Writing over the reptilian brain

Vocabulary: When I write ROAARS it stands, in the book, for Race / (sexual) Orientation / Age / Ability /  Religion / Sex, these being the differences that the authors believe are most "highlighted by majority culture." (They believe that class on "this continent" is an important categorization but not recognized as significant by majority culture. Perhaps they mean as opposed to a country like Britain where it's definitely a source of prejudice. p7)

I finally read Writing the Other by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, considered the basic primer for writing about people of color in fiction stories. (My review here.)  It's actually a good book for talking about race in general. Web sites about race can have a bit of an intimidating feel to them for white people--because they're meant to be safe spaces for people of color. If white people feel intimidated, or uncomfortable, or outnumbered, that's considered a healthy experience because it reproduces for us [er moi and other white people] what it feels like to be a minority, or an oppressed group.

But some people just aren't ready for that.

THE LEARNING CHAIN
Eons ago at church some dude or another described conversion with a great simile: A chain. You never know what link you might be in converting someone. If someone's an atheist who one day becomes a Christian, then just being a non-obnoxious Christian might be the first link for them, and you may never see that last link (depending on your relationship with them.) But for someone who believes in a Christian god, and is trying out your congregation, you might be the last link.

I lurv that analogy cause it applies to EVERY kind of "bringing someone around to seeing things your way." If you want to be good at converting someone to your argument, you first have to get a feel for how many links they've got, and whether you can add another one in there, and is it a starting piece, a middle piece, or an end piece.

A guy once worked at the same bookstore as me who looked and acted like a vegan Tom Cruise. He was not very good at converting people because he only appealed to last linkers like me. In other cases, he was removing links.

A FIRST LINK BOOK
A lot of the race blogs I've been to, they are not first-link sites. But Shawl and Ward's book is, I think. I mean, it's not for racist people, but it's for the shyer, less certain, but well-meaning white writer who wants to include people of color in his writing but is afraid of getting it wrong.

They even begin with a very nice description of why we have racist impulses, even when we're Nice Well-meaning People. They describe the "reptile brain", and how it makes shortcuts in order to process information quickly and keep you alive, but that it's not a critical thinker. It's the one that comes to stereotyped conclusions. Eg. It meets one feminist who hates men, and decides all feminists hate men. You need to catch it making those assumptions and change them (11-12) (which is what we mean by consciousness raising.) For this section alone, the book is worth reading and sharing with people.

But the dread of Being Racist shouldn't stop one from writing about people different from ourselves. It's that fear, expressed by a friend, that started the workshops and this eventual book.

"Making a racist or other mistake about a marked-ROAARS characteristic is not permanent. It's not soul-staining. It's not death. It's okay to make mistakes. ... Do your best, and you'll avoid the biggest mistake of all: exclusion." (pp 12, 83)

BUT FAILS IS BAD!
I think this is a really important point to hammer home. Because here's how I've usually seen the "I'm too afraid to write about people of color" comment come up:

1. writer A writes about people of color
2. fans of color point out what they see as some mistakes (by mistakes I mean, treatments they found stereotypical, or disempowering, etc.)
3. that writer, or the writer's writer friends, or other fans (all of the above mostly white), instead of listening to the feelings of these people of color, trying to really understand where they're coming from; they get offended, think A is being accused of being a Racist, and start defending her, generally along the lines of "everyone's way too sensitive these days" and arguments that aim to remove power
4. the people of color then feel their voices are being shut down, and fire back, generally pointing out not only the ways in which they are right, but how the fans etc. are classically derailing the argument and therefore adding to the general racist feel of the whole situation
5. those fans etc. who do acknowledge or see some of the points being made, finally say: Well if writers are going to be jumped on for every little mistake they make what's the point in trying? Might as well not write about people of color at all. <-- This is where I always see people spring back to a defensive "write what you know" position.
6. and the people of color try to say: Because it's your responsibility to TRY even if you FAIL. Take your lumps! Don't be afraid of being wrong. White people can be wrong, it won't kill them.

(And that's what one element of Racefail '09 was about.)

Shawl and Ward are trying to save any innocent wee writers from undergoing that kind of trial by fire. They're trying to point us towards all the reasons why we have to include ROAARS people in our books, and why we also have to make the attempt to do it the best way we can. And what they don't say is: When you get it wrong, and people write Say Things on the Internets, take it like a lady.

"Learning boils down to making mistakes, seeing what you've done wrong, and making corrections. If you're going to be a good writer, if you're going to improve, you mustn't flinch from this process. Do your best. Eventually, you'll figure out how to make your best better." (49)

That's so obviously what the writing life is all about, why wouldn't we apply that to writing about The Other as well?

PS
Final advice, writing about author Sarah Zettel:  

"Zettel makes a conscious effort to avoid equating non-European skin tones with food. ... A friend pointed out to her the annoying frequency of references to coffee and chocolate as racial color analogies. Humans have been treated as commodities in this hemisphere's recent past." 

What a great example of white privilege. An author can think she's writing a sensuous description, and a reader can just end up feeling commodified. Oops!