Lit Ignorance is Bias: The Diversity Manifesto

they need someone for the job of question taking alone.. Chee is busy, as are all others of them. Only ones listening really are authors who talk a lot with fans. Rather approach them and ignore editors and these folks. authors can do way more there in personal talk remembering your wishes if they like them too. thousands vague hints at a character being more diverse are better than one definite try by them.. like.. this one:

one of these days I wonder if they will give us more diversity... then I dread the day they try by creating a character that is of dark skin, red hair, has asian eyes and is gay. to boot, never shows his look because he is hidden under a Mandalorian gender neutral helmet and armor.. as is his pal, a 200 years older Wookiee albino with as per TCW one human parent.

 

Yeah coop, I would link Heddle to the thread you started just in case.

 

I mentioned something along these lines on the temp boards. I am tired of all aliens looking identical to their movie counterparts. All Mon Cals look like Ackbar, all Sullustans like Nein Nuub, etc. I want variety in alien faces, both in terms of facial features, coloration, and the everything else. Like was mentioned a few pages back, let's see Admiral Ragab, a silver Mon Calamarian. It is possible to make aliens have diverse and unique features. Omar Francia and Dustin Weaver are kings of this, IMO.

--Adm. Nick

 

I like how TOR or Galaxies had different looks and facial features for aliens... or skintones and all that. someone needs to compile all possible options or variations and upload images of them here. so far only saw youtube vids of those and tested TOR myself.

 

She told me to in the first place, and indeed I did; even before I mentioned it here, in fact.

I still believe she'll chime in eventually, but if I'm wrong, it wouldn't be the first time.

 

yeah aliens all looking exactly the same is annoying.

 

Reading the preview of the Essential Reader's Guide on DelRey's website. The first page with character artwork is page 12 and it's six portraits of human characters ...all of white characters as far as I can tell from the small image. (Even amount of men and women, though.) Now I want to get the book and wait and see how long it takes before a human character of color shows up in a graphic. Anyone have any guesses?

 

I'm going to guess prequel era, at the earliest.

 

Hmm... possibly earlier if the Lost Tribe section has a Seelah image and not just the one of Korsin?

 

Wasn't there a black Jedi in TotJ?

 

Dace Diath

 

Like Jolee Bindo though, both of them aren't likely to get featured due to them not coming from prose sources.

 

Jolee Bindo.. I so love that guy. his humor and philosophy were cool.

but talking TOR and KOTOR... what canon skincolor will be chosen for the player character classes I wonder. or what species.. all human would be epic fail. I want Chiss Imp Agent for sure as canon, female version. Also given their preview art from before the game launch.. are we to assume the shown genders/skincolors/species are the canon choice? If so Smuggler is female human?

 

Well, there's also that WHM smuggler from the cinematic trailer... was he ever named?

 

Nico Okarr, a backstory character.

 

if backstory character, it is not same as player character, like Satele is no Jedi Knight but the Grandmaster

 

The Expanded Universe would benefit from more Nicos, Nicks, and Nicts. Nek is an acceptable substitute as well.

--Adm. Nick

 

so long they are no Admirals I'd be fine with that

 

When will they add the "dislike" button?

--Adm. Nick

 

I think you guys are onto something though, in terms of how to describe characters of color in Star Wars. I know earlier in this thread and the previous one we said, how do we point out to people that a character is Latino or Asian in written prose? Well, one way to do it may be simply to give a character a "real-life" last name or first name that can cue the reader in the the character may be a person of color. I know a lot of names in Star Wars are "made up" like Skywalker or Lando, but there are also a number of characters with Earth last names that correspond to anglicized, English last names like Luke or Nick. So why not have a character named, say, Nick Singh? Or Korvu Rodriguez?

 

I wouldn't object to that personally, but even that could be offensive to some people.

"Why's the black lady got to be called 'M'Buele'??"

 

Yeah, I'd object to that. Strenuously. We can't take the time to visually depict or describe people of other races accurately or non-offensively, so we'll just give them their stereotypical names from Earth!

 

That's actually why I've never been a fan of "Luke" and "Ben" as names. For WHMs, the names are, well, typical WHM.

I always preferred Han and Leia's names as they felt more 'sci-fiy' rather than just your average American guy in space.

 

I like seeing Earth names peppered into the GFFA, precisely because they don't have to be tied to any particular type of character. I want to see more humans with crazy names and aliens named Charles or Thomas.

 

Thomas Ackbar sold used aquaspeeders in Coral City.

--Adm. Nick