Lit Ignorance is Bias: The Diversity Manifesto

I don't know how any of this is toxic my guy im a tad confused?

Because it seems like a personal attack to imply one is a nazi even though you find them disagreeable I dont even know this person or the wookeepedia staff bro Im very out of the loop

 

How do people sense these kind of things? I mean, for me, when I first read the idea I was just "ah, okay, diversity" and I had to read the explanation to see how stupid it was. You all seem to be doing this naturally.

 

@Esg : It's my fault for jumbling my points together and not providing wider context to them. Vthuil's right; there is a notoriously toxic Wookieepedia administrator with whom I had the misfortune of editing alongside for a few years. I didn't mean that the "dark side" thing was a Republican talking point; those were two separate things that I could have done better to distinguish between. Regarding the Republican talking points: Wookieepedia's IRC chat, especially around the time of the 2012 US Presidential Election, was generally pretty awful.

Regarding the "dark side" discussion: it was something that took place in Wookieepedia's public Senate Hall thread and, thankfully, never gained any traction. To be fair, it was probably more The Old Republic fanwankery than anything else, but when you take together everything that these people said and did, you wouldn't be surprised if in 2020 they were... well, let's say, firmly planting their flags on the wrong side of history. I know it feels cheap that what I'm essentially saying is "Trust me, you had to be there," but a lot of the people on this forum are familiar with the toxic Wook administration, which is why I didn't give any wider context in my original post.

True, it was a little petty of me --- I had such a negative experience on the Wook that I can't resist taking potshots at its gatekeepers whenever the subject comes up --- but the reason I brought it up at all was to indicate that the Wook administration likely isn't one with whom the idea of celebrating Black History Month would go over very well.

I haven't been keeping up with the new canon --- are Del Rey and LFL doing any better at hiring people of colour to write SW books? I only know of Daniel José Older off the top of my head.

 

Part of it's background/educating oneself - but in this case it really doesn't seem like rocket science to me to realize that a Black History Month promotion should actually... involve black history. That's why I'm so mystified.

 

Yeah, putting black Dorothy/Alice/Juliet/Ahab on book covers just seems like they're saying "White history is so great! Now imagine if your history were just as great as ours." It isn't celebrating black history, or black people, at all.

 

Rebecca Roanhorse*, Zoraida Cordova, Justina Ireland, Ken Liu.

*Roanhorse is Native American, some of whom don't like being called people of color (see this link for instance)

 

Also, like, talking to actual black people about it would have helped. Presumably there was someone within B&N in the loop at some point but if your career is dependent upon agreeing with the big new idea you might not be in the best position to point out when it's stupid.

 

Well here's some interesting reading: He Was 'Star Wars' ' Secret Weapon, So Why Was He Forgotten?

"He was way ahead of his time, and unfortunately that time hasn't come yet."

 

I've come to the conclusion that Kidd Kareen from the comic The Clone Wars: Crash Course is trans. Cis male Twi'leks have humanoid ears, not cones.

 

Yendor has ear cones? I just reread the Lost Stars manga a few weeks ago and don't remember seeing that. Besides, who's to say they're not all trans?

 

I made a whole thread about it, but a Star War could potentially have a black director. Rick Famuyiwa has directed episodes of The Mandalorian, but if this is a movie that ends up playing out, it would be a first for a movie, and it would be a huge deal. Nothing else to report except, uh, stay tuned.

 

Probably, but it's also pretty harmless and makes a lot of sense.

 

Twi'lek morphology is really all over the place. Orn Free Taa, people. Still convinced he was not originally intended to be a Twi'lek at all, but I've been down that road too many times here.

 

Keeping an eye on Disney+, which will be the home of a lot of SW content for the foreseeable future:

Love, Simon TV adaptation Love, Victor moves from Disney+ to Hulu:

"Sources confirm to EW that the show’s depiction of alcohol use, sexual exploration, and marital issues among parents was the main concern for the family-focused Disney+ service, and that Love, Victor would be a better fit on the more mature, Disney-controlled Hulu, alongside other coming-of-age Hulu original series like Looking for Alaska and PEN15."

More:

Love, Simon Author Asks Fans to Give Disney the Benefit of the Doubt After Hulu Switch

"“There’s been speculation as for the cause of the platform switch. For what it’s worth, it’s not based on the show featuring a gay teen love story. Disney knew what it was when they got it. There are mature themes such as teen drinking, etc. that led to the switch,” Becky Albertalli wrote on Twitter late Monday amid a growing discourse. “That said, I completely get why many of us are wary of phrases like ‘mature content’ and ‘adult themes.’ They’re so often used as homophobic dog whistles, and these concerns are so valid. But in this case, I do hope you’ll give Disney the benefit of the doubt.”

