Helen Keller is one of the most esteemed disability advocates in all of history. So it was an especially powerful moment when, on this day in 1952, Keller herself awarded IBM head Thomas J. Watson the Migel Medal, an award honoring IBM’s inclusion and diversity standards hiring people with disabilities, including those who are blind. It was a history-making start to a workplace culture of valuing diversity and inclusion—a culture that still thrives today.
Gentle reminder that memes and inside jokes relating to human identity, such as race, gender, sexuality, ableness, neurodivergency, etc. don’t always apply to everyone in that ingroup, and if you don’t relate to all the fun jokes in a community, your identity is still valid. People are complex and one person with that identity may not share the same experiences and feelings as another. I think that makes every person so special and a point to be celebrated.
We’ve updated our FAQ and Guidelines which, just from the volume of questions that we receive that fall under these categories below, isn’t read quite as often as I’d like so we wished to make it easier to access.
Please check out these FAQ and guidelines, also foundhere.
The navigation is found here or at writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/navigation.
For your inquiries on tropes and stereotypes see the Stereotypes and Tropes Navigation here.
Thank ya!
-WWC
Writing with Color: Ask Guidelines
Ever since this blog opened for business, we’ve been inundated with Asks pertaining to writing PoC, and some of them are quite difficult to answer thoroughly. We check the answers with the other mods to make sure we’re giving you the best advice we can. Please be patient. On the other hand, here are Asks that we won’t answer:
general writing questions.
questions that are very broad or vague.
questions that have nothing to do with PoC or only deal tangentially with them.
questions that ask for facts you can easily Google.
questions that ask “how do I write a ___________ character?” See FAQ.
questions that have nothing to do with writing (we will either direct you to blogs that can answer them or answer them at our own leisure).
questions that are basically ‘Why haven’t you answered my question yet? Why are you so slow?’
Those that are similar to questions we’ve already answered (please check the navigation). We will not always redirect to the answer.
Finally, we urge you not to send in questions with racial slurs that aren’t blocked out or denoted as “n word” “g word” etc.
We may choose to delete uncensored slurs (and any other blatantly offensive Q’s) as to avoid triggering ourselves and/or others.
Please use submit for questions longer than two parts. Do not send questions through fanmail please.
Frequently Asked Questions
“What are some appropriate ways to describe my character’s skin tone?”
“I’m afraid my character has harmful stereotypical traits. How do I avoid making them a caricature?”
Trace your logic in this character’s creation. What traits have you given them and why did it turn out this way? Does it just “make sense” for your Black female character to be the motherly figure of the group? Why?
Is your character comprised of several stereotypical traits, or are they allowed to act and think in ways that are not confined to stereotypes? If your character is three-dimensional and allowed to be more than the stereotypical trait(s) they may possess, you should be fine. It also helps to have another character of their same race + gender etc. whom you can say are distinctive from each other.
Please also see the Tropes and Stereotypes navigation for more information on particular tropes and stereotypes and how to handle them.
“How do I write a ____________ character?”
1.First off, check the tag pertaining to the character you’re looking to write. For example, if you’re writing an Indian character, search terms such as “Indian”and“South Asian” might be a good start.
2.A general rule when writing any Character of Color is to be mindful that while they might not be like you in terms of some cultural and certain daily experiences, they are like you in that they’re human. Humans with thoughts and dreams and feelings just like you. Capable of joy, snark, and laughter. So remember: human. Not aliens.
3.Don’t focus so much of whether you’re writing a proper ______ character.
You risk homogenizing your Characters of Color when you do this. Not all Black girls think the same. Not all Japanese men act the same. There may be some common experiences and feelings within a group, but everyone has their own perspective, experiences and thoughts despite their race; no hiveminds here. Also, as with any character, background is a huge factor of a person and where they live and family life has an influence on a person’s making. For example, a Black boy who grew up in a mansion in California will have a different outlook than a Black boy who grew up on a Wisconsin bee farm swapped in cornfields. Same for their accents, style, and overall experience with life.
