4 ms·

> The wikipedia article on African American literature would certainly suggest there's plenty to choose from. Absolutely, I recognize I might just be unaware,

> The wikipedia article on African American literature would certainly suggest there's plenty to choose from. Absolutely, I recognize I might just be unaware, and that's probably because they're not made into big budget movies and very much should be. I'd also love to see that. And to be clear, I'm in 100% agreement that I want to see and think there should be a lot more of their stories represented and made into big productions. What I wonder though is how much those stories are a part of the average Afro American active culture. Do they grow up reading those books too, or they do so reading Tolkien instead? If the experience of an Afro American child is Marvel Comics, Disney movies, and Tolkien stories, and you continue to exclude them from the characters, it just seems wrong. I also wonder if there are a lot that aren't slave stories or racial tension stories. And finally I wonder if the stories would always be diverse, logically they'd all include white people, since Afro American heritage now is American life, a life in a place of diverse people from many race. And maybe this is my point as well, if you write fantasy, but your experience is American, why wouldn't you include people of all color in your story? But if you did, you'd one hundred percent get some folks come out and say that fantasy stories are European inspired and should only have white people in them. That if a person has an Irish accent they can't be of black skin, and what does that make of black people in Ireland right now?

wizofaus 4y ago
Why should a writer or for that matter film or TV producer even care what "some folks" are gonna think - it's impossible (and pointless) to please everybody. The idea that the fantasy genre is inherently European and should only consist of caucasian characters is patently absurd and untrue anyway - even CS Lewis had an Arabic-inspired protagonist (female, at that, but that's no denying a fair bit of racist sentiment in his writings too). Btw this is an interesting read: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/22/namina-forna-lord-of-the-rings-jrr-tolkien-fan-the-guilded-ones https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2021/...
- wizofaus 4y ago
  Apologies, wrong link, should be https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/22/namina-forna-lord-of-the-rings-jrr-tolkien-fan-the-guilded-ones https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/22/namina-forna-l...
CapricornNoble 4y ago
>>>What I wonder though is how much those stories are a part of the average Afro American active culture. Do they grow up reading those books too, or they do so reading Tolkien instead? I read Tolkien, because my mother was a nerd, and shared her love of sci-fi/fantasy with me. I presume she got her exposure to sci-fi/fantasy at university (graduated 1973), despite attending an HBCU. I really do wonder who introduced her to Tolkien.... I can't say I've ever consumed any "high fantasy"-like stories of African origin. >>>If the experience of an Afro American child is Marvel Comics, Disney movies, and Tolkien stories, and you continue to exclude them from the characters, it just seems wrong. This is a bizarre line of thought that has really only emerged in the past ~15 years or so, IMO. Growing up, I never once looked at Sean Connery as James Bond and thought "I can't relate to this guy because his skin is too light." My favorite Marvel character in the early 90s wasn't Blade or Black Panther, it was Cable. All of this cultural squabbling is the fault of a loud demographic of predominantly-young, emotionally-immature, college-brainwashed intersectionalists, deep in a the Hollyweird bubble. We have members of the black community who are critical of this nonsense, but they are often marginalized by the mainstream. JustSomeGuy on YouTube (a black guy from Chicago) shits all over the "woke" LOTR community: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy089HU5Ksc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy089HU5Ksc Also Eric D. July ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhFvd5vkB8o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhFvd5vkB8o ) who calls out modern "diversity" characters as "tokenized": they're not actually black/minority characters, they're just the exact same white characters with a lazy skin-color/sexual orientation change. That's why Eric July went and created his own entirely-new comic book universe, which pre-sold $3M+ dollars of comics in just a few weeks. Almost no coverage from mainstream comic websites, and discussion of his success is banned on the major comic sub-Reddits. >>>And maybe this is my point as well, if you write fantasy, but your experience is American, why wouldn't you include people of all color in your story? But if you did, you'd one hundred percent get some folks come out and say that fantasy stories are European inspired and should only have white people in them. I think this is a strawman. I've never heard such criticism for Game of Thrones. My understanding is Westeros is based on the War of the Roses period in England, but the world is still built with other regions and non-white cultures (Dothraki = obvious not-Mongolians, etc...). But if they had cast Wesley Snipes as Eddard Stark, there would be a rightful uproar.
- 4y ago

wizofaus 4y ago

Why should a writer or for that matter film or TV producer even care what "some folks" are gonna think - it's impossible (and pointless) to please everybody. The idea that the fantasy genre is inherently European and should only consist of caucasian characters is patently absurd and untrue anyway - even CS Lewis had an Arabic-inspired protagonist (female, at that, but that's no denying a fair bit of racist sentiment in his writings too). Btw this is an interesting read: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/22/namina-forna-lord-of-the-rings-jrr-tolkien-fan-the-guilded-ones https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2021/...

wizofaus 4y ago
Apologies, wrong link, should be https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/22/namina-forna-lord-of-the-rings-jrr-tolkien-fan-the-guilded-ones https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/22/namina-forna-l...

CapricornNoble 4y ago

>>>What I wonder though is how much those stories are a part of the average Afro American active culture. Do they grow up reading those books too, or they do so reading Tolkien instead? I read Tolkien, because my mother was a nerd, and shared her love of sci-fi/fantasy with me. I presume she got her exposure to sci-fi/fantasy at university (graduated 1973), despite attending an HBCU. I really do wonder who introduced her to Tolkien.... I can't say I've ever consumed any "high fantasy"-like stories of African origin. >>>If the experience of an Afro American child is Marvel Comics, Disney movies, and Tolkien stories, and you continue to exclude them from the characters, it just seems wrong. This is a bizarre line of thought that has really only emerged in the past ~15 years or so, IMO. Growing up, I never once looked at Sean Connery as James Bond and thought "I can't relate to this guy because his skin is too light." My favorite Marvel character in the early 90s wasn't Blade or Black Panther, it was Cable. All of this cultural squabbling is the fault of a loud demographic of predominantly-young, emotionally-immature, college-brainwashed intersectionalists, deep in a the Hollyweird bubble. We have members of the black community who are critical of this nonsense, but they are often marginalized by the mainstream. JustSomeGuy on YouTube (a black guy from Chicago) shits all over the "woke" LOTR community: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy089HU5Ksc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy089HU5Ksc Also Eric D. July ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhFvd5vkB8o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhFvd5vkB8o ) who calls out modern "diversity" characters as "tokenized": they're not actually black/minority characters, they're just the exact same white characters with a lazy skin-color/sexual orientation change. That's why Eric July went and created his own entirely-new comic book universe, which pre-sold $3M+ dollars of comics in just a few weeks. Almost no coverage from mainstream comic websites, and discussion of his success is banned on the major comic sub-Reddits. >>>And maybe this is my point as well, if you write fantasy, but your experience is American, why wouldn't you include people of all color in your story? But if you did, you'd one hundred percent get some folks come out and say that fantasy stories are European inspired and should only have white people in them. I think this is a strawman. I've never heard such criticism for Game of Thrones. My understanding is Westeros is based on the War of the Roses period in England, but the world is still built with other regions and non-white cultures (Dothraki = obvious not-Mongolians, etc...). But if they had cast Wesley Snipes as Eddard Stark, there would be a rightful uproar.

4y ago