Are there any black racists in the SW universe?

It'd depend on how insular the populations are; in the cosmopolitan Core, at least, I'd expect some degree of homogenity.

But yeah, I hadn't considered how old most Human-colonized worlds are; there'd be ample time for the environment and/or genetic drift to bring out distinct ethnic characteristics if a population was isolated for long enough.

So, eh, forget what I said.

 

Not to mention that on most worlds, people are just breeding with other people from the same world, perpetuating phenotypes.

 

There was one book written by Matt Stover called Shatterpoint, maybe you've heard of it, that really brought the ideas of race in Star Wars to the forefront to me. From what I understood, the Koruns on the whole are all black people, even Chalk was what I'd call a redbone, a lightskinned black woman with reddish hair. It was all Fear of a Black Planet like, but I never got a sense that Stover had any racist ideas when writing the book, I felt he handled it all very well. It was Hearts of Darkness with the vietnamese/cambodian role taken by the all black Korunnai tribal warfare antagonists, & the US Armed forced represented by the Balawai, who in my mind were the white power structure. Of course I could be wrong & I just saw what I wanted to see between the pages of that book, but it is one of my most favorite books of all time & it's universal appeal just further proves that Matt Stover knew what he was doing.

 

While not black, Grand Admiral Grant is what we here on Earth would see as being of Asian descent, and he was definitely a humanocentrist.

 

I strongly dislike the word black. It's outright racist. You don't call someone, the blacks. I mean, just listen how that sounds.

I was appalled when I saw the Streetfighter arcade intro at the time: white man punches down black man. Seriously. C'mon.

I think "african-american" is not a strickly correct way of saying someone. Mara's daughter, I don't think you should have any way of describing a "black" man. For in doing so, that in itself is a divisive thing. It's not like you specifically say white people, no you don't.

Further more, I dislike seeing dark skinned people in books described in as dark skinned.

To his credit, Stevev Erikson has many females and dark skinned denizens in his Malazan books. Unfortunately, he like everyone else (but me!) still describes them as dark skinned quite blatantly. It's an author's blindspot. They just don't realise it.

"Racism" has been explored in star wars. It's called the Imperial Doctrine. It's called The Corellian Trilogy. But in sw, it's called specie-ism, however you spell that.

 

I saw this posted on another board once:

The moment you make the distinction between races is the moment where you yourself become racist. There is no black race, white race, Asian race, Hispanic race or whatever. There is only the human race. We are all the same. Any attempt to see humans as anything other than just plain humans only serves to divide everyone.

 

Well said.

 

Uhm...if you can't describe those with a darker skin tone as "dark skinned"...what do you describe them as? "Brown skinned" hardly sounds any less "bad." Or do you believe that no description should be provided and the reader should simply draw their own conclusions? That becomes a problem if the character ever crosses over into another more visual media.

Where's the line between painting (so to speak) an accurate picture of a character and being politically correct about it? There's got to be some middle ground there somewhere, doesn't there?

 

I forget which book it was recently, I actually think it may have been somewhere in Shadows of Mindor, but the way the term is sometimes needlessly shoved in without purpose somewhat irks me at times. Where I dislike it is when it jumps out at you and seems to want to scream attention to itself. If every other character is just introduced, but suddenly a particular one is described as dark skinned... yeah, that feels jarring. "In the room was Joe, Jim, Jack who was dark skinned, and Jane." That's wrong, as it predisposes a white stereotype, with black as the exception.

I suppose I can possibly see what they're trying to achieve, as there is a habit to just assume everyone in Star Wars is white, so perhaps the idea in whichever book it was may have been to break the stereotype and try to introduce more black characters... but it still irked me though, as it seemed thoroughly unnecessary to make a big deal about it.

