Okay, it's straight stolen. And I'm going to link two or three other posts at the end of this blatant theft...none to any that will piss ME off, and there are a few of those available. I picked this one because the writer exposes stuff alien to me...if I'm going to be poking at it with a stick I might as well learn stuff at the same time.
This was written toward the beginning of the kerfuffle and I am honestly amazed anyone felt the need to continue not understanding after this.
8:35 pm - I Didn’t Dream of Dragons
In reading and commenting on matociquala 's post on writing the Other, I felt a lot of personal reactive emotions boil up. The following essay (screed? thingie?) is not a direct continuation of that conversation, nor should it be taken as specific to anything she said. I have used one of her books as an example, because context foregrounded it for me, but this is more my commentary on the Western, White novels and blogs I have been reading recently, and my experience as an Indian reader.
When I was around thirteen years old, I tried to write a fantasy novel. It was going to be an epic adventure with a cross-dressing princess on the run, a snarky hero, and dragons. I got stuck when I had to figure out what they would do after they left the city. Logically, there would be a tavern.
But there were no taverns in India. Write what you know is a rule that didn’t really need to be told to me; after having spent my entire life reading books in English about people named Peter and Sally, I wanted to write about the place I lived in, even if I didn’t have a whole bookcase of Indian fantasy world-building to steal from. And I couldn’t get past the lack of taverns. Even now, I have spent a number of years trying to figure out how cross-dressing disguise would work in a pre-Islamic India where the women went bare-breasted. When I considered including a dragon at the end of a story, I had to map out their route to the Himalayas, because dragons can be a part of a Tibetan Buddhist tradition—they do not figure in Hindu mythology.
There are far more eloquent writers who have pointed out how difficult it is to growing up reading books (and watching movies) about a culture alien to you, and how pernicious the influences thereof can be. I am lucky in that Indian culture is more widely represented in Western media than other colonised regions—when I talk about Bollywood in the yuletide chat room, there are people who have an idea about what I might be referring to, bastardised ideas of ‘pundit’ and ‘caste system’ and ‘karma’ and ‘reincarnation’ are present in the English vocabulary. Yet still, my ability to connect fannishly with people from different parts of the world is mediated through the coloniser’s language and representation. Enid Blyton, with her hideous caricatures of African tribal boys helping the intrepid British children is read from Johannesburg to Jaipur—Iktomi stories are not.
These imbalances of power are what frustrate me in several discussions regarding issues of representation and diversity in writing that I’ve seen recently. I am summarising some positions that I have heard, and my responses to them.
One of the most frustrating arguments I’ve encountered is—If you hate it so much, stop bitching and write your own.
This naive position stems from the utopian capitalist belief that all markets are equal, and individuals are free to be what they can driven only by their inner divine spark.
Yes, writers create from the richly populated inner world of the imagination, and writers have evolved said imagination in many diverse corporeal circumstances of hardship and difficulty. However—no writer, I repeat my sweeping assumption—no writer is created from a vacuum. Almost the only universal characteristic I have seen in the biographical commonalities between writers across time and space has been their pleasure in reading (or accessing stories). Certainly the writers of the present era have grown up reading.
Now let me point out that I grew up speaking Marathi with my family, and Hindi with schoolmates and neighbours, but the only children’s books I read were in English. Less than a handful were written by Indian authors about Indian characters. (There are some good Indian language children’s books. You will not find them in the average Indian bookstore.)
I grew up with half a tongue.
Do not tell me, or the people like me who have grown up hearing Arabic around them, or singing in Swahili, or dreaming in Bengali—but reading only (or even mostly) in English (or French, or Dutch)—that this colonial rape of our language has not infected our ability to narrate, has not crippled our imagination. When I was in class 7, our English teacher gave us the rare creative writing assignment, and three of my classmates wrote adventure stories about characters named Julian and Peggy and Tom. Do not tell me that this cultural fracture does not affect the odds required to produce enough healthy imaginations that can chrysalis into writers. When we call ourselves Oreos or Coconuts or Bananas (Black/Brown/Yellow on the outside, White on the inside)—understand the ruptures and bafflement that accompanies our consumption of your media while we resent and critique it.
