Unintentional Prejudice in Fiction

[Nerds_feather]

On the other hand, writers like HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard wrote racism into their books because they were actual racists.

I tend to think there's a "smell test" involved, and I also always give the benefit of the doubt and let the author prove otherwise, which does happen from time to time, but usually I find these things are unintentional. This is why I don't like when people fudge the line between "such in such book is a problematic depiction of race" and "author of such book is racist."

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I've been thinking about this thread a lot today. My prissy Edwardian teen has just walked in on her brother with another man. There is no way her reaction would reflect mine.

 

[Brian G Turner]

But the notion of systematic prejudice based on phenotypical differences is indeed modern. (Distinctions prior were typically ethnic or religious or both, though phenotype does and did provide a simple way of noting difference.

I thought discrimination has always been primarily driven by economic class - both in the ancient world, and in the modern world.

Greek vs Persian wasn't about race, as much as ideology. And many Greeks had no problem signing up to the Persians as mercenaries (Xenophon, anyone?). The barbaroi were simply "uncultured".

Throughout the Roman period, the lowest social class was the slave, who could be of any nationality - even poorer Romans sold themselves into slavery to raise money for study or investment for when they were manumitted.

The big distinction is that slavery and colonialism have given economic class a colour in modern times.

Am I wrong, or out of line here?

 

[The Ace]

In some ways, I think J.K. Rowling is at it;

The popular and likeable Weasleys are always described as red-haired or redheads, but she uses the term, 'Ginger,' (one step above a racist slur) for more dubious characters, like Slughorn.

The trouble with this is that, if you start, you don't know where to stop. I enjoyed, 'The Gruffalo,' but threw away, 'Room on the Broom,' by the same author because she used the word to describe the witch's plait. I had to grit my teeth to finish, 'The Hitchiker's guide to the Galaxy,' because the first time we meet Ford, his hair is described as, 'Gingerish.'

IMO someone who uses the word, 'Ginger,' to describe a person's hair colour, is no different from one who describes someone with a bit of a sun-tan as a n*gg*r.

 

[Mirannan]

Racism is modern, NF? That'll be why the Greeks and Persians so admired each other in classical times and why we've only recently discovered the concept of the barbarian. I'll accept the concept of race, as opposed to "the other" may be new, and that it's only in recent centuries that "scientific racism" emerged. But don't confuse a new approach to something to the non-existence of that something before that new approach emerged.

But I liked your pun: "race was a foreign concept".


(I ought to explain that I'm a person who believes race is a cultural concept -- and so is similar to nationality -- not really a genetic one.)

I think that your opinion about race as a cultural concept as opposed to genetic is about half right. It depends on how ethnically distinct the two "races" you are comparing are.

Two extreme examples of what I'm talking about are two pairs of races. Poles and French people? Well, there are differences in various averages (head shape for example) but not enough to make them describable as very distinct genetically, Culturally, of course, they are quite different.

OK. Now consider another pair. Japanese and Masai. Anyone who thinks they are genetically the same is wrong in the head.

There are, of course, cases intermediate between these two.

(Yes, I am fully aware that Homo sapiens is one of the least genetically varied species on Earth.)

 

[Nerds_feather]

I thought discrimination has always been primarily driven by economic class - both in the ancient world, and in the modern world.

Greek vs Persian wasn't about race, as much as ideology. And many Greeks had no problem signing up to the Persians as mercenaries (Xenophon, anyone?). The barbaroi were simply "uncultured".

Throughout the Roman period, the lowest social class was the slave, who could be of any nationality - even poorer Romans sold themselves into slavery to raise money for study or investment for when they were manumitted.

The big distinction is that slavery and colonialism have given economic class a colour in modern times.

Am I wrong, or out of line here?

I think you are right. I don't believe it's always or only about economic matters (prejudice can be entirely symbolic, for example in a lot of religious conflicts), but I definitely agree that it often does relate back to some sort of real or perceived material inequity. At least somewhere in the equation.

