"Now, being a predominantly fantasy writer, I don’t often deal with race (as we know it, I mean) in my writing."
Ummmmm.
Um?
Are there any other fantasy writers out there who consciously write work that they believe "doesn't deal" with race? For serious?
I mean, SERIOUSLY?
Thursday, August 09, 2007
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5 comments so far. What are your thoughts?
Race is a cultural construct, not a set of physical characteristics. Seriously, not everyone gets that.
Whaa?
Just because the races of your world don't map exactly over the races of this one doesn't mean they don't exist.
If they really don't exist, that's one heck of a shallow world. Like the fantasy worlds with no theocracy, and yet miraculously, only one religion with no significant theological disputes or heresies.
And just because race isn't culturally constructed the same way in your fantasy world as it is here -- hell, it's not culturally constructed the same way in Brazil as it is here -- doesn't mean that your world gets to be magically free of any kind of problems of cultural or ethnic difference, or that it can't shed any light on any real-world analogues of those problems. Gah!
I think I'm just tickled pink at the idea that writing about elves and dwarves means *not* writing about race.
I'm sorry, but a world full of culturally monolithic white human beings is *still* making a statement about race, and what sorts of people we view as human.
And David - yes, I just loooove the assumption that as writers, we're writing totally *outside* of our existing cultures. We're not writing in response to, against, or in tandem with, our culture.
We're writing *fantasy,* and *fantasy* *has nothing to do with this world at ALL.*
Plus, there are only two culturally constructed races in the world: black and white. Didn't you get that memo? The English and Irish get along swimmingly, and pass laws in South Africa were very easy to maintain.
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