“I’m uncomfortable with all the pressure to include People of Color in my writing. Wouldn’t it just make it forced, anyway?”
Distance yourself from this pressure and ask yourself why you feel it. I’ve yet to encounter anyone who’s barging on doors demanding people be inclusive, but rather trying to illustrate its importance and encourage it, so where do you think the pressure to be inclusive is really coming from?
Campaigning for diversity should not feel like an attack, so do not perceive it as one.
This comes easier when you step outside yourself for a moment, and stand into the shoes of those who call for diverse books, who need diverse books. These are people whose voices and faces have and are shunned from the multitude of literature, enjoy an adventure as much as anyone, and have learned to “become” characters who look more like you…yet when it comes to those of color being the hero, being included beyond the small and often troped role, they have their presence immediately questioned, discredited, fought against, because folks just cannot “relate.”
And if we’re only (or mainly) reading about White people, no wonder they’re so easy to relate to. But not so much those PoC I guess, whose pain folks literally cannot relate to.
And we’re just brushing the surface of the adverse effects with lack of diversity, such as lower self-worth in the underrepresented. Because really; it causes pain on high and low levels. Never the beautiful princess in the tower, never the badass kicking butt and flying dragons. Then when we do show up God forbid it’s a two-second role or in the form of a stereotype, not as a real, complex human being.
Long story short: People of Color are people and want to be seen and treated as such. Not as a burden to devote your time to, but people who have a place in the world, fictional or no.
As for the issue of diversity being “forced”…nah, what’s forced is the all-white fantasy some authors conceive for their stories. Whether you consciously or unconsciously make all your characters White, this is a choice. One that does not reflect the magnitude of the real world, which actually has more People of Color than White people. And yet you wouldn’t be able to tell from reading a book…
Becoming comfortable with diversity requires unlearning White as the default and PoC as the Other. It takes setting aside feelings of pressure to emphasize, open your heart and listen.
“It wouldn’t be historically accurate for my story to include PoC.”
Lately in topics such as the movie Frozen the argument of “historical accuracy” has been flung around most vigorously by fans of the Disney movie. The story was set in a fictional country bases off of Norway and according to many (white) fans the county has little to no POC. Especially in the time period it takes place. Adding POC to the casting would make the movie historically inaccurate.
And that is nonsense. First of all, there are indigenous people in Norway – the Sami – (and many surrounding countries) and they were a part of the original story and concept art. Now only a token amount of their culture, bastardized as it is, has been permitted into the movie.
But enough of the movie and more in the topic. Historical accuracy can never be used as an excuse (a credible one that is) for media to be exclusively white in its casting. No matter which time period, there are POC everywhere around the world. There might be some places which are predominantly white, but there will always be travelers, merchants, sailors, artists, etc. from surrounding countries.
This argument has been a very popular one for stories set in Europe. Europe is known by many for people the home continent for white people. What they do not know, is that is also a home continent to POC. This fact has been written out of history by historians in the past centuries because of racism. White supremacy which has spread its dreadful influence across the entire globe has done so since before colonialism. And of course when you want people to think that they are superior and grand, they whitewash not only their religious figures (Jesus), but also the complete history of the world and its people.
Europe has seen two main influxes of people from the time when people traveled outside of Africa. The first were black people through Spain. The second were groups of people with albinism from east-central Asia (which also originated from Africa). It is believed that these people are the forefathers of white people (through mixing with other people they attained a certain amount of melanin). The Germanic people were known for their red hair, blue eyes and pale skin. The presence of all the POC in Europe throughout time can be found in many art pieces, such as paintings and sculptures. There have been black people (royalty as well) in Britain. The moors had a great influence and control stretching throughout south Europe from Spain. There have been black Vikings. Sailors, merchants, artists and more from different parts of Asia and Africa.
Cultural appropriation involves a culture and/or sacred aspects of it being worn or used by people outside of the culture with little to no understanding for the significance of the usage at hand. Cultural appropriation is void of any “cultural sharing” aspect, since this would imply someone of the culture inviting them to engage in certain aspects of their culture (aka you can’t put on a headdress and say you’re appreciating Native culture…because who invited you?)
