{"id":9128,"date":"2012-06-04T00:15:11","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T08:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aidanmoher.com\/blog\/?p=9128"},"modified":"2012-11-26T09:52:27","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T17:52:27","slug":"its-amazing-the-things-we-know-that-are-actually-wrong-by-kate-elliott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanmoher.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/articles\/its-amazing-the-things-we-know-that-are-actually-wrong-by-kate-elliott\/","title":{"rendered":"“It’s Amazing the Things We Know, That Are Actually Wrong” by Kate Elliott"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cold<\/a>I wanted to write a post about diversity.<\/p>\n

It could open something like this: In a diverse world, is fantasy and science fiction literature open to the largest possible view of the world and its cultures? If not, why not? What am I as writer, as reader, and as viewer doing to promote and highlight a more realistic view of the world\u2019s diversity?<\/p>\n

But such an opening already presupposes that I\u2019m writing from the stance of a cultural hegemony centering around Euro\/American settings and its structural, political, historical, and religious backdrops. The phrase \u201ca more realistic view\u201d already situates me within a US-centric sphere. It begs the question: More realistic than what?<\/p>\n

The instant I say “diversity” what I mean, whether I want to or not, is that I\u2019m writing to an audience in which the default mode lies in being male, white, and mostly straight. Or, to quote writer Aliette de Bodard, the [phrase] \u201c\u2018importance of diversity\u2019 boils down to \u2018why white people benefit from seeing POCs in fiction.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

POC, for those of you who may not know this acronym, in this instance stands for \u2018people of color.\u2019 I agree with Bodard, and I want to add that for the purposes of this post, I\u2019m speaking of diversity in its largest sense, to include gender, gender identity, ethnicity, race, religion, nationality, language, class, and so on.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m weary of having this conversation over and over again.<\/p>\n\"Guild<\/a>\n

My first novel was published in 1988. I\u2019m still having and reading the same conversations about the representation of women, of people of color, of LGBTQ people, of non-US or non-Western cultures in fiction. There\u2019s more \u201caudible\u201d talk than I personally recall from before about the Anglophonic bias in our field and the obstacles that writers from outside the Western Anglophonic regions face (although this conversation was happening back when I broke in also, albiet in a more limited sphere). However, I\u2019m not able to speak to how writers and readers who aren\u2019t situated in the big US\/Canada\/UK\/Aussie\/NZ markets feel about their in\/visibility.<\/p>\n

With the rise of social media, there are definitely more diverse (i.e. not white and\/or male and\/or heterosexual and\/or Anglophonic) voices involved in this discussion than before, but the default really hasn\u2019t shifted much. If it had, I wouldn\u2019t still be trotting out the word \u201cdiversity.\u201d Instead, the field\u2019s literature and depictions would simply be more diverse.<\/p>\n

You know what?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s amazing the things we know, that are actually wrong.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I was in college, I remember being told by a guy that there were no women composers before the 20th century. He added that even counting the few from the 20th century, none mattered regardless because women simply did not possess the genius to compose. It was what his music history classes as they were taught in that era revealed. The invisibility of women as well as his ignorance and dismissal of any musical tradition outside of Western Classical Music constituted part of his world view.<\/p>\n\"Akata\n

The beauty of such assertions and the unspoken and unexamined assumptions behind them is that they are mirrors that reflect themselves back on themselves.<\/p>\n

People\u2019s assumptions get in the way of their ability to think past received wisdom.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To my mind, this is a fundamental problem when it comes to suggesting there should be more diversity in portrayals of character and culture in, say, epic fantasy or fantasy in general. People\u2019s assumptions get in the way of their ability to think past received wisdom. It can get in the way of a reader\u2019s ability to read a work if it seems to them to violate what they are sure they know. It can get in the way of a writer\u2019s ability to think outside his\/her normative ideas about what a fantasy world that is \u201cauthentic\u201d must look like. Assumptions create obstacles that impede the introduction of more diversity of experience into a world and its characters.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say my unexamined understanding of the European Middle Ages means I view the era as a monolithic block where the oppressed women of the time were in constant danger of having sexualized violence perpetrated on them, where women had no lives outside of their relationship with a man who gave them guardianship or money, and where they could barely be said to have personality because they were too oppressed and socially inferior and ignorant to have personalities. If this is what I think I know, then my attempts to read\u2014much less write!\u2014a fantasy story with women who do not fit those limited and limiting parameters will fail. Understandably so, since to write outside those assumptions means my normative ideas will have been transgressed. How unrealistic a more \u201cdiverse\u201d story will seem to a reader or writer whose views of the past are mired in these sorts of errors. How flawed, even though it actually isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\"Art<\/a>

Art by Daniel Dos Santos<\/p><\/div>\n

Attempts to add \u201cdiversity\u201d into such a scenario then remain trapped in the same box, regardless of the axis of diversity: The \u201cdiversity\u201d becomes an ornamental or utilitarian element being forced onto the \u201creal\u201d underpinnings of the world (which remain in such a case as the default male, white, Western, straight, whatever), rather than being an intrinsic part of the creation.<\/p>\n

To me, humans are pattern makers: We structure the landscape around us into patterns to try to make sense of it. I mean landscape in the largest sense of the word, not just the physical environment but also the historical, spiritual, political, cultural, and relational environment. Human beings are \u201cband animals.\u201d We evolved in groups, not as individuals forging alone through the Paleolithic wilderness scorning companionship and cooperation as sops for the weak-willed. We mostly are in constant interaction with others, for good or for ill, and there is plenty of both good and ill to go around.<\/p>\n

Every culture, and every group of people within a culture, tells stories about the past and present that help define how people see themselves. I think that people naturally create a narrative about who they are and where they fit in the world as a way to try to understand the immensity of the world and the relative insignificance of their own small, personal life within the greater whole.<\/p>\n

What has this to do with diversity in fantasy?<\/p>\n

Diversity is not an ornamental element. It\u2019s not something \u201cwe\u201d need or ought to \u201cadd\u201d to our stories to fulfill some moral quota or to get critics off our backs. That\u2019s not what \u201ca call\u201d for diversity means. The writers and readers who are already writing and seeking \u201cmore diverse\u201d fiction don\u2019t need to be told or have anything suggested to them. They\u2019re living it.<\/p>\n

\"Guild<\/a>The stories people tell make and reveal patterns. They unfold and invoke a vision of a world.<\/p>\n

By that I do not mean that our stories are a mouthpiece for our views of the world or that our characters are speaking for us. They aren\u2019t (with, I am sure, some exceptions). Nor have I any interest in telling people what to write. I figure people should have the freedom to write the story that is in them to write.<\/p>\n

Stories reveal something of what aspects of the world are visible to us and who and what we deem important. That is why I believe it is such a simple but profound act to truly stop and think through\u2014and then think beyond\u2014the foundational assumptions out of which one creates a narrative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wanted to write a post about diversity. It could open something like this: In a diverse world, is fantasy and science fiction literature open to the largest possible view of the world and its cultures? If not, why not? What am I as writer, as reader, and as viewer doing to promote and highlight… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[236,38,60,102,237,107,238],"class_list":["post-9128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-diversity","tag-fantasy","tag-gender-issues","tag-guest-post","tag-kate-elliott","tag-orbit-books","tag-the-spiritwalker-trilogy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n