Historical Romance: it's a white zone

I talked yesterday about historical romances, and touched on the fact that most of them these days take place in Regency England.

Like anyone raised on Georgette Heyer, I love the Regency. It's an interesting time tucked in between a more morally loose Georgian period, and the super strict Victorian. There's room for eccentrics and dissipated heroes and flirtatious chicks, but there are still rules which limit the characters and give authors a lot of material for conflict.

But there are some problems with this, the main one being: There can be no people of color in these stories. You can attempt homosexuality in this context, like Anna Cowan did; you can put in a Jewish person, like Trollope's The Way We Live Now (not Regency, but close); but there aren't many opportunities for a black hero, or an Indian one, etc. In modern London there are a lot of East Indians and Afro-Anglos, etc. But in the Regency, they're mostly absent.

If you have an historical romance set in the United States in the 1700s, 1800s, there are more opportunities. MM Kaye wrote a great cross-racial romance set in India (The Far Pavillions, omg so romantic the scene in the cave!); and Paul Scott created a heartbreaking romance in 1940s India, in The Jewel in the Crown. But the romance genre has sort of turned away from all these possibilites. Even when a romance takes place in Egypt, as so many do (it's the big Orientalist Fantasy in romance novels, I don't know why) the romance is between white people. The last Loretta Chase I attempted (takes place in Albania) was so stupid in its portrayal of characters of color, I couldn't read it.

Mary Kowal has recreated the Regency with magic, but I don't know if because of this she's managed to find a way to integrate diversity. Wrede and Stevermer didn't.

Well. I suspect ebook publishing is what's going to unleash some much needed diversity and fresh ideas and more radical ideas in Romance Land. Frankly the entire romance genre is incredibly white. Embarrassingly so.
   

Has the internet become less bastardly?

For awhile I've been wanting to go through my old posts and see what's of value in there. I figure, while I'm at it, I might as well re-post a few.

I was happy to discover that the site bastardly.com, which I talked about in my first post on July 31, 2007, is no longer bastardly. It seems to have changed from a site that makes fun of celebrities to just another star-gazer site. I had originally linked to pictures they had posted of Sandra Oh, and some nasty comments:

...what with the plethora and popularity of "Gawd you guys are like SO ugly ha ha HA!" sites right now, I figured it wouldn't hurt to have an anti-fugly blog. I have a sense of humour, and I like seeing weird clothes too, but a lot of this stuff is so brutal it makes me a bit sick to my stomach.
Example: bastardly (don't ask me how I even come across these sites!) goes after Sandra Oh so much, it smacks of desperation. (Which of course also feels creepily racist.)

The link isn't dead, but it's just a bunch of photos from an award show; there's one of Oh and no nasty comments. ...Can it be? Are there some corners of the internet that have become less nasty in the last 5 years? Hey, we saw Perez turn over a new leaf, so who knows.
    

White people solve racism!

Funny poster I came across, made by George Takei:

And then I somehow fell upon this nice, succinct description of the problem with that book/movie:

 the structure of narratives like The Help underscores the failure of pop culture to acknowledge a central truth: Within the civil rights movement, white people were the help.
The architects, visionaries, prime movers, and most of the on-the-ground laborers of the civil rights movement were African-American. Many white Americans stood beside them, and some even died beside them, but it was not their fight — and more important, it was not their idea. (Entertainment Weekly)

There are no whites in this movie? $*#&$!!

Saw an interesting interview with George Lucas about his new production, Red Tails, about the Tuskeegee Airmen (all black fighter pilots in WWII.) He flatly admitted that the movie is very "jingoistic," patriotic, "old fashioned," "corny" because he wanted a movie for boys--to show them African-American patriots who made a real contribution to America. Lucas said he and those working on the film had to keep reminding themselves that they wanted to portray these men as heroes, not as victims.

He's been trying to get the movie made for 23 years. He financed it himself, but couldn't find a studio to promote it, because there are no major white roles. (He said even Tyler Perry movies go to not-major distributors.)

He consulted 40 of the airmen, and looking it up on wiki I see it has African-American screenwriters and director. He said if there's a strong enough opening weekend, he wants to make a movie about the airmen in training, and postwar when they were among the people starting the civil rights movement. He says those will be the good movies (and I agree!)

Don't know if it will succeed in these ways,  but kudos to the effort. And how necessary the effort is, considering the unbelievably racist comments to this trailer (against both black and Jewish people.)



     

Take the headdress OFF!

Is this what happens when you aren't part of a campus anymore and aren't watching MTV? You don't realize that the latest hipster trend is to wear aboriginal headdresses?

