Is this insensitive?

[Mon0Zer0]

I've decided that the humans of my world don't really have racial diversity. I'm not specifying what they look like, but from my human MC's point of view, the elves are pale and he thinks that having any hair/eye color other than dark is unusual. I haven't done his face-claim yet but Egyptian is a possibility.

I would say that regardless of your intention, elves being pale and humans being dark skinned risks being read as a metaphor for human ethnicity, with an embedded notion of white being superior.

However, a lot of the humans were enslaved by the dark lords, with my MC's ancestors being mine slaves that revolted.

Also, the elves think that they're better than humans. According to elf history, they're the ones that uplifted humans from clever animals to intelligent creatures.

Would this be a problem with hints that the humans are equivalent to African-American?

It may create problems for certain readers, primed to issues of representation. Even if your intent is to show that the elves perception of superiority over humans is an illusion perpetuated by their mythology and culture - the chances are you'll fall foul of sensitive readers who believe the impact of representation is more important than the message or context.

The biggest challenge would be the division of light / dark skinned oppressor / oppressed where the oppressed were also once slaves - this does invite specific comparisons to African-Americans and unless you are from an African-American background you could attract comments like "not your trauma" and so on - nowadays the prevailing wind within publishing, criticism and certain areas of society is that only African-Americans can depict the AA experience.

If it is a problem, can I fix it without adding racial diversity?

The question is - what are you trying to say that requires skin colour and oppression to be depicted in such a way? Is there any other way you could present it?

One episode of star trek TOS looked at racism by examining a species of alien with two distinct ethnic groups, one of whom was black on the right side and white on the left, and the other the reverse.

The comical nature of one set of a species arguing their supremacy on so superficial a detail manages to retain the essential spirit of what the writers were trying to say about racist thought whilst making the issue distant enough that anyone, even racists, can recognise that the idea is inherently absurd. By presenting the problem out of the context of human affairs it delineates it more sharply.

 

[Bramandin]

I would say that regardless of your intention, elves being pale and humans being dark skinned risks being read as a metaphor for human ethnicity, with an embedded notion of white being superior.

Yeah, I changed that one so that the elves have an ethnicity(?) because each caste tends towards different skin tones. The humans are pretty much ambiguously brown. Zana, fairies, are the weird-looking pale magical elves while many of the nomes are more "normal-looking." The zana are mostly dead/imprisoned, except for a few that don't think they're better, so the MC only hears second-hand what it was like to have them going around being all snobbish about being better.

The biggest challenge would be the division of light / dark skinned oppressor / oppressed where the oppressed were also once slaves - this does invite specific comparisons to African-Americans and unless you are from an African-American background you could attract comments like "not your trauma" and so on - nowadays the prevailing wind within publishing, criticism and certain areas of society is that only African-Americans can depict the AA experience.

It seems like a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario. The lack of diversity is simply that there are no white people, but the culture is pretty much pure fantasy where the humans managed to develop electricity but not decent guns. It might be equally insensitive to have diversity and say that all of humanity would get along if they weren't so xenophobic, as in a funny-looking person is fine if they live there. Because the areas between settlements are filled with monsters, only people who work for the monsters can travel. (Yes, I realize that I have a horrible gypsy analogue, but I'm planning on making travel safer so that travelers fade to just being anyone.) I could just as easily say that everyone is white, but that seems like making it easy for people to complain about it.

I'm thinking that colonial south slavery was unique in its brutality and how their descendants still have a foot on their neck. The elfi created more of a Planet of the Ape scenario but wiped themselves out before their servants got around to revolting. The refugees traveled thousands of years forward in time and pretty much accepted that if they want the humans to do anything, they have to do things for them. The jigan, orc-monster things, are the ones that were complete bungholes about their enslavement of humanity.

I wonder if there's a sensitivity reader who's willing to be paid in drawings, and if I can draw well enough to try. I don't think I'd get enough tips to cover their fee. I might be overly-optimistic in that I'd get enough tips to regret letting them have the tip-jar.

The question is - what are you trying to say that requires skin colour and oppression to be depicted in such a way? Is there any other way you could present it?

