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Maester
But to get to that level you need these representations. You can't expect Black Alcoholic Lesbians to be Cosby-ised and Mary Sued until they reach some magical saturation point that artists are allowed to make them interesting and flawed characters. To me you're destroying any chance of diversity by insisting there is a "right" way to portray a person. The example I gave could be a very nuanced powerful person, but you insist on me reducing her to a one note stereotype that fits your personal vision.
And that's the crux of the matter, take the Trans-gender villain they used in Batgirl recently. It wasn't handled as well as it should have been according to some of my Trans friends, but it didn't deserve the unbelievable amounts of hate the internet leveled at it either. They wanted to just send a polite message to Dc offering suggestions on what needed to be done differently but were lost in the howl of the deeply offended. The result? DC will probably NEVER do another Trans character because it offends so many people. Some of the biggest proponents of Diversity have also run the some of the very authors who write diverse fiction, because they aren't straight white male, off the internet because they weren't writing those "safe" characters they approved of in the "correct" way.
If given a choice between writing a neutered stereotype that has to conform to a predetermined set of variables and follow a designated path or an actual person with all their flaws and humanity intact? I'm going for the latter, and since straight white male is the only choice that allows for that diversity that's probably what I'm going to have to stick with.
Let me turn this on its head (and I'll use an outrageous example here) and see if y'all can see where I am coming from.
Let's imagine that the only way to portray a token white man is as this type: paranoid, cruel, kills opponents for having differing views, atheist, etc.
This is the ONLY way that white male characters can be portrayed, when they are in a story at all. Would y'all want to see that representation all the time? Or would any of y'all prefer to see more nuance? Because not every white guy is like that. In fact, very very few are anywhere near that stereotype.
Or, to be less outrageous: the only portrayal of white men is as workaholics, emotionally cold, pater familias. No indication of whether or not they have any hobbies, like any sports teams, go out to the movies, anything that would make them an actual person.
If you were also part of a minority population, and as such part of the minority population being systematically oppressed by the people who are in power...you would be quite upset that this is the only representation you get in literature. Because it's not only NOT accurate, it's harmful. Because what we see in literature helps us form an understanding of the world around us--no matter how fantastical that literary world is.
I'm not saying that I want the black alcoholic lesbians to be "Cosby-ized". I just want complex characters. I don't want "nods" to diversity that are solely filled with stereotypes. I don't want "token" POC characters. I want complex, living and could walk off the page characters--because that's who I can relate to. I can't relate to a checklist of stereotypes.
Many of the representations of women of color that I've seen are problematic, because I've known only ONE woman that fits into the "angry black woman" stereotype. I've known ONE Asian-American woman who fit into the "studious Asian" stereotype. I've known dozens of people of color, and hundreds of acquaintances (through my school years & work), that DO NOT fit into those stereotypical boxes. I'm asking to see characters that reflect the diversity of my own life, not what society tells us we should think. (And come to think of it, I've known absolutely zero black women that fit into the overly-sexualized black woman stereotype.)
So my "personal" vision isn't a "this is how you do it right" as much as asking for authors/audiences to think about the portrayal and go "ok, is this a complex character? Is this a "nod" to diversity and not really diverse representation? Is this just a melange of bad stereotypes?" And if the answer to the last two questions is "yes"...then, well, someone's not getting the memo.
And for reference, it's really, really not hard to avoid problematic areas in representing POC/queer/disabled/etc. Especially with the internet. Just google [whatever] + stereotypes...and you'll find a whole laundry list of things that might be best avoided if an author doesn't want to hit anything negative and/or doesn't feel up to subverting the stereotype.
Also, this kinda ties back into the whole Strong Female Character archetype that we're seeing now. No complexity, just bad-a**, fighting femme fatale characters. No nuance. This is NOT what people meant by more women characters, by the way.