Superstore - Happy Birthday - Race - Appearance - Names

[Rita Winston]

Nethelia, how are you and your family doing? I gather you ran away from
the flood all the way to Denver!

I love all the clever products that DOREEN and AL invented!

Happy Birthday to Jim the Tech Moderator!
Happy Birthday to Danette!

Scott wrote:
> So my question is what do we assume when race isn't given?
> The race of the author? Our own race? It's not always a clear
> cut question.

Michela Ecks wrote:
> I tend to assume the person is white because I'm white and
> that's the easiest way for me to picture people...

Yael wrote:
> Usually, when I read a character's description, they remind me
> of someone else and I adopt the race of that someone for the
> character as well.

Amber wrote;
> I know that I rarely know the race of the author, unless they
> have a picture on the book somewhere and I happen to look at it.

I agree with all the above people. I usually find myself assuming that
people are white, including the author, but sometimes a character
reminds me of someone, which must be why I keep seeing Hermione as a
light-skinned black. I often feel guilty because the default assumption
that people are white is racist, but on the other hand, when I hear
about street criminals or welfare recipients, I assume them to be white,
not just prosperous people.

Ebony wrote:
> whereas a modern black writer describing black characters will
> concentrate on the skin color... whether the character's skin is
ivory,
> cafe au lait, toast, cinnamon, honey, golden, sepia, mahogany, milk
> or bittersweet chocolate, or deepest charcoal.

> As a child growing up in a majority-black environment, whenever
> I read in a book that a character was "dark" as opposed to being
> fair, I automatically assumed they were black.  When I learned that
> this meant only that the character had dark hair and eyes, I was a
> little disappointed.

Amy Z wrote:
> I have read this in fiction and been made very uncomfortable
> by it--somehow it's part of my white-person-trying-not-to-be-racist
> mostly-unconscious training to not describe people by skin color.

What Amy said! I was very relieved to read Ebony's remark (her whole
post was fabulous) because I keep being afraid that I'll be thought
racist for describing people as 'light-skinned black' (above) or 'two
milk chocolate girls' (sisters in an unposted chapter of my fic --
Slytherins of color! is that racist of me?). I wish I understood better
which color is named by each of those lovely mostly-food words, because
almost everyone I know and almost everyone I see around is some shade of
tan or olive, whether they're East Asian (which I wish we were still
allowed to call "Oriental") or South Asian or Latino or Armenian or
Ashkenazi Jewish or light-skinned black... As many exceptions are
less-pale blacks as are more-pale whites.

In line with the above, I can't deal with describing a person as 'dark'
whose skin is pale, no matter how dark hiser hair and eyes are.

Amy Z wrote:
> Appearance is almost entirely for other people, and the pressure
> not to look a certain way comes from the fact that the people
> around you don't like that kind of look.  If  people regularly told
> you you looked gorgeous without your changing a thing about
> your looks, would you feel the inclination to?

Ebony wrote:
> Well, if there weren't any other people in the world, I imagine
> we wouldn't do a lot of things we do for the benefit of others.  :-)
> Like taking a shower or bath at least once a day, wearing deodorant
> and anti-perspirant

I disagree that changing one's appearance BECAUSE of other people is
doing it FOR other people -- that is, just because our ideas of what
looks nice comes from our culture, ie people, doesn't mean that we do it
because we want people to admire our looks. Anyone who saw me in person
would know that having my appearance admired is not a priority to me: I
am hideously ugly, grossly fat, bad skin and no make-up, hair messy,
thinning, and currently messily pinned up on top of my head to reduce
the heat on my neck, even tho' I look DOUBLE hideous with my hair up...
No shaving anywhere, flat shoes (usually sandals) and all my clothes
count as casual -- lately I mostly wear a lot of tank tops (yes, to go
to a professional job in an office). Because my highest priority is
comfort, and the biggest part of comfort is dealing with the miserably
oppressive heat (such as 70 degrees F) that always makes me sweat so
much that when I was in high school and wore make-up, it always melted
and ran down my face.

Another part of comfort is taking a lot of baths and showers and
shampoos (and brushing my teeth), because they are pleasant in
themselves and also because the alternative, being dirty, is very
uncomfortable and ITCHY.

 But I wear a lot of jewelry (more than anyone but me thinks looks good)
because **I** like to look at it, and I buy (and wear when the weather
is cool enough) many pretty clothes such as Ren Faire garb and tye-dyed
muu-muus and so on, because **I** like them even tho' everyone who sees
me wearing them thinks I'm very eccentric. And I would like to put a
bright blue streak in my hair because I LOVE BLUE (but I don't because
bright blue would clash with my brown hair: that is an appearance
decision based on what other people would think).

Angela wrote:
> Especially the two guys both named David. One was known as
> the David who played the guitar, as opposed to the David with
> glasses (who didn't play the guitar).

Long ago, I lived in New York City, and hung out with a group of friends
who were mostly native New Yorkers and mostly white. Two of the group
were Eric the Flute (hotshit computer programmer who was a classical
flautist) and Eric the Brush (MFA painter who had some kind of clerical
job).

Jamieson wrote:
> Betty is derived, according to the book, from Beatrice which

Betty is derived from Elizabeth, which means woman (isha) of the house
(beth) of God (El) in Hebrew.

> Beatrice which means either "...chastised or rampant,

Beatrice means 'blessed' in Latin, like beatified,

> Sue is derived from Sophie,

Sue is derived from Susan, which is Shoshana, which is Hebrew for 'lily'

> Jean is derived from Joan, or Joan of Arc, to mean, taken in the Holy
Spirit

Jean and Jeanne are French for John and Joan/Jane -- all derived from
the Hebrew name Jonathan, whose meaning I forget. Margaret Murray, THE
WITCH CULT IN WESTERN EUROPE, a long ago book about how the British
monarchy preserved the Pagan religion of Europe, said that Medieval
witches often had names that began with that JN, in honor of the Basque
god Janicot...

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