diversity issue

[JBCrowson]

In my experience, the barrier for being "old" is always a few years more than the person addressed as such.

No, I can confidently assert (at the ripe old age of 54) that 'old' is now officailly set at "five years older than me", and will remain so until I die.

 

[Ban]

No, I can confidently assert (at the ripe old age of 54) that 'old' is now officailly set at "five years older than me", and will remain so until I die.

Then I wish you an extraordinarily long lifespan, so I can always remain young

 

[Karlin]

Sorry if we got off on the wrong foot. I understand that consulting with people can be complex, and I agree that it's important to avoid generalizations. I appreciate your perspective and will take it into consideration.

No, not on the wrong foot. Nothing personal here. I'm hypersensitive to censorship. It remains censorship, even if it is self -imposed, if it is a result of outside pressures.

 

[Karlin]

Sorry, do you think a sensitivity reader is going to hold a gun to your head and make you change shit? You're the author. At worst a sensitivity reader is just a beta reader meant to focus on a particular topic. Whether or not you take what they say into consideration is up to you.

Nobody is holding a gun to anybody's head- but there is definitely social pressure to conform. In my mind, self-imposed censorship.

 

[Karlin]

This thread reminds me of the mini-lectures Grammarly gives whenever I use words the idiot program deems 'inappropriate.' Some are fairly obvious ('slave'), while others are 'why?' ('old women.') My attitude is, 'I used the word 'slave' because that character was a slave. And those women were old. Weirdly, though, Grammarly almost never objects to graphic/obscene words.

Sometimes the "correct" choice of words gets to be...interesting. Sometimes I hear people saying "a person of Jewish descent" or "a person of the Jewish faith." Well, I'm a Jew, plain and simple. I don't find the word "Jew" insulting, which these roundabout ways of saying things implies.

A true tale: I once met a British woman at an airport. She was a "person of color", in this case Black. She told me that her son, who is half Black, went to study in the US, and called her. "Mom, I don't know what to call Black people here."

 

[A. E. Lowan]

First off, everyone take a drink and chill your jets. We're all friends, here.

No, I can confidently assert (at the ripe old age of 54) that 'old' is now officailly set at "five years older than me", and will remain so until I die.

No. It's 10. And the '80's were 20 years ago. This is the hill I die on.

 

[Miles Lacey]

What happened is that my main characters that I previously mentioned are from the Isles and are meant to be POC. So now I either: 1 make the Islanders all share their features with these character, therefore making them a black population who had their bum kicked by blonde colonizers 2 make them have mixed features, making them the only group without uniform traits. I feel like that somehow this also feels hypocritical, as it implies characters that are POC can only exist if i introduce another population that is a diverse society compared to all the others. My question in general is: Is it acceptable—or insensitive—to depict a fictional population where everyone shares black features? I don't really know how to approach this and that's why I need feedback.

As soon as one race comes into contact with another through trade, conquest or whatever there will be sex between people of different races. Thus, you are going to end up with mixed race people and people of other races living in that place. The mixed race or non-black people don't need to be a sizeable part of the population. They could even be segregated from the majority of the island population if you wish. As long as you have a rational explanation for why these islands have only black people on them despite their importance you won't have any issues.

Just remember not to reduce them to a monolithic group who all have uniform traits. Make sure that the black people of the islands are individuals with their own distinct traits. Otherwise, you run the risk of creating stereotypes (which can be positive or negative) or, just as bad, caricatures.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Or, "Populations that trade will mingle." Full stop. The Vikings traded and raided from Ireland to Byzantium to Canada. Rome traded East for tea and spices and silk until they hit water and sand again. They brought home brown brides and left little blonds littering the coastlines of the Med. Genetics is wild stuff, and our history is imprinted just below the skin. Have fun with your worldbuilding, and remember that only a very small part of this planet looks like you.