How can I make a racially separated world that isn't racist?

[Hir i-Chorvath]

This world (Adara) is in a fantasy setting and there are several different races there. But I've run into a problem, I want interaction between races to be uncommon, each race stays in thier own little kingdom and only the most adventurous would leave. Elves are the exception and they are the main traders in Adara. Also, in this particular world, drow aren't evil they are simply elves that live underground and can't stand the sunlight. That was off topic, my problem is that one of my friends said that Adara was a racist world. I would prefer not to have a world that is racist but for my story to work I need to have Elves be the main traders of Adara and for the other races to keep to themselves.

Does anyone have any ideas how to make a world not racist but racially separated at the same time?

 

[MrNybble]

Depends on your world and races on how this would happen. Can be physical or phycological thing that keep races confined to certain locations. Some people may prefer being underground so most avoid the surface. Others could be avion and prefer high places. Aquatic people would have their own preference. Size and shape also play a role in how the races gather in places like cities. That's just the obvious ones for the physical.

 

[skip.knox]

Did your friend say why they thought your world was racist? Have you had other readers make the same evaluation?

How about if you described elves, humans, etc. not as races but as nations or peoples? Would your world then be nationalist or people-ist?

 

[Aldarion]

This world (Adara) is in a fantasy setting and there are several different races there. But I've run into a problem, I want interaction between races to be uncommon, each race stays in thier own little kingdom and only the most adventurous would leave. Elves are the exception and they are the main traders in Adara. Also, in this particular world, drow aren't evil they are simply elves that live underground and can't stand the sunlight. That was off topic, my problem is that one of my friends said that Adara was a racist world. I would prefer not to have a world that is racist but for my story to work I need to have Elves be the main traders of Adara and for the other races to keep to themselves.

Does anyone have any ideas how to make a world not racist but racially separated at the same time?

Your friend is being a bit of a dumbass, then. Races evolved because for most of history there was not that much interaction between different groups of people. Each group adapted to their living conditions. More sunlight? Darker hair and skin. Less sunlight? Lighter hair and skin. And that is just the obvious adaptation, differences go much deeper than just skin colour.

What you described would be perfectly normal state of things from Stone Age to 19th century or so. Even during European colonialist age (15th to 19th century), interaction between different races was exception, not the norm (not that there wasn't any, it was just extremely unusual). Literally the only people who had any chance of regularly interacting with people of other races were the long-range traders. And if there is a reason why Elves would be the only long-range traders in your world, then it is perfectly logical for them to be the only ones who regularly interact with other races.

 

[pmmg]

I would echo Aldarion sentiment, so I just liked it instead. If you have a world where people have not been about, then it would seem natural that there is not a lot of mixing of various peoples of different features and skin tones.

But...I'll go a little further and ask, so what if they are racist? Noticing that the tribe over there does not look much like you or share your customs would seem a good survival skill in a less integrated world. I think if I took any world with various different races upon it, and looked at its history, I would be able to find periods of rampant overt racism, and periods of curtailed racism. I am not sure I would be able to find any period with no racism at all (save for maybe among the first dwellers in an Adam and Eve type of setting...). Defining racism of course by it most liberal definition of just having anything I don't prefer about a race different than mine. Any populated world, at any period of time, ought to be full of diverse people, some being more or less racist about things than others. It is your choice to focus your story on it or not, but you have to write the story that is pulling at you, and you have to give it what it needs. If the surface elves don't like the Drow elves, and the Drow elves don't much like them back, and that is all boiled down to them all being racist, so you have a world with understandable and likely relationships.

In the world you describe, if the elves are the only travelling species, and all the other tribes can only hear about other peoples by their stories, it would seem that there is not much need for racism, why waste energy hating on someone they will never encounter? It would seem only the elves would have cause to make judgments (or maybe some about the elves, but they all seem like nice guys).

 

[skip.knox]

I agree with pmmg and Aldarion.

That's why I asked what the OP's critic meant by the term. The very word is a modern invention that gets applied to historical cultures. It's like seeing mercantile activity in ancient Rome and calling it capitalism. The word itself has specifically modern connotations. If used by people who are well-versed in the literature and well aware of the historical issues, then fine. It can be handy as a shorthand. But when a word like racist is used by people not deeply read in the subject--which would be most readers of a fantasy novel--then one has to expect a full range of misunderstandings, from indifference to confusion to outrage.

 

[Pygmy]

I knew this writer a couple years ago who got a publishing deal for a YA fantasy book, one which featured different races. ARC copies went out to readers for review, and one day she woke up to see that they smeared her poor book all over the internet. According to one blogger, the antagonistic race too closely resembled Native Americans, simply because their skin was a bit darker and their hair was black or something to that extent. Before the book was even released, dozens of people who hadn't even read it gave it one star reviews on Amazon and called it racist.

