Lit Ignorance is Bias: The Diversity Manifesto

Yeah, that definitely isn't surprising at all. It was pretty transparent within the story.

 

It's pretty unnecessary, but this thread has shown that apparently you do need direct statements sometimes - as the fact that Johnston (whoops) was answering someone goes to show.

 

Yeah, it seemed totally clear to me but you're right. One person on Twitter has actually starting keeping a master list of confirmations that Aphra/Sabine are Asian, for example.

 

How is there any literal doubt that Aphra is asian-heritage/descendant (which is totally not a thing in Star Wars, but for the sake of identity, let's roll with it).

Sabine I could cut some slack due to her love of bronzer.


Sent from my Ornithopter using The Force

 

People thought Rue was white, what are ya gonna do?

 

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Oh. And stay far far away from tumbler/twitter/and anywhere else that nonsense is being propagandized.


Sent from my Ornithopter using The Force

 

In my experience Tumblr and Twitter are at least as useful for fighting it as for propagating it.

...which isn't to say they don't have issues of their own.

 

Ahsokaeden?

There are darker skinned East Asians. Also, the controversy is usually just that people want her to be white.

 

Ugh internet.

 

I guess my computer and tv might be off on color, but in the show Sabine looks light orange to me. And I have never seen anyone with a natural pigment of orange.

That's all I was saying.

And I guess I don't frequent enough internet dives, but there are people that argue for and want Sabine to be white? What purpose would that be for? I don't even think I want to travel down this road. People seem to suck.


Sent from my Ornithopter using The Force

 

It's more that people have a hard time imagining any character as not-white and will go through a lot of mental gymnastics to preserve the idea that that character is white. Remember when people thought Cho Chang from Harry Potter was white, and were mad they got an actor of Asian descent to play her in the film?

 

I... what?

 

No but I usually keep out of the parts of internet where flame wars are fought

 

I remember some of the pirates from the 3rd PoTC movie having a similar skin color. Might be a southern Chinese thing, might just be some combination of skin color, nutrition, and sun exposure. Doesn't strike me as too odd.

I like that she looks completely different from Jun Sato, even though he also strikes me as supposed to be of Asian descent

 

Cho Chang in HP is one thing, but giving SW characters names than code them as Asian has been an interesting recurring topic in this thread--on the one hand, if it helps get the idea across it can't be all bad, but it still feels sort of off that a guy in the GFFA who appears Japanese or Korean would just happen to be named Jun Sato. It's one thing that I think makes me like Sabine and Aphra more, even if it invites more confusion among people who, let's be honest, want very badly to be confused.

 

Well they're also used to the notion that if a character's race isn't explicitly signaled either by a name or by physical description, or by outright saying where she's from, that character is white. Whiteness is often unconsciously considered "neutral." And even then, if those signals are given, there's no guarantee a reader will pick up what's being put down.

Here's an article about Rue, for example.

Even in Star Wars visual media, the "controversy" crops up. It's silly, for example, in a series of movies in which we never see a stormtrooper with his helmet off, to say there can't be black stormtroopers, but that's just kind of a feeling people have. And as a defense - speaking of mental gymnastics - a lot of people were claiming that the stormtroopers in the prequels were clones, and so should all be white.

You know.

Like the clonetroopers.

 

Even in the face of text flat-out saying a character has dark skin.

 

*cough*Earthsea*cough*

 

Well they'll read that as "swarthy" white person, generally. The argument for casting a white woman as Katniss, despite the books' description, was that white people can often have darker skin, which is true, but it is not an argument that Katniss must be white. (And, also, it's moot, since they bronzed a fair skinned blonde woman and dyed her hair brown instead of casting someone with a darker complexion.)

I've told this story before, but I remember clinging to the description of Duncan Idaho in Dune as dark with short, curly hair, assuming it meant he was black and the book wasn't all white. Also that Dr. Yueh, because of his name I guess, appeared to be of Asian descent. Alas, none of the movies have shared my enthusiasm for this.

 

Well Katniss's descriptor was something like "olive" IIRC which is both more specific and more ambiguous than Rue's "dark", which is what I was thinking of. But yes, "swarthy" is right.

...there's a guy in Dune named Duncan Idaho?

 

Yes. Here is some fanart of him


from http://deimos-remus.deviantart.com/


from http://kharneth.deviantart.com/


from http://nicholaskay.deviantart.com/

 

I can't remember if I did this before (in regard to Dune), but I know I've done it since the first time you told that story.

 

My mental picture of Duncan has always been one of a darker complexion. Someone like:



And YEAH!! For DUNE discussions.

Sent from my Ornithopter using The Force