And also, do not imagine that making it to print is some idealistic winnowing of quality. Someone once said to me, when I told them how much smaller the publishing industry in India was compared with the American one, that they supposed that what was published then, must be of the highest quality. It is not an equal playing field. This is like assuming that the one runner in India who perseveres in the face of poverty and institutional neglect and governmental lack-of-infrastructure will by virtue of her drive and passion be as good as the team of runners culled from the tens of thousands of children sent to athletic training camps in China for the express purpose of creating Olympic medallists.
The Western publishing industry has the luxury of being able to support the base camps of crappy first novels and cliché-ridden genre fiction hacks and niche-marketed speciality books that creates the momentum for the breakout book, the genius author. If you grow up in a country where every child has held a crayon in nursery school, you are at an advantage.
And just to make it absolutely clear—the Western publishing advantage was derived from the economic wealth those nations enjoyed by virtue of stripping the resources and talents of other peoples. I do not consider it an accident of fate that it is in America that the art of children’s picture books evolved (which I consider one of America’s most exquisite cultural gifts to the world). These books, printed in China on paper from Brazil—they cost (when they are imported at all) more than a full length Penguin Classic in an Indian bookstore. The books available in one fourth grade classroom at a low-income Minneapolis charter school where I have worked outnumber the entirety of books my private primary school in Delhi made available to me (And I reiterate, I am nothing but privileged in India). Remember on whose backs the resources for your public libraries were built.
Also--this research what you write about blitheness annoys me because the costs of research are skewed towards the First World economies. It's not just a question of Neil Gaiman going to China or Naomi Novik going on a research safari to South Africa; even Harlequin romance writers can afford to go on a cruise and write about a Latin lover. There isn't even an Indian speculative fiction genre--how many of us do you think, were we to be authors who wished to world-build in an AU Brazilian setting, would be able to afford a plane ticket to visit there. And on a smaller level--try talking to the elite academic professors at Delhi University or the University of Ghana. Find out how long it takes for academic journals to reach them, or how the library at the University of Chicago is better stocked in South East Asian texts than any Indian library. Compare how many undergraduates in the US have free access to LexusNexus, with the number of elite Indian private school teachers who rely on Wikipedia because they can't afford subscriptions to academic article sites.
The other argument that causes me to flinch reactively is the one which talks about writing the Other just like you would write any character—with respect for their individuality and uniqueness.
You know why I flinch? It’s because the assumptions flatten the problem. A poorly written book has cardboard cut-out characters, and a well-written book has thoughtful, nuanced characterisation. But I have spent a lifetime reading well-written books with nuanced characters that hurt me by erasing or misrepresenting me. Sara Crewe gets sent to boarding school because my home had a bad climate for her to grow up in. Libba Bray can in 2003 write about a lesbian schoolgirl in Victorian England, but posit that Indians sell snakes to eat in a Bombay marketplace. And the White characters in Gone With the Wind, and Atlas Shrugged—two books I idolised and reread voraciously as a teenager—are iconoclastic in their individuality.
Asking an author to write the Other with respect and assuming it to be sufficient, is like telling a person that being polite to everyone is sufficient in their goal of being an anti-racist ally. This is crap. Your definition of individuality, just like your definition of politeness is culture-specific. And just like I do not want to see yet another Indian princess or lascar stereotype, I do not want to see a White American with brown skin and kohl and an elephant sidekick.
I distrust universalising statements proclaiming our inherent mutual humanity because they are uni-directional—they do not make everyone more like me, they make everyone more like you. And I do not want that.
White people decrying their race and culture baffles me, because it is a lie. Your alienation from your own mainstream does not equate with your fundamental similarity to my differences with your culture. Even when we feel or are called 'White' or 'Western', we cannot shrug off our identity; we become the vanguard of its complexity. And we are far, far more immersed in your culture, than most of you could ever be in ours.
