Stereotypical Characters

Do you think Matthew is a great character? Absolutely hate Emily? This is the place to discuss AIO characters, from the old to the new!
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Bethany Shepard
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Is this just for racial stereotypes or stereotypes in general? Because there have been quite a few of the latter. Sam Johnson, for example, is the stereotype for a perfect Christian child. Along with his whole family, being perfect Christian-American family.
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TigerShadow
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Pound Foolish wrote:
TigerShadow wrote: Eugene has undergone character development such that he feels like a real person. Chang Fang has not.
Chang is a very minor side-character with very little room for characterization. Which is another reason why a stereotype works, especially as a side-character. we've seen this guy a million times and know who he is.
I would think that him being a side character is a good reason not to stereotype him, actually, since he probably won't grow much beyond what they gave him; surely they would want to restrict a side character to traits that have nothing to do with an ethnic stereotype.
Pound Foolish wrote:As for what would change, who knows? All that matters is the Barclays aren't Chinese. Making them Chinese would be absurd and an injustice to them just a it would be to make the Washington white. They are what they are.
Yes, making an assumed-white family Chinese would be such an injustice to all those poor, oppressed white people who are so underrepresented in media. Why would making the Barclays Chinese be "absurd"? The point of good racial representation in media is to seamlessly integrate PoC characters into media without waving your giant flag of "LOOK HOW DIVERSE AND POLITICALLY CORRECT WE ARE!". I still don't see the problem with considering a character you assume to be white to be non-white.
Pound Foolish wrote:You can't change their race anymore than you can change a real person's.
Yes, you can. These characters are not real people, subject to the random whims of genetics. Someone has to intentionally design these characters to look, act, and talk the way they do, and I'm not sure why you don't find the perpetuation of characters designed to be white to be an issue.
Pound Foolish wrote:That's how characters are. Haven't you ever tried to make a character adhere to a plotpoitn and they wouldn't do it?
You're assuming that ethnic heritage has to be a plot point in order to work.
Pound Foolish wrote:
TigerShadow wrote:Of course you're not offended by them. Your ethnic group has not been the victim of systematic and institutionalized oppression.
It's sad that some will draw a connection between this and stereotypes, and be offended. It truly is saddening, because it's unnecessary. The sins of others done to others in the past has nothing to do with the stories of today. The wrongs of yesterday are to remembered, recorded, learned from, and moved on from. Not held onto. You see, that is what's really at the center of this for me. I believe with my heart that discrimination is dying in America and we whites are not the "in club" anymore. We need to include them because other races are just like us, not because they're different. Not because they've been hurt in the past and now we need to do special favors for this separate group of people, because they're not separate. We need to stop handling them with kid gloves, while still using common courtesy.
Right, I keep forgetting that acknowledging raw points in history is "kid gloves" rather than a sense of respect that deep wounds like that take a long time to heal—perhaps even generations.

These events didn't happen in a vacuum. They aren't even a century behind us, and in fact the 20th century contains some of the worst examples. These events happened to people who are still around today, and their parents, their grandparents, and their great-grandparents. The wounds from the past still smart today, and history colors people's perspectives. No, we shouldn't cry race over every tangentially race-related thing (i.e. just because a white guy got picked for something over a black guy does not mean that race was necessarily involved), but would it kill white people to show some respect toward what ethnic minorities have had to experience in the "land of the free" by not continuing to perpetuate stereotypes just because it simplifies things for them and amuses them? And when a non-white person tells you that they find something offensive, would it be so hard for you to take the time to listen and to learn from your mistakes rather than to assume that you know what's best and tell them that they shouldn't be offended about a prejudice that you cannot fully understand?