Ohhhhh maaaaan. When I returned to university in 2003 only the Engineering students were pulling dumb shit like this. (Or was it my first degree in the 90's??) Were they ahead of their time? Will those dreadlock wigs be the fashion in 2012?

Of course, you know who I blame:

That was 2004. Andre 3000's never apologized, doubtless because he's "part Native American"...  just like 90% of North Americans seems to claim.

So here we are, 2011, and it's in the music videos...

...in the ads...

... on the celebrities...

Jared Leto

Kesha

...in the magazines...

...in the stores...

...and on every white person at the Coachella music festival. (Sorry I didn't credit these pics above and below, but they're all from the Hipster Appropriations tumblr. They've got zillions of them.)

 

If you don't think wearing a hipster headdress is Inappropriate then go here. And if you still don't, then you can join some of the naysayers in the comments. What really struck me was how many of them put forward a new sort of argument that I assume is coming from a younger age group, that goes like this: There's no culture anymore, everyone's exploited, don't waste your time trying to stop it.

It kind of disturbs me. 

If this view were truly representative of Today's Youth I would go to bed and stay there like Brian Wilson. However I know it's not, thank the Lord of Appropriate Head Gear. Here's a taste:

 
* it's 2010. there is no culture anymore. you should just be happy people still think of natives when they see a head-dress. 

* nobody "owns" their culture - there's too much variations and too many similarities of the human kind in various cultures around the world for anyone to claim anything. I hope that Ms. Baldwin actually got the point here as well. And again, Indian tribes/nations have no cultures, just like Irish immigrants in America have no culture. The one culture that unites us is the USA culture, and that culture is the only relevant one in this conversation.

* It is idealist to think that YOUR culture and YOUR cultural item won't be exploited for fashion or social comment, when all other culture is exploited to. This generation (in the west anyway) and all others to come to have freedoms, socially, economically and morally that no angry blog is going to curb or undo. Save your breath.

* I think this point of view is painfully old-fashioned. The Internet has created a melting pot of Ancient, Present, Past, and Future cultures from all around the world. And at this point, everyone is fully aware of what stereotypes are and what "PC" is, and going on about them is only going to perpetuate them.... Everyone is connected and everyone is mixed, this is a new tribe of people. A handmade headdress (and not the dime store "cowboys and indians" plastic version) is sacred to anyone who wears it and certainly to anyone who makes it.

Save us all. :-o  

Cheer us up Graham Greene!

         

Studying race; and Powwows: Ur doing it wrong

So I'm back in research mode for the revision of my last novel. My protagonist is half Mohawk and half... Nuu-cha-nulth or Snuneymuxw. Thing is I know Nanaimo better, which is where the Snuneymuxw people are... so why did I choose Nuu-cha-nulth last time, who are further North around Port Alberni where I've never been? I don't know, I'm sure I had a reason, like maybe there was an online verbal dictionary. But there's one now, for the Halkomelem language. (I started this book in 2003, a lot's changed on the netserland.)

Anyway. So it's back to researching again, because there are new resources available. Such as Tumblr.

I remember reading once that in the race of facebook vs myspace, something interesting came out--that more African-Americans were using myspace. Well, I recently came across a whole bunch of Native American and some Canadian aboriginal Tumblr blogs. So I created a Tumblr blog for my book, in order to easily bookmark things.

And it means I'm back into reading race politics again. I'm reading a book about a guy who went back to live on his Six Nations reserve... well that's not a very political book, except about internal politics. But soon I'll be reading Writing the Other, which is considered The Book on writing... well, the other. And I'm reading and following all these aboriginal Tumblrs, so I find myself dancing off into various corners of the internet, following the trail of interesting stories.

Like this one, about five girls who showed up at a Powwow dressed like this:

A friend took the picture and sent it to a person who runs a blog on cultural appropriation. What shocked her in particular is that these girls were from a high school across from Stanford U where according to one commentor everyone is Crème de la crème politically correct (Eg. you don't pull this shit at Stanford U, whereas at McGill I'm sure the engineering students still party in fake dreadlocks and chief headdresses); and according to the blogger:

[Stanford] hosts the largest student run powwow in the nation for 39 years running, that is home to nearly 300 Native students, that has one of the strongest college Native communities in California

I've been suckered in, as usual, by the comments. A lot of the debate has devolved into whether it was okay to post the pic of the girls, mostly because the guy who took the photo tricked the girls into posing for it. (Instead of just taking a candid photo, which I assume would have by-passed all this "Hey that's not nice!" business, and re-focused everyone back on the real issue: WTF!!!)