When applied to writing, cultural appropriation/misappropriation is what happens when you write about a culture that is not yours and either perpetuate racist stereotypes about it or egregiously misrepresent it. It’s taking a culture for your story because you think it’s cool or interesting, but when you don’t bother to look into the aspects of how that culture works. Why is this harmful? Because writing about these marginalized cultures in such a way leads readers to believe that your work is presenting the truth about them, even when that’s not the case. Members of these cultures already have a difficult time finding proper representation—that is, seeing themselves as they really are—and it’s incredibly important that outsiders wanting to write them do so with care.
How can you do this? Do your research. Read books by people from that culture. Talk to people from that culture. If you’re writing a story, get someone from that culture and have them read it and point out the inaccuracies. The key is that you’re depicting these cultures with care and respect.
If you’re writing sci-fi and/or fantasy, that doesn’t let you off the hook (one of the most tired excuses people have for cultural appropriation is that because it’s SFF, we all should get over it). You might be writing an imaginary world or a story far in the future, but your work is going to be read by people who live in the here and now, and they’re going to know if you were lazy and didn’t do your homework, and they’re not going to be happy about it.
“What is tokenism and why is it harmful?”
Tokenism in writing is the practice of doing something (such as writing about a person who belongs to a minority group) only to prevent criticism and give the appearance that representation is included. Tokenism is writing about a minority character to give the illusion that the author is being diverse and inclusive while relying on stereotypes as an attempt to make the characters seem “authentic.” while giving majority of characterization to the main (often White) character.
The problem with tokenism is that characters placed into this position are suddenly put into the position of being the single representation of their particular group. Everyone has seen the sassy Black friend, the flamboyant Gay friend, the smart Asian friend, etc… Stereotypes are damaging because they state to readers that if you are in a minority group, you can’t be anything other than what the Eurocentric media portrays you as. It’s hard to rise above these stereotypes. This is even more damaging as this spills over into the real world. (i.e. “You aren’t like other Blacks/Gays/Asians,etc…”)
Tokenism is harmful in media because it reduces a character to his/her most harmful stereotypes. Invoking tokenism does not force creators to be creative and gives viewers a false sense of diversity. Jokes are taken at the expense of tokenized characters regarding their race, ethnicity, accent, etc….. Token characters are only created to be the proverbial Black friend who makes it okay for White characters to make jokes at the character’s expense, inviting the consumers (in this case readers) to make jokes as well. (i.e. Many of us have heard someone being openly racist and excusing it by saying they have a Black friend, so it’s okay) Being an “equal opportunity” racist won’t get you points either. This would be including as much diversity as you can only to take cheap shots at your characters cultures, languages, and/or ethnicities. That is not meaningful diversity and can be just as harmful as tokenism.
How do you avoid tokenism? It’s not entirely “wrong” to have a character of color be the only character of color in your story. There have been plenty of times when I’ve been the only person of color in the room. The problem comes when you place that person in the position of speaking for the entire race and saddle them down with stereotypes that they can’t get away from. It is okay to add a character of color to be a main character’s best friend, but don’t reduce this character to a cliche or a trope. Write the character from a place of empathy, make them three dimensional, do your research on the culture, and avoid stereotypes.
Critic bashing Turning Red: “This film doesn’t connect to me because it’s targeted towards a very specific, very niche demographic and I’m not a part of it. I just don’t see myself in this movie”
Also the same critic: “This film has too much diversity in it it’s almost cringe”
I’m low-key tired of all this “diversity makes writing good” bs like… yeah it’s great to include! But it doesn’t automatically make your story good? Idk I personally don’t want to read about an ace person that has the personality of a sack of potatoes just bc they’re ace
Respectfully, I don’t think anybody is saying diversity automaticallymakes a story good (or at least, that’s not my understanding of it.) People are just saying a story withoutany diversity isn’t good writing, which IMO is true?