I'm getting on a major tangent here, but a political scientist named Paul Brass has done some studies of ethnic and religious rioting in India, and found that while the average rioter was mostly concerned with symbolic issues of "ownership," the people who incite the riots often stand to benefit financially from the destruction and segregation that the riots produce.

As far as slavery and colonialism are concerned, yes I agree there too. I'd add that another element is that the emergence of science (and pseudoscience) in the 19th century, and success of earlier efforts to "convert the heathens," led intellectuals to seek new, non-religious rationalizations for things for colonial domination. The notion of "inherent biological superiority" of light-skinned Europeans and North Americans over others was quite convenient.

But it's also interesting to read accounts of late 19th/early 20th century racists--"race" wasn't quite understood in the terms of today, and many (like US President Teddy Roosevelt) claimed similar biological/cultural superiority of "Anglo-Saxons" over other Europeans and white North Americans.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

In the US, though, the word has no negative connotations, and would be purely descriptive of a certain shade of red in the works of an American author (who would probably have no idea that there is prejudice against redheads in the UK, and would be utterly baffled by it if they did know).

On the other hand, writers like HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard wrote racism into their books because they were actual racists.

But this would be intentional prejudice (which is usually easier to detect), wouldn't it, and not unintentional at all.

If someone had gone up to HP Lovecraft and said, "I've been reading your stories and it sounds like you think that other races are inferior" I doubt he would have said something along the lines of, "That's not what I meant at all. You are misreading me."

Wouldn't he have been more likely to say something like, "Of course that's what I think. They are inferior."

It seems a sensible default that the commentary that each character makes belong to ... that character ... rather than assume that Stephen King really does want to murder everyone in the building,

While the sensible default would be that a character's words are those of that character and not representative of what the author himself actually thinks, surely the way the author portrays those words, as well as that character's actions, can be revealing.

Does Stephen King portray murdering everyone in the building as the socially responsible actions of a rational mind? If not, I think we can safely assume that he is not recommending this kind of behavior to the rest of us. If he were to portray this as the rational actions of a sympathetic character under ordinary circumstances, then it would be troubling.

 

[Nerds_feather]

In some ways, I think J.K. Rowling is at it;

The popular and likeable Weasleys are always described as red-haired or redheads, but she uses the term, 'Ginger,' (one step above a racist slur) for more dubious characters, like Slughorn.

The trouble with this is that, if you start, you don't know where to stop. I enjoyed, 'The Gruffalo,' but threw away, 'Room on the Broom,' by the same author because she used the word to describe the witch's plait. I had to grit my teeth to finish, 'The Hitchiker's guide to the Galaxy,' because the first time we meet Ford, his hair is described as, 'Gingerish.'

IMO someone who uses the word, 'Ginger,' to describe a person's hair colour, is no different from one who describes someone with a bit of a sun-tan as a n*gg*r.

That's interesting--and you're right about Room on the Broom (a favorite in my household) using the term "ginger." I hadn't really thought about that.

...which, of course, brings up an interesting side point about the use of terms across cultural boundaries. "Ginger" doesn't carry the same connotations here as in the UK. Of course there was that South Park episode, which led a few fools to try to beat up redheads, but I reckon the average American wouldn't even know what you meant by the term "ginger."

On the other side, a lot of British I know use the word "Oriental" to describe someone from East or Southeast Asia, but this is considered highly insulting by those of East or Southeast Asian origin in the US.

 

[Nerds_feather]

In the US, though, the word has no negative connotations, and would be purely descriptive of a certain shade of red in the works of an American author (who would probably have no idea that there is prejudice against redheads in the UK, and would be utterly baffled by it if they did know).

But this would be intentional prejudice (which is usually easier to detect), wouldn't it, and not unintentional at all.

If someone had gone up to HP Lovecraft and said, "I've been reading your stories and it sounds like you think that other races are inferior" I doubt he would have said something along the lines of, "That's not what I meant at all. You are misreading me."

Wouldn't he have been more likely to say something like, "Of course that's what I think. They are inferior."

Yes, definitely intentional. He was genuinely horrified by the idea that black and white people might procreate. But my point of bringing him up was just to say we shouldn't ignore the possibility something does, in fact, reflect racist views.