Have you guys ever been to a powwow? There's one in Kahnawake each year, but I'm such a lazy-pants I never go! I'd like to make myself go this year. I promise to leave the hand-prints at home.

OBAMA & TRUMP WHAT THE F**K

On Wednesday I woke up at noon--a whole hour early!--cause my sister-in-law was coming over at one. I showered, I tidied the apartment. I was probably rushing about the kitchen, dishwashering, listening the CBC radio when I heard about the Obama thing.

All I remember is that I was still half asleep, and that I was busy. And then Penguin arrived, and she stayed until about 8 or 9 PM, and then I watched my shows, and spent time with Fernando, and fell into my usual evening routines.

And then today, routine routine, phone call with other sister-in-law, fight with Fernando, grumpy mood, did some work, made up with Fernando, and then in the wee hours of the morning was on facebook and was reminded...

That the President of the United States had to present his birth certificate to prove that he is an American citizen.

When I first heard it, it caused me so much cognitive dissonance, it really didn't stick. I mean... I remember standing in the kitchen thinking: NO. NO WAY. WHY DID HE GIVE IN??

It was like one of those 9-11 things where you remember where you were when it happened. Except that it was so FUCKED UP it didn't have an impact. My brain rejected it, I finished my chores, I went on with my life. I almost forgot it happened.

This is the President of the United States.

Like... in Canada, we don't have the same sort of respect for the Prime Minister that Americans have for their President. For the role in and of itself. Inauguration doesn't have the same fanfare. It just isn't as special. The Parliamentary system is different, the PM is "first among equals."

You don't ask the President of the mother fucking United States of America to produce his mother fucking proof of citizenship. You don't take birthers seriously. Because you would not let a non-American run for the fucking presidency in the first place. This sort of mistake WOULD NOT HAPPEN. Even less so to an African American, for heaven's sake.

OH MY GOD.

The President of the fucking US has been found guilty of governing a country while black. He's been forced to produce his identity papers. It's what many African Americans were made to think of, and it's what I thought of. It reminded me of apartheid South Africa, where black people had to have their pass card on them at all times. The President had to produce his pass card.

I'm gobsmacked.

And then I saw what TRUMP SAID!!! He's the next fucking Charlie Sheen!!! He's PROUD that he did this. Proud. He said he was proud. And then implied that Obama was let into university undeservedly, and should be off playing basketball. He's a racist Charlie Sheen. And when Jerry Seinfeld withdrew from his son's charity thing, he went on some rant about it. A racist Charlie Sheen.

When Obama was elected some people said this meant they were now in a post-racial America. I hope they get it now.

FUUUUUUUUCK!!!!

Okay. My brain has finally processed the information.

If you need kitty-kats, see previous post.

    

Calm in the face of racism - go Jimmy!

Since I was blogging about political correctness awhile back, this is the perfect follow-up.

I hadn't heard about this young woman at UCLA who posted a shocking "humorous" rant about Asians talking too loud and too often on their cell phones in the library, until my dad told me about it just now.

Here's the original video by Alexandra Wallace, take a moment to watch it:


Besides her wtf-atudinous "ching chong ling long ting tong" routine, why should she care if her neighbor's families come over on the weekend to cook and do laundry? I would have found that lovely. Hello Other Cultural Ideas? Approaches? Ideas of Things? When my husband and his sister lived together they had a nice family living above them, I think they were Indian, who used to bring them vegetables all the time. I don't know why, but isn't that lovely?

The worst part of the rant has to be her callousness towards the tsunami. And in the same video as she talks about her nice girl American manners. Heaven forbid someone had made jokes like that about Americans during Katrina--how would she feel then?

A lot of people responded to her, but this enterprising musician, Jimmy, responded with some humor of his own, and a lot of creativity. Also a must-watch:


Yes, if you're having an epiphany every time you study, you are indeed doing something wrong.

I don't want to rag on the girl, cause she's already gone through death threats, and made her apology. Which is a relief, cause frankly I've seen just as offensive videos or twitter posts elsewhere (usually about gay people) and there was nowhere near this level of outrage, and either no apology, or usually a misdirected apology. (And I'm Thank goshly the unacceptability level for ching-chong-ling-long-ting-tong has at least come this far.

Now if only wa-kunta-koola-lay-lay was also deemed that unacceptable when representing Generic Black Skinned Cannibals. ...Or maybe we could not represent them at all. Not that some people didn't complain about this video when it came out, but most of us were in the minority. (Can you imagine calling a Generic Black Skinned Cannibal "Kunta Kinte" in the United States and getting away with it? Neither can I. But in Canada you can. There's a cultural difference for you.)