Seriously, given what ethnic minorities have had to suffer at the hands of the white majority, asking you, a white person, to be sensitive on racial matters is hardly requiring an excessive effort of you.
Pound Foolish wrote:
TigerShadow wrote:So every Asian person you've ever met speaks in flowery poetry, do they?
No.
This comes across as so very ignorant.
It would if I said that, so it's fortunate I didn't.
You insinuated it magnificently. "Speaking poetically" is now not "even wholly innacurate of the Japanese", and we were referring to an Asian character's oral speech patterns, and thus you implied that all Japanese people speak in complicated poetry, and so it's okay to stereotype them that way.
Last edited by TigerShadow on Fri Feb 06, 2015 12:45 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Marvin D.
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Calling something an excuse is a poor excuse for an argument.
No, it is not, because if you're basing your argument on an excuse, as you are, your argument automatically loses its validity and potency, as the majority of your "argument" does.
It's sad that some will draw a connection between this and stereotypes, and be offended. It truly is saddening, because it's unnecessary. The sins of others done to others in the past has nothing to do with the stories of today. The wrongs of yesterday are to remembered, recorded, learned from, and moved on from. Not held onto.
Oh, please. Don't be ridiculous. The past shapes and molds the present--the racism of yesterday has merely morphed into the racism of today. The outright hostility hasn't vanished, it's only changed form and is alive and well. Oh, I'm sorry--it's not? Oh yes. You clearly are the expert on it, since forgive me for not realizing how consistently marginalized and oppressed and discriminated you are as an Asian woman. Wait, what? You're a young, white male? Funny. Your seeming omniscience and finality on the issue belies an intimate, personal knowledge of such a pressing social issue.
Making them Chinese would be absurd and an injustice to them just a it would be to make the Washington white. They are what they are. You can't change their race anymore than you can change a real person's.
This is utterly absurd and hardly even worthy of response. You can't change a person's race because they are formed by circumstances completely out of your control. Your characters are a product of your mind, a complex force that's constantly inundated by nearly-infinite amounts of subtle racism and propoganda and ultimately, simply your social milieu. Your characters are nothing more than a mirroring, an output of the world's input that becomes your perception of the world. It is your duty to rise above the stereotypes and generalizations and false preconceptions that inundate the world and create a textured, organic character that's an accurate representation of the world.

Your post, in short, is mostly one giant excuse that resorts to turning the blame on the victim and allies and washing your hands clean of any guilt and topping it off with a complacent pat on the back for "doing enough" to appease your conscience.

This, I have come to realize, is the prototypical manifestation of racism in the 21st century. This is what I reject, and this is what I will continue to speak out against.
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SirWhit
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I love how my posts have thus far been ignored by PF. anyways.

PF, you have no experience with racial issues, if I may be so blunt. Therefore you have no authority to tell me to not be offended when a member of my racial group is portrayed inaccurately.

So saying that racial stereotypes are dead and gone is wholly inaccurate.

-- Thu Feb 05, 2015 8:54 pm --

Some are? Not all are? What's the standard? Your arbitrary definition of offensive based on your experience as a member of a race that does not experience discrimination in any way whatsoever?
Pound Foolish wrote:I believe with my heart that discrimination is dying in America and we whites are not the "in club" anymore. We need to include them because other races are just like us, not because they're different.
Ferguson. Multiple incidents of African-american people being detained and arrested by police over little things. Many other instances of racism and discrimination, and you say that discrimination is dead?!
Evil Twin wrote: Not because they've been hurt in the past and now we need to do special favors for this separate group of people, because they're not separate. We need to stop handling them with kid gloves, while still using common courtesy
I don't want kid gloves. I want realistic portrayals of my racial group and not stereotypes.

-- Thu Feb 05, 2015 9:06 pm --

I have to say, Pound Foolish, I lost a lot of respect for you when you deleted your post.
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ArnoldtheRubberDucky wrote:
Um... give me ONE example of a good, effective stereotype in fiction that wasn't used for comedic purposes.
Queequeg in Moby Dick comes to mind. He had his comedic moments, as did a lot of characters including Ishmael. By and large, though, he was a serious character.
TigerShadow wrote:I would think that him being a side character is a good reason not to stereotype him, actually, since he probably won't grow much beyond what they gave him; surely they would want to restrict a side character to traits that have nothing to do with an ethnic stereotype.
...Because?
TigerShadow wrote: Yes, making an assumed-white family Chinese would be such an injustice to all those poor, oppressed white people who are so underrepresented in media.
What's that sarcasm even supposed to mean?
TigerShadow wrote:Why would making the Barclays Chinese be "absurd"?
Because the Barclays aren't Chinese! Again, making them Chinese would be like making the Washingtons white.
TigerShadow wrote:These characters are not real people, subject to the random whims of genetics.
Beg your pardon, ma'am? You take that back right now. Never say that to a writer, thank you very much. I ought beat you with a popsicle stick.
TigerShadow wrote:You're assuming that ethnic heritage has to be a plot point in order to work.
Sorry, that was unclear. The point was supposed to be that characters you so neatly setup up to do something in your outline may well decide to heck with the outline. Or you may not even realize characters that should be there haven't been. (Introducing an edition of The Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett explained there were new characters and it wasn't her fault they weren't there before. They hadn't introduced themselves to her until now.) I read an article in a writing advice book where an author said he had been unable to write a character, then he changed the name. And now the character had the right name, he wrote himself.

If a character won't even have the courtesy to bend to a plotpoint you arranged in your outline, they certainly won't change their race for you.

