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So the other day when I was having a crisis of identity, I mentioned how the Lone Power likes to twist healthy, positive messages like the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign into attempts to get me to shut up, by pointing out that because I'm not any typical big-name minorities-- not in ethnicity, sexuality, physicality, language, whatever-- then obviously no one needs to hear MY stories. E. Louise Bates replied in sympathy, saying that the campaign really DID seem to take on more of a "This is DIVERSITY, this isn't" tone after all-- a strange sort of us-vs-them undercurrent, focusing on certain labels. Like quotas. It's hard for us to talk about, Louise and I, because we ARE coming from places of Privilege, and it's too easy for us to seem to be missing the point or just whiny and self-centered, like the struggling white male authors who protest every time someone says white male authors get all the attention.
But you NEED to talk about it, which is what the point of an attention-getting campaign IS. If only people could be clearer what they're talking about. This is why sometimes I prefer to talk to dead people. I've chosen as my Patron Saint of Creativity a woman who ironically was an avowed atheist, but whatnot-- when I'm trying to get jumbled personal thoughts about writing out and need to bounce them off somebody but not an actual biased person who can directly answer me back, I write to Diana Wynne Jones. (Sure, it's Madeleine L'Engle I named my daughter after, and she would probably be more understanding about being prayed to, but I've always felt that my own writing niche seems to more closely align with Jones... or something? Anyway, it just feels right). So I was writing to her this morning and got to talking about the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign and tried to work out exactly what was bothering me about it, beyond a selfish entitled "what about ME" kneejerk, and, as one does when one is praying in a freeform way on paper, I had some interesting thoughts that I feel are worth sharing, even though I could be wrong and all I am is a clueless Privileged girl.
I think what's so disconcerting about the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign is that it DOES focus on labels, instead of characters in and of themselves. This seems counter to the point. I like what Shannon Hale has to say on the subject (granted, I like what Shannon Hale has to say on MOST subjects: she's a very wise woman and I recommend following her on at least one media platform if you aren't already)-- she talks about SPECIFIC characters as opposed to NEUTRAL characters, where "neutral" usually defaults to "white, straight, able-bodied." You know, like me :P. Shannon Hale was one of the originators of the campaign, but she's also white, straight, and able-bodied... and Mormon, though-- you note she notes religious differences, too, in her post, and I'm sure she's sick of the Backwoods Polygamist stereotypes out there in the world. But, you know, when you start breaking it down into more and more specific character traits... well that's the thing. They're CHARACTER TRAITS. When we talk about diversity, are we talking about a wide variety of character traits, or are we talking about just a few specific big Labels?
Lisa Yee wrote a "rambling rant" for #WeNeedDiverseBooks where she addresses this question of "should an author write outside their own Group?" with a lovely little catchphrase: "Do not presume -- but do dare to imagine." Well... that's what an author is SUPPOSED to do. We're SUPPOSED to imagine what it's like to be somebody else, no matter what TYPE of somebody else we're writing about. We're SUPPOSED to portray a character, not necessarily a stand-in for ourselves. A unique character who nonetheless is embedded with a universal humanity. CAN you write outside your race? Can you write outside your sexual preference? Can you write outside your gender, your interests, your home life, your tastes in food, your basic personality type? I'm afraid if I say "It's just like any other character trait," I'll come off as privileged and naive, but... it IS like any other character trait. You just have to make it TRUE.
I know I can't claim to be metaphorically "colorblind," not noticing the Type a person belongs to, and I admit to still finding it delightful and surprising when someone defies their stereotypes in some way. It's just I'd rather wait and SEE that part before acting on a first impression-- I'd rather deal with an individual than a type. I'm interested in the things we have in common. I'm interested in the things that make us different, but different as individuals, not group differences. I'm female, but I feel that way about gender, too-- I just don't CARE so much about whether you're male or female or neither as much as I do your individual quirks. Maybe it's just that LABELS remind me too much of CLIQUES. I'd rather not think like that.
The thing is, I DO personally understand the Need for Representation. As a child-- and even now as an adult-- I hungered for two particular Representations of my own self that I just wasn't seeing enough of in media (worse on screen than in books, but still): people with glasses who weren't (stereotypical) nerds, and blonde girls who weren't Bombshells (I could do without the DUMB Blonde thing, too, but even when shows and books made their blondes smart, they were always still considered pretty/love-interest-y/popular). It's a weirdly powerful subconscious and-sometimes-even-conscious NEED for me to see it. To be honest one of the things I love most about Allie Brosh is that she represents a non-bombshell blonde-- a blonde who's funny and angry and unfeminine and tending toward scrapes and completely unique and just happens to be blonde. Because she's autobiographical. And, you know, she just IS blonde. It's just a trait. It wasn't a trait that was chosen to PROVE anything. It's not being used as a shorthand for Beautiful or Ditzy or Popular, or even as a conscious contradiction of any of those things. SHE JUST IS. Like a person.