But again, I tend to think most prejudice or problematic depictions that make their way into fiction are unintentional.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Related question:

What happens when an author says something in public that you feel is highly prejudicial, but it's not in his/her books? Does that recontextualize the books for you, or is art separable from life?

This came to find after another reply included a quote from Larry Niven. Here's another quote/paraphrasing from Larry Niven taken from a panel discussion of SF writers held by the Bush administration on the topic of homeland security (yes, that did in fact happen):

Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.

“The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said.

“Do you know how politically incorrect you are?” Pournelle asked.

“I know it may not be possible to use this solution, but it does work,” Niven replied.

I found, and continue to find, this exchange deeply troubling. Even if one were the accept the premise that illegal aliens are contributing greatly to healthcare costs in the US, Mr. Niven appears to be suggesting that the government use psyops to discourage Latinos in general from going to the hospital--including citizens, legal residents and others with valid visas.

The question I pose is: how, if at all, does this alter one's perspective on Larry Niven's written work? I expect a range of answers, and see multiple valid ways of looking at it. However, speaking personally, I can't read his work anymore.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I don't believe it's always or only about economic matters (prejudice can be entirely symbolic, for example in a lot of religious conflicts)

Oh, good point. Shared ideology tends to negate physical differences, though, which is interesting.

led intellectuals to seek new, non-religious rationalizations for things for colonial domination. The notion of "inherent biological superiority" of light-skinned Europeans and North Americans over others was quite convenient.

Oh, crikey, this hits all sorts of levels. In Victorian Britain, there was the argument that the English were the "13th tribe of Israel", hence "explaining" British political superiority around the globe as ordained by the Christian god.

Then there was the rationalism of science with Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, first postulating the useful of eugenics, that the National Socialists of Germany would later use.

Another inspiration for the Nazis came from occult theories, not least from Madame Blatvatsky, who founded the Theosophy movement, which sought to describe humanity in terms of "races", and decided that the Jewish "race" didn't fit anywhere, while lauding the ethnic superiority of the blond-hair+blue-eyed phenotypes.

Which all again takes us back into idealogies - though arguably, to some degree, they were trying to rationalise the perceived economic-driven social inequalities between different nations.

A digression - and irony - is that Neanderthals, long considered dull subhuman forebears, are now thought to be the source for genes for white skin, blonde hair (and red, The Ace!), and blue eyes.

 

[Brian G Turner]

What happens when an author says something in public that you feel is highly prejudicial, but it's not in his/her books?

A significant number of artists, outside of their work, are complete dicks, in one way or another.

I'm not sure if I should add a smiley face after that, or not.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But my point of bringing him up was just to say we shouldn't ignore the possibility something does, in fact, reflect racist views.

But my point is that it's less productive to look for hidden meanings in the text than to interpret the book according to what is right there on the surface.

It's easier with books of another era, when the author/narrator was more of a presence in the story, because any prejudices there might be glaringly obvious in the exposition.

With the kind of close third person viewpoint most writers use now, it's much harder to interpret what the writer really thinks about something, and very easy to make mistakes.

 

[Mark_Lawrence]

Does Stephen King portray murdering everyone in the building as the socially responsible actions of a rational mind? If not, I think we can safely assume that he is not recommending this kind of behavior to the rest of us. If he were to portray this as the rational actions of a sympathetic character under ordinary circumstances, then it would be troubling.

And if in King's next book he did (via the PoV) portray murdering everyone in the building as the socially responsible actions of a rational mind...

You would think he advocated it, would you?

 

[Extollager]

But the notion of systematic prejudice based on phenotypical differences is indeed modern. (Distinctions prior were typically ethnic or religious or both, though phenotype does and did provide a simple way of noting difference. And it wasn't until the colonial period that Europeans began thinking that biological/phenotypical differences conveyed superiority, rather than cultural or religious differences.)

Well said.