Charles Schulz introduced Franklin to Peanuts with no political reasons in mind. He was, "just a character who happened to be black." However, he featured him in school right along with Peppermint Patty, which was only recently being legalized. People sent in mail, but he never answered the complaints. Franklin happened to be black and it would be wrong to make him white. Just like it would be wrong (not morally but in terms of the integrity of the story) to make a character who is really white black.

Yes, getting to who the characters really are is a conscious and deliberate process, just like with a real person. However, you can't change who that person is anymore than a real one. Michelangelo made statues by "chipping away everything that isn't the statue" and that's about right.

Now.

To the whole thing of races making stories about their own races. Surely you've noticed other cultures tend to make stories about their own race? Aren't Greek Myths about Greeks? Aren't Manga and Anime populated largely by Japanese? (Personally I've never read a Manga with a main character of another race except the occasional American.) The Hindi even have their own version of Odyssey with Hindi people. And they even do this with Disney Channel shows rather than just translate them. So it seems they do that a lot?

It just comes naturally to people, whatever the reason. This is the way things are. Most stories that come to one are going to be mostly about your race. You shouldn't force things and change them. As Winnie the Pooh said, "That's the best way to write, letting things come."
TigerShadow wrote:Right, I keep forgetting that acknowledging raw points in history is "kid gloves" rather than a sense of respect that deep wounds like that take a long time to heal—perhaps even generations.
Well put. Certainly they should be acknowledged.
TigerShadow wrote:These events didn't happen in a vacuum. They aren't even a century behind us, and in fact the 20th century contains some of the worst examples. These events happened to people who are still around today, and their parents, their grandparents, and their great-grandparents. The wounds from the past still smart today, and history colors people's perspectives.
Hear hear.
but would it kill white people to show some respect toward what ethnic minorities have had to experience in the "land of the free" by not continuing to perpetuate stereotypes just because it simplifies things for them and amuses them?
It would not be respectful because there is nothing disrespectful about that stereotype.

Stereotypes have a bad name because they used to be horrible. Like the pigtailed Chinese in the first Tintin book who try to torture him or the idiot black people in Dr. Dolittle. Coach Fang is just the aio team lovingly (and respectfully) fun-poking. While Coach Fang remains a kind, dedicated, smart and respectable person.
You insinuated it magnificently.
If so, then you are all owed a sincere apology although it was entirely an accident.
"Speaking poetically" is now not "even wholly inaccurate of the Japanese",
Precisely. Or, as I go on to specify, the Japanese culture. Colorful language is part of the overall gift of Asian people to the word. Not because every single one of them is poetic, for crying out loud. Or even most of them. Anymore than every French person is a master chef. But the French have still given some wonderful dishes to the world and some wonderful art. And so that's why the stereotype of French person is either a painter or a chef, and why Ratatouille takes place in a kitchen. It's something we most love about that culture.

So you see, a stereotype doesn't imply that everyone of that race (or interest) is like that. Listeners aren't idiots, nor the aio writers. We all know real police officers aren't Irish Officer Oriens, real cheerleaders aren't bratty Shannons, Asian people don't overuse metaphors. Having one person who has a certain character doesn't insinuate every member of that race is like that character!
Bethany Shepard wrote:Is this just for racial stereotypes or stereotypes in general? Because there have been quite a few of the latter. Sam Johnson, for example, is the stereotype for a perfect Christian child. Along with his whole family, being perfect Christian-American family.
I personally don't care for Sam, but yeah, Fred's great. ^-^ So is Jacques Henri.
Ameraka wrote: I detest stereotypes. Even in fiction. It's an unnecessary shortcut; it's being lazy and what's more it's encouraging stereotyping in real life, where NO one is exactly the same.
Then you detest Eugene. You can talk about how he grew all you like. But he hadn't done any of that growing when he first showed up. Granted, not everyone likes Eugene in his early episodes but I adore him. So you see, it's not an unnecessary shortcut or lazy. It. Works.

Ah, now to Marvin. Sigh, we don't get along at all, we're far too much alike. And sometimes I get the impression you don't like me much. :?
And you still, weeks later, owe me a reply in the Ties that Bind topic in the ToO, which I was honestly enjoying much more. Get back there and post, please!
Marvin D. wrote:The outright hostility hasn't vanished, it's only changed form and is alive and well.
Certainly, but think about it. It used to be black people were enslaved. Then they we begrudgingly released them. But we still looked down on them, still wouldn't let them eat with us, still moved them to the back of the bus. The Klu Klux Clan thrived and killed. When people protested, policemen released dogs on them and firemen were ordered shoot hoses at them capable of tearing bark off trees.

