43.6% increase over ten years, and this data shows this is expected to increase even more. That’s a heck of a lot of people.  I’m only examining Asians here.  Blacks represent 12.6% of the population, an even larger number, and Hispanics 16.3%.  This is only three races, for there’s also the Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and biracial people.

Out of curiousity, let’s count up the population statistics for all non-white races: In 2000, 69,961,280 people were non-white. For 2010, 85,192,273 are non-white. All this data is from the 2010 Census report I cited above in a link, and it shows that there has been an increase in diversity over the past ten years, and this is expected to increase.

Diversity is increasing in our world, not decreasing, so creating a futuristic world where diversity is nearly non-existent not only erases whole swathes of people, it leaves huge gaping holes within that universe.  I’ll use Firefly as an example. What happened to the diversity?  With it’s increasing trend, it seems highly unlikely that the other races vanished or diminished out of nowhere. Even a genocide wouldn’t go down without a huge fight, but there is no evidence of a huge genocide to wipe out the majority non-white races within the history of the presented universe in Firefly.  Speculation on this matter is a moot point, for when it comes to already created universes, it is best to examine what has been presented to us as the history, the details of this world, and the people within it.  The Firefly universe gives no explanation to the lack of diversity, and instead, claims to be a mix of two very different cultures – one Chinese oriented and the other American oriented, but if this is to be true, then where is the Asians? Why are they not prominent everywhere and why do they not have major roles within the story and in various places of power? Quite simply, this seems to be a major a blind spot; the creator simply didn’t consider it, and thus the universe, which had great potential for examining diversity within the fusion of two fairly different culture, doesn’t live up to its own ideas, nor is it willing to even prod the possibility of what a world would be like with our currently increasing trend in diversity.  This is a bit of a failure, and it’ll always be a very disappointing and sad mark on one of my most beloved television series.

It’s these blind spots that we have to seriously examine if we wish to create not only a fully realized and three dimensional world, but also realistic three dimensional characters.  The repercussions of writing worlds and stories that contain little representation of other races is fairly significant in our culture, for it is a form of white-washing.  As the above analysis on the Census data shows, over eighty-five million people have little to no representation in our media and literature, and thus, they have little to no characters with which they can relate.

To help define a few of my points, here is some information on white-washing: “CNN Explores White-washing,” “White-washing Race.”

As quoted within the CNN article on white-washing:

“Certainly changes will be made to the story in adaptations, such as setting a story in the United States instead of Japan,” Racebending.com states. “What disappoints us is that when these adaptations are reset to America, they do not reflect the diversity of  the United States. Many people are of Asian descent but are also ‘totally American.’”

Indeed, considering over eighty-five million people in American are ‘totally American’ and non-white, and over fourteen million of those non-white people are of Asian descent.

This idea of “color-blindness” when dealing with race is a form of very subtle racism, and often results in these blind spots, where non-white races end up nearly invisible, often in their own adapted stories.  This erases entire swathes of people, which is a form of oppression.  It allows certain people in our society to just never examine their blind spots, to never examine ways to make their works more inclusive and more representative of the beautiful diversity that is our world.

It is a challenge for us writers to examine our blind spots and find ways to improve our writing, our stories, and our view of this world.  But it is a challenge we all must face if we truly wish to dig deep and explore within our stories not only ourselves but our world, our dreams, and our future.