A lot of the worldbuilding is an artifact of how this story started. The MC was a minor recurring character in my fanfiction and I'm trying to retell his story in an "original" work by ripping out and replacing a lot of the stuff that's unique to Legacy of Kain. It would be a bit like taking Soul Reaver and restoring it to the planned game Shifter. (Basically they came up with the game Shifter, were told that they needed to build on an existing IP, so Soul Reaver is a fallen-angel story except they're all vampires.)

If I'm trying to say anything, it's that religion is bad. In the history of the world, the zana were crusaders and the only reason the elfi weren't wiped out permanently by the fighting with the nomes was because some were sent forward in time. The nomes would leave the humans alone except that some of them worshipped the same "god" or whatever the heck it is.

I could make absolutely everyone ambiguously brown, including the elves because horn-shape is a clearer indication of caste. I just wanted them to look really exotic. That the humans are brown is more of a ham-fisted following of the instruction that "you have to have brown people, plural, because having only one is tokenism" and I don't want diversity so I'll make everyone brown.

I am going to run into problems with gay and trans. In one culture, women are pretty much property and a man being bedded like a woman makes him an object of derision. In another culture, there are households where the heads are the same gender, but no one questions their private lives because it's too hard to live alone and they might just be living together. The elfi are pretty much all on the bisexual spectrum, except for the warrior-caste who were bred to be on the homosexual end. The MC is probably going to be bi, gay, or ace. I feel like I'm allowed to write ace.

For trans people, I have a whole thing about the lack of transition in that world. I tried putting a trans person in my fanfiction, (well there is a transracial character but even he admits that it's a trauma response) and other than the other character not working right, the trans character wasn't in a medical situation so she might as well be cis.

 

[Brian G Turner]

The simple truth is that any attempt to write about race/gender/sexuality can com across as insensitive, unless that writer has any experience of these issues which is reflected in their writing. The question really is why you seem so focused on covering all of these social political issues if you are ordinarily outside of them?

Doesn't mean to say you can't attempt to write about them, but it's always been recommended that writers write about what they know from their own experience and research.

 

[Bramandin]

The question really is why you seem so focused on covering all of these social political issues if you are ordinarily outside of them?

People were actually upset when I said that trans people didn't exist in my fanfiction world. (I might've forgotten to mention that I had a transracial character during that discussion.) I'm thinking for this story, if people complain that trans people don't exist in that world, I might either malicious compliance or tell them to go read something they like. The world is good for sweet polly oliver, not so good for properly portraying someone who was assigned the wrong gender at birth.

 

[Wayne Mack]

People were actually upset when I said that trans people didn't exist in my fanfiction world.

I would not explicitly list out what is excluded from any story I write. When I write, I am not interested in portraying a realistic slice of life (other authors may very well wish to do so); I am interested in creating an alternate reality as pure escapism. If someone wants something addressed in a story, that person is free to write his or her own story. There is no need to discuss what is not shown and certainly not why it isn't shown.

 

[Bramandin]

I would not explicitly list out what is excluded from any story I write. When I write, I am not interested in portraying a realistic slice of life (other authors may very well wish to do so); I am interested in creating an alternate reality as pure escapism. If someone wants something addressed in a story, that person is free to write his or her own story. There is no need to discuss what is not shown and certainly not why it isn't shown.

That is true. If representation were an obligation, it would be a mess. I wouldn't want to force someone to have a neurodivergent character, especially when they're likely to put in a jerk-savant instead of good representation. (I would like to see more ace characters, but those are a lot easier.) I should be able to pick and choose what does and doesn't go into my story. And I should be able to write straight allosexual men even though I'm not if there's a point to having them in my story.

I've decided that if someone complains about the lack of trans characters in my story, I'm going to say that X nome is trans, the MC just assumes that he's cis because they can do it better than on DS9. It would have just about as much relevance as Dumbledore being gay. If they complain again that I should have a trans human character, I'll straight up tell them that including one that doesn't keep it secret will likely mean that they're called crazy and beaten to death. (Man my setting is dark.) My story bible is in my head right now, but I don't really need to show it to the readers.