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| Re: Purple and pink are long time Bungie game colo | |
| Posted By: thebruce0 <g.may@thebruce.net> | Date: 7/4/12 12:08 p.m. |
In Response To: Re: Purple and pink are long time Bungie game colo (Leisandir) : Ask someone who writes literature for . . . let's say, : just as an example, the Klu Kux Klan. That person will likely not : self-identify as a racist (my understanding of the philosophy is that they : do not officially consider non-whites inferior, they just feel that the : races should not be mixed). I don't know anyone who would see an : individual connected with that organization and have the conscious : thought, "oh, that guy's probably not racist." The negative aspect of any -ist though is cultural. So in the context of our particular culture, the views of the KKK would be racist. So the problem arises when the person espousing those views reacts to claims of racism. Do they defend the views in light of the (now) knowledge of the controversy? Or do they realize where the controversy exists, and either explain themselves in such a way to reduce and/or remove the controversy, or alter their writing itself to correct it? In the former, one could say they are racist in our culture - they are willingly and forcefully defending a view and opinion that is negative towards a race. (I say context within our culture, because if we were to hold such a view in say a country where everything's the other way around, we would be the ones to be considered the enemy, for lack of a better term - but this starts to get into a whole lot of politics and the cause for wars worldwide :) So again, just because someone has presented something that is interpreted by someone else as racist, doesn't make the creator a racist. How they react and handle the situation certainly does influence how we consider their cultural ethic. : If you're an author, and in nine novels you've had
Indeed, but the existence of those past works doesn't itself make the author a sexist... : The example cited earlier of the
Stereotypes are quite often used to take a point to the extreme. I think the problem is that people who associate with the stereotype don't like being associated with something that's considered negative (most obviously, antagonists) -- even if the author never meant to imply that ALL people associating with the stereotype are evil people. If 'dark skin' is often used to imply evil, that doesn't mean that every person with dark skin is evil. An author may choose to give the antagonist(s) dark skin. That's not a statement against dark skinned people. If all antagonists in a work are dark-skinned, and protagonists are light-skinned, that's not a statement. Now if all antagonists are Asian, all protagonists are Caucasian, and characters even react to Asians (who haven't yet demonstrated their sway) as antagonists, then there's a problem... In the former, readers may infer racist undertones. In the latter, the racist content is clear. In the former, the author may be able to rectify the situation in some way if indeed they are not racists. In the latter, well, it'll be much much harder to defend the depiction of Asians as evil antagonists without appearing racist. :P All I'm saying is that before labeling a creator of a work under something considered bad/evil (which itself is just as bad), they should be given an opportunity to weigh in, respond, and demonstrate their intent. Then, their intent in light of our cultural context can be determined good or bad. (so yeah, just because someone may sincerely believe whites are supreme yet without "hateful" feelings towards black people doesn't mean they aren't racist, only that in the context of our culture they most indeed are - in the context of KKK, it's not - which is why we hate the KKK :) : If I pick up a book at the used bookstore and read it without
Exactly. But without knowing the author, I'd be careful about an opinions I form about the author simply from reading the book. Controversy I may infer from the reading would instead prompt to look up the author and find out what their actual position on it is. If the author is dead, then the only opinion I can form is based entirely on what other people have shared about them - they can't answer for themselves. This is one of the areas that English courses can go way overboard, IMO :) the over-analysis of literature, imposing meaning where the author meant none. At least, presuming "this is what the author meant", rather than correctly researching the difference between intent and interpretation (the latter being more appropriate in that case). What does the novel mean to us, today, given our experiences (either personally or as a culture) -- and what did the author mean by what they wrote? THAT is a far more interesting study than simply trying to glean meaning from a book without recognizing that key difference in context. : I think the argument here, as perpetuated by Mister Miller - as his arguments
Definitely agree with that! :)
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