#I can’t have many deep conversations with these people about queer stuff bc its just. a shallow joke to them

[falst]

God I really am tired of my queerness being treated as a shallow #quirky thing around my irl friends all the time. It’s so fucking tiring oh my god

[dictacontrion]

Dicta, I saw your great reblog about racism in fandom. I have a question that applies to white fic writers. There's this problem of white fans ignoring POC characters and failing to have good representation. At the same time, there's this issue of white people totally sucking when they try to do it. Saw a post recently like: "Non-Muslim people considering writing a Muslim character--just don't. Don't." Do you have any thoughts about dealing with this? Much love!

So many thoughts, anon. I’ve got a related ask that’s been hanging out a while and I’ve been waiting until I have enough time to sit down and properly answer, so I’ll have more and maybe more settled thoughts when I have a chance, hopefully soon. For now, these are sort of preliminary thoughts. Feedback is welcomed and valued and appreciated!

tl;dr: I think both of those arguments are right and it’s hard.

To be really candid, as a white fic writer, writing non-white characters makes me nervous, specifically because I really, really don’t want to fuck it up. But I don’t think my nervousness is an adequate end to the conversation; the experience of nervousness is nothing on the experience of constant erasure that I’ve experienced as a queer person within mainstream media, and I imagine that it’s nothing to the erasure that poc experience in fandom. So I think white people need to suck that one up, that  focusing on our nervousness as its own thing is not reason enough to stick with white guy slash.

The part abut there being real potential to fuck it up in harmful ways is the part we can’t gloss over, and I do think that’s worth being nervous about - but that nervousness needs to generate thoughtfulness and caution rather than inaction. There are two (and a half?) main questions I’ve had in my head about this. And again, I’m really open to pushback on all of this.

1) How useful is it to distinguish between writing about vs writing as? I’ve seen this distinction made elsewhere/seen it go around as a farely common piece of advice, between writing about marginalized characters but not pretending to write as a marginalized person - so, for instance, don’t write as a Muslim character, but do include well-researched and thoroughly considered Muslim characters in your story. That way you’re including marginalized characters without claiming that you know what it’s like to be marginalized. That’s something that makes me, like, hum consideringly in a not-bad way. But the research part feels really key. It’s not enough, imo, to write a character and then add a line about the color of their skin and call it a day. If your white POV character is dating or close friends with or in a close working relationship with a person of a different race, and especially if it’s their first time dealing with institutional racism in such an immediate and emotionally invested way, they’re going to need to deal with that. Even if it’s not the first time, that stuff is going to need to be in there if you want to avoid erasure. So if you’re going to write that you need to go read (and then give credit, in your author’s notes, to!) accounts of people who have lived with those experiences and who can point out dynamics you might not be aware of. For instance, someone sent me this article recently, about two friends trying to plan a vacation and the black woman having all her attempts to make an airbnb reservation declined, and then the white man getting his reservation accepted on the first try, and how that changed their dynamic and their trip. (See also: the classic on this.) So, say you’re writing a buddy cop au with a mixed race couple in a forced proximity/maybe bedsharing situation, how is your characters’ race (and location, and time period, and gender, etc.) going to change the process of getting that room? More generally, we need to not just say “this is Joe and by the way he’s [insert characteristic here]” - we need to consider how that would change their lives and where that would show up in our stories.

2) Does the way white fic writers approach writing characters of other races make a difference? I sometimes see people talking about writing diverse stories like it’s one of those tasks you do because you know you should, but you don’t really want to, and it sort of feels like a drag, and I can’t imagine that doesn’t come through? I mean, maybe not? But it definitely informs the sentiment around them and contributes to, I think, this sense that stories about people of color are somehow created with less joy and enthusiasm? And to be embarrassingly honest, there are times when it’s come really easily and felt really natural and obvious to me to have Kingsley or Lee in a certain role, and times (none of which have seen the light of ao3) when it’s felt forced, and then stilted as a result, when I’m doing it because I feel like I should. Otoh, I really really want to write fic for Moonlight. I had that instant fannish reaction when I saw it, like five story prompts in my head before we were out of the theatre, was on AO3 looking for fic in the car home, feel a deep soul-level need for 20k about the evolution of Kevin’s relationship with his hands, and another at least 10k about the last things Juan thought, and several dozen different stories that retell everything from Teresa’s point of view, and maybe a 70k slow burn bookmarked by Chiron’s reflections on the different ways Kevin touches him and the space in between the thing in the schoolyard and the thing in the apartment (I’m trying to be vague bc spoilers but thinking about it gives me serious feels). I don’t think that enthusiasm is enough on its own; does it make a different at all? I think it might - I think when they’re characters we love fannishly and want to understand, more people might be willing to do the research and put in the work to really understand what their lives are like, and that that could be a moment when fandom is pretty powerful.

2.5) So one thing we as white writers have to do, as this post from earlier said, is to “put in the effort to fall in love with POC characters.” That doesn’t mean forcing it, that doesn’t mean doing it with a sense of dread, but it does mean actively seeking out media that includes POC characters and it does mean thinking about and embracing them. This is partly an issue with canon creators, who often don’t give us much to work with, but that’s less and less true. There is stuff out there if we go look for it, and there are characters who will grab us by the heart if we give them the chance. If we have to go looking for that, that’s work we should be willing to do.

The common denominator here seems to be doing your research? That no matter what, that’s really really important. I think that’s a good takeaway. And the rest I float as thoughts more than suggestions because I think as a white person my perspective here is necessarily limited. Also this is a hard question! So again, thoughts and responses are welcome!