There’s also a tendency for people to find any reason not to include diversity, by saying things like "but a story can be good without it!” and okay, sure. There are things I enjoy/have enjoyed even if they’re not diverse, but said lack of diversity is definitelya major flaw of those things, and it feels like we should be trying to do better than that?
i get what you’re saying, tho! bad writing is bad writing, diversity or not. but lack of diversity isbad writing in itself, which i think is the point of the general “diversity makes writing good” discourse, and not asking people to engage with flat characters or flat stories ✨
From what I’ve seen, there’s less of an issue of people saying “having a diverse cast automatically makes x thing good” and more an issue of people relying on the diversity of their cast as the primary selling point, which can give the impression that the story doesn’t have much else to offer.
I will admit that when someone pitches their WIP as having “x representation” before any information about the plot or characters, it can put me off a bit. And if they don’t mention the plot or characters much beyond that, I’m likely to pass on it because I haven’t been told enough about the story to get interested.
And, well… if something gives off the feeling of using marginalized people as a marketing gimmick (which is certainly not alwaysthe case but does sometimes happen) then I’m definitely not going to be interested.
Diverse casts are definitely something to embrace, but I can understand the frustration when having one seems to be the onlyfocus. If allI know about your characters is that they’re x marginalized group, the pitch probably needs some work.
This is just what I’ve seen, and I don’t want to invalidate anyone else’s opinion because admittedly I don’t always have time to read through my dash as thoroughly as I’d like. Just my observation.
@roselinproductions Reblogging this version because you explained my point way better than I did lol
Your plot should never take a back seat to diversity, but that doesn’t mean you get to kick diversity out of the car.
another family pic that was done with my best friend the symmetry tool…made up two older siblings for legolas because hes definitely a youngest sibling
EreinionandErien were the twin children of Maedhros and Fingon, born in the last years of the Long Peace. They dearly loved their elder sister Amaurëa, though she did not know what to do with children at first, and were heartbroken when their parents sent them away to the Falas in the aftermath of the Dagor Bragollach. Though they resented their situation, ErienandGil-galad grew to love Falathrim culture and became close to their foster-father Círdan. As the First Age drew to its bloody close, EreinionandErien welcomed their siblings to the Havens of Sirion, meeting for the first time Finbór and Elwen, twins born after Fingon’s death. In the Second Age, Erien remained with Círdan and helped him build his new haven of Mithlond, from where she would sail her ship Elenairëout to sea, exploring and mapping the oceans. Ereinion Gil-galad became High King of the Noldor, following his fathers’ footsteps, and building a great legacy of his own. After his death in the War of the Last Alliance, Erien grew weary of Middle-earth, and bidding a tearful farewell to Círdan, she sailed West to Valinor, where in time her family would be made whole once more.
Born in Himring after the Dagor Aglareb, Amaurëa spent most of her youth in Hithlum with her father Prince Fingon, though she visited her father Lord Maedhros frequently, especially after her younger siblings Gil-galad and Erien were born. Though Amaurëa was a skilled fighter, hunter, and strategist, Maedhros attempted to refuse her a place in his armies amid the Fifth Battle, Fingon arranged for her to march in the most secure part of the eastern army, ensuring she survived and was shielded from the worst of the carnage. In the wake of Fingon’s death, Amaurëa and Maedhros were both overcome with grief, and their relationship became strained; not even the birth of a second set of twins, Finbór and Elwen, could piece their family back together. On the eve of the Second Kinslaying, Amaurëa took Finbór (though Elwen refused to follow) and fled to the Havens of Sirion, where they remained with their other siblings through the War of Wrath. She swore her service to her brother Ereinion Gil-galad and stayed at his side throughout the Second Age, losing an arm in his defense during the Siege of Barad-dûr. After her brother’s fall, she became a knight of Rivendell, and eventually sailed with Finbór to Valinor, where in time her family would be made whole and happy once more.
Pretty depressing that Fox News’ prime-time programming has become white nationalist propaganda. This rhetoric is largely indistinguishable from what the alt-right says.
For This is Engineering Day the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) released a video where they highlight all the ways different types of engineers make a difference to the world. Watch the video below.