When I teach Othello, one thing I try to do is assist students to see that they bring a whole complex of historical issues to the play that would not have been there for Shakespeare's audience, living before Britain or the US practiced slavery, before Darwinian notions of some groups as less evolved than others, before the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, etc. That frees us to see who, in the play, does make antagonistic remarks about Othello and on what basis.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

And if in King's next book he did (via the PoV) portray murdering everyone in the building as the socially responsible actions of a rational mind...

You would think he advocated it, would you?

Surely the whole point is that murdering everyone in the building isn't the action of a socially responsible rational mind? If King presented it as such our understanding of people means the character wouldn't stand up to scrutiny and we'd have to ask what lay behind that portrayal?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

And if in King's next book he did (via the PoV) portray murdering everyone in the building as the socially responsible actions of a rational mind...

You would think he advocated it, would you?

I did say that it was harder to decipher these things with the modern use of POV.

But if he wrote a series of stories in which characters who otherwise appeared to be rational throughout the rest of the book eventually committed mass murder in response to the same kind of situation, then, yes, I might wonder if he was advocating such extreme actions under the same or similar circumstances.

He hasn't done that, has he? I haven't read much of his work, so I wouldn't know, but I imagine that if he had done that, I would have heard something, because people would not be at all happy about it.

On the other hand, sometimes you can tell from a single book.

Although Paton did his best to present a balanced view in Cry the Beloved Country, is it not perfectly clear that he was protesting against the social structures underlying apartheid?

Or Animal Farm ... is it not perfectly clear what Orwell thought about Communism?

At other times, while it may be difficult to miss in one book, it would be impossible to miss what a writer really thinks if you read everything he has written. While Dickens created some lower class characters who were thoroughly despicable (like Bill Sykes) how could anyone familiar with his books fail to see that Dickens himself was thoroughly outraged by the condition of the poor in England and the social structures that oppressed them, or fail to see that he advocated reform?

Just because critics come up with wildly different interpretations of some books, that doesn't mean that there are no books where the writer is sending clear messages as to what he or she believes.

 

[Mark_Lawrence]

Surely the whole point is that murdering everyone in the building isn't the action of a socially responsible rational mind? If King presented it as such our understanding of people means the character wouldn't stand up to scrutiny and we'd have to ask what lay behind that portrayal?

Hmmm. I don't really know how to make myself any more clear. I will resist CAPS.

The PoV would present it as the action of a socially responsible mind. The author is not the PoV - the PoV may be all we get.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Hmmm. I don't really know how to make myself any more clear. I will resist CAPS.

The PoV would present it as the action of a socially responsible mind. The author is not the PoV - the PoV may be all we get.

I get that. I'm not stupid and you've been very clear across two threads.

What I'm saying is I'd struggle to be convinced by a POV that went against everything I knew about people and their actions ( and in this example, in my experience, a rational mind rarely carries out such an act. They might feel rational - an outside observer rarely feels it is so, and I'd expect that to be reflected.) Mandras in Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a good example of this. If unconvinced I'd suspect the author was leading the agenda and not the pov.

I hope that's clear enough: the pov isn't the problem if I believe it, but it is if I don't.

Anyway, I don't intend to get into a tit-for-tat about it. I've said my (valid) thoughts about the thread's premise.

 

[Mark_Lawrence]

I did say that it was harder to decipher these things with the modern use of POV.

But if he wrote a series of stories in which characters who otherwise appeared to be rational throughout the rest of the book eventually committed mass murder in response to the same kind of situation, then, yes, I might wonder if he was advocating such extreme actions under the same or similar circumstances.

So all the characters would have to agree before you ascribed their thought processes to the author?

Well, there you and I fundamentally diverge. I would never assume an author was advocating psycho murder just because all the characters in a book did. I would take it as an interesting change in the human dynamic and assume he was exploring its implications.

However, very often it takes just _one_ character to have 'unacceptable' views and an agenda-driven critic will leap in, cherry-pick, and then ascribe those views to the author - with the only acceptable presentation of those views being if the rest of the cast line up to explain to us that this is a bad thing ... rather like in a morality tale for children.

If you were of that ilk then our fundamental divergence would happen still further back along the path.