I think the problems start when people DO think in terms of conscious representation. When someone says, "well, we need more books about black kids that aren't historical, so, hmm, what's a black kid like?" BAM, suddenly they ARE writing a Type instead of an individual-- even if they're consciously writing AGAINST a known stereotype. It's got to be more organic than that, and it's hard to MAKE it organic when the discussions of representation are so HEATED, when there's so much riding on them, when every time a minority character shows up in a story (on paper or screen) they're immediately SCRUTINIZED for how ACCURATE they are and yet NOT STEREOTYPICAL they are and WHETHER THEY'RE GIVEN ENOUGH ATTENTION or whatever. Heck, Lisa Yee above often cites some of the horrible Amazon reviews she got for Millicent Min, Girl Genius which complained that she was fueling the "Chinese smart kid" stereotype... even though Millie is SUCH an individual who just happens to be of Chinese ancestry (and guess what: I, as a Caucasian adult living on the other side of the country, I totally --painfully at times-- identified with Millie). (Also they obviously had not actually READ about Stamford Wong before they complained). Shannon Hale must have said it on Twitter because it's not in that blog post, but her answer for why #WeNeedDiverseBooks was So That It Wouldn't Fall On One Character's Shoulders to Represent An Entire Group. Again, I LIKE THE WAY THAT WOMAN THINKS. It needs to be about individuals.
These sort of campaigns freak me out as a Privileged writer, because I suddenly find myself worried that my stories aren't "diverse" enough or that when I DO have "diverse" characters I'll do it wrong, and I'm REALLY HUNG UP ABOUT WRITING as it is. The funny thing is, when I dream at night, I frequently-- REGULARLY-- nearly nightly-- end up trying to shape the dream into a workable story as it's happening. Okay, here's the main character-- ooo, I'll have to remember that detail-- ooo, this is the conflict upon which the plot will turn, isn't it!-- so on and so forth, working the storytelling muscle overtime while my inhibitions are turned off, because as soon as they turn on again once the light of day hits, it shuts down again, Paralyzed by Self-Doubt. A few weeks ago I had one such dream in which one of the main characters just happened to be legally blind-- no plot-specific REASON for it, she just WAS-- and all I thought about it in the dream was "ooo, that'll force me to work on describing things with non-visual details!" When I woke up and looked back, I realised, "Oh, that there would be one of those 'Diverse' characters I'm supposed to be working into my fiction more." Huh. It was so REFRESHING when she was just a character who happened to be legally blind, and now my waking brain-- my INHIBITIONS-- was trying to make a Thing of it. Well, heck. It doesn't need to be a thing. She's simply a character who happens to be legally blind, and I'll have to focus less on visual details than I do, but you know? I can do that. It shouldn't have to be a Thing if you truly believe in your characters as individuals, right?
But what do I know? I'm still trying to work my way out of this serious many-years-long writer's block. Tell me I'm wrong, where I'm wrong, but I really do believe that portraying individuals is more important than portraying groups.
But you NEED to talk about it, which is what the point of an attention-getting campaign IS. If only people could be clearer what they're talking about. This is why sometimes I prefer to talk to dead people. I've chosen as my Patron Saint of Creativity a woman who ironically was an avowed atheist, but whatnot-- when I'm trying to get jumbled personal thoughts about writing out and need to bounce them off somebody but not an actual biased person who can directly answer me back, I write to Diana Wynne Jones. (Sure, it's Madeleine L'Engle I named my daughter after, and she would probably be more understanding about being prayed to, but I've always felt that my own writing niche seems to more closely align with Jones... or something? Anyway, it just feels right). So I was writing to her this morning and got to talking about the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign and tried to work out exactly what was bothering me about it, beyond a selfish entitled "what about ME" kneejerk, and, as one does when one is praying in a freeform way on paper, I had some interesting thoughts that I feel are worth sharing, even though I could be wrong and all I am is a clueless Privileged girl.
I think what's so disconcerting about the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign is that it DOES focus on labels, instead of characters in and of themselves. This seems counter to the point. I like what Shannon Hale has to say on the subject (granted, I like what Shannon Hale has to say on MOST subjects: she's a very wise woman and I recommend following her on at least one media platform if you aren't already)-- she talks about SPECIFIC characters as opposed to NEUTRAL characters, where "neutral" usually defaults to "white, straight, able-bodied." You know, like me :P. Shannon Hale was one of the originators of the campaign, but she's also white, straight, and able-bodied... and Mormon, though-- you note she notes religious differences, too, in her post, and I'm sure she's sick of the Backwoods Polygamist stereotypes out there in the world. But, you know, when you start breaking it down into more and more specific character traits... well that's the thing. They're CHARACTER TRAITS. When we talk about diversity, are we talking about a wide variety of character traits, or are we talking about just a few specific big Labels?
Lisa Yee wrote a "rambling rant" for #WeNeedDiverseBooks where she addresses this question of "should an author write outside their own Group?" with a lovely little catchphrase: "Do not presume -- but do dare to imagine." Well... that's what an author is SUPPOSED to do. We're SUPPOSED to imagine what it's like to be somebody else, no matter what TYPE of somebody else we're writing about. We're SUPPOSED to portray a character, not necessarily a stand-in for ourselves. A unique character who nonetheless is embedded with a universal humanity. CAN you write outside your race? Can you write outside your sexual preference? Can you write outside your gender, your interests, your home life, your tastes in food, your basic personality type? I'm afraid if I say "It's just like any other character trait," I'll come off as privileged and naive, but... it IS like any other character trait. You just have to make it TRUE.
