FF: Race (was: Pretty stereotypes)

[John Walton]

No: HPFGUIDX 20488

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas said:

> Which brings to mind my post from yesterday--what is it about
> characters of color that makes certain readers and fan writers so darn
> uncomfortable?

I think it's society. People (especially people who would never be classed
as racist) are very conscious of how they act and react to people of color.
My Sociolinguistics class was having a discussion about the link between
ethnicity and language as an identity symbol, and people *really* started to
tiptoe. We actually had to stop the discussion and decide what we were going
to use as a term for non-white people. Eventually we came up with "persons
of color", but the very fact that we (as a fairly liberal, accepting bunch
of students) had to stop our discussion and ask the two people of color what
their preferred appelation was.

Perhaps it's because there have been so many different terms (even in my
nigh-on-20 years) -- "black", "African-American", "colored", "persons of
color", "non-white"...I can see where some people might have trouble in
distinguishing which is appropriate to be used.

--John

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John Walton -- john at walton.to

Current...
Movie: Shrek. 11/10!
CD: Shrek Soundtrack ::grin::
Song: "Hallelujah": Rufus Wainwright (from Shrek soundtrack)
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