What I feel would be better is if the artists were just more creative when it comes to illustrating characters, not making every EU character fit into a cliché white Caucasian stereotype. It shouldn't be a case of "All EU characters are white unless the book said different". Does Cal Omas have to be white just because we've never been told he's not? (At least I assume we haven't, either way, erase Omas and insert any other character who we've never been given a picture of.) I can't say I see much chance of an artist depicting him as not being white though, sadly, which says a lot about the EU really, as it's not like the names "Cal" or "Omas" give any indication of what kind of background he may have come from. We just know he was from Alderaan, people of which tend always to be white.

That said, where it is relevant to a character description, sometimes you just can't get around it when you're not in a real world universe where you can use a phrase like African-American, or what have you. So, in particular circumstances I can't say I think discussing skin colour should be a complete taboo: it just shouldn't normally be important. As far as Star Wars goes, the context is just part of the description, be it skin, hair, eyes, fish tails, thorax, exoskeleton... it's only there to conjure an image, not to reflect a stereotype, so I don't particularly consider describing a character's skin as racist per se, except where authors do so in a manner that implies black as the exception.

Though, perhaps this itself is a cultural thing, since in the UK the term black isn't seen as inherently racist, it depends on the context, so seeing a black character (or a white character for the matter) described as black doesn't particularly bother me unless it's being done in an overtly negative or discriminatory sense like discussed. I disagree with being afraid in any circumstance to describe a character though, as that's what puts skin on a pedestal and helps racists turn it into something its not. It's jarring to mention it when it isn't important, but I feel it's equally wrong to be afraid of it.

 

Well said.

 

Something that's always bugged me has been the classification of near-humans as, well, "near-humans". If they have some really divergent traits from baseline humanity I can understand, but with a group like the Wroonians/Pantorans it seems that they're aliens just because their skin is blue. Aren't they really just another ethnic division of humans then?

 

Well, potentially there are differences in internal anatomy or other things that further differentiate them from baseline humans.

 

For god's sake, are we really doing this here?

 

Yeah, I'm more or less in agreement there.

Why are you trying to make a mountain out of this molehill?

 

It's okay to call me a "black man", I take pride in the word cause it's real. It's safe, it's easy to say & it cuts right through the BS. I can see how it makes some people feel uncomfortable, but like one funny British comedian said, "You people (Americans) are going to far with this political correctness."

To me, it's enough to just not be racists towards us. Try to treat us like how you want to be treated & we'll try to do the same. Pride in your own cultural identity does not always equate to racism towards others, but it's a touchy subject & not everyone sees it the same way. Still, stepping in to take offense for someone that doesn't seem to be offended....you should really get to know the person 1st before trying that one.

In Shatterpoint, I felt that Mace Windu for a time, in the context that he hated the conditions & the way that his people were treated & thus hated coming back home to see that nothing had changed on Haruun Kal, when he had to beat those guy asses while he was naked in the shower, he let a spark of racism feed into his aggression. It was just one of the roads he took into the "Hearts of Darkness" & in the end Mace had seen the errors of his ways, falling back into the Jedi way & saving the day for Balawai, Korun & Clonetroopers alike in the end. This subject was brought up at a SW thingy I was at at Dragoncon, Matt Stover didn't deny it, but he made us understand why he wrote out the scene that way & it's just another credits to the brilliance of the man.

 

That would be awesome. If we got a picture of Cal Omas... and the dude was a brotha.

Random thought... would it not make more sense if Moisture Farming families who have lived on Tatooine, with its twin suns, for thousands of years, to be... well, of darker complexion than the Lars's?

Edit: I know that we don't have confirmation of how long the Lars's have lived on Tatooine, but still, something to think about. Also, Luke was pretty pasty despite living there for nineteen years. He must have hung out in the shade a lot.

 

I think what we're really doing is having a covert conversation about how there aren't enough minorities in Star Wars and secondly, the role of real racism versus fantastic racism.

I like that the conversation is non-toxic and friendly.

I recall there was a fun moment in The Cestus Deception where Jangotat reveals that Jango's ex-girlfriend was black.