Do not look me in the eye and say that those protestors' sacrifice was in vain. Martin Luther King did not die in vain. My grandfather did not go to the Selma March in vain. And well you know it. You can't say the exact same tension is still here, alive and well. You must at least admit other races, black people in particular, are treated rather better. You must at least admit the prejudice is less. I didn't say it was gone, I said it was dying, and it is. So let it die,and let it die in an unmarked grave. It will never die away entirely, but let it die as much as possible. We have a black President, for Pete's sake!
Marvin D. wrote: You clearly are the expert on it, since forgive me for not realizing how consistently marginalized and oppressed and discriminated you are as an Asian woman. Wait, what? You're a young, white male? Funny. Your seeming omniscience and finality on the issue belies an intimate, personal knowledge of such a pressing social issue.
*sighs* I always talk like that. I seem be having deja vu myself. When I first posted on the ToO, you complained I have a "holier than thou" attitude. ;) That's how you're supposed to do persuasive writing. You talk as if you know everything. You sound confident, and never weaken your stance by saying something like, "I think" or "I might be wrong about this." Obviously this is all just my opinion. I'm just one person. And obviously I might be wrong. That's why I debate, to learn if I'm wrong. (Well, and to have jolly fun.) But I don't need to spell all that out. It's just an obvious fact. Okay? I know it gets some people mad, and I can't help that, but well. There's tons of fun topics on here, I didn't force you to choose mine. ;)
Your characters are a product of your mind, a complex force that's constantly inundated by nearly-infinite amounts of subtle racism and propoganda and ultimately, simply your social milieu. Your characters are nothing more than a mirroring, an output of the world's input that becomes your perception of the world.
Cynical, but somewhat true. For all that, we've had some amazing characters in literature. I can't help feeling a loyalty to characters and a hope to discover who they truly are, quite apart from prejudices.
Mr. Whit's End wrote:PF, you have no experience with racial issues, if I may be so blunt. Therefore you have no authority to tell me to not be offended when a member of my racial group is portrayed inaccurately.
No, I do not have any authority whatsoever. I'm just spurting hot air to see who's right and and learn as much as possible. But we are having this debate, and you are having it by choice.
Also, again, it's not really inaccurate because just having one person who's a certain way in aio doesn't insinuate all Asian people are like that. Also, well, I disagree with you as a matter of course. I've disagreed with you about AIO literally since we first met and I started calling you Evil Twin, dear sir. You take the durogatory side, I the overly optimistic. It's par the norm.
PS "deleted your post"? What post? Did a mod delete one? In any case, they all seem to be there now?

But I'm done. For on thing, I am hopelessly outnumbered by all my worst debating enemies. Also, I seem to be creating some racial tension right here and now, and that was not my intent. I heartily regret offending all of you, it was unintentional. I never thought I'd say it, but I just can't see this one through. You guys are the greatest, okay? For what it's worth, I really do care about you.
Last edited by Pound Foolish on Thu Feb 05, 2015 11:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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TigerShadow
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Pound Foolish wrote:
TigerShadow wrote:I would think that him being a side character is a good reason not to stereotype him, actually, since he probably won't grow much beyond what they gave him; surely they would want to restrict a side character to traits that have nothing to do with an ethnic stereotype.
...Because?
Because that's all you're going to see of him. If we assume that side characters do not develop much beyond initial characterization, that means that all we will see of Coach Fang is an Asian stereotype that people have found to be offensive. If all you're going to see of a character is a few select traits, doesn't it make sense for them to be more positive representation than a caricature of a culture?
Pound Foolish wrote:
TigerShadow wrote: Yes, making an assumed-white family Chinese would be such an injustice to all those poor, oppressed white people who are so underrepresented in media.
What's that sarcasm even supposed to mean?
I thought my meaning was plain. How many positive representations of Chinese families as average families like any other do you see in family media, as opposed to the dozens, perhaps hundreds of white families? I don't see what whites have to be offended over if one family isn't coded white when Asians have been marginalized in pop culture for years.
Pound Foolish wrote: Because the Barclays aren't Chinese! Again, making them Chinese would be like making the Washingtons white.
No, it would not. Whitewashing a family that represents an underrepresented minority and interpreting a family assumed to be white as Chinese are not on the same level by sole virtue of the representation disparity.
Pound Foolish wrote:The point was supposed to be that characters you so neatly setup up to do something in your outline may well decide to heck with the outline. Or you may not even realize characters that should be there haven't been.
I guess what I'm not getting is how race must reveal itself. Are you acting under the assumption that a character has to come out and say that they are black, Hispanic, Chinese, immigrant, or another race entirely? If that's the case, why would you automatically assume that they are white? Wouldn't a character have to tell you if they're white, too? White is, by and large, not a default.
Pound Foolish wrote:If a character won't even have the courtesy to bend to a plotpoint you arranged in your outline, they certainly won't change their race for you.
This argument still operates under the assumption that race must be a plot point, rather than being simply mentioned in passing as a reference to appearance, or not even being mentioned altogether and simply being assumed by the reader.
Pound Foolish wrote:Franklin happened to be black and it would be wrong to make him white. Just like it would be wrong (not morally but in terms of the integrity of the story) to make a character who is really white black.
As I explained above, the two are not the same thing due to representational disparity. It would be wrong to make Franklin white because he was a positive example of black representation at a time when such was almost nonexistent, especially on the comics pages. The same cannot be said for making Marcie or Charlie Brown and Sally black, since they were simply white characters and there are plenty of them already.
Pound Foolish wrote:It just comes naturally to people, whatever the reason. This is the way things are. Most stories that come to one are going to be mostly about your race. You shouldn't force things and change them. As Winnie the Pooh said, "That's the best way to write, letting things come."
Marvin was objecting to the idea that this ought to be used as an excuse not to write a diverse cast. Why is writing a black or Asian or Hispanic character when you are white "forcing" things?
Pound Foolish wrote:
TigerShadow wrote: "Speaking poetically" is now not "even wholly inaccurate of the Japanese",
Precisely. Or, as I go on to specify, the Japanese culture. Colorful language is part of the overall gift of Asian people to the word. Not because every single one of them is poetic, for crying out loud. Or even most of them. Anymore than every French person is a master chef. But the French have still given some wonderful dishes to the world and some wonderful art. And so that's why the stereotype of French person is either a painter or a chef, and why Ratatouille takes place in a kitchen. It's something we most love about that culture.
You've missed the point of my post. The problem is that paying homage to a culture by painting its only representative with a stereotype is counterproductive—you're not respecting that culture, especially if you use it, to use your words, as "fun-poking".
Pound Foolish wrote:So you see, a stereotype doesn't imply that everyone of that race (or interest) is like that.
That's kind of the point of a stereotype in media—to paint an entire group with a broad brush in the form of one character.
Pound Foolish wrote:Listeners aren't idiots
No, but many of them are impressionable kids.
Pound Foolish wrote:Having one person who has a certain character doesn't insinuate every member of that race is like that character!
It doesn't help when that character is the only consistent representation of his or her race.
Pound Foolish wrote:Then you detest Eugene. You can talk about how he grew all you like. But he hadn't done any of that growing when he first showed up.
Then how do you explain the roots of his character arc found way back in his burdgeoning understanding of how to connect to people after his disastrous attempts to "update" the shop in "Connie, Part 2", or anything he did in "A Bite of Applesauce", or the character progression in "Eugene's Dilemma"? Eugene was always a dynamic and complex character.
Pound Foolish wrote:That's why I debate, to learn if I'm wrong.
You have learned you're wrong, if you have read Mr. Whit's End's posts. You have been told that these stereotypes are offensive to people of that race, and yet you reply to objections about the very same stereotypes like this:
Pound Foolish wrote:there is nothing disrespectful about that stereotype
Last edited by TigerShadow on Sat Feb 07, 2015 12:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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I will use my official moderating powers to demand that we calm down. This is a good discussion, and I want it to continue, but please try and keep a level head until both sides of the debate have exhausted their points their points and concluded. We are Christians, and we should be able to expound differences of opinion to each other without coming to blows. If I can do so, you can, too. Thank you. ;)
Mr. Whit's End wrote:Ferguson. Multiple incidents of African-american people being detained and arrested by police over little things. Many other instances of racism and discrimination, and you say that discrimination is dead?!
Mr. Whit's End, I know you were trying to stall PF's hasty and cutting remarks, but do not use Ferguson as an example of racism toward African-Americans. That it was it would have looked like to you, I understand. I did not state my feelings the whole time the fiasco was occurring. I have never given anyone on this board a reason not to trust me, and I ask you consider what I am saying. I have a number of good friends that live in the St. Louis area, and for over three months I received an almost day-by-day play of what really happened.

Yes, there was racial strife in Ferguson. Yes, it had been building for years. Yes, some of the people in that mob truly did what they did (some reason) to try and vent their frustration on the racism. The Michael Brown/Darren Wilson scenario was not racism. Do not turn me off here. Listen. Mike Brown had just finished a convenient store. The manager was not white, he was of an ethnic minority. He tried to stop Mike Brown, and Brown shoved him into the counter. This was not a situation where a man was a figurehead for a movement, as was Rosa Parks, he had done this before. The place where the memorial for Mr. Brown is set up (hampering traffic in the middle of a street) is there because Mike Brown was ignorant enough after robbing the store to walk down the middle of the street, blocking traffic. Darren Wilson had heard over the scanner that there was a robbery at the QT. He saw Mike Brown and accomplice walking in the roadway and was going to confront him before he knew it was Brown. When he tried to stop Brown, Brown threw punches at Officer Wilson, who was still confined in the driver's seat of his car. There was no gun at this time. Brown thought he ran that neighborhood. One of my friends told me that on a local radio station people from Brown's neighborhood called in, of all ethnicities, saying they were sad he was dead, but that it was a relief. He had bullied his way around town for years, and no one could stand up to him. An ignoramus like that would've done the same thing to a black cop, or an Asian cop. After Wilson pulled his gun and fired several rounds, Brown fled. Wanting to show his superiority, he charged the officer. When a 250-275 pound enraged, over 6 foot tall criminal that has already assaulted you comes hurtling full blast at you, what would you do?

The issue started when a few bitter people (friends and relatives) went to the news cameras, who blew it up into a sensation, as the media will do. Because of the media's involvement, a justified shooting of a criminal became a race issue. Many people came to Ferguson to protest with the (they thought) horribly oppressed black community. But, the leaders of those massive riots (with the exception of the first night) were Communists (over 100 were flown in from around the country) and radical Muslims. A large number of black people in the city were against it, as there were four armed black men for three days that protected the business of a white man from the mob. I know what I'm talking about.

I know you didn't know what this does to me, but I don't want to hear about Ferguson again. Shortly after the initial riot, I got word that a friend of mine, a young husband with two boys, was sent up to Ferguson as part of the police force. (He is a state trooper.) He faced injury and death for weeks, along with many other men who just doing their duty, from a crowd who knew nothing but hatred and spite for the boys in blue. It was not white vs. black issue, nor was it low class vs. privileged, it was radicals vs. order. My friends I know prayed hard, I prayed for the safety of those men. There is a good pastor up in Ferguson that has been there for about 15 years. He disapproved of the situation, and he was black. His life, and the thousands that lived there, were in constant danger from lawless rebels from across the country who came in just to stir up strife. No, Ferguson was not a race issue. It may have been perceived as such, but don't be deceived.
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Because the Barclays aren't Chinese! Again, making them Chinese would be like making the Washingtons white.
The circular reasoning is strong with this one.

So you see, a stereotype doesn't imply that everyone of that race (or interest) is like that. Listeners aren't idiots, nor the aio writers. We all know real police officers aren't Irish Officer Oriens, real cheerleaders aren't bratty Shannons, Asian people don't overuse metaphors. Having one person who has a certain character doesn't insinuate every member of that race is like that character!
No, it does--because the media strongly influences people in countless ways that are hardly even possible to fathom. It does, because children are young and impressionable and see foreign cultures generally portrayed in the same light and assume that's reality simply because they don't know better. If everyone really knows better, then why is it that a staggering amount of people I've met over the years seem to think that Africa, or right down to where I'm at, Ghana, a black hole on the planet, an ostracized and sequestered "society" that's full of mud huts and chiefs and cannibals and tigers and Internet and electricity are virtually nonexistent? No.
Do not look me in the eye and say that those protestors' sacrifice was in vain. Martin Luther King did not die in vain. My grandfather did not go to the Selma March in vain. And well you know it. You can't say the exact same tension is still here, alive and well. You must at least admit other races, black people in particular, are treated rather better. You must at least admit the prejudice is less. I didn't say it was gone, I said it was dying, and it is. So let it die,and let it die in an unmarked grave. It will never die away entirely, but let it die as much as possible. We have a black President, for Pete's sake!
No. No. No. Just because something has /changed/ doesn't mean that it's disappeared, and your white privilege shows here because you simply cannot possibly fathom what it's like to be a underrepresented minority in the 21st century. You extrapolate information as it suits you, look at "oh hey, a black president!" and assume that everything's just peachy, when it's not. Go ahead, google 21st century racism and read some of the articles. In fact, here's a link to one. And another. Set aside your neat, tidy preconceptions and don't deny reality. Do not tell me that racism is a dying phenomenon. It is not. And I will say it again: I reject it. Not only the blatant 19th-century spirited racism that still lives on today and can be found in the darker corners of the Internet (and frankly, sometimes not so dark) and reveal what many people truly think about persons of color, but also the new, advanced, and still-dangerous racism of our present.
There's tons of fun topics on here, I didn't force you to choose mine.
I'm most certainly not here to have fun; I'm here because I saw a pressing issue that needed clarification, and I'm trying to be nice when I say that >_>
Tiger wrote:Marvin was objecting to the idea that this ought to be used as an excuse not to write a diverse cast. Why is writing a black or Asian or Hispanic character when you are white "forcing" things?
^this. I would argue that people make the excuse that creating characters that are POCs are "forcing" things or "difficult" because, contrary to the real world, white is the default in literature. If you write an entire book without ever mentioning the MC's race, people will assume he is white. It's simply the default, the product of marginalization and under-representation over the years until we've arrived at a point that we--even I, someone who's not even white--too easily assume that a character is white. One popular example: Katniss Everdeen. In the books, she was described as having olive skin, gray eyes, black hair. If anything, that sounds Italian, possibly even Hispanic--and yet how was she portrayed in the long run? A white, American girl. There is no escaping the fact.

And yet, despite everything that's been said, that's what you're still trying to do.
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SirWhit
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I'm sorry, Old Judge. Didn't mean to strike a nerve with you.

-- Fri Feb 06, 2015 6:56 am --

Although I didn't mean the actual police incident that kicked it off was a matter of race. It just seemed to me like a lot of the protestors were using race as an excuse to destroy the city. But, since you lived much closer and had a closer hand account of what went down, I'll defer to you when it comes to the Ferguson issue.
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Thank you. If the media had not ran with the story, it would not have grow into a race issue.
I (and I believe a lot of other people) thought that the junk up there would only last that first night. Instead, it lasted for over 100 days.
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Marvin D. wrote:One popular example: Katniss Everdeen. In the books, she was described as having olive skin, gray eyes, black hair. If anything, that sounds Italian, possibly even Hispanic--and yet how was she portrayed in the long run? A white, American girl.
This isn't even defensible by the "well, a white girl maybe just played her better" line of argument because by all accounts, the casting call required that the actress auditioning be Caucasian (links embedded).
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I just want to clarify something. I will not be refuting any arguments because I said I was done and I meant it. I seem to just be making everyone mad at me. :(

I do not assume all characters are white until proven another race. Once again, not what I said. Though that actually was a fair conclusion I guess, so I really need to clear that up. No, all characters need to tell me their race, their eye color, favorite past time, everything.
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Let me preface this by saying that I am a white, blonde-haired girl. In fact, I was dubbed the whitest among the girls on my floor here at college. I don't know what it's like to be looked down on, and the only stereotype that I've faced is "dumb blonde" jokes. :P

However, that being said, I agree that stereotypical characters should /not/ be done, and not only are rude, and offensive, but also lazy. It takes no effort for a writer to make an asian character the smartest on the block, or a blonde to be dumb, or for a Japanese character to spout off nonsensical poetry comparisons.

But, I will add, that I don't think AIO did this to offend anyone. I think in their effort to have a variety of characters, they thought it would be humorous for Couch Fang to be the way he is. This doesn't mean that people won't be offended, and I'm certainly not discounting those that are offended. I think what needs to be done is to look at perspectives from someone else's point of view. Think about being a black teen who is seemed as suspicious by others when he walks down the street. Think about being Hispanic, and everyone assuming you're uneducated. The world is so vast and different, it's hard to imagine all the differences we have. It's heartbreaking that racism is still alive today.

So please, AIO, give us a character from Africa who doesn't live with no electricity and in a mud hut, as Marvin mentioned. Give us a Hispanic character who excels in whatever it is they do. Give us a Japanese basketball coach who doesn't spout off poetry. Give us /originality./
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Belle wrote:But, I will add, that I don't think AIO did this to offend anyone. I think in their effort to have a variety of characters, they thought it would be humorous for Couch Fang to be the way he is.
I definitely agree. Whatever the team's thoughts were, it wasn't to intentionally play off of a stereotype for the sole purpose of being Racist-y Racists who are Racist™. I just don't think that they understood what the full implications of what they were doing would be. Given that the team is mostly, if not entirely, white, they aren't going to have a personal understanding of how this kind of thing comes across to others; this is probably the same thing that played into them unabashedly presenting the Washingtons as "the Black Family" in their first episodes rather than introducing them as a black family and then perhaps discussing the implications of their race later.
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Tiger, you really should start a trademarking business.

Also, I've never heard the first Washington family episode; now I'm definitely intrigued.
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For the most part, it's not too heavy on the race thing (that award belongs to "The American Revelation"), but "The Toy Man" does include a line by Xavier about the dearth of successful black businessmen that is given as a reason why Ed should move higher up in his toy company rather than take the job at Whit's End Connellsville. The line itself isn't factually wrong, but references to the Washingtons being black and how that has affected them probably would have been better placed after the audience had taken the time to get used to them as characters, so that the interpretation is "this is how race has an impact on a person we know and love" rather than hitting people in the face with the "we have included our token minority" bat. And I say this as someone whose favorite family is the Washingtons. I liked their later episodes, though, where they were an average family—in my opinion, solid representation, like any story element, shouldn't have to be told to get its point across.
Marvin D. wrote:Tiger, you really should start a trademarking business.
I'd make Millions™! \:D/
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*Rubs his eyes*
Man, that was long reading. One thing I do see in racial incidents is often something done which hardly can be called a racial incident is blown out of proportion. People are very touchy about their race although I am not. I am too mixed to be extremely touchy. I can be called a Dutch, a Ghanaian, and a Bonairian, and you would be correct depending on what you are referring to. Another interesting thing is that all people of dark skin are grouped as black. Which number one few of us are actually black or even African.
Anyway, stereotypes are nearly impossible to remove until you get to know someone from that race. The stereotype of Middle Easterner, is a terrorist, yet I have a very good friend who is from there and she is the opposite of that. Americans are stereotyped by the rest of the world. African think of you guys as rich people. One friend of mine thought America was like the gangster movies.
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Disclaimer: same as Wren and Tiger, except I'm male. :P Also, I've been a really bad AiO fan and haven't listened to anything remotely recent (I haven't got much past GRC, with a few exceptions). In fact, I first thought I hadn't heard Coach Fang at all, but then I remembered an episode or two with him.

Edit: Apparently I'm not quite as bad as I thought. I did listen to all of The Deep End.

To start with, I'm not convinced that all stereotypes are inherently bad. AiO has used some stereotypes in flat characters which I have found to be entertaining. An excellent example of this is the personal trainer in Do or Diet. This wasn't my favorite episode, although a lot of people seem to really like it, but I thought that the trainer improved it a lot. If he had been used more than one or two episodes, I would have hated him, but he was hilarious on a temporary basis. Ms. Kramer is another minor character that uses a stereotype; she's a cranky old librarian. Again, I'm relieved she's not a regular character, but she was funny for a while.

To clarify my position, I'm completely against AiO using racial stereotypes. As others have stated, I'm not really sure what the writers were thinking. Did it never cross anyone's mind that such a character could be offensive? And furthermore, why AiO needs another character that spews out random nonsense is beyond me. This tends to just distract from the rest of the episode and adds very little.

About the Barlcays being Chinese: I wouldn't have a problem if they were introduced and developed, and then we gradually got to know more of their background, but at this point, it would be a bizarre decision to suddenly go back and announce this when we'll never hear from them again. It would be vastly preferable if the writers invested this energy into creating a new family or revealing an existing family as such.
TigerShadow wrote:The point of good racial representation in media is to seamlessly integrate PoC characters into media without waving your giant flag of "LOOK HOW DIVERSE AND POLITICALLY CORRECT WE ARE!". I still don't see the problem with considering a character you assume to be white to be non-white.
Basically this. When I was younger, I had a huge fascination with the Land of Oz, and currently own all of Baum's Oz books and some of his other works. I've also read a fair amount of Oz books by other authors. My favorite of these is Sherwood Smith, who self-published the final book in her series last year. The two main characters, who are sisters, are black. This wasn't a major part of the storyline, but it was another small way that Smith developed Baum's world a little more. To my knowledge, he never included a non-white character in
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T.S. (myself) wrote:About the Barlcays being Chinese: I wouldn't have a problem if they were introduced and developed, and then we gradually got to know more of their background, but at this point, it would be a bizarre decision to suddenly go back and announce this when we'll never hear from them again. It would be vastly preferable if the writers invested this energy into creating a new family or revealing an existing family as such.
I think there might be some misunderstanding, now I look at it—I was referring to the Barclays being revealed as Chinese at some point during their run on the show, in the context of questioning what about the various Odyssey families that we assume to be white would change if they were not white, insofar as their essential stories are concerned. Alternatively, a single fan could headcanon that the Barclays were Chinese, if they so chose, and it wouldn't be that much of a problem. (Retroactively making a family that no longer appears on the show Chinese would not only be a poor storytelling choice, but would also be a cop-out on the matter of representation.)
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TigerShadow wrote:I think there might be some misunderstanding, now I look at it—I was referring to the Barclays being revealed as Chinese at some point during their run on the show, in the context of questioning what about the various Odyssey families that we assume to be white would change if they were not white, insofar as their essential stories are concerned. Alternatively, a single fan could headcanon that the Barclays were Chinese, if they so chose, and it wouldn't be that much of a problem. (Retroactively making a family that no longer appears on the show Chinese would not only be a poor storytelling choice, but would also be a cop-out on the matter of representation.)
Ah, okay. Sorry I missed the point of that. And yes, I do agree it would be a cop-out to make a past family a different ethnicity rather than doing so with a current one.
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