Lit Ignorance is Bias: The Diversity Manifesto

Did you say something...?

 

Its too early for otter love...please...no.

 

In all seriousness, I'm feeling particularly punchy after the cluster**** the ST thread turned into, so let's keep things relatively mature in here for the time being.

Facebook or Twitter are your best bets, but there's no real guarantee he'll respond anywhere.

 

Hi all. Long time lurker, really agree with the premise of this thread.

Just a quick note saying how refreshing it was to see the recent TCW arc have a really diverse cast of younglings (even if the only white human male ended up as a de facto leader despite being Rosh Penin's grandfather*). Just goes to show that it really isn't a stretch to showcase a diverse range of species, and that in a universe like Star Wars it doesn't require explanation.
Here's to hoping the new films don't fall into the trap of stocking the next generation of Jedi with humans, SkySolos or otherwise.

*Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

 

Yeah, we were talking recently about how some of the most diverse groups of characters are the ones that get introduced from whole cloth all at once - the Uhumele's another great example. And even better, the human kid in TCW doesn't even seem all that white!

 

"Hey, kids, here's a new cast of younglings that are actually diverse for a change!"
*kid then watches ROTS where all the younglings die*
"Hahaha! You didn't think we'd keep your diverse friends for long, did you!"
*kid cries*

 

Are we sure he is white, I don't know seems Arab to me, Personally.

 

Not really. White in the American Sense is having European Ancestry. Anything else is not. White People don't get disproportionately stopped and searched and the airport. Arabs do.

 

Which is the sense most relevant to everyday life. The census is quite frankly irrelevant. It has no affect on institutionalized and everyday racism. I hate the system quite frankly and it needs to be changed but that is the way it works. I mean you don't really think that most Americans consider Arabs to be white do you?

 

To be fair to Skaddix there, rightly or wrongly, was nearly an "Arab" category in the 2011 census in the UK.

 

Again the government can pretend that is the way it works all they want but everyone knows that Arabs don't really get the benefits of white privilege the way Europeans do. Especially since 9/11.

 

Actually, the irony there is that it was an Arab lobby group that wanted the category added. The government were the ones who ended up not doing it and telling them to tick the White box.

 

Interesting Does Britain have an Other Box?

 

What was that? An "Otter" box?

 

There's a "write your own" option, yeah.

 

Legally, Indians (from the subcontinent of India) are Caucasian but not white. Why should it be any different for Arabs?

 

Well obviously but then again that is kinda the whole point of the system as the Europeans devised it back around half a millennium ago. Although the most useful benefits still go to the rich upper class because a divide and conquer strategy works wonders for their bottom line. So the more things change the more they stay the same.

 

Interesting. Although I think it would depend based on the ethnic group.

 

India is culturally not stereotypically Asian and not stereotypically Middle Eastern. But Pakistan used to be part of India, so this shows that India is similar to other Arab countries. If Indians are legally not white, Arabs probably shouldn't be, either.

 

It depends in America true we usually mean Southeast Asian (China, Japan, Korea, etc) but I thought in Britain using Asian colloquially tends to refer to South Asian (India, Pakistan, etc).

 

Well, the 2011 census was about obtaining a picture of society's attitudes to ethnicity, rather than assigning any legally binding categories, so I suspect if enough Arabs picked Other and filled it in, they'll probably add a category next time.

Likewise, I think there was a lot of uncertainty whether someone born in England of Indian descent would tick Indian Asian, White, or White and Asian, so the census was more about finding out what current attitudes are.

 

Zorrixor what really confuses me is why an Indian would think they were white in the first place. Japanese or Indonesian people don't call themselves white. There isn't shared culture between India and Europe and people do not look remotely alike. These areas are very far apart, too.