 

Apparently he's the only one on Tatooine that thinks to use Sunblock. Well, him and maybe Biggs.

What's scary is what 19 years on Tatooine between RotS and ANH does to Owen, Beru, and Obi-Wan.....

 

See, that is what would craze me about the books. That's why I used to refer to Lando as the "brown standard" because I don't know how many times another (though rare) character was described as "darker than Lando" or "not as dark as Lando". That says more about the author than the humans in the galaxy and I rather resent that. Tons of synonyms for brown, folks. Grab a thesaurus and use one. But the projection of some Earth-based sensibilities (ESPECIALLY surrounding human skin color) onto a galaxy far, far away irks me.

The reason "dark" is a horrible descriptor is because it is relative. Darker than who, exactly? Brown is brown. We all know shades of brown. No one is going to mistake ivory for, oh, mahogany. Or cream for mocha (mmm...creamy mocha...). The word "dark" especially when applied to skin tone, has a very othering/exoticising effect. It is much more specific than dark. Add to that the word dark is loaded with negative connotations, in the SW reality and in ours.

And for what it's worth, "pale" is just as relative. I've been called pale even though I'm light-brown.

 

No, there is a habit of assuming that any character with an Anglo name (or in the case of scifi, indeterminate name) is white unless otherwise indicated, or unless a precedent has been set up (for example, after a little while the skin tone of the characters in Shatterpoint didn't need to be mentioned). It's not the author's fault, it's not the character's fault, it's a consequence of the culture. As a brown person myself, I've never had a real problem with pointing out a characters' appearance.

 

I personally don't agree with Daala, given there's honestly something to be said about the fact that pasty white skinned folk are pasty white skinned folk. However, I think there's an interesting note about names really. You have names like Luke Skywalker but what is the ethnic origin for Jax Pavan?

You don't ever see something like Imperial Captain Hideoyoshi.

 

Well that's precisely the thing (I mentioned scifi weird names). I think, for the most part, if we don't know what to expect, we assume white.

Most words for brown come from comparing it to real-world things, and Star Wars authors don't do that.

I'm not certain any sensibilities really come with it...

It does have those connotations, sure, but if someone has darker skin, that's just the truth of it. If a room is dark, it doesn't mean it's evil. There's nothing nefarious about blackened toast. Whether we're talking about a Chagrian that's royal blue and a Chagrian that's robin's egg blue, one's still darker than the other.

Because you're dealing with an internal ethnic standard. I'm light-skinned by most latino standards, but darker than all my white friends.

 

On the whole I'd agree with that. In the end, most Star Wars books are written from a quasi-real life perspective, with things (intentionally or not) compared to real life. I wouldn't say "dark" is necessarily a derogatory statement, just that it can (key word, not saying it always is, blackened toast is blackened toast) be a sign of weak writing where a stronger word would provide a clearer description. That though is a general point that applies to any writing: use a weak word and the writing will feel somewhat deflated, use a clear, strong word and it will give it more weight. "He was unhappy/He was disgusted" etc.

Which is not to say I necessarily disagree that "dark" is not always the right word. Sometimes dark can be largely meaningless. If I'd never seen a Twi'lek before, to say it was a "dark skinned Twi'lek" wouldn't tell me much. To say the "Twi'lek was midnight blue" would be a more powerful image. That said, I'm generally rather nonplussed when things are compared to real life, as admittedly I think taken to the nth degree the books might feel a bit too much like they were spoon feeding us the obvious.

After all, strictly speaking the same sort of problem is true of say height. "Jaina was short" tells us nothing from a "truly" in-universe perspective, as there is way more diversity than there is in real life when it comes to height. I can't say things like that bother me though, as I'm content to analogise it with real life sense of what's tall.

That said, I did enjoy Stover's plethora of in-universe similes in Mindor. Comical though they were, there was something uniquely satisfying about them. Although, if every book did it part of me says it perhaps might get a bit droll after a while.