I know I can't claim to be metaphorically "colorblind," not noticing the Type a person belongs to, and I admit to still finding it delightful and surprising when someone defies their stereotypes in some way. It's just I'd rather wait and SEE that part before acting on a first impression-- I'd rather deal with an individual than a type. I'm interested in the things we have in common. I'm interested in the things that make us different, but different as individuals, not group differences. I'm female, but I feel that way about gender, too-- I just don't CARE so much about whether you're male or female or neither as much as I do your individual quirks. Maybe it's just that LABELS remind me too much of CLIQUES. I'd rather not think like that.
The thing is, I DO personally understand the Need for Representation. As a child-- and even now as an adult-- I hungered for two particular Representations of my own self that I just wasn't seeing enough of in media (worse on screen than in books, but still): people with glasses who weren't (stereotypical) nerds, and blonde girls who weren't Bombshells (I could do without the DUMB Blonde thing, too, but even when shows and books made their blondes smart, they were always still considered pretty/love-interest-y/popular). It's a weirdly powerful subconscious and-sometimes-even-conscious NEED for me to see it. To be honest one of the things I love most about Allie Brosh is that she represents a non-bombshell blonde-- a blonde who's funny and angry and unfeminine and tending toward scrapes and completely unique and just happens to be blonde. Because she's autobiographical. And, you know, she just IS blonde. It's just a trait. It wasn't a trait that was chosen to PROVE anything. It's not being used as a shorthand for Beautiful or Ditzy or Popular, or even as a conscious contradiction of any of those things. SHE JUST IS. Like a person.
I think the problems start when people DO think in terms of conscious representation. When someone says, "well, we need more books about black kids that aren't historical, so, hmm, what's a black kid like?" BAM, suddenly they ARE writing a Type instead of an individual-- even if they're consciously writing AGAINST a known stereotype. It's got to be more organic than that, and it's hard to MAKE it organic when the discussions of representation are so HEATED, when there's so much riding on them, when every time a minority character shows up in a story (on paper or screen) they're immediately SCRUTINIZED for how ACCURATE they are and yet NOT STEREOTYPICAL they are and WHETHER THEY'RE GIVEN ENOUGH ATTENTION or whatever. Heck, Lisa Yee above often cites some of the horrible Amazon reviews she got for Millicent Min, Girl Genius which complained that she was fueling the "Chinese smart kid" stereotype... even though Millie is SUCH an individual who just happens to be of Chinese ancestry (and guess what: I, as a Caucasian adult living on the other side of the country, I totally --painfully at times-- identified with Millie). (Also they obviously had not actually READ about Stamford Wong before they complained). Shannon Hale must have said it on Twitter because it's not in that blog post, but her answer for why #WeNeedDiverseBooks was So That It Wouldn't Fall On One Character's Shoulders to Represent An Entire Group. Again, I LIKE THE WAY THAT WOMAN THINKS. It needs to be about individuals.
These sort of campaigns freak me out as a Privileged writer, because I suddenly find myself worried that my stories aren't "diverse" enough or that when I DO have "diverse" characters I'll do it wrong, and I'm REALLY HUNG UP ABOUT WRITING as it is. The funny thing is, when I dream at night, I frequently-- REGULARLY-- nearly nightly-- end up trying to shape the dream into a workable story as it's happening. Okay, here's the main character-- ooo, I'll have to remember that detail-- ooo, this is the conflict upon which the plot will turn, isn't it!-- so on and so forth, working the storytelling muscle overtime while my inhibitions are turned off, because as soon as they turn on again once the light of day hits, it shuts down again, Paralyzed by Self-Doubt. A few weeks ago I had one such dream in which one of the main characters just happened to be legally blind-- no plot-specific REASON for it, she just WAS-- and all I thought about it in the dream was "ooo, that'll force me to work on describing things with non-visual details!" When I woke up and looked back, I realised, "Oh, that there would be one of those 'Diverse' characters I'm supposed to be working into my fiction more." Huh. It was so REFRESHING when she was just a character who happened to be legally blind, and now my waking brain-- my INHIBITIONS-- was trying to make a Thing of it. Well, heck. It doesn't need to be a thing. She's simply a character who happens to be legally blind, and I'll have to focus less on visual details than I do, but you know? I can do that. It shouldn't have to be a Thing if you truly believe in your characters as individuals, right?
But what do I know? I'm still trying to work my way out of this serious many-years-long writer's block. Tell me I'm wrong, where I'm wrong, but I really do believe that portraying individuals is more important than portraying groups.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-06 02:59 am (UTC)From: (Anonymous)Your argument reminds me of a book published 100 years ago by W.E.B Dubois where he struggles with this exact questions. Do you know it?
no subject
Date: 2014-05-06 12:35 pm (UTC)From: