Five Forms of Racial Representation in Speculative Fiction

A while back The Atlantic ran an interesting article written by Noah Berlatsky of the comics-and-culture website, The Hooded Utilitarian. Titled “Star Wars and the FourWays Science Fiction Handles Race”, Berlatsky categorizes four aesthetic strategies science fiction utilizes to represent race: the metaphorical, token, diversity, and direct. No strategy is inherently superior to any other in his opinion as each offers a unique perspective on race and can be utilized well or poorly depending upon the skill of how it is used to represent racial identity. Though the article is framed around science fiction, I believe that it is equally applicable to fantasy fiction as well. Furthermore, I feel that Berlatsky overlooked a fifth way for speculative fiction to imagine race: alternative representation. This is especially relevant to the alterity of the fantasy genre which is often set in alternative, secondary worlds with their own histories and therefore our inherited racial categories, and the burdens of their associated stereotypes need not be an essential aspect of the world-building project.

            

The first method of racial representation is the metaphorical. Fantastical and alien species serve as the alternatives to the recognizable categories of racial identification. That these species are often referred to as “races” despite them being simultaneously identified as non (if not sub) human reflects speculative fiction’s pervasive problem with recognizing race authentically. By appropriating the term “race” into the discussion of non-human species, speculative fiction risks the identification of racial minorities with inhuman monsters which is exactly what racists do when they dehumanize minorities as of another species (calling them “apes” for example). This opens a dangerous space for speculative fiction to indulge in racial stereotypes without obviously having to own it. Even if the metaphorical “races” are relatively inoffensive, there is the problem that they are still structured according to homogenous racial stereotypes. If an alien species is supposed to be a metaphor for race, it must be ensured that there is recognizable diversity within the race and not merely amongst races. Speculative fiction is fond of indulging in word-building with a plurality of different racial species but each is only ever considered as a monolith with established stereotypes This is especially relevant to role-playing games based upon speculative fiction where racial categories are associated with stereotyped attribute statistics such that particular races are inherently stronger or smarter than other archetypes. For these reasons, the metaphorical approach, while not necessarily worse than any of the other methods is certainly the most challenging as it is likely to misrepresent race in such a way that would justifiably offend minorities.

Token racial identity is the second method by which speculative fiction represents race. Unlike the metaphorical technique, the racial identity is literal but similar enough to the metaphorical in that race is obscured from being anything but nominally depicted. Token representation ensures that minority races are included but their status as racial minorities is not an element relevant to the narrative. It is racial without any apparent social implications between characters. Such racial recognition is literally only skin-deep, serving more to describe the appearance of characters as opposed to defining their experience as a people. This approach often provides more detail than the metaphorical approach but does not ensure more depth. If anything it may prove even more evasive. For while a fantastical substitute may not take race literally, it may nevertheless explore the consequences of race and racism to a greater extent through metaphorical parallels. The token approach may be representative of post-racial societies of the future or alternative worlds and histories, but if this is the case then it should be the burden of the narrative to make the argument for such a setting. Speculative fiction isn’t merely about exploring imagined worlds but in explaining them. Our society is not colorblind, no matter how much some may claim to the contrary. So if such a world is written into existence, the burden is upon the good author to explain what differences between our world and the speculative world made possible to see race as irrelevant.         

Diversity in speculative fiction is the third method of racial representation. Instead of the narrative being dominated by white or pseudo-white people by default, the setting imagines a racial minority as the focus of the narrative. White (analogues) may not feature into the setting at all. Diversity goes beyond the strategy of token representation, by making the narrative about minorities rather than merely including them. The advantage of such an approach is that it puts minorities in a position of power that they may not otherwise possess outside of such speculative fiction. But at the same time the narrative may risk the accusation of being socially escapist for refusing the recognize the struggle of minorities as minorities. The narrative may lose its appeal for those with more immediate concerns over confronting racial inequality rather than imagining an escape from it. A further danger is that by placing the focus on racial minorities, extra attention is devoted to them and therefore it is essential that they be represented authentically according to the concerns of that community. Simply imagining a fantasy setting in Asia world does not guarantee that it will be without offensive Orientalist stereotypes. And as with the metaphorical method, it is irrelevant whether such stereotypes are derogatory or not since any stereotype creates an artificial constraint around a community’s capacity for self-expression and determination. Because of these concerns, diversity-focused fantasy settings is best conducted by those writing within their own community or consulting with authorities in a community.

The fourth approach to speculative fiction’s racial representation is to do so directly and explicitly. Regardless of whether the narrative is situated within an alternative time period or world altogether, the way in which race is discussed reflects contemporary concerns over racial identity and equality. If the circumstances and characterization of races is not identical to the present then it is at least continuous with it, possessing a narrative bridge between the present and its speculative alternative. In either case, the world-building is in continuous and transparent dialogue with concerns for racial identity and (in)justice. It neither approaches race through the surrogate of misleading metaphorical categories nor does it represent race as merely another feature of the world-building itself. The concern with direct representations refuses to speculate alternative possibilities of race and responses to it. By focusing on relevance to contemporary politics, the narrative may ignore the imaginative potential of speculative fiction to redefine those debates with new concepts, categories and experiences. Speculative fiction reaches its full potential when it isn’t simply determined by the present but is in constant dialogue with it, offering a different perspective on familiar and relevant phenomenon.       

The alternative approach is the fifth means by which speculative fiction can depict race that I felt that Berlatsky overlooked. It’s not simply reducible to one of the other four methods because it takes race literally but differentiates it from our familiar historical racial categories. As with the previous three strategies, alternative approaches take racial identity literally but like metaphorical techniques, they represent a divergence with a recognizable reality. Instead, fictional racial identities stand as substitutes for real racial membership. This isn’t the same as equating race with species as in the metaphorical approach but drawing distinctions between race along different lines. This allows for more detailed discussion of race than the metaphorical or token approach without having to make an apparent connection to real races or racism as necessitated by the direct method. There must be considerable differentiation between fictional and historical races in the alternative approach otherwise there is the concern that it will be legitimately identified as guilty of cultural appropriation and exploitation. Diverse cultural elements may be combined into a purely fictional culture, but it must be done carefully. If an alternative culture is going to appear similar to the stereotype of its historical inspiration, there must be adequate explanation for the familiarity. If not, it risks reducing minorities to a means of supplying an exotic and alien element of speculative fiction. The idea is to use an alien culture to familiarize the audience with racial diversity, not to alienate a familiar culture.  

There are a variety of methods available for speculative fiction to appreciate and interrogate racial differences ranging from the metaphorical to substitutionary and confrontational. But each of these methodologies must respect both the authenticity and disparity of racial identities. One must consider not only what is being represented, but how it is being differentiated from the ideological status quo. Speculative fiction imagines alternatives to our world but should remain in dialogue with this world because it is written and read within this world. Whether imagining an alternative history or another world altogether, speculative fiction remains interested in and appreciative of difference. When those differences are superficial and repeat contemporary injustices, the narrative is read not only as a failed exercise of the genre’s imaginative potential but also its ethical imperative to celebrate difference. 

Rowling's Cultural Appropriation May be Magical, But It's Not Charming

I have written about the topic of cultural appropriation before, and given that this blog is largely devoting to exploring problematic aspects of speculative fiction, I am particularly interested when conversations about cultural appropriation arise within the context of science fiction or fantasy. The latest example of such controversy appears to be acclaimed Harry Potter writer JK Rowling’s recent essay on her Pottermore website. Being part of the History of Magic in North America series, the piece is titled “The 14th to 17th Century” and concentrates upon the magical community within the indigenous population of North America in distinction from the European magical society her fans are already familiar with.

Before I proceed to detail the developments of this controversy and address the criticisms of Rowling’s writing, I should note that as a straight, white male I don’t consider myself to be any authoritative position to dictate to minorities, certainly not the indigenous inhabitants of the land my country unjustly occupies. If I take issue with something a critic of Rowling has said, it is not because I take issue with their concerns but with their argument only. I don’t believe there is anything inappropriate about defending the sanctity of one’s cultural heritage against perceived exploitation, but there is nothing wrong with mentioning the inadequacy of arguments pertaining to it. My intention is not to “whitesplain” the situation by stating that critics such as NK Jemisin or Dr. Keene are “overreacting” to a subject that is “just fantasy”. For them, this isn’t just fantasy, it is their history and their community and it is being eroded by ignorance. The best way to dispel that ignorance in my opinion is through critical reflection which I hope to provide here.    

My responses are not meant to discredit the concerns of Native Americans or any other people of color, but merely to examine Rowling’s writing from my perspective and offer commentary on the conversation taking place among some of her critics. Just as I believe Rowling was providing an alternative interpretation of Native American history, rather than overwriting it, so too is it my intention to provide an alternative commentary to that of her critics without ignoring the concerns they raise. As a fan of her writing concerned about justice for minorities, I am invested in the world of Harry Potter and reconciling it with the demands of social justice. My interest in presenting an interpretation of Rowling’s writing which leaves space for these two to be reconciled. I believe that Rowling had good intentions, but produced ill effects (which matter more); she may not have taken advantage of Native American people, but she failed to take advantage of her position as a world-famous author to be an ally for them. But in the situation of oppressed peoples, such a distinction is largely ineffectual. 

Rowling’s writing turned towards fan-community controversy when Dr. Adrienne Keene of the blog Native Appropriations wrote a response article addressing History of Magic in North America. In a follow-up article, Keene states that “one of the largest fights in the world of representations is to recognize Native peoples and communities and cultures are diverse, complex, and vastly different from one another. There is no such thing as one “Native American” anything. Even in a fictional wizarding world”. African American fantasy author NKJemisin (a favorite author of mine) echoed this sentiment when she speculated that Rowling “would never have dreamt of reducing all of Europe’s cultures to “European wizarding tradition”; instead she created Durmstrang and Beauxbatons and so on to capture the unique flavor of each of those cultures”. Jemisin continues to say that “It would’ve taken some work for her to research Navajo stories and pick (or request) some elements from that tradition that weren’t stereotypical or sacred — and then for her to do it again with the Paiutes and again with the Iroquois and so on.”

In Jemisin’s opinion, Rowling’s writing would have been much richer “if she’d mentioned the ruins of a “lost” school at Cahokia, full of dangerous magical artifacts and the signs of mysterious, hasty abandonment? Or a New Orleanian school founded by Marie Laveau, that practiced real vodoun and was open/known to the locals as a temple — and in the old days as a safe place to plan slave rebellions, a la Congo Square? Or what if she’d mentioned that ancient Death Eater-ish wizards deliberately destroyed the magical school of Hawai’i — but native Hawai’ians are rebuilding it now as Liliuokalani Institute, better than before and open to all?” This all sounds fantastic and reveals the depth of Jemisin’s creativity against the shallowness Rowling put on display. But I question whether Rowling is fairly obligated to go into such detail within one small piece of writing. The “The 14^th to 17^th Century” juxtaposes generalizations of European and North American magic against one another to contrast the new sense of Native American magical practice and history against the familiarity of European wizardry.

I am sympathetic to the yearning for more nuanced details as both a fan of fantasy world-building and as an ally concerned about minority representation. It is true and it is unfortunate that Native peoples are often only recognized as a homogenous mass, when they are given recognition at all. It remains uncertain how much Rowling will continue to expand and explore this part of her world. The writing appears to be publicity material for the upcoming film Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them and thus it seems unlikely that these writings will be significantly expanded (at least not until after the film’s release, lest it spoil the material), nor does it appear that they were ever intended to provide a critical and comprehensive history of magic in North America. Rowling can be faulted for doing nothing to dispel the illusion that Native Americans are a homogenous population, even if her intention was to speak about populations in the aggregate. Rowling didn’t have to detail the diversity amongst the indigenous tribes of North America, she simply had to acknowledge that there is such diversity and I think it is a fair assessment of her writing to say that she didn’t even do this. Rowling is not defining Native Americans as a singular community, but that is only because she hardly defines them at all.   

 

In Keene’s assessment, “Indigenous peoples are constantly situated as fantasy creatures” and that there is a “pervasive and problematic narrative wherein Native peoples are always “mystical” and “magical” and “spiritual”–able to talk to animals, conjure spirits, perform magic, heal with “medicine” and destroy with “curses.”” But in Rowling’s magical version of North America, “the overall ratio of wizards to non-wizards seemed consistent across populations, as did the attitudes of No-Majs (non-magic users), wherever they were born. In the Native American community, some witches and wizards were accepted and even lauded within their tribes, gaining reputations for healing as medicine men, or outstanding hunters. However, others were stigmatized for their beliefs, often on the basis that they were possessed by malevolent spirits.” In Rowling’s world, all cultures possess the potential for magic, and Native American tribal communities are no different, nor are they stereotypically exceptionally gifted with magical talent. Rowling neither neglects nor mystifies Native Americans. So while Rowling may apply the abilities Keene notes to Native Americans, she does not do this as a stereotype of them, since their capacity for magic is no different than any other population. It cannot be considered a stereotype since it does not discriminate Native Americans as a distinct community in regards to magical talent.

The Native American practice of magic is distinguished from that of European settlers in the latter’s use of the wand: “Wands channel magic so as to make its effects both more precise and more powerful, although it is generally held to be a mark of the very greatest witches and wizards that they have also been able to produce wandless magic of a very high quality. As the Native American Animagi and potion-makers demonstrated, wandless magic can attain great complexity, but Charms and Transfiguration are very difficult without one.” Keene responds by noting that “wands are what basically refines magic. Wands are a European invention, so basically she’s demonstrating Eurocentric superiority here–the introduction of European “technology” helps bring the Native wizards to a new level. AKA colonial narrative 101.” While Rowling did state that the wand was unique to the European magical community, she didn’t suggest that it made wizards within that community superior to those native to America. She merely mentioned that particular forms of magic were difficult without the precision granted by the use of wand. While it appears that Native Americans could benefit from utilizing wands, Rowling does not state that such utilization would progress their civilization in any way. Rowling actually alludes to advantages Native American magicians possessed over Europeans: “The Native American wizarding community was particularly gifted in animal and plant magic, its potions in particular being of a sophistication beyond much that was known in Europe.” Keene is right to be vigilant for ways in which fantasy reflects colonial narratives of superiority, but I don’t recognize such a correspondence in Rowling’s writing here. But that’s not to say she isn’t to be faulted elsewhere in her writing.    

Rowling devotes particular (in)attention to the narrative of skin-walkers (while failing to specify that this legend is not universal among Native American tribes). She states that “the legend of the Native American ‘skin walker’ – an evil witch or wizard that can transform into an animal at will – has its basis in fact. A legend grew up around the Native American Animagi, that they had sacrificed close family members to gain their powers of transformation. In fact, the majority of Animagi assumed animal forms to escape persecution or to hunt for the tribe. Such derogatory rumors often originated with No-Maj medicine men, who were sometimes faking magical powers themselves, and fearful of exposure.” Much can be said of this one paragraph, because it touches not only upon an appropriated aspect of sacred tradition, but it also deals with the perceived reality of such legendary beings and the legitimacy of those who inform their community about them. The precise meaning and implications of this paragraph are ambiguous since it is referring beings (skin-walkers) that not every reader will recognize as existing in our real world to begin with. Without a pre-established familiarity with the subject, the line between fantastical and historical mythology is obscured. Rowling does not claim that the legend of the skin-walkers is itself an authentic Native American legend, but that it is a legend about skin-walkers amongst Native Americans; it is a “legend of the Native American ‘skin-walker’” and not a Native American legend of skin-walkers. Recognizing such ambiguity, one fan tweeted to Rowling for clarification regarding the skin-walkers asking “Were the skin-walkers evil or not? Or were they simple animagus?” Rowling responded by saying that “in my wizarding world, there were no skin-walkers. The legend was created by No-Majes to demonize wizards.” In Rowling’s world, a skin-walker is just a demonized wizard, no different than an ordinary (ordinarily magical) person. Rowling has denied the legitimacy of the legend in our world by equating it with the magic of her world. 

A great deal of the criticism directed at instances of cultural appropriation is focused on how sacred artifacts of a community are reinterpreted against their traditional significance. In and of itself, I do not consider the reinterpretation of appropriated cultural markers to be inherently offensive so long as they are not utilized to perpetuate offensive stereotypes or discredit the community from which there were derived. If I appropriate the Palestinian keffiyeh only to utilize it as part of a “terrorist” costume, this would be wrong since I am only using it to perpetuate a false narrative about Palestinian identity while discrediting the resistance to preserve that identity against occupation. It is no wonder that Native Americans take offense to Rowling writing that the skin-walker legend was spread through fraudulent Native American medicine men. Such a statement goes beyond merely providing an alternative explanation of Native American spirituality. If Rowling was merely offering an alternative explanation of skin-walkers as magical beings in her world, I don’t think she would have received the same extent of criticism, nor would she have deserved it. But instead she presented the legend as a lie perpetuated by Native American spiritual elders themselves. In so doing, she is erasing an authentic aspect of Native American tribal tradition by reducing it to a fantastical farce. Rowling isn’t equating Native American tradition with magic, she is erasing it and replacing it with her own magical fiction. She is inserting her own authority over Native American tradition while feigning authorial responsibility for her reinterpretation by making Native Americans themselves responsible for the difference and problematically makes it due to the lies of their spiritual authorities.

Keene is concerned that “if Indigenous spirituality becomes conflated with fantasy “magic”–how can we expect lawmakers and the public to be allies in the protection of these spaces”. Although JK Rowling is appropriating elements of Native American tradition, she is not divorcing it from its historical context. Some fantasy authors appropriate recognizable elements of real, historical cultures but make them part of a purely fantastical culture in their fictional world, thereby stripping them of their real-world significance. If a sacred symbol becomes synonymous with a fictional culture, it ceases to command respect for the real world cultures that identify with it. Rowling may fail to state that skin-walkers are specific to certain indigenous tribes of America, but she at least maintains that they are a part of Native American spirituality. Unfortunately, Rowling presents this spirituality as a fraud, which isn’t an ideal improvement, even if it’s only in the context of a magical alternative history. Especially when there is no good reason for Rowling to portray Native American spirituality that way when the premise of a magical alternative history allows herself to take it seriously. Rowling could have just as easily considered medicine men as endowed with both magical and spiritual authority and simply accepted the legend of skin-walkers as it is. If Rowling was going to reinterpret a Native American legend by placing it within the context of her magical alternative history, it isn’t clear why she felt the need to explain it by discrediting Native American spiritual leaders. Even though she is referring to them in a fictional context, their role in Native American society and relationship with skin-walkers is not fictional but is a lived experience, and therefore even discrediting them in fantasy fiction, can do real harm to Native American communities, as evidenced by the negative reaction her writing has elicited. 

            But while it may be insensitive and offensive for Rowling to write off medicine men as frauds selling a false spirituality, most readers would nevertheless consider that Native American spirituality is false. Readers may not consider Native American legends to be part of fraudulent conspiracy against their own community, but they probably do believe that such legends are at best inspiring stories, and at worst ignorant delusions. Those positioned as allies of Native Americans offended by Rowling’s writing are unlikely to believe in such beings unless they follow the spiritual tradition of those particular tribes with a concept of skin-walkers. Anyone outside of these communities would either deny their existence outright as mere folklore or delusion or reinterpret in their own spiritual tradition (a Christian may consider skin-walkers to be demons, for example). So when Rowling states that “in my wizarding world, there were no skin-walkers” she isn’t only talking about her fictional world, but the real world as well, where most people would agree that there are no skin-walkers. Many people were likely not even familiar with the concept of such beings until Rowling alluded to them. It is not as if Rowling is responsible for most people denying the existence of skin-walkers, nor is it her duty to be an apologist for unique indigenous spiritualties. It is entirely understandable for Native Americans to be disappointed in Rowling for not doing more to define their culture authentically but it is less certain that Rowling is under any obligation to be such an ally. Especially when what she says does not differ radically from what most people, allies or not of Native Americans, believe themselves to be true. 

To fault Rowling with the denial of the existence of skin-walkers in her fictional world, when most people already deny their existence in the real world, seems to create more problems than it addresses. The implication is that it is offensive to deny the existence of spiritual beings in other communities, even when they are not recognized by or when they contradict that of one’s own religious heritage. The ideology this would require seems neither practical nor intelligible. We may not publish stories saying as much as Rowling does, but we don’t have to; the dismissal of one another’s spiritual traditions as mere fantasies is a pervasive and essential aspect of our lives. Spiritual credulity has its limits. Rowling didn’t slander the reputation of a spirituality that most people took seriously before her publication. Most of them were probably not even aware of it in any detail (as limited as the details Rowling provides are) before her writing and remain unchanged in their opinion after having read it. Rowling certainly can’t be said to have gone out of her way to take Native American spirituality seriously, but how many of her non-Native American critics could say that they do? If Rowling can be faulted here, it is simply for not being polite enough to refrain from what most of us already think quietly to ourselves.     

According to Keene, “there is an entire industry of plastic shamans selling ceremonies, or places like Urban Outfitters selling “smudge kits” and fake eagle feathers.” This concern is very real, since it touches upon more than merely appropriating elements of another culture, but actually profiting off of the exploitive commercialization of cultural artifacts. If Rowling’s ventures into the world of American magic expand and “Native American-themed” wizarding merchandize is generated, one hopes that it becomes an opportunity for Native Americans themselves to contribute to, and benefit from, the venture. How much more beautiful and authentic would the collection be if it was designed by artists of various tribes (rather than having the empty signifier of generically “Native American”), each with their own unique aesthetics, and each of which would benefit from such a partnership by being entitled to a portion of the profit. Keene herself echoes this hope when she says that she wants “Native peoples to be able to represent ourselves. I love the idea of Indigenous science fiction, of indigenous futurisms, of indigenous fanfiction, and indigenous characters in things comics and superhero storylines. I know it can be done, and it can be done right and done well. But it has to be done carefully, with boundaries respected (i.e. not throwing around Skin-walkers casually in a trailer), and frankly, I want Native peoples to write it. We’ve been misrepresented by outsiders every which-way, and it’s time for us to reclaim our stories and images, and push them into the future, ourselves”. 

I cannot applaud this more. I would love to see more Native fantasy authors (I need to do the work and discover those that already exist), not only so that they can provide a voice to the genre but also their communities. I believe that fantasy is an invaluable literary asset to marginalized peoples; as a literature that presents a world that is at times wholly “other” than our own, it is the perfect medium by which the “other” can critique ideologies assumed to be synonymous with reality. I was hoping that Keene would use her writing as an opportunity to present a reclaimed image of her people. Instead she states that “what you do need to know is that the belief of these things (beings?) has a deep and powerful place in Navajo understandings of the world. It is connected to many other concepts and many other ceremonial understandings and lifeways. It is not just a scary story, or something to tell kids to get them to behave, it’s much deeper than that. My own community also has shape-shifters, but I’m not delving into that either” and “What did I decide? That you don’t need to know. It’s not for you to know. I am performing a refusal.”   

I find this performative refusal perplexing given her preceding statements about asserting one’s identity and defining one’s own narrative. But then again, it’s entirely legitimate to view Dr. Keene’s refusal as a statement that it is her people’s narrative, not Rowling’s and not mine. If and when she or any other indigenous person wants to tell the story of their people it will be on their times and in their time. I can’t help but feel that Keene overlooked a great opportunity to redefine JK Rowling’s erroneous narrative further, but I am in no position to demand that Keene divulge further information on something she considers sacred and undeserving of casual or even critical discussion. Marginalized people of color are entitled to whatever strategy they feel best preserves the sacred traditions of their community. My only reservation is that this refusal to differentiate an authentic skin-walker narrative from the one Rowling created seems to leave Rowling with the authoritative voice. If Native American narratives of their own traditions are do not enter public discourse when they have a platform to deliver it, then it seems like white authors will be left to determine the public impression of indigenous mythology. It is unfortunate that Keene’s performative refusal is perceived by some as hypocritically displaying the same indifference as Rowling herself. The difference is that Keene is entitled to such silence, Rowling is not.

Keene and other people of color are under no obligation to the public to divulge their history in response to someone imposing their own erroneous narrative on it. Rowling positioned herself as a voice on Native American culture and history, fantastical or otherwise. She could have done more to ensure that her voice was sympathetic to the people she was speaking on behalf of. I don’t think it is fair to accuse Rowling of promoting stereotypes of Native American people, primarily because such an accusation presumes a level of detail her writing simply doesn’t possess. But in such ambiguity Rowling repeatedly failed to use her writing as an opportunity to confront established stereotypes and step beyond them. Rowling had an opportunity to present her readers with a more authentic image of Native American spirituality, and yet she elected not to, for no apparently advantageous reason. The advantage of the fantasy genre is that in taking us outside of our presumed “real’ world into an “other” world, we are given a greater perspective from which to appreciate the world. Rowling had an opportunity to transport readers into the world of America’s indigenous inhabitants and instead she merely transported readers to a backstory for an upcoming film. This is both a failed opportunity to use her power and privilege to be an ally to a people who generally lack such opportunities, but it was also a failure for her to live up to expectations for her writing and the fantasy genre in general. I’m not angry at JK Rowling so much as I am disappointed that she could be content with so little.

Orcs: Fantasy Race and Pseudo-Racial Slur

Trigger Warning: This contains frequent discussion of racist slurs used against African Americans (out of respect I refuse to spell the words out)

                
          After reading her Dreamblood Duology, I have finally begun to read NK Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy and plan to read her newest book, The Fifth Season shortly. NK Jemisin, a black female author, is a much-needed voice in a genre dominated by white male authors such as George GG Martin or JR Tolkein writing Eurocentric fantasy worlds. In contrast, she gives priority to people of color and other minorities overlooked or oppressed within the genre and embeds them in cultures outside the trope of pseudo-medieval European worlds. Whereas I find such fictional writing of hers entertaining, I find her critical writing enlightening.  One of my favorite articles she wrote is “The Unbearable Baggage of Orcing” wherein she deconstructs what these generic fantasy foes represent in the real world and why they are morally problematic for the fantasy genre. 
          

          Tolkein is (in)famously responsible for providing the foundation of the traditional fantasy setting populated by fantasy races adapted from European mythology and folklore such as dragons, elves and dwarves. Orcs have a more complex geneology behind them, being a sort of demonic elf, but have become as recognizable as the other aforementioned races to anyone familiar with the fantasy genre. In Jemisin's analysis, orcs are “creatures that look like people, but aren’t really. Kinda-sorta-people, who aren’t worthy of even the most basic moral considerations, like the right to exist. Only way to deal with them is to control them utterly a la slavery, or wipe them all out.” The only way to confront orcs is to have them “mowed down, usually on sight and sans negotiation, by Our Heroes. Orcs are human beings who can be slaughtered without conscience or apology.” They are inherently evil and therefore necessarily unworthy of our attention, but our intent to destroy them. And yet it’s the orcs themselves who are considered evil? Funny that.

         

          If this sounds to you like the way in which people of color have been routinely represented as sub-human by white supremacists and imperialists throughout history, then you are not alone. It is the same conclusion that Jemisin reaches at the end of the article and is the reason that she is uninterested in the inclusion of orcs in her writing. If you fail to see this connection then you probably white, and are blinded by the distance your whiteness privileges you with. I have written about the conservative and racist tendencies in the fantasy genre before, devoting specific attention to Tolkein and orcs. Rather than repeat that essay, I want to offer an analogy that I think is helpful to conceptualizing how creatures such as orcs can nevertheless be offensive despite their being imaginary.
         

          Think of the term “orc” as a racist slur like the N-word is in the United States. Russian writer Yisroel Markov did exactly that in his fantasy parody of Tolkein, The Last Ring-Bearer. Taking place in Middle Earth after the events of The Lord of the Rings books, Markov puts us in the perspective of Mordor and the “dark forces” of Sauron. The book is written as a revisionist history of the events portrayed in Tolkein’s original works, rewriting much of what we consider to be canon in the history of Middle-Earth if not the fantasy genre in general. One of my favorite revisions is his depiction of orcs: rather than referring to corrupted sub-human monsters, Markov reinvents the term as a racist slur used against the Orocuen, a race of foreign men. In this way, Markov makes explicit within his writing the way in which “orc” is read as a dehumanization of foreign and “primitive” peoples of color. His orcs are just men who have been labeled as monsters by the imperialists intent upon the collapse of Mordor's scientific and independent culture.

          Now substitute “orc” for the N-word and think through the implications this has. Orcs are dirty, impoverished, violent primitives.  They are dark skinned and ape-like, less intelligent than humans but possessed of animalistic strength. They are short-lived but breed in great numbers and probably inhabit inhospitable regions such as deserts or jungles. This description of orc is congruent with the racist caricature of African Americans that the N-word may convey when used as a term of derision. Look at the way in which African Americans have been depicting in racist art; the imagery of grotesque black-skinned ape-men are common-place and hardly a far-cry from the appearance of Tolkein-esque orcs. Also keep in mind that the humans doing the orc-slaying are probably all white pseudo-Europeans with noble souls blessed by destiny of the gods to justify such slaughter. That sounds hauntingly familiar as well. 
          

          Orcs are a convenient way to represent peoples of color as sub-human without appearing guilty of doing so. Because one cannot be guilty of dehumanization if the person in question is not even human at all, can they? This reminds me of a racist comment I once overheard on my university campus in response to accusations of anti-Semitism: “its not racist if Jews are not human to begin with.” A disgusting rationalization, but a convenient one nevertheless; racism appears to provide its own rationalized excuse and fantastical racism has the added benefit of well, fantastical. The caricature of a n***er is offensive because it deals with actual African Americans, while the description of an orc is apparently inoffensive because orcs are not real at all. But this misses the point. People do believe in real “orcs”, they just refer to them using the N-word instead.

          

          Orcs and the black-faces of minstrel-shows are both offensive fantasies that pervert the beauty and diversity of black bodies and cultures. The only apparent difference between the two mockeries if that the the minstrel-show is intended to be a reflection of reality in a way that the former is not. But representation is more critical than intention; one can be offensive without intending to be racist or believing that a monstrous example of racism is true. One doesn’t have to internalize a racist joke into a sincere belief to find it amusing, but one’s amusement is likely to be interpreted as nevertheless offensive to those it portrays. I don’t believe that simply because one enjoys reading a book about orc-slaying one is unconsciously fantasizing about the genocide of Africans just as I don’t think one is a necessarily a white supremacist simply because one possesses privileges associated with being white. The problem is when such privileges and their associations to power structures remain unacknowledged and unchallenged; by failing to critique the symbols of systematic oppression we only reinforce its status-quo they are invested in.
          

          By focusing our attention upon the intentions of white writers we ignore the way in which their works are received by black audiences as offensive. And by responding to such black critics with accusations of reverse racism or over-sensitivity is absurd in the case of the former and ironically indifferent in the case of the latter. Such responses would perhaps be legitimate if black people and other peoples of color were not so routinely forced to live their lives as if they were orcs, as something sub-human, something other to be feared and suppressed like wild animals. For people born of white privilege, orcs are a mere fantasy while for people of color it may be a lived reality of oppression and institutional violence. The way in which fantasy narratives not only reflect but justify such violence is likely to only appeal to those ignorant of their privilege or invested in it. 

One could, and many authors do, write worlds with metaphysics that justify wanton slaughter because the victims' being is inherently evil and antithetical to the order of existence. But that sort of narrative is exactly the same which racists construct in their own conscience to rationalize their bigotry. If the fantasy genre is to mature beyond criticisms of irresponsible escapism, let alone sexism or racism, it must transcend moral alignment based upon mere racial or cultural affiliation alone. Our world is not benefited by such dishonest moral simplicity and it is a waste to indulge in such delusional literature. I don’t have any interest in such childishly violent fantasies or their parallels in reality; that is why I chose to read writers like NK Jemisin over Tolkein and why you should too. What we need is literature that looks beyond the moral stupidity of the orc trope. I at least want orcs that own up to the racist reflection which they are, orcs which are themselves victims of bigotry, rather than the rationalization of it. I await the day when "orc" is considered a dirty word in the history of the fantasy genre, and the product of a less tolerant, less diverse age of literature.   

When People of White Privilege Were Not White

There was a time when neither the Irish, nor the Italian, nor the German were considered white.  They were simply the Irish, Italian and German.  And yet, I, the descendent of these peoples, am white.  This is equally problematic for anyone with Spanish, Greek, Turkish, Arab, Persian, Armenian, Russian, Polish, or Jewish ancestry, etc.  When I was at university, I loosely participated in the Arab culture club (which is where I met my girlfriend), and an important issue for them and other Middle-Eastern and North-African student groups was getting people from these regions a separate demographic on survey material because the majority of current surveys categorize such people as “white” or “Caucasian”.  When a friend of mine from Tunisia came to visit me at university and I told her about the culture club’s petition and she was surprised that American Arab’s did not consider themselves white.  She considered herself white, and while in America most people assumed she was white as well, albeit they thought she was Russian.  But I digress. 

Much of the rhetoric surrounding criticism of white privilege operates with an indefinite understanding of what white even means, and thus any such critiques are questionable.  This allows liberal activists to construct narratives of oppression from white privilege and attach them to individuals and institutions freely without investigating if such things are indeed “white.”  This I believe is ironically, itself a predominantly white liberal privilege, which I have discussed in greater detail in previous essays.  It is the privilege to co-opt the critical rhetoric of people of color to establish one’s status in a hierarchy against other white people, be they fellow liberals or conservatives.  White liberals may appear to be advocating in the interests of people of color but their activism doesn’t extend beyond mere rhetorical maneuvers to shame other white people for their supposed privileges.  When these privileges are not recognized, it is alleged that this is just further indication of the absolute extent of white privilege.  And when white identity itself cannot be identified, this confusion is also reflected as further proof of its absolute ideological influence.  The indefinite understanding of what white privilege is allows those participating in its discourse to utilize its rhetoric to perpetuate their own white privilege while appearing to be opposed to it.  Just as I have criticized privilege discourse in previous essays in order to produce a more coherent critique of white privilege, here too I will attempt a deconstruction of white identity in order to more clearly identify white privilege and power so to better undermine it.

White identity is a relatively recent historical construction, emerging out of the Anglo-Saxon colonization of North America.  Initially, only Anglo-Saxon colonists considered themselves to be white.  Before the colonization of America, the genocide of the Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans, the English had succeeded in the colonization, enslavement and eventual genocide of a significant portion of the native Irish population.  The English saw the Irish as simple savages in need of colonization to deliver culture to them.  Without it, they remained idle, violent, and stupid, rooted in their primitive customs and superstitious religion.  Ireland was turned into English farmland which eventually contributed to the wretched Potato Famine, killing millions of Irish natives and causing millions more to flee elsewhere, mostly to America.  When the Irish arrived in North America, they were seen as little better than pale-skinned Negroes to other European colonists.  The Irish were dehumanized by being depicted as inherently criminal, drunk, and superstitious to the comic amusement of American society.  Irish immigrants and freed African Americans slaved lived and labored together in the slums of northern American colonies competing for the same low-wage, low-status jobs.  

Though the Irish were certainly discriminated against the most, the European servant class in general was economically and politically on par with imported African slaves; this was especially so if the condition of their servitude was indentured.  Concern that lower-class Europeans would unite with African slaves in rebellion, motivated upper-class European landowners to expand the white racial identity, providing political privileges with it.  If the economic oppression of lower-class Europeans was obscured by membership in a pan-European identity, then they would be less inclined to betray those within white fraternity and more likely to politically support the economic interests of the upper-class.  Starting in the Jacksonian Era of the early half of 19^th century, citizenship criteria changed from being distinguished by wealth to being identified as white, uniting Northern Europeans together.  Adult males, regardless of wealth, could vote and own land, so long as they were considered white.  By the early 20^th century this identity included the Irish; Irish immigrants were gradually incorporated into white identity as they occupied positions of power over African American slaves and laborers and supported the racist politics that kept racially discriminatory laws in place.  In the mid-20^th century white identity had expanded again through the New Deal struggle against the Great Depression and the conflict of World War II.  With such expansion, diverse peoples such as Italians, Germans, Polish, Jewish, and Russian would be considered white.  White identification afforded one access to land through land grant acts, better education through GI bills, and better employment outside the confines of Jim Crow laws.    

Inclusion into the white race was only made possible by minorities abandoning historical identification with signifiers of their cultural heritage.  Minorities who maintained the clothing, customs, rituals and languages of their native cultures were more resistant to being accepted into white identity.  They were seen as foreign, and in the case of Catholic minorities such as the Irish and Italian, subject to the conspirational influence of the Catholic Church of Rome.  Only by abandoning overt displays of their cultural heritage and representing the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture of American society were minorities able to become white, and made them gradually forget the history that there was a time when they were not white.  Although the ideology of white identity may have entailed a substitution of, for example, native Irish culture with colonial English culture, it is no longer that simple.  The average American understanding of Irish or Italian culture, even for those within the communities themselves, is an impoverished parody of itself.  Irish culture has been bastardized into neo-pagan pseudo-Celtic mysticism, and representations of alcoholism and domestic violence.  Italian culture is synonymous with the mafia, or more recently, and arguably more embarrassingly, Jersey Shore.  These are inarguably racist stereotypes, and there are equally demeaning caricatures of Jewish, German, Russian, Greek, and, now especially, Arab Americans as well.  What is remarkable is that although these people may variously benefit from white privilege, the racist caricatures of them emerge out of white supremacy themselves.  This makes sense if a person is only capable of being white to the extent to which they suppress the stereotypical cultural elements of their heritage that may mark them as a member of a specifically unique culture with its own history.       

If white people are to effectively confront their white privilege in order to combat white supremacy, they need to understand that white privilege harms white people themselves, and not only people of color.  What this requires is a rehabilitation of white identity before it was understood through the cultural appropriation of colonialism and capitalism.  Before white people were white, they were a variety of other peoples with unique cultures, such Irish, Italian, or German, who themselves were assimilated through cultural appropriation into colonial capitalist interests of European elites.  White culture was previously defined in opposition to non-white cultures, to justify the colonization and exploitation of the latter by the former; might made right and non-white made white.  But concerns over the stability of such colonial exploits necessitated that minorities be incorporated into the identity of the European capitalist upper-class through the mutual appropriation and suppression of their unique cultures.  Only to the extent that white Americans maintain a detachment from their original cultures are they capable of maintaining the collective delusion that they are members of a white culture and not subject to an oppressive ideology of whiteness. 

Ironically, white Americans lament the supposed genocide of their white culture and have pride in an indefinitely defined forgotten white heritage but it is the ideology of white identity itself which has resulted in ignorance and supposedly impending extinction of particular white cultural identities for Irish, Italian, Jewish, Polish Americans, etc.  This is dangerous because the lamentable desire to reconnect with one’s lost cultural heritage can lead one to ignorantly defend white supremacy politics that only perpetuate the oppression of the very cultural narrative one desires to recover.  Thus the tragic loss of culture made to white supremacy is appropriated to perpetuate support for the continuation of white hegemony itself, reproducing the tragedy again in a vicious cycle. This reflexive displacement of victimization is an essential quality of white privilege and capitalism; when counter-cultural criticisms are leveled against either, their rhetoric and aesthetics are appropriated into white identity and capitalism and commodities, thus perpetuating while one is deluded into thinking one is opposing it.  Capitalism consumed communism to only regurgitate it in order to sell t-shirts of Chef and books on Marx to white liberals.  So too has white supremacy collapsed Irish identity into Celtic symbols, appropriated by conservative white supremacists, to defend their lost culture without realizing that the history of white supremacy is itself to blame.     

Despite the power of white privilege, such privilege is predominately legitimated through narratives of victimization, both from white conservatives and white liberals.  The former takes the form of a defensive white pride described above which appropriates items of culture long-since dead to commodification by the interests of white colonialism and capitalism to ignorantly support those very forces.  The latter takes the form of a self-deprecating white guilt and suppression of minority cultural expression subsumed into white identity.  Believing that any celebration of “white” culture is a celebration of its oppressive legacy, white liberals ironically perpetuate the legacy of white hegemony by paralyzing white people against recovering their heritage.  Thus they are forced to appropriate symbols of other cultures for their resistance against capitalism and colonialism, which of course, mirror capitalist and colonialist appropriations of those cultures.  Thus white conservatives and liberals alike are ironically united in their belief in the inferiority of their white identity; liberals just believe that this is deserved because it is inherent and inevitable while conservatives believe that it is due to non-white people of color seeking revenge for past atrocities committed in the name of the white race.  Either way, white privilege is maintained by identifying cultures appropriated into white identity as white and allowing no resistance to reverse this trend of appropriation and oppression. 

White identity was once understood positively through opposition to and exclusion of non-white peoples supposedly lacking in culture, it is not predominately interpreted negatively by the appropriation and inclusion of non-white cultures into itself.  The commodification of non-white cultures maintains the illusion of a stable white identity by investing it with new material devoid of more particular cultural significance which can be reconstituted as universally white and only nominally representative of a minority culture.  Anyone can enjoy white culture by buying Irish beer on Saint Patrick’s Day, while remaining ignorant of how Irish culture has been simultaneously oppressed and commodified; the appeal of the product is its supposedly Irish identity, but it is an identity devoid of any historical attachment to the struggles of the Irish people.  Having no exposure to their native cultures beyond these commodity parodies, white people come to invest in the exploitation inherent in capitalist appropriation of other cultures: the cultural appropriation of capitalism becomes to only appropriate culture to them.  There is no white culture beyond this celebration of cultural appropriation, exploitation and oppression; any traces of particular “white” culture such as the Irish, Italian, or German, only persist as commodities in its service or as authentic symbols of resistance to it.  The form of racism that white supremacy takes is more absolute that any specific cultural imperialism that seeks to supplant a native culture with its own; white supremacy even negates the culture of those in power, rendering it just another commodity to be exchanged for another representation of power.  Thus, even while the ideology of the white race emerged out of Anglo-Saxon colonialism, even a specifically English culture has been appropriated into another caricature of itself.  

White conservatives claim to be color-blind, to see individuals, not racial communities, but whenever there is any mention of white privilege or cultural appropriation, they organize around their white racial identity to oppose their supposed victimization.  When white privilege is acknowledged and criticized, white conservatives become anxious and claim reverse racism against affirmative action programs.  When the appropriation of the cultures of people of color is acknowledged and criticized, white conservatives become frustrated and claim reverse cultural appropriation when people of color participate in white culture.  But they mistake the ideology of a white race for the cultures that have been suppressed and erased by it.  One cannot be racist against an ideology that professes to ignore ethnic or racial distinction, and one cannot appropriate a culture that is nothing but a culture of appropriation.  This is why white people so often deny the very existence of white identity, not out of opposition to it, but precisely because identifying would allow it to be opposed and criticized.  Because white identity is defined by its privileges, the elimination of those privileges would eliminate white culture, and hence white people are pressured to justify or ignore oppression in order to preserve their nominal cultural identification.  Having already distanced themselves from or forgotten their unique cultural heritages, the dissolution of their white identity would leave them with apparently leave them with nothing to identify with.  Hence the anxiety of white people to honestly confront white privilege without being compelled to appropriate forms of cultural resistance from people of color.   

When white privilege is typically critiqued, it is framed as the privilege inherent to being white.  But whiteness itself is not an inherent identity, but is an ideology of historical contingency, emerging in the interest of colonization and persisting and expanding through the cultural appropriation of capitalism.  This deconstruction of privileged white identity should not be construed as suggesting that white privilege itself doesn’t exist, simply because white people do not exist.  White people do not exist, but white privilege does, insofar as one is labeled as white.  Not all “white” people receive the supposed benefits of white privilege, and this is not simply due to the fact that privilege is intersectional with other dimensions of advantage or disadvantage such as class or sex.  It is because those with power do not accept them as truly white, while people of color without power are anxious to ally with them because they appear to be white.  The identification of whiteness has never simply been about skin-tone but has predominantly focused on one’s proximity to those already in power, measured against one’s suppression of any cultural heritage and opposition to those identified as non-white.  Thus those who would otherwise be considered non-white, but who suppress any overt cultural identification as a non-white stereotype are able to benefit from white privilege, but it must be maintained that such privilege has its costs to one’s cultural identity.  This is why the Arab students at my university did not want to be identified statistically as white: it suppressed their unique cultural identity even if it may have afforded them some associative benefits.

Privileges do not emerge out of one’s white identity spontaneously but the label of whiteness creates relative institutional advantages.  I say relative, because to be labeled as white can indeed be a disadvantage in those contexts where one is most likely attempt to resist white power: liberal activist and academic communities.  Being labeled with white privilege by such activists and academics can be alienating and oppressive, especially when one does not identify with the privileges of white identity purchased at the expense of the suppression of one’s cultural heritage.  I am reluctant to call myself a white American because my Irish, Italian and German heritage has suffered under white racism.  I am aware that my Irish, Italian and German heritage is haunted by its share in the horrors of racism against people of color and I cannot compare the suffering of these cultures to what they have contributed to against the communities stolen out of African for capitalism or the native cultures of America massacred through colonialism.  If I am to now be called white, it is only because my forebears had to suppress their culture in order to escape their oppression from white people.  This is the struggle of white liberals like me who are self-conscious of how white identity has been constructed over history, but find themselves mutually ostracized from both white conservatives who oppress culture in the name of an empty white identity and white liberals who suppress culture against oppressive white power.  Against these two fundamental misunderstandings of white identity and privilege, I recognize my white privilege and deny my white identity: I am not a white person, I am a person of white privilege, and I am proud, not in white power, but in the power of cultural resistance possible only if people of white privilege remember back to a time of before they were merely white.              

Tolkein and the Reality of Fantasy's Failure With Racism

          With the help of my girlfriend I have recently been rehabilitated into appreciating the fantasy genre.  Before her, my only exposure to fantasy came from Rowling and Tolkien. I had read science fiction literature too, but because I consider it a genre distinct from fantasy and because I see it less impacted by what I am to criticize in this essay, I need not mention it in any more detail.  The first book I read in my recovery of fantasy was the Silmarillion by Tolkien because I considered epic fantasy to be the essence of the genre, and I understood the Silmarillion to be the epitome of epic fantasy.

          This was a poor choice to reintroduce me to the fantasy genre because in reading it, I realized how Eurocentric and orientalist Tolkien is.  Whether this was due to my sympathy for the political revolutions of the Middle East and North Africa, or it was my interest in Islamic philosophy and theology, or my countless friendships with Muslim and Arab Americans (of which one is my girlfriend), I cannot say, though I am sure all had an influence on my reception of his epic.  In reaction I began to search out other works of great fantasy and it soon became apparent to me that much, if not most, of the literary tradition Tolkien had inspired had inherited his Eurocentric and orientalist mythology and made it essential to the fantasy genre.

          This essay is a confrontation with that legacy of fantasy which exoticizes and literally demonizes minorities and the immorality and hypocrisy involved in doing so.  I believe that this tendency can be traced back to Tolkien’s writing and will thus devote my attention to his work, though it extends past the writing of Tolkien and becomes less forgivable as it does so.  Before I explore the racism of fantasy world-building in the Tolkien tradition of epic fantasy, let me first make clear that I do not believe Tolkien was personally a racist.  He certainly wasn’t a racist in the sense appropriate to his times given that he praised the Jewish people and had great sympathy for the mistreatment of Africans in their native continent by colonialists as well as equal disdain for racism towards Germans and the racist ideology of German Nazis and their anti-Semitic sympathizers.

          That is not to say that by today’s standards Tolkien could be viewed as a benevolent racist with condescending and exoticized impressions of people of color.  But that is not the point.  I am not interesting in criticizing Tolkien himself as a racist, malevolent or benevolent, but in critiquing the racism inherent in his fantastic fiction.  Even if Tolkien himself opposed racism consciously in his person, he embodied it unconsciously in his writing, which has been continuously reproduced in those inspired by his Middle Earth mythology.  His literature transformed the fantasy genre and its continued relevance and popularity makes a critical analysis of it necessary.  The implicit racism of fantasy is not merely detrimental to people of color, but it is detrimental to the imaginative and progressive potential of the genre itself.

          In the mythology of Middle Earth, racism, like morality, is a matter of literal black and white and with racism and morality being mutually reinforcing to the fiction.  The good races of humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits and wizards are near universally represented as fair Europeans while the evil races in service to Sauron are men of the South and East, Southron and Easterlings, paralleling Arabs, Africans and Indians, or sub-human creatures of troll, goblin and orc of dark complexion and slant-eyed.  In and of itself, the tendency for fantasy to create unique ethnicities and races (i.e. species) distinct from humanity is not any more problematic than the tendency of science-fiction authors to imagine species of alien distinct from humanity.  The problem is when the fantasy author homogenizes race around morality absolutely, such that to be an elf is to be inherently predisposed to do good and to be an orc is to be inherently evil.  This is especially problematic when the ethnicity or race parallels a historical ethnicity, especially one that has suffered or continues to suffer radical discrimination and oppression.

          It was a flaw of Tolkien’s work that the majority of the evil forces came from the regions of East and South, from cultures strongly resembling African, Middle Eastern and Indian people, and that the entirety of these cultures was represented as evil.  Even more flawed is his description of orcs, in particular the sub-species of uruk-hai, as slant-eyed, repulsive Mongol-types.  The historical cultures of Africa and Asia have had to struggle with colonialism and imperialism justified through demonized or romanticized orientalist ideologies and that legacy is reflected in the literary politics of much fantasy literature.  The dark skinned people of the East and South are represented as exotic, ignorant, enigmatic, immoral or even inhuman in ways that that parallel historical racist ideologies.  Creating a fictional parallel to Asian or African cultures is not merely acceptable but beneficial for both the people and the genre but only insofar as such fictional representations are sufficiently culturally diverse and not morally homogenous so as to subvert offensive stereotypes.


          Although Tolkien’s literature has examples of good people or races turning to evil, the fall of the Numenoreans for example, there is the utter absence of evil races finding redemption.  The only way to deal with evil peoples is to kill them, and this usually involves killing the entire population of them.  This inequality is typically repeated in epic fantasy with the trope of good characters being corrupted by the evil lord and evil characters, if not whole races, needing to be slain because they are incapable of being accepting what is good.  Evil is thus not only pervasive but pathological and the solution to it is perverse; because the evil can corrupt the good and the good cannot convince the evil to abandon their immorality, the good can only maintain moral purity by eliminating all those deemed evil.  It is a moral duty to seek the extermination of orcs and goblins, trolls and ogres, because they in turn seek the extermination of the more fair and noble races.  However, their motivation for such wanton bloodlust remains inexplicable and enigmatic amounting to nothing more than the identification of their race with evil incarnate.

          One may object that we are here speaking of orcs and ogres, not mere men, and that for the former morality is essential while for the latter it is incidental.  That is to say that an orc cannot be good and still be considered an orc but a man can be good or evil and still be considered a man (one may even go so far as to say that for a man to necessarily be good or evil is not to be a man at all.  This response is uninteresting because the idea of a person, human or orc, as inherently evil is incoherent; evil is an intentional act with motive and meaning but if the being is innately evil then its actions are not motivated by evil intentions but merely by instincts that ape what we consider evil.  This lack of intentionality makes it impossible to identify with the motives of such people and it is precisely the power of evil to parody that which is good and to rationalize itself as an instrument of that good, that makes it such a threat to morality and such a tragic source of conflict in literature and history alike.  Without the contingency of evil being dependent upon corrupt motives, one cannot empathize with one’s enemies and one cannot struggle to comprehend the lessons of moral conflict and the narrative collapses into self-serving and impoverished ideology.

          Epic fantasy has a tendency to be inconsistent in its racism, and all the more racist for it.  On the one hand, fantastic races such as orcs and trolls are considered inhuman.  But on the other hand, such races are able to reproduce with humans (or other fantastic races) to produce half-breeds who are viewed as a corruptive degeneration of the more noble and pure half of their ancestry.  For example, in Tolkien the uruk-hai are born of the union between man and orc, with orcs themselves being a union of corrupt elves.  Even though elves, men and orcs are considered different races, they are able to produce offspring with one another. This inconsistency between labeling another being in-human (and in the case of races like orcs, sub-human), yet having fear and disgust over it producing children with a human is a parallel to historical racism.  There has been a tendency to vilify people of color as sub-human animals while also being anxious and hateful of unions between them and white people.  This irrational category of in-human human parallels the irrational fear and hatred of the racist themselves.  The race is a threat both because it is inhuman and incapable the moral and racial purity of humanity but also because it can infiltrate this humanity.  This returns us to the justification and celebration of genocidal warfare popularized in epic fantasies against inhuman species: because the inhuman is inherently immoral and cannot be integrated into society, but can infiltrate society and spread its corruptive influence through breeding, it must be exterminated through righteous violence.

          A modest effort to provide some diversity in the fantasy genre has been to create cultural parallels between minority races in history and literature.  However, such parallels have a tendency to be inadequate or inconsiderate.  One on hand, cultural diversity might manifest superficially as simply a mere difference in skin tone while still retaining the same Eurocentric culture; on the other hand, such multicultural representation may be fetishized into exotic and oriental stereotypes.  The Southron and Easterlings in Tolkien are of the latter sort as are the Dothraki of Martin to a less offensive extent.  An extreme example of this tendency would be the association of the appropriated historical culture with a fantastical in-human or sub-human race.  Elves may be given a semblance of Native American civilization or goblins may have a Mongol aesthetic.

          People of color who have already had their cultural identity and historical narratives marginalized and manipulated by those in power; they are appropriated into commodified parodies or incorporated into the ideological narratives of their oppressors, if not erased entirely.  In this effort to historicize fantastic literature we equally fantasize the history of already alienated peoples; in an attempt to humanize our monsters we demonize a people even further.  People of color who have already had their cultural identity and historical narratives marginalized and manipulated by those in power; they are appropriated into commodified parodies or incorporated into the ideological narratives of their oppressors, if not erased entirely.  When this imposition is superficial, the effect is quite obviously de-humanizing and doubly so. Such superficial imposition of cultural diversity is doubly offensive for not only does it reduce the historical culture to token tropes of ritual or aesthetic but it also refashions it into the culture of some in-human race. Yet the dominant white cultures of the genre continue to parallel the dominant white cultures of history, free from association with the inhuman and monstrous despite the often inhumanely monstrous consequences of their racist imperialism.

          Some further object to racist accusations of the fantasy genre by insisting that this is the way the world was back then.  Back when? When dragons flew the skies, dwarves mined the depths, and wizards amused the masses with magic? This is yet another irrational inconsistency in the racist strand of fantasy fiction.  It both parodies reality as a justification for its offensive stereotypes but escapes reality to act out the appalling logic of those fantasies: Middle Earth is British mythic fantasy and at the time the Ottoman East was an existential threat to the West, but its fine to label the Easterlings indiscriminately evil because they are not really Ottoman Turks, and after all, and it’s just fantasy anyways, so the enjoying the literary slaughter of them is morally inconsequential.  Such orientalist readings operate by oscillating between reality and fantasy where convenient when criticized but the incoherence is evident.

          One need not make a historical critique of this response by showing that the conflict between East and West was not a class of civilizations and still less a cataclysm of monumental good and evil or that history is not monumental and fixated on feudal medieval Europe but encompasses other empires and epochs too.   One need only point out the obvious reality that fantasy literature is not about historical realities but fictional fantasies.  When one writes a fantasy narrative, the world building is not, and should attempt not be, in explicit dialogue with the historical realities of the author (even though there may be allegorical parallels) but instead it should be in conversation with the history of other fantasy writings.  Tolkien’s Middle-Earth has little relation to the history of medieval England than it does the fantasies and romances popular in Medieval England and when Martin or Meiville write their contemporary grim or weird fantasy epics, they are converting and subverting the literary tropes and genre expectations popularized by Tolkien far more than they are doing so with modern history itself.

          Given this one may still be indifferent towards such fictional discrimination and insist that it is merely just fantasy so it is not truly racist; they aren’t Arab, they are Haradrim, and they aren’t African Americans, they are ogres.  Even if the parallel is superficially related to appearance and geography only, the parallel can nevertheless be offensive.  If Haradrim are universally portrayed as dark-skinned primitive tribesmen from the East who worship an evil false god in Sauron, that is enough of a parallel to cause warranted offense to people of Middle Eastern or Indian descent.  Then consider how monstrous races like orcs are also associated with supposedly primitive and oppressive cultures.  Multiply that trope again and again in authors who follow the moralistic cosmology that Tolkien originated and you have a history of people of color being discriminated against in fantasy literature.  This would not be a problem if it were not a pervasive tendency in much of fantasy literature; one could perhaps enjoy a book featuring pale protagonists fighting against dark-skinned demons from the South if this was a limited example of a diverse and imaginative genre but unfortunately it is a recurrent narrative of fantasy.  

          This is a particularly painful irony given that the escapism fantasy is criticized for has been rendered futile for the oppressed; seeking to escape the abuse of their identity in reality through the solace of literature, they see the same racist stereotypes represented in the genre with the most potential to directly confront and subvert the racist fantasies of that haunt our history.  A black boy humiliated by his white class-mates may seek to escape from his oppressive situation by contemplating on the struggles of a young boy in a fantasy world, only to find that the only black characters in the story are evil foreigners, if there are any black characters at all.  It is symptomatic of white privilege to be able to escape into fantastic literature and easily find empowering examples of people who parallel one’s own culture and it is representative of racism to find the same negative associations between dark skin, foreign customs and moral evil as one finds in the ideologies of racist politics.

          The association of racism with fantasy isn’t just offensive to the minorities it implicitly insults but undermines the fantasy genre itself.  Fantasy is already considered a sub-literary genre merely because of its intrinsic imaginative potential, and is accused of indulgent escapism.  I think the very name of the genre itself, fantasy, is revealing when one contemplates its relationship with implicit racism.  Fantasy literature is just that, a fantasy that we indulge in, and these indulgences are revealing of our mindsets.  Someone who takes oblivious pleasure from a narrative dominated by xenophobic aristocratic pseudo-Europeans struggling against evil dark-skinned and sub-human hordes in order to restore the feudal status-quo, is complicit in allowing literature to perpetuate the oppressive ideologies of history, if not unconsciously supportive of such oppression.  This is the failure of Tolkien and his ilk: even if they speak out against racism, their literature enables it because it parallels the orientalizing and dehumanizing aesthetic fantasies that oppression depends upon.  Fantasy that reproduces such systems of oppression in its world-building is at best uninteresting and at worst irresponsible.

          Fantasy can be relevant to reality, not because of its fidelity to history but in spite of it; fantasy is most progressive and transformative when it confronts the crisis of history without being confined by the identities and ideologies that cause them.  When one reads a fantasy epic about the struggle between elves and orcs, one can bypass their inherent prejudices to better contemplate moral and existential ambiguities that would be less transparent if the narrative was based around a perspective they were predisposed towards. But when one starts to notice that all the elves are white and noble and from the civilized West while the orcs are universally dark and primitive from the exotic and evil East, such potential is lost.  The appeal of the fantasy genre is the simplicity and beauty of its cosmological economy; the world can be built around moralized aesthetics to create a hyper-symbolic universe (where dark literally represents evil and light good for example); but this is also its great danger insofar as certain people fall outside of this mythic order (i.e. dark skinned people reading it find those similar to them identified as evil by skin-tone alone).   Fantasy provides an escape from the constriction of our own cultural narratives and expectations so that we may return to reality with a better appreciation for those of others as well as our own.  Fantasy has the greatest potential to confront and contradict oppression against racist oppression so it is all the more offensive when it is just another means to perpetually interpret them as Other.

          What is to be done to empower not only marginalized people of color, but the marginalized genre of fantasy itself? One should be aware that not all fantasy writers are guilty of such abuse, and I have my hopes that writers are becoming increasingly aware of the moral inadequacy of the genre’s world-building and are being proactive in correcting it, with some sub-genres being more vocal than others.  Urban fantasy, steam-punk and new weird writers such as China Meiville, Max Gladstone, NK Jemisin, Ian McDonald, Neil Gaiman, David Anthony Durham, Daniel Abraham, and Ursala K Le Guin write for, if not from, marginalized identities and their empowerment within and through literary fantasy.  Fantasy is a predominantly white genre, and whether this is the cause or the effect of its tendency towards aestheticizing racism I am not certain, but I am certain that because of its inherent white privilege it is the responsibility of white authors to be more active in addressing this perversion of their genre’s potential.  White authors are published easier and more successfully than minority authors and are better received by fans and thus they have more potential to transform the genre for a wider audience.  But this means dealing honestly with racism in their literature.  Just as ignoring racial identities perpetuates the oppression of people of color and only reinforces white privilege, so too does stripping fantasy of racial conflict ignore the reality of it within history as well as the genre.  A fantasy narrative devoid of racial tension and misunderstanding equally lacks dramatic interest and moral relevance.

          Racism should be both more explicit in fantasy worlds but equally more openly confronted and contradicted.  If elves are to hate orcs universally, then their prejudice should be more obviously an ad hoc rationalization and it should be undermined over the course of the narrative by exposure to orcs that defy the stereotype of their racist rationalizations (i.e. if elves hate orcs because they are cruel, should an example of an orc sheltering a lower class elf from the abuses of an elf aristocrat).  If orcs are fated to be evil, give them enough moral complexity to make a reader empathetic to their motives even as they expressly oppose them; the orcs have been confined to a ghetto of their former civilization by the xenophobic elves and now slaughter elves indifferently at any opportunity because they feel that all of elf-kind is complicit in the collapse of their orc civilization.

          Historical parallels to reality should be sensitive to minority cultures, and if representative of said cultures , they should not follow insulting stereotypical and intersectional binaries; the race with a Native American aesthetic should not be red-skinned sub-human tribesmen and the Arab analogy should not be confined to bearded and veiled theocratic terrorists.  Expand and exchange customs and costumes to create something identifiable but individual; have orcs be pale-skinned and sophisticated, with an East-Asian steam-punk aesthetic and have them situated from the North while the elves are a dark-skinned, sea-faring empire from the East with cultural similarities to Aztecs or Mayans.  This makes the world both familiar and free; there are identifying similarities to history but they are divorced from prejudicial associations between physical appearance, moral decency, cultural sophistication and technological innovation that would otherwise confine your narrative.  With these sorts of suggestions in mind, I think we can better appreciate the progressive elements of fantasy literature and use it to perpetuate positive and creative representations of marginalized people of color that have otherwise been largely absent from the history of the genre.