Growing up, I wrote a lot of stories. (Fiction is so in my blood that it still feels odd writing non-fiction as much as I do now.) The main characters – almost all the characters – were white.
Thinking back to my main project from when I was eleven and twelve, I can only recall two non-white characters, both of whom die in their first scene. The main character’s best friend is presented as the best of people: brave and ethical and loyal and giving. She’s also very pale, with straight blonde hair, something the main character always envies.
The main and ideal characters in books I had been reading were always white. I didn’t even try to insert people like me into my creations.
When I was younger than that, I tried to be white. Except, I didn’t think of it as whiteness, I thought of it as normal, so I wouldn’t be quite as much the weird, quiet, bookish, sick kid. I got it into my head that Englishness was the epitome of whiteness I should be aiming for. I altered the way I talked, the accent, the expressions, so that I’d sound like the kids in Harry Potter.
It didn’t work, of course: I didn’t get whiter, and no kid at school was fooled. Big blue eyes and stolen phraseology don’t whiteness make.
I wish, I wish I’d had more positive representations of people like me growing up, more representations at all. There were so few people I encountered on the library shelves who were not white that I thought I’d better get white if I wanted to be okay. It pains me to think of what the girl I was went through, and it pains me to still be fielding questions about whether I’m from England. It kills me to think that I tried to write myself out of my own life. I love who I am at long last, but that kind of damage doesn’t go away fast. I’m still picking shards of something else out of myself.
I did this, too… So many of my main characters were redheads.
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You see something very similar with visual art. A lot of my high school classmates (myself included) tended to depict thin, white women in our artwork, even when we ourselves were not thin and white (or women, but that’s a whole other issue!)
Loved this post, thanks for sharing!
It’s taken me very long to see this. And only since seeing/hearing “The Danger of a Single Story” and reading “I didn’t dream of dragons” I’m beginning to appreciate the full extension of how problematic it is. (I’m sorry I fail at html, but I assure you, this can be googled) The mirror image is that for me as a white person in a multicultural society, it’s appaling how badly that’s reflected in our literature.
Thank you for highlighting it again.
Thanks, folks. :)
Here are links to I Didn’t Dream of Dragons and The Danger of a Single Story (it has a transcript), both of which I’ve mentioned elsewhere as being hugely important for me, also. :)
Also, Glauke, if you’re interested, here’s a link-making tutorial.
it took an effort of will to start to draw people of color. i only drew white people as a kid. gah. so much to relate to here.
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It is amazing how often I’ve heard this story from people of color, from different cultures and different countries. Truth is it is probably far more common than even I estimate because many people are too ashamed to admit it. I myself for too long a time thought that all my major problems were because I had the fate of being born non-white. Ironically, that was theoretically correct though not for the reasons that I was ascribing it to. Eventually, I came into the understanding that there was nothing wrong with me, and I began to try an analyse how it was that I came to such a sorry state. Though it was a combination of stimuli, it didn’t take me long to figure out the media (movies and television) was the primary culprit. Where I was inculcated with a standard of beauty and who to trust to “get the job done right”. If I should ever be blessed with a family, you can be certain that television will be banned in my home during the formulative years.
This is why I decided to get into filmmaking. I’ve been acutely aware in discussion where people of color cry foul over their misrepresentation in media, or their omission when they should be present many whites will fall back on the line, “why get so worked up over a mere movie/ You people are always making something out of nothing/You’re the reason racism is still around.” Sounds logical until you see things like the outcry over the casting of p.o.c. in the recent Hunger Games film, or a woman being told she was too dark to be a hobbit in the upcoming Peter Jackson film. The anger of fanboys that studios would dare cast a black actor in the Thor movie as one of the gods. If movies don’t mean anything why do they get upset when we try to level the playing field, or want to participate? They want us to identify with their stories, but how dare we actually think we could be the hero for real. I don’t even think most white people realize how ridiculous they sound, saying I couldn’t possibly be a musketeer, when I’ve watch them portray Asians, Native Americans and Jesus Christ.