One of the issues that tends to excite our corner of the blogosphere is that of “colorblind” writing. White authors often assume that not mentioning race in their books means that they are being non-racist, whereas people of color tend to think less of them because they do so. Some work by psychologists at Tufts University and Harvard Business School have attempted to throw some light such issues.
The experiments involved a game that asked volunteers to work out which of a series of photos their partner was holding by asking as few yes/no questions as possible. As the photos were of faces, asking about the race of the subject was an obvious thing to do. However, white people tended to avoid asking that question, particularly if the person holding the photograph was not white. Roles were switched during the experiment, and if the non-white partner asked a race question of the white partner then the white partner would be much more likely to do so as well in a later round of the game having apparently been given permission to raise the subject.
The researchers also showed video of the games to people of color and asked them to rate the white participants as to whether they were racist or not. Those people who were reluctant to use race in their questions were generally perceived as more racist than those who did not.
The conclusions are nicely summed up by Evan Apfelbaum:
Our findings don’t suggest that individuals who avoid talking about race are racists. […] On the contrary, most are well-intentioned people who earnestly believe that colorblindness is the culturally sensitive way to interact. But, as we’ve shown, bending over backward to avoid even mentioning race sometimes creates more interpersonal problems than it solves.
I don’t suppose that this will stop people having furious arguments about this issue, but hopefully it will provide food for thought. I suspect that similar issues may apply in areas other than race as well.
About 25 years ago, a group of us (SF fans) met every Wednesday at a local restaurant. One evening a Hungarian member who had just arrived asked who our waitress was, and we all looked around to find her and point her out, largely in order to avoid saying “the black waitress.” Which he promptly called us on.
Years later, a black woman was teaching a seminar on multiculturalism where I worked (an association of people in a helping profession). When she said “How would you describe me?” I kicked it off with “You’re a black woman,” largely because I vividly remembered the incident in the restaurant. And everyone in my group looked at me, stunned, and the seminar giver looked blank for a minute, then said, “Usually it takes a LONG time to get around to that. Thank you.”
I still waffle sometimes. And it annoys me when people play “Will the reader notice I’m being sneaky about sex/race?” games, largely because I had my fill of it in the sixties and seventies. (Example: a character in Vonda McIntyre’s Dreamsnake whose sex is never given and whose name is ambiguous. I picked male, based on how she portrayed other characters.)
If there’s a plot purpose, not a problem; Emma Bull’s Bonedance is a prime example. It’s the “I’m assuming most of my audience needs to have their consciousnesses raised” part that bugs me.
There are some things I really don’t miss about the sixties and seventies.
It is complicated though. I recall China and I getting into a misunderstanding which we resolved when we realized that “black” was acceptable in California but “colored” was not, and the opposite was true in the UK. The same is true of the terms “disabled” and “handicapped” – one is acceptable on one side of the Atlantic and an insult on the other, and vice versa. And I vividly remember almost being string up by a group of Australian feminists for using the term “guys” to mean people of all genders.
Wait, you can’t say guys to mean people of all genders? I do that too . . . Not that I think you mind, but sheesh…its not like saying mankind or something. Then again, it takes usage to make a term gender-neutral, and dear god we need more of these in English.
*wants to learn Finnish when I have time*
V:
These were the same people who claimed that fiction should not have plots because plots were phallocentric.
And yes, there are a lot of feminists who object to “mankind” as well.