I knew this girl and her husband, and they were the furthest thing from racist. She cried so much and got called so many horrid things. Ultimately, the publisher was forced to push back the release date, destroy thousands of copies, and have her rewrite certain things. It was a fiasco. All because someone got offended by something that wasn't really there. The publisher lost money, and her book will go on to be remembered for its controversy rather than its quality.

Where I'm going with this is that cancel culture is a thing now, and people are going to look for issues to validate their own opinions. Write what you want to write so long as it doesn't overtly offend.

What I would like to know is what your friend specifically finds racist. That the elves live above and command respect or travel more? Well, as you stated, there are drows who dwell below too. Races in fantasy AND real life live segregated in the most part because of culture and region. There's nothing wrong with that. It is how humanity evolved in their respective continents. I'll have to echo Aldarion's sentiment and say that your friend is looking for things that aren't there.

 

[skip.knox]

Just because a person did not intend to offend doesn't mean the material isn't offensive. That's why sensitivity readers have that adjective. Some people are simply insensitive, unaware, oblivious to the issues. I do not know anything about the case Pygmy mentions, but it's important to understand that if a large number of people speak with the same voice, it's at least worth listening. You may come to agree or disagree, but one ought at least to listen.

 

[Hir i-Chorvath]

My friend said that Adara was racist because she felt that since the races didn't mingle they were judging the other races that they heard of by race or by common ideas instead of as a person. Did that make sense? I read through it and it doesn't seem to make sense to me but that's pretty much what she said.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I like Adara how it is and I don't really want to change it. At the same time I don't want to have a similar experience to the one that Pygmy described as this is my first book. Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding but it sounds like most people are saying that it's fine how it is as long as I'm sensitive towards the 'racist' part.

Thank you so much for the input.

 

[Aldarion]

My friend said that Adara was racist because she felt that since the races didn't mingle they were judging the other races that they heard of by race or by common ideas instead of as a person. Did that make sense? I read through it and it doesn't seem to make sense to me but that's pretty much what she said.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I like Adara how it is and I don't really want to change it. At the same time I don't want to have a similar experience to the one that Pygmy described as this is my first book. Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding but it sounds like most people are saying that it's fine how it is as long as I'm sensitive towards the 'racist' part.

Today, racism is so wide a term that it has lost nearly all meaning (there was a case when some people accused university of racism because ceramic tiles in toilet were white. Oh, the horror!). If you are going to please everyone, you will please noone, and your work will end up a pile of garbage (just look at what happened to newest Star Wars trilogy, for example). What you should focus on is whether something makes sense, first and foremost internally to your work, and then with regards to practical and historical issues.

Now, if your friend meant not that the work itself if racist, but that racism will be widespread in your work... well, she is most likely correct, depending on how you define racism of course. It is impossible to get to know every single individual of every single group; rather, we as people have to take mental shortcuts, which involves making judgements about individuals of any single group based on what we know - or believe - about the group as a whole. And oftentimes, these assumptions may be incorrect, overly general, insulting etc. This is especially true if different groups do not have direct contact, but only know about each other through intermediary, which is the situation in your work. I would suggest studying European beliefs about Muslims / Arabs before the First Crusade; it might prove instructive in how views on a group might end up a carricature of reality due to isolation, distance etc.

 

[Pygmy]

Your friend seems to be overreaching tbh. But again, a simple (and true to life) remedy would be to at the very least eventually develop friendliness and fondness between some of the characters of your world with other characters of a different race. Explain, perhaps, the reasons behind this separation and maybe their desire to mend it. Add skeptical characters who challenge those characters whose views appear judgmental. I am going out on a limb and say fondness is something that is going to happen in your story as I'm assuming the lead characters of your manuscript are of different races working toward a common goal (?).

Also, I recommend you get the opinion of other beta readers. Maybe this opinion is exclusive to your friend. Only in sharing your work with multiple readers will you gain a better perspective.

 

[pmmg]

Well. I don't know your friend so i will refrain from making comments on them. I assume they mean well. Your friend gave a comment, and it seems you don't agree. Every beta reader will say something that will shake your confidence. You have to decide if you agree or not. If you like your story and it says what you want and the characters match your vision of them, then you can choose not to accept the criticism of others. Who are you writing the story for? And what do they say?

I would caution at people injecting values into a review. Their values reflect a filter that is not likely objective. I would be very suspect at that. Course if you are writing the story to project a set of values and people with similar values are saying it missed, that would be something.

 

[skip.knox]

My friend said that Adara was racist because she felt that since the races didn't mingle they were judging the other races that they heard of by race or by common ideas instead of as a person. Did that make sense?

Thanks for replying to my question.

Does it make sense? Well, judging by your reply, I'd say it doesn't make sense to you, but it does to her, and therein lies the difficulty. You can't please all people equally. It's a harsh truth for some writers, but it's an unavoidable one. No matter what you write, no matter how careful you are, someone will find something to dislike. But that doesn't help much with your greater fear, of being trashed widely right out of the gate.

