4 ms·

I think that it's about interpretation; you can say "this doesn't include me or my friends -> it is racist" or you can say "this is a book written in a place an

by sgt101 12y ago

I think that it's about interpretation; you can say "this doesn't include me or my friends -> it is racist" or you can say "this is a book written in a place and time where people didn't think about and confront these issues in the way we do now". If I was to write a book like LOTR (which would take a long time because doing potato printing is hard work, and crayons are quite poor media too) then I would be being racist because it would be an act of specific exclusion wrt. the people I meet every day. Dear old JRR was not in that context and given the context he was in it's a pretty enlighted tome (I think).

ajuc 12y ago
I have problems with both interpretations :) Second-guessing authors by their works and atrtibuting various -isms to them just because they created world without representing some parts of reality as they know it (or as we know it) still seems mean and unjustified to me. Was "7 samurais" racist? Would it be racist if it was created by Nigerians and still only featured Japanese people? According to your definition - yes. According to me - not at all. It's part of setting, people of all backgrounds may be interested in whatever cultures they please and they shouldn't need to explain themselves about it.
- sgt101 12y ago
  Thank you for your respectful and well framed reply. It's nice to be able to carry on a civilized debate :) I think it's like the school yard. When I was a kid we excluded some kids in my class. We didn't talk to them or invite them to things, by this I mean that if one of these kids had approached me I would have smiled and chatted, but I would never have approached him/her because they weren't "in". This group didn't have any impact or involvement in most of what went on in high school. I am pretty sure that they really didn't want to be part of things after a short while. I don't blame them. Nowadays I feel a bit sick when I think about these kids, it was terrible, at the time I felt relieved that I was allowed to be "in", although I was not "cool", so I went along with what happened. I think this kind of exclusion is what I am referring to. JRR was not doing this; his world (I mean the world he was allowed to live in by his culture and society) did not include people from other races. So he did not exclude or fail to consider a group of the people around him, if I were writing and I did not acknowledge people from other ethnic groups then that would be different.

by sgt101 12y ago

ajuc 12y ago

I have problems with both interpretations :) Second-guessing authors by their works and atrtibuting various -isms to them just because they created world without representing some parts of reality as they know it (or as we know it) still seems mean and unjustified to me. Was "7 samurais" racist? Would it be racist if it was created by Nigerians and still only featured Japanese people? According to your definition - yes. According to me - not at all. It's part of setting, people of all backgrounds may be interested in whatever cultures they please and they shouldn't need to explain themselves about it.

sgt101 12y ago
Thank you for your respectful and well framed reply. It's nice to be able to carry on a civilized debate :) I think it's like the school yard. When I was a kid we excluded some kids in my class. We didn't talk to them or invite them to things, by this I mean that if one of these kids had approached me I would have smiled and chatted, but I would never have approached him/her because they weren't "in". This group didn't have any impact or involvement in most of what went on in high school. I am pretty sure that they really didn't want to be part of things after a short while. I don't blame them. Nowadays I feel a bit sick when I think about these kids, it was terrible, at the time I felt relieved that I was allowed to be "in", although I was not "cool", so I went along with what happened. I think this kind of exclusion is what I am referring to. JRR was not doing this; his world (I mean the world he was allowed to live in by his culture and society) did not include people from other races. So he did not exclude or fail to consider a group of the people around him, if I were writing and I did not acknowledge people from other ethnic groups then that would be different.