Comments on: Portraying people of color in children’s/YA fantasy–are we anywhere near “there” yet?

By: Stacy Whitman's Grimoire » A little more info, but not much

Stacy Whitman's Grimoire » A little more info, but not much — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 19:02:56 +0000

[...] doing something more specific within that particular segment of the market. Racefail, especially, got me thinking about how children’s and YA fantasy and science fiction, while we’re working on becoming more representative of the readers, still don’t always [...]

By: cindy

cindy — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:23:35 +0000

wonderful post. thanks for the silver phoenix mention
and exited to read you write sometimes too!

By: Christine Taylor-Butler

Christine Taylor-Butler — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:35:39 +0000

You are so, my heart, Stacy. Thanks for voicing what those of us trying to say for years.

Well done!

By: Stacy

Stacy — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:10:28 +0000

Renee, I agree, especially when you’re talking about epic fantasy worlds in which you have different “races”–elves, dwarves, kender, whathaveyou are the stereotypical ways in which fantasy tackles those subjects. But sometimes fantasy can be as much about racial essentialism (kender can’t do magic! elves are close to nature! ogres are evil! etc.) as we are about raising awareness of individual differences. Editing Dragonlance: The New Adventures was a lot of fun because each main character (there were 5 or 6) was a misfit from the racial norm. The outcry among Dragonlance fans about the kender that could do magic, especially, was interesting: the idea that an entire race of people were incapable of concentrating long enough to be able to memorize magic, or even more essentializing, that genetically they were indisposed to being able to even be a conduit for magic, was an interesting “rule” that I loved to thwart.

By: Renee Ting

Renee Ting — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:55:34 +0000

Wonderful post. Brings up a lot of interesting issues. I think that “multicultural fantasy” falls even father behind than “regular” multicultural books because the term “multicultural” is considered its own genre now. It’s not so ubiquitous to have characters of color that it isn’t considered special. That’s why we (Shen’s Books) are still in business! But the unspoken, or subconscious, belief perhaps is that there’s already a “multicultural” genre, so there’s no need to add any multiculturalism to other genres.

On an somewhat unrelated note, I think that fantasy and scifi are inherently multicultural! Whether or not the characters are white or not, the worlds that they inhabit are always different from ours, and the reader (and sometimes the characters) feels like the immigrant, or the outsider, learning about new cultures.

By: Ello

Ello — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:34:28 +0000

Stacy,
What an excellent post! I’ve always loved Ursula LeGuin and a large part due to the fact that she clearly had minorities all over her world, even though movie adaptations completely ignored this part. And thanks for linking to the Enchanted Inkpot! I do think that this is a topic that needs more discussion and awareness!

By: Neesha

Neesha — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:35:11 +0000

Thank you for this terrific post! I’ve been keeping up with Mitali’s posts, and it’s nice to know gatekeepers are taking up the issue and advocating for more diversity, as well. I wrote about Race and YA lit some time back here: http://www.racialicious.com/2008/12/08/on-race-and-ya-lit/. The comments in the thread are very interesting, too .