Inclusion and Respect.
Aug. 20th, 2011 12:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
logansrogueOkay, so I've been writing my novel, "Amaryllis" and have been making some big decisions.
Previously in the novel, the merman "prince" that the titular princess of the deep, Amaryllis, is being asked to marry was from the Mediterranian. A few things occurred to me as I was reading over my notes:
- Why the hell would she marry someone so far away?
- If Amaryllis' people, a small number of whitish merfolk from the southern, colder areas of the ocean, are fully integrated with the Aboriginal merfolk, why the hell would there be no notable characters of that cultural descent? It makes no fucking sense.
So I changed it. I then decided some other things:
- The important merman from the north that is seeking Amaryllis' hand shall be of Indigenous Australian descent. He is not portrayed negatively. He is not a villain. He is almost Arthurian in his purity and good spirit. I will take great pains not to portray him as a "noble savage"
- Amaryllis' family shall be mingled with the bloodlines of the local merfolk inhabitants.
- Amaryllis' family and friends shall also have mixed heritage.
All the merfolk cultures are loosely based on the ancient lore and mythologies of the human populations that live near them. This is to make it so that any human anywhere reading the book had some place to involve themselves. Where there are humans, there are merfolk. I want my story world to be accessable to everybody.
In the end I'm left with a problem. See, from what I've been able to gather from quick Googling, the Noongar people (the Indigenous Australian culture in the region where the book is set) like to keep their culture largely to themselves. They don't have big old lists of Noongar people names like us white folk do. They don't have the same publicly accessible archives like we do. The only one I could find was limited to Noongar people.
So I'm in the conundrum of wanting to include the local culture in with the book that I'm writing, and at the same time, being an awkward ignorant white girl who doesn't know who to ask about this, if she should ask at all (I don't want to offend or hurt anyone). Is wanting to include the culture in a modern fantasy novel disrespectful in itself? Maintaining the dignity and respect to the Noongar People is paramount. I want to do the right thing. If I don't include Indigenous Australian culture in this novel, I would be ignoring a vital part of the cultural identity of this part of the world. It would be terrible. Having an Indigenous Australian romantic lead in Amaryllis' intended would also be a rare and positive opportunity.
But I worry that, as a white person, it might not be my story to tell. I can go wrong so easily, I could really easily fuck up in this. But I don't want to be another white person telling an Australian story and NOT having the people that really own this land involved in any meaningful way. Especially in this novel, where the Indigenous merfolk outnumber the immigrants 5 to 1.
So, yeah, I don't know what to do. It's also really depressing in a way that Colonialism has driven a lot of this culture into secrecy and obscurity. Or maybe it's only secret and obscure because I'm ignorant. I don't know.
Previously in the novel, the merman "prince" that the titular princess of the deep, Amaryllis, is being asked to marry was from the Mediterranian. A few things occurred to me as I was reading over my notes:
- Why the hell would she marry someone so far away?
- If Amaryllis' people, a small number of whitish merfolk from the southern, colder areas of the ocean, are fully integrated with the Aboriginal merfolk, why the hell would there be no notable characters of that cultural descent? It makes no fucking sense.
So I changed it. I then decided some other things:
- The important merman from the north that is seeking Amaryllis' hand shall be of Indigenous Australian descent. He is not portrayed negatively. He is not a villain. He is almost Arthurian in his purity and good spirit. I will take great pains not to portray him as a "noble savage"
- Amaryllis' family shall be mingled with the bloodlines of the local merfolk inhabitants.
- Amaryllis' family and friends shall also have mixed heritage.
All the merfolk cultures are loosely based on the ancient lore and mythologies of the human populations that live near them. This is to make it so that any human anywhere reading the book had some place to involve themselves. Where there are humans, there are merfolk. I want my story world to be accessable to everybody.
In the end I'm left with a problem. See, from what I've been able to gather from quick Googling, the Noongar people (the Indigenous Australian culture in the region where the book is set) like to keep their culture largely to themselves. They don't have big old lists of Noongar people names like us white folk do. They don't have the same publicly accessible archives like we do. The only one I could find was limited to Noongar people.
So I'm in the conundrum of wanting to include the local culture in with the book that I'm writing, and at the same time, being an awkward ignorant white girl who doesn't know who to ask about this, if she should ask at all (I don't want to offend or hurt anyone). Is wanting to include the culture in a modern fantasy novel disrespectful in itself? Maintaining the dignity and respect to the Noongar People is paramount. I want to do the right thing. If I don't include Indigenous Australian culture in this novel, I would be ignoring a vital part of the cultural identity of this part of the world. It would be terrible. Having an Indigenous Australian romantic lead in Amaryllis' intended would also be a rare and positive opportunity.
But I worry that, as a white person, it might not be my story to tell. I can go wrong so easily, I could really easily fuck up in this. But I don't want to be another white person telling an Australian story and NOT having the people that really own this land involved in any meaningful way. Especially in this novel, where the Indigenous merfolk outnumber the immigrants 5 to 1.
So, yeah, I don't know what to do. It's also really depressing in a way that Colonialism has driven a lot of this culture into secrecy and obscurity. Or maybe it's only secret and obscure because I'm ignorant. I don't know.
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Date: 2011-08-19 04:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-20 07:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-20 08:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-22 03:08 pm (UTC)Interestingly timed, I recently had an epiphany on my own when it came to a character that I had long ago decided was going to be African American. For a long while after this decision, I had been trying to get a general grip of the character's characterisation and personality, all while not giving the character a specific look or thinking about the fact that they were black. But how ever I tried to map out the character, there was constantly something "off" about them. So a few days ago, I tried to visualise the character, giving them an appearance and that's when I realised what I had been doing wrong:
In trying to keep my image neutral of the character, I had without thinking about it been making them "white". I had completely neglected the fact of the matter that while race doesn't dominate a character, it's just as much a part of who they are as their gender, religion, national identity, social class and etc is. When I genuinely thought of the character as African American, it was like I discovered the right piece of the puzzle to make the picture whole, and the time when I was thinking the character "neutral" was me having tried to put in a piece that didn't fit. Because "neutral" to me is what is my own standard, in other words white.
When I finally did picture them as black, the way they were supposed to be, everything else just followed and the character became at once more believable in every way. Their motivations, personality and way of thinking stopped ringing false. And their being equal with another character was suddenly very much more real, and not just a Harry/Ginny-thing. In part, I think, because some character traits that I had been avoiding, thinking that it would make them too similar to another character, just tagged along and got put into their right context, making me see that it was folly to avoid them. I think, with some characters, they are already there for you, you just have to see them. Because I had blinded myself to a part of my character, I had been blinding myself to other parts as well. For a character to be real, they have to be whole, and they have to be true.
In the end, whatever attribute a character is to have, is it a part of the character, or is it tacked on? And the only way to tell, I think, is putting the character in the context of the attribute and see if it fits with the rest of who they are. Is it the right piece for your puzzle, or will you have to get yourself a new puzzle to fit for your piece, and if so, is it worth it? From your post, I'm guessing yes, and if not, I'm thinking the unappropriate part would be using a piece that doesn't fit. (In other words, having them be classed as Ethnic Minority without it ringing true for their character. Sorta realised how my turn of phrase could be misinterpreted.)
Anyway, that's just what I think, and it's possible I'm going about it the wrong way. It was just that when I had my epiphany, I for the first time, in at least a really long time, felt like I was talking to the character. They weren't real until then, more of a white stereotype actually, and ironically.
Good luck with finding out about the Noongar!