What I resent is the implication of accessibility. That it is as easy to understand people of different ethnicities and cultures as it is to understand the diverse experiences within the identities you share with people. Yes, writing about Indian-Americans or Korean-Canadians or Sengalese-Britishers implies a certain shared national experience. But hyphenated identities are not the only manifestations of a culture, and as someone who identifies as Indian, I want to say--No. It is not that easy to understand me, or my experience, or to accurately represent it. You don't see Native Americans writers going around claiming familiarity with Australian aboriginals on the basis of some shared philosophies, or Chinua Achebe writing about Afro-Caribbeans like an extension of his own world.
And finally, I would like to say that this well-intentioned championing of diversity is specific to countries that are trying to celebrate their appropriation of other cultures. All this write the Other talk—you never hear someone saying that to or within an Indian authorial context. Nobody seems to complain that R. K. Narayan or Anita Desai or Ruskin Bond don’t feature Black or White characters. And I haven’t heard anyone criticise Salman Rushdie or Vikram Seth for their inaccurate or stereotypical portrayal of the White characters they write. Because when they write about White people, it is not appropriative. No one that I know of has borrowed Arthur and Lancelot to turn them into part of the army that helps Rama defeat Ravan.
On the other hand, there is a disturbing trend of Euro-centric mythology crossing the water to the US, and then appropriating the other cultures present in its service. For instance, I read Elizabeth Bear’s Blood and Iron with a great deal of pleasure—the writing was strong, the characters compelling, and the plot complex. And there were two major Black characters—one of whom was a Merlin (an important figure in the war between the Faerie and the Promethean men), and one of whom was a kelpie. But why? Why would an African-American woman have to participate in an Arthurian narrative, and why must Caribbean orisha spirits be subsumed into a Celtic myth in order to serve the conceit of something so specifically White European as a Seelie and an Unseelie Faerie court? (And Avalon's Willow pointed out; the character at first terrifies and attempts to capture one White Woman and then is bridled and made a servant/unwilling sidekick of another.) I do not want rakshasas and apsaras to be part of a fairy court, or an Indian-American to do a havan that permits the heroine to sanctify the sword that will kill the dragon.
Dragons are not universal. If I am defensive, it is because I have had to learn how to love Tolkein while trying to find myself in the unmapped lands in the East where the Green and Blue wizards disappeared to.
Excellent follow up here. This entry is also more than quoteworthy.
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Regarding Deepad’s commentary on, writing on “the other”
After reading her piece, and before backtracking through her blog articles, I emailed an Indian friend to ask a few questions, and received a response a few minutes ago. I’m provoked to ask where Deepad grew up, was it in India, or the UK, Canada or perhaps the US? Because her experience seems different than the experiences of Indians I have known, both online and off, about growing up in India. I can imagine the interest a 13 yr old girl would have in writing her own interpretation of an adventure, but no taverns in ancient India? Not true. In Ancient India, before the Muslim invasion, when trade first became paramount, places referred to what translates to “rest houses” dotted the roads and trade routes in villages and trading centers, where travelers and traders could sleep, purchase food and drink. And no dragons? Deepad has never been told the story of Indra, fighting the dragon Vitra (sp?) to bring water to the gods and people? Very strange… nor is Vitra the only example of dragons in Ancient Indian legends and myth, in fact dragons were represented in the legends throughout the mid-east as well as the far east, and no Indian child would be not told these stories, especially a privileged child, and they are not deprived of books of such things, though poor Indian children would not have such access, in fact, poor Indian children, especially children from the “untouchables” caste, have no champions in the Indian government. India today is every bit as much a regressive society, insistent on preserving a harsh system where people are locked into dire poverty, denied any ability to rise up out of their situations, because of skin color, and being born into a low caste. Such people are considered, “dirty”, and that applies to visitors from other countries who have darker skin, as reports on the racism of Indians, whether it’s Indian celebrities like Shilpa Shetty, or it’s soccer team, who exposed their racism by referring to an Australian soccer star who is black, by calling him, “dirty” and a “monkey”. It was reported all over the world last year. Shilpa Shetty, a Bollywood star, appeared on the UK’s Big Brother program, and was painted as being treated in a racist, disrespectful manner. Viewers in Britain and around the world felt offended as the reality showed, that Shetty treated Jermaine Jackson (also appeared on the show) , and others, including a mixed race woman named Jade Goody, in a disrespectful, racist manner, referring to Goody as a “servant” and other such things, Goody, tried to force a discussion, but Shetty, feeling entitled to avoid having to, and then gave her a bit of her own back, calling Shetty, a papadum princess. This hit the blogosphere, with both sides taking aim, and others posting video clips to make their points. The Indian government acted offended, but then were shamed by Indian activists, both in India and the UK. Here’s an example of this: From the BBC news on 10/18/07 - Farrukh Dhondy, a former commissioning editor of Channel 4, wrote in the Times of India that the conflict in the Big Brother house is fairly mild compared to, ‘what I know of the bitchiness, back-stabbing, petty and meaningless rivalry, casteism and racism of Bollywood.’ Thursday’s editorial in the Hindustan Times pointed out ‘that we are no less racist in this country. Discrimination on the basis of colour is ingrained in the psyche of most Indians.’
I know from Indian friends and acquaintances that in their country, such history is taught, as a society they are very proud of their culture and past achievements, and what they have told me is that Indian society isn’t marked by it’s colonial past, as it is by it’s own rigid class structures, caste, racism and corrupt elites, and it’s been that way for all time. So, Deepad’s anger that others might have form opinions on the inequities and human rights violations of India’s caste system, claiming that it’s unfair as caste is part of Indian culture and might have some positive rationale is offensive. The most vocal critics of the Indian caste system are Indians themselves, and westerners who have championed such activists aren’t wrong to do so.
For example, the usage of the expression, language of the “colonizers”, does Deepad believe that had English not been the predominant language of business, etc… around the world, that Indian society would have been more just, that there would be better education, more access to books, etc.. ? If so, I’d like to see her back up that claim, because the Indians I know would say that had it been the exact opposite, there would be even less opportunities in India today. India has always been a wealthy country, even after the English left, the problems have been that the elites have refused to raise wages, create more opportunity, improve education. It was wrong for the English to take over India, but one fact is, slavery was outlawed in India, during the days of English rule, and the first thing the Indian rulers did after the English left, was to reinstitute it.
The US has actually given billions per year to India in foreign aid, intended to help the poor there, but the Indian government only used a tiny bit to provide a false front, and kept the rest for itself. It was reported in ‘08, that despite the fact that India now has more billionaires than any other country in the world, it still was demanding the US give it the annual 9 billion dollars in foreign aid that the country had been receiving. Money that would be far better spent aiding poor American citizens who have been displaced by the outsourcing of their jobs, and the displacement by the exploitation of visa workers. Incentivizing new job creation, more higher education and opportunity, but no, it went to India anyway. Cruel, evil America.. Yet it’s Indian firms like Santyam, that have been behind scams that falsified accounting records while it’s owners and workers defrauded US banks and government, it’s Indian IT visa shops, that demand poor Americans be displaced, and then play games in India, for example, closing one of their automobile plants there, to move to a poorer Indian town, when the poor workers had the gall to ask for a tiny increase in wages, and then those Indian workers, so angry, killed the lower level executive, who Tata’s management sent in to tell them they were fired.
Had India valued it’s people, wanted to provide them with more books and opportunities, it could have easily had a larger publishing industry. It’s elites view the majority of it’s fellow citizens as slaves, nothing more. That has nothing to do with the west.
As to talents, tell me, why is it that when it’s poor Indians in desperate need of life saving surgery or treatment, they receive it from western doctors from missionary organizations, or groups like Doctors Without Borders, while Indian physicians turn a blind eye to organ theft and can not be bothered to honor what is supposed to be the medical code of ethics?
Those children’s books referred to, were not always printed in China, and in fact used to be printed and bound in the US, by citizen workers who worked hard and needed their jobs. China itself demanded those jobs, manipulated it’s currency, so as to undercut the costs of operations in the US. That’s not an example of the US taking any advantage of others around the world, but the corrupt, fascistic, communist Chinese government, that owns the very factories where such goods are made, and denies it’s citizens workers rights and protections. For Deepad to ignore these facts proves my concerns about her indifference and disconnect to the realities. Those Chinese workers, or any other workers around the world, or in the US, whether black, brown or white, are merely pawns she seeks to exploit, without any real concern or commitment to their rights.
The powers that be in India are Indian, they have more wealth than any other country other than China, yet India’s elites refuse to tax that wealthy base to gather the resources to fund improvements that would lift the majority of their people out of poverty, yet Deepad points the finger of blame at the US, why? India could fund it’s own research, rather than funnel bribes to corrupt politicians in the US to displace US citizen workers, again, black and brown as well as white, in their jobs. If Deepad is truly and Indian in a school in Minnesota, it’s because she sought a visa to come here, and displace a citizen teacher. Back to research, Indian pharmaceutical corporations don’t like to fund research into the safety of the medications they create. In the US in ‘07, there was a scandal about a prescription medication it made, called Entex and Entex PSE (cold medicines, combinations of decongestant and expectorant). Neither of the medications were safe, neither were subjected to medical trials to ensure their safety, because the Indian company didn’t care about such things. They managed to get a number attached by bribing FDA officials, to allow them to distribute the medications. Entex was found to cause hemorrhagic stroke in young women, Entex PSE, was later found to include a time released expectorant that was releasing too fast, causing severe respiratory and heart problems. Both were banned from being distributed and prescribed, after being on the market for a long time. I’m sure Deepad will criticize my criticism of the problem, on not respecting Indian culture’s lack of respect for civil and human rights, because to her, anyone who refuses to conform to what is corrupt and inhumane, is an example of “the other”, a nonentity that is to be deprived of all rights, and a voice.
Also, to the discussion of resources being stripped, funding the development of the US, sorry, but she’s confusing Europe, China, Russia, and the Arab states with the US. The days of conquest started long before the US came to be, and were continued by those same old world countries/continents. India itself also colonized nearby lands, and did the same. As to Lakota legends, and those of the other native peoples of this land, their stories have been told and shared with the rest of the world, by native writers, as well as those of other races, ethnicities. It seems that Deepad is not as widely read or as curious as a writer, or someone who claims interest in such things, should be. Perhaps that is why her hostility and baseless claims leave me suspicious of her motives. I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit that I wondered if Deepad is a fictional character, created rather unimaginatively, by someone who sought to use such a character as a false front, from which to espouse what are little more than a propaganda piece seeking to rationalize censorship of those she wishes to persecute and subjugate.
In the west, when westerners, or white people are presented in ways that they feel are misrepresentations, they tend to deal with it through dialogue, and reason. Not demands for censorship and outrageous demands that such writers be denied the right to. Western culture, at least western culture that believes in rights and freedoms, and free speech, believes that perspective is important and can be considered a spring board for healthy discussion on perception and reality. Those who do not, tend to be those who find such discourse inconvenient, and try to silence what they can not oppress and shut down by force and intimidation. Such mindsets are not conducive to free and just societies, no matter what races or ethnicities reside within them.
It’s rather hypocritical to claim that one has a right to criticize others, but when those others voice a counterpoint, or their own opinions, that it’s somehow wrong, racist, exploitative or what have you. That mindset, perpetuated by those who want to demean western culture, seek to silence westerners ability to speak out in their own defense, or to challenge such claims.
"What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents." - Robert F. Kennedy
It’s rather hypocritical
It’s rather hypocritical to claim that one has a right to criticize others, but when those others voice a counterpoint, or their own opinions, that it’s somehow wrong, racist, exploitative or what have you.
Where was this done? Quote, please...I've already determined your interpretations are not such that I can credit them.