One line of thought that might help you decide concerns your goals as a writer. First, are your plans self-pub or traditional? Do you have enough money to hire an editor? Th sub-text here is that you should find more people to read your work. If they are all telling you there are racist overtones to the book, then you need a long conversation with your editor. But if only that one friend reacts that way, you need a long conversation with that friend, and about more than just the book (we writers can get awfully defensive about our books, especially our first one).

In any case, I would not base any major rewrite decisions (including the decision not to rewrite) on a single reader.

 

[skip.knox]

>some people accused university of racism because ceramic tiles in toilet were white. Oh, the horror!).
Aldarion do you have a source for this? A quick search on my part yielded nothing.

 

[Pygmy]

>some people accused university of racism because ceramic tiles in toilet were white. Oh, the horror!).
Aldarion do you have a source for this? A quick search on my part yielded nothing.

Can't back up that story, there is one about cross walk signs being racist. I cannot confirm the validity of this story or the news source partly due to its bias.

To keep on topic, I once had a beta reader tell me that it was racist that the mother of my protagonist, a Latina woman, treated her son so poorly. I am Latino. I understood where this person was coming from and appreciated their sentiment, but if there's going to be equality, then treat people equally.

 

[Steerpike]

Yes, let’s please stay on topic. The cross-walk article looks like something from a gotcha site. It was a setup. Let’s try to stick to the topic of race within the context of the fantasy world at issue.

Thanks!

 

[WooHooMan]

If this is something that bothers you then my advice would be to justify the separation as being outside of people’s control.
As mentioned earlier, geographical differences could justify that but also a thing about humans is that we all basically started in the same area and migrated in different directions. In a fantasy setting, you could say that the different people started on opposite sides of the world and thus, interaction between them could be new and uncommon.
So, it’s not that they don’t want to interact. It’s just interacting is a new development. If the races developed separately, there’s probably all sorts of linguistic and cultural differences that would make interaction difficult.

 

[Miles Lacey]

My friend said that Adara was racist because she felt that since the races didn't mingle they were judging the other races that they heard of by race or by common ideas instead of as a person. Did that make sense? I read through it and it doesn't seem to make sense to me but that's pretty much what she said.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I like Adara how it is and I don't really want to change it. At the same time I don't want to have a similar experience to the one that Pygmy described as this is my first book. Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding but it sounds like most people are saying that it's fine how it is as long as I'm sensitive towards the 'racist' part.

Thank you so much for the input.

I come from New Zealand: a country with a culture that regards the notion of races that have little, or no, interaction with each other socially and professionally as laughable. This is only intended to put my comments in perspective.

New Zealand history has an example of a racially segregated society that wasn't racist. Pre-European Maori had almost no contact with the outside world because it was almost impossible to travel anywhere because the nearest sizeable land was over 2000 km away and involved sailing over some of the most dangerous seas in the world. Various Pacific Island races also had varying degrees of isolation for similar reasons as New Zealand Maori. Geographical challenges also kept Amerindians isolated from other races and cultures for centuries until the arrival of the Europeans.

Thus, to justify your racially segregated world you could use geographic challenges such as vast, wild, giant man eating shark infested waters or mountain ranges where even a mountain goat would struggle to get a footing. You could add fauna and flora that are found only in borderland areas that are so dangerous that only specialist adventurer-trader groups can travel through those areas. Maybe economic barriers could be introduced. Nothing puts people off travelling from New Zealand to other countries more than eye-watering fares. Maybe you could use both official taxes and unofficial taxes (such as bribes and bandits extorting people) as a major deterrent.

The point is that if you don't have a practical and believable explanation as to why there is very little interaction between the races you will be labelled a racist and lose a lot of readers as a result, especially if the races can be compared in any way to races in our world.

 

[Pygmy]

If this is something that bothers you then my advice would be to justify the separation as being outside of people’s control.
As mentioned earlier, geographical differences could justify that but also a thing about humans is that we all basically started in the same area and migrated in different directions. In a fantasy setting, you could say that the different people started on opposite sides of the world and thus, interaction between them could be new and uncommon.
So, it’s not that they don’t want to interact. It’s just interacting is a new development. If the races developed separately, there’s probably all sorts of linguistic and cultural differences that would make interaction difficult.

Very true! Today we have all this technology that brings the world together. But high fantasy and most types of fantasy sub genres take place in worlds where this sort of stuff doesn't exist. So unless you travel (and traveling is often difficult), these races do not mingle and often develop seperately. The alternative way to bring the world together is often war, sadly.

So maybe OP's friend has a modern world view of an old world story.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

This may have been mentioned, but you can create great barriers between the regions that makes it extremely difficult for people to travel to the other regions. Or create a physiological need for most to stay in their area- If a particular substance must be ingested of a type of energy must be absorbed on a regular basis only those capable of carrying a supply of the substance can make the journey.