rakshaasa:

This post is for white women that really need a wake up call; it could be better worded but I don’t have time to sit down and write it properly right now- but I also don’t want to not say it:

Writing characters of color cannot come from any place other than one of genuine compassion, understanding, and respect. You need to care about, empathize with, and respect our experiences, our stories, our culture, our beliefs, and most importantly, /us/. It’s not enough to slap a few coats of brown on someone, add some rolled R’s to their name, and call it good, and it’s not enough to make cultures into an aesthetic and say that’s appreciation. You have to genuinely give a damn about us as people if you want to write us well- it’s that simple.

Like, let me explain it in a way you might understand: it’s like… you can tell when a movie director is a misogynist because any women in the movies are objectified, written poorly, and treated like props for the men. You can tell they don’t care about women as people, even if they say they do and they don’t honk they’re a bad person! They don’t think of women as having stories worthy of being told or of being treated like complex human beings with their own goals, emotions, dreams, and fears. Women are props, an afterthought, more for the benefit of the men consuming the material and the writer themself than for women. There are countless examples in popular media of this and loads of articles about how this is harmful and bad. That’s not to say men have never written good women characters, but they are few and far between because lbh, they don’t tend to care about women besides as objects.

Now apply the same thought to people of color. We are also people, just as much as you are, and we too have our own thoughts and emotions and all that regular human stuff. But you all don’t treat us that way. You like us as your exotic lovers or aggressive protectors or selfless and ready-to-Die-for-your-white-ass friends. Or maybe you’ve moved past that- maybe you write us because “representation” or for brownie points with your non-white friends. But even from a point of good intent, if you don’t have compassion for us, if you don’t /respect/ us as actual human beings and care about our experiences (and how they’re different and similar to yours), your representation of people of color is going to suck, point blank. Anything but the utmost compassion and empathy for us means you’re writing us for white consumption just like straight men write women for male consumption. And that’s not good representation!

Take those frustrations you feel when men dehumanize you for something you have no control over and try and apply them to yourself in regards to the portrayal of people of color. Look at the little things they do and see how they disregard your complaints and ignore what you say and continue to only care about writing/making/directing things for their own pleasure, then look at yourself and look hard. Examine how you view people of color with the care you would want a man to examine his own prejudices against women. Think about how even if you don’t think you’re racist, you may unconsciously support racism, just like men with wives and daughters and mothers don’t think they’re misogynists even if they’re obviously sexist assholes. Consider how you would like women to be written with respect and empathy and realize that people of color too deserve that same consideration.

Basically, before you write characters of color, you need to care about us as people. Until then, your characters are going to suck and that’s that.