By Idha Valeur
The second This is Engineering Day will this year happen on Wednesday 4 November 2020 as part of Tomorrow’s Engineers Week 2020 – with this year’s theme being ‘Be the difference’.
With the main aim to inspire and give more young people the opportunity to pursue a career in engineering, regardless of their background, the RAEng is now encouraging engineers, companies and organisations to get involved with the imitative to contribute ideas and ways to present how they make a difference. This could be via social media, events or other activities.
‘As young people prepare to take their key exams and think about career choices, it’s vital that they don’t miss out on opportunities to ‘Be the Difference’ though engineering just because they don’t realise what engineering careers really offer,’ the Royal Academy of Engineering Chief Executive, Dr Hayaatun Sillem CBE, said.
Sillem added that so far, more than 150 companies and organisations have already agreed to help the academy in showcasing how different and diverse the profession is. ‘We continue our work to transform the image of engineering so that many more talented young people from all backgrounds can see a future for themselves in this vital and rewarding profession.’
An associate professor at MIT University, USA, has written a new book named Design Justice examining the way in which technology can be functional for more people within the society. The new book focuses on the correlation between technology, design, and social justice.
In the book, Design Justice: Community Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, Sasha Constanza-Chock shared their experience as a transgender and nonbinary person, and explained how technology could help improve the experiences of others that belong to minority groups.
Highlighting the biases built into everyday objects, including software interfaces, medical devices, social media, and the built environment, Constanza-Chock examined how these biases reflect existing power structures in society. published by the MIT Press, the book offers a framework for fixing the shortcomings of technology in society, while suggesting methods of technology design that can be used to help build a more inclusive future.
‘Design justice is both a community of practice, and a framework for analysis,’ said Costanza-Chock, who is the Mitsui Career Development Associate Professor in MIT’s Comparative Media Studies/Writing program. ‘In the book I’m trying to both narrate the emergence of this community, based on my own participation in it, and rethink some of the core concepts from design theory through this lens.’
In one particular example, Constanza-Chock talked about how something as simple as going through airport security can become an unusually uncomfortable process. Airport’s tend to be set up with security millimetre wave scanners which are set up with binary, male or female configurations. To operate the machine, agents press a button based on their assumptions about the person entering the scanner – blue for ‘boy,’ or pink for ‘girl’. As a non-binary person, Constanza-Chock would always be flagged by the machine when travelling, prompted for a hands-on check by security officials.
‘I know I’m almost certainly about to experience an embarrassing, uncomfortable, and perhaps humiliating search… after my body is flagged as anomalous by the millimetre wave scanner,’ Constanza-Chock wrote in the book.
This is an experience familiar to many who fall outside the system’s norms, Costanza-Chock explains – trans and gender nonconforming people’s bodies, black women’s hair, head wraps, and assistive devices are regularly flagged as ‘risky’.
The book also looks at the issue of who designs technology, a subject Costanza-Chock has examined extensively — for instance in the 2018 report ‘#MoreThanCode,’ which pointed out the need for more systematic inclusion and equity efforts in the emerging field of public interest technology.
Costanza-Chock, hopes the book will interest people not only for the criticism it offers, but as a way of moving forward and deploying better practices.
‘My book is not primarily or only critique,’ Costanza-Chock said. ‘One of the things about the Design Justice Network is that we try to spend more time building than tearing down. I think design justice is about articulating a critique, while constantly trying to point toward ways of doing things better.’
As I mentioned before, I sort of made a NY resolution to try and practice something every day. So here’re some of the studies I more or less liked so far.
Damn if Hollywood isn’t fucked up and Disney has a terrible track record when it comes to diversity, but tonight Coco won for best animated movie and then producer Darla K Anderson got up on national TV and promptly thanked her wife, writer Adrian Morino thanked his husband, director Lee Urdrich gave a speech about how representation matters for marginalized kids, and then Anthony Gonzalez, voice of Miguel, victoriously proclaimed his love for Mexico in Spanish in front of all of Trump’s America and goddamn if that wasn’t satisfying as fuck