“With Hulu now an integral part of our streaming family, our teams are closely collaborating and we have the unique ability to choose the best home for our original productions,” Ricky Strauss, president, Disney+ Content and Marketing, said in a statement. “All of us at Disney+ are incredibly proud of Love, Victor and know the series will be a perfect addition to Hulu’s strong slate of young adult programming.”

“From what I understand, this is all coded language saying that the Love, Simon series is too gay Disney+ and they don’t want to expose children to gay narratives. I guess they’ll just have to watch classic Disney animated features with villains who are all gay icons,” wrote an editor for Hollywood trade Deadline on their personal Twitter account. ... But the themes of Love, Victor are not necessarily unique to what Disney+ already has in its archives. All the episodes of Andi Mack, which prominently features a gay character, are available to stream on the platform."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

tl;dr: A show about a gay male teenager switches from Disney+ to Hulu; critics believe that Disney+ doesn't consider a gay teen family-friendly but the company and the author of the original book claim otherwise.

I don't know if this is necessarily a story --- the author's reassurances do count for something, after all --- but regardless I do think it's interesting to keep a continuing eye on Disney+ and what they consider "mature" vs. "family-friendly," especially when we all want to see concrete same-sex relationships on SW screens.

Disney+ is a little weird in what they do and don't include in their library. Song of the South is out, which is a good thing, but White Wilderness, a faux-documentary that legitimately mass-murdered a group of lemmings in order to perpetuate a myth of mass suicide, is apparently fair game. Birth. Movies. Death did an interesting piece contrasting those two films back in October:

"Set in the wake of the Civil War, (Song of the South) is an adaptation of several 'Uncle Remus' stories, and sees white boy Johnny visiting his grandmother’s idyllic plantation to be entertained by Remus (James Baskett) with a variety of tall tales. It’s chock full of African-American stereotypes, and looks so generically fondly upon the postbellum plantation lifestyle that it's easy to conflate it with the antebellum plantation lifestyle.

It’s so notorious that Whoopi Goldberg has called for its re-release specifically to draw attention to the racist past (and frankly, present) of mainstream America. ... though Whoopi Goldberg is right that it should be taught in context, Disney+ is not the place to do that. Lumping it in with legitimately beloved favourites without any sort of framing would be irresponsible, and would only perpetuate the stereotypes it contains - not to mention that the the film’s inclusion on a for-profit platform would be pretty gross."

 

(previously authored Last Shot and a FACPOV short story)

 

Marvel s Voices by LucianoVecchio

"ASSEMBLE!

This one page story I wrote and drew is part of the Marvel’s Voices special, published by Marvel Comics last week and focusing on diverse authors.
As a queer southamerican artist, this is super special for me. I was invited just as artist, but I ended up pitching and writing my own story, the one I needed to read.
For the first time ever the LGBT+ superheroes gather to celebrate themselves, honor the history of our fight and make a metatextual statement. We’re here in and out of the page.
(I might write a panel by panel commentary with all the details and narrative decitions I made)

********

Esta historia de una página escrita y dibujada por mi es parte del especial Marvel’s Voices que publicó Marvel Comics la semana pasada, poniendo en foco a autores diverses.
Para mi, como artista marika y sudaca es algo mega especial. Me invitaron a participar como dibujante y terminé proponiendo también escribir mi propia historia, la que yo necesitaba leer.
Por primera vez lxs superhéroes LGBT+ se reúnen para celebrarse en comunidad, homenajear la historia de nuestras luchas y hacer un statement metatextual. Acá estamos, adentro y afuera de la página.
(Capaz en algun momento escriba un comentario cuadro a cuadro detallando todo)"

 

Other then the above, are there any canon trans characters in SW?

 

There are no outright openly trans characters in Star Wars who say “I am trans!” There are two characters in Legends I would consider trans, though. One is Zam Wesell. It is strongly implied her Clawdite form is male, but she chooses to present as female, even when she’s not on a job. The other is Jiliac, Jabba’s aunt. Hutts are hermaphroditic; their gender is entirely performative. Even so, Jiliac chooses to start presenting as female when she has a baby.

Other characters that fall under the not-cis umbrella (and are capital-C Canon) are Taka from Last Shot, who is nonbinary, and Eleodie from the Aftermath books, who I would describe as something like genderqueer or pangender and uses he, she, and zhe pronouns.



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The unnamed Black Sun operative in Ahsoka too.

 

I have a hunch Din Djarin is going to end up being queer.

 

Is the Black Sun agent non-cis? My reading of it was that the Black Sun agent was just extremely disguised so their gender was unknown.


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I wasn't sure myself at first but Johnston confirmed on Twitter at some point that that was the intention--unlike Taka, they just didn't stick around long enough for it to be super obvious.

 

@Gamiel Is this your doing?