Re: It's rather hypocritical
Her over all piece is a declaration of that comment. Take for example her assertation, that even well written works "flatten", "hurt" or "misrepresent" her. She cites the character Sarah Crewe from the Little Princess novel, claiming her pain in reading it was derived from Crewe being sent to school in England, because the climate wasn't healthy for her. Deepad's claim on the novel was pulled from thin air. I remember reading the novel as a child, and in fact bought it and read it to my daughter when she was small. Crewe's father brought her to England because of the war breaking out, and her father went to fight in the Boer war, which was a fight between the English and the Dutch. The story over all provided an emphasis about child poverty in England, and the disparities between the children of the rich and the poorest. The main representation of an Indian in the novel is of a man servant, who lived next door to the school, who Sarah meets and converses with in his native language. The man helps her on more than one occasion, and ultimately allows her to escape after it's believed her father died in the war, and the school she attended has her working as a servant to pay off part of the tuition bill that had been left over, she is abused, escapes and ultimately finds her father alive at a hospital.
I'd have appreciated reading any real example of what would have caused such pain to anyone, but she misrepresented the story, as part of her claim that westerners who write such characters, even in works of good quality harm those whose race or ethnic group are represented in such works. Her reliance on dramatic effect, and then morphing into a tirade, blaming the west, and US specifically further underscores my point. Perhaps you don't wish to credit them, but that doesn't change the fact. Seriously, I'd appreciate a further dialogue, what interpretations do you have problems with.. my statements underscoring other misrepresentations Deepad made about her purported country, India? Or my statements about the corruption and hypocrisies of India? List them, state where you disagree, and let's talk about it.
"What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents." - Robert F. Kennedy
So you have no example of
So you have no example of where she says she has the right to criticize others and countering her argument is racist.
I've decided I don't like your views very much. I'll probably dislike you personally, very shortly.
Oh my...
I posted a response, and I stated that her implied statement was that any such example, no matter how well written could be interepreted as racist, as she employed that theme in her protracted attack, of the "racist", "exploitative" west and US. Anyone reading her entire post, and the responses on her blog, sees that others who responded also recognized her implication, and parroted back in agreement, that it was racist.. as was her intent.
I can't help it if you'll dislike me personally, Prometheus 6, only you control what you think and believe. I did ask you, to cite specifically what other statements I made that you disagreed with, and why, but you've chosen not to. Or perhaps this is a not too subtle threat of censorship? Again, I have to ask, why? Is it that you can't or won't engage in a discussion with me?
Feel free to do whatever you like, if you're that insecure in your beliefs, then don't engage in dialogue. It doesn't hurt me, it only makes you appear to be a coward. I have to ask, is Deepad a pseudonym you or a friend of yours uses, so you can respond, giving those views an echo chamber?
"What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents." - Robert F. Kennedy
I don't like you because
I don't like you because you're a volunteer slave breaker.
I didn't read all of m232's
I didn't read all of m232's post, but to your question, P6, I often maintain with white people that they can't criticize what goes on within the black community or any other minority community for a number of reasons - 1 they don't know what they're talking about; 2 - they really don't care. They just want to deflect attention from their own issues; 3 - some things worth criticism are the result of racism; 4 - this is probably foremost - the black community is criticized often enough! Our criticism of racism doesn't happen in a vacuum, it equals the system.
To Deepad's point, I absolutely agree with everything she said. From what I scanned, m232 raised some issues from comments Deepad has made that aren't posted here. But, to answer your question, m232 - No, just speaking Hindi or Bengali wouldn't have changed whatever injustice was going on. But it would have recognized the humanity and worthiness of the colonized people. And, it is a bit besides the point to call out corruption within a group when someone of that group is explaining the injustice of the original issue.
Speaking as an Indian who
Speaking as an Indian who grew up in India and Africa; I think m232 is just plain wrong on a lot of points. Specifically about dragons and Vitra - that is a highly selective interpretation - the Amar Chitra Katha comics books which represent Indian mythology to a lot of Indian children and most vernacular translation of the old tales certainly do NOT protray Vitra as a 'dragon'. In fact pictoral representations of anything looking like a Dragon are very difficult to find in Indian folklore and mythology. I just wonder who are these "Indian friends, colleagues" that m232 is talking to, they certainly aren't giving her a very clear picture about India.
I believe m232 simply lied
I believe m232 simply lied
If that is true, then it
If that is true, then it would actually be a relief; since I would be really concerned if someone actually beleived/thought some of this stuff!