My Response to the Racism Ruckus

Your family's ethnic background is Cuban, no? You paint characters of different colors and shapes. You write about characters of different colors and shapes. You've touched on some very interesting issues of interspecies dynamics in your fiction and nonfiction. I think it's the immigrant background that lends depth and color to your Alliance setting, and the Tsipia-aliens, and even the Jokka.

I drew from African-American, Asian, Native American, and Chicana cultures in assembling my list. Oh, and one of the artists is aboriginal Australian. I didn't go crazy trying to cover the whole globe, just get a good sampling. Those are the underlying parameters for the list.

If you don't identify as a person of color and want off, I can edit the list. But you fit my parameters, and I'm unlikely to be terribly impressed by the opinions of people who don't think you "count" as a person of color. Humanity is a many-splendored species, not a monochrome.

I don't care if everyone agrees, or not; that's up to them. My first rule is that people have a right to define themselves -- you can add or subtract yourself from a list of mine -- and after that, it's my list so I get to set the parameters. People with different parameters can make their own lists.

I've been making recommended reading lists for my convention panels and writing workshops since WorldCon 2000. They are popular and convenient.

*proffer hugs*

I'm glad it's been useful. I hope it doesn't cause personal awkwardness, or at least, that the benefits outweigh the emotional cost.

One possible way of increasing the benefit: I bet this would yield some fascinating early Alliance fiction, from the time when the refugees were trying to sort themselves into groups and fix all the genetic damage. Some races, like the Glaseahn, seem to have been created as such; others seem to have diverged from something like a common pool of similar but not identically styled individuals. How did they decide who belonged together? By appearance? By DNA? By cultural affinity? Some other method? What choices of the ancestors laid the groundwork for the Hinichi, the Tam'illee, the Harat'Shar, the Karaka'An, the Seersa? I've only seen glimpses of Holly's time, but ... it really sticks in my mind. There are deep truths in there, like rocks under river water.

You can skip this if I'm getting into territory that's too personal, but I'm intrigued by the line of reasoning.

>>Yes, my parents are Cuban. But I was always given the impression that because I could pass for white, I am white.<<

This raises the question of whether "race" (a largely human-invented concept, not always backed by DNA) is based more on observable skin tone and hair/eye color, or more on genetic family relation and national origin. I tend to favor the latter, because the former leads to ridiculous headlines like "Twins born, one black and one white!"

What about situations where Person A is okay with Person B, then A finds out that B is of African rather than Italian descent, and A starts treating B differently? Often, passing only counts as long as the ethnicity remains completely obscured; once revealed, the race marker tends to take effect on human interactions. This is more prominent in some regions (and perhaps socioeconomic classes) than others. A particularly ugly situation occurs when neither group will accept an individual: too dark for one club, and not dark enough for the other. This aspect appeared during the presidential race with the whole "not black enough" circus.

>>But I have never felt that this is a legitimate observation because my skin is pale.<<

Well, the Hispanic gene pool is interesting. Spain has a range of skin tones from very fair to rather dark, and they can switch around pretty freely -- especially when mixed with other genetics. So Spaniards came to the New World and procreated with Africans, Native Americans (of assorted tribes and shades), and Europeans. Each flavor of Hispanic thus came out a little different: they're all related, but like branches of a family tree. And in some countries that's a great big deal, in others not so much; it varies whether they hate people who look too black or too Indian or too ... I forget all the variations. We had a list of some examples in Chicana Literature class, mapped out by country.

So then ... do you feel that your skin tone has had an impact on your life experiences, or not? That's an intriguing area to explore, if the cultural background has had more impact than the appearance.

>>Appearance? Never seems to matter. When I look in the mirror, I can tell I look Cuban, but that's because I have seen a lot of Cubans in my life, and there's a... facial structure/eye/nose/etc thing that I can see.<<

That is interesting!

>>But Cubans are a minority in the Hispanic community (you want to get into that discrimination? I don't hear it talked about at all :P ), so most people don't recognize them.<<

If you have the time and inclination, I'd be intrigued by this. I know that "Hispanic" is a catchall for many somewhat-related-but-really-not-the-same ethnic groups, and that some of them are edgy with each other; but I don't have a whole lot of details. Most of my exposure was either the Chicana Lit class in college, or where my Native American studies bump up against some Hispanic groups freaking out over "Indios" blood (a legacy of Spanish invaders taking over the natives, and creating a system similar to the slave plantations of the American south).

>>Maybe this means that (as far as most People of Color are concerned) my experiences are too different to be called racism. <<

That's a very astute observation, and may be true. It would be interesting to do a study with a really huge number of people from different ethnic groups, and try to compare how experiences match with background vs. visible appearance.