#cultures
@x-soapbox-xasked:
So in the story I am writing, hair is worn in different styles to indicate life paths chosen by the wearer, (for instance Magi have dreads, Elders have long braids, Monks cover there hair in a colored pomade). It is inspired from different regions in Africa, with different hairstyles pulled from different traditions. The royal families in this world are gifted with a magic that was gifted to them from the Gods of the world, and who in the family is the next to inherit the throne is decided through who inherits that particular kingdoms royal hair color instead of birth order. My question is, since all of my characters are black, and the hair colors associated with the royal family line are mostly common European hair colors, does making that the signifier for being a ruler come off as sort of eugenics -y or like black people with “white” features are better then other black people?
My reasoning behind making it this way
The hair colors reflect the biomes and/or elements of the kingdom’s they rule- for instance the main character has bright copper hair, because the land she rules is a bogland with an extremely high iron content that causes all the water to be a bright copper.
I want it to be a celebration of hair diversity and show that “exotic” hairstyles worn by black people aren’t dirty and are a real thing to be proud of and to bond over, and I would hate to undermine that by still putting “white” hair colors over others.
I’m mixed race, and I’ve always worn my hair natural, and I was raised in a white family in America so I don’t trust my own perceptions here and would really appreciate WWC input! Thank you all for all the hard work you do!!
Since you have magic in your world, I assume it’s some kind of fantasy story. Given that fact : you can do anything. Literally, you make the rules of your world. If one should have green hair since they’re from a region with a lot of rainforests or something like that, you can do it ! I don’t see a problem with the hair colors as long as the hairstyles for afro hair stay true to what that type of hair can do. Actually, it would be pretty cool to read different types of hair braiding in various colors. You have the opportunity to write a pretty cool story using African traditions and putting a little bit of magic into it. It makes me think of Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi : one of the characters is a Black dark skin girl with white hair. Your story, your rules !
Just make sure to praise everyone’s features, may they have fancy hair colors or normal ones. Uplift how they showcase their culture through clothes, make-up, hairstyles etc.
Last thing : “white” hair colors are not a thing, Black people can have any type of hair color, including bright copper. We’ve seen it a few times in the Caribbean. It’s rare, but it exists !
Good luck for your story, I’m sure you can achieve a really good world building by letting your creativity free.
- Mod Lydie
I want it to be a celebration of hair diversity and show that “exotic” hairstyles worn by black people aren’t dirty and are a real thing to be proud of and to bond over, and I would hate to undermine that by still putting “white” hair colors over others.
I would recommend making sure some of those royal hair colors are dark. So, shades of black and brown. Otherwise, you would not be doing anyone favors in terms of normalizing African hairstyles. Not really. There’s something to be said if only light and unique hair colors are associated with the royal family.
Presenting “unique African hairstyles” but adding the twist of their hair by making it a more colorful or exotic color reads as you making them more palatable for the consumer. In the same way creators will put a light or mixed race Black person in a role over a dark-skinned person, or give them light colored features (eyes, hair, etc) to make them special. This happens with other BIPOC as well. Read into the “green-eyed Asian” trope.
Black people can just be Black without unique eye and hair colors. Black people are still deserving of representation without a “cool” feature to make them more appealing or beautiful. If you’re using a gateway to ease people into accepting them, then you’re not exactly normalizing it.
Consider the unique shades in black and brown
There’s all sorts of tints and undertones to consider.
From blacks with red or blue undertones, gray blacks, and all the shades even within those categories. Perhaps there’s a certain tint the “Chosen one” should match the most, like the wings of a special bird, the eye color of an honored creature, a natural formation, body of water, etc.
Cultural blending
Mixing and blending different cultures without respect is also not helpful in terms of attempting to represent and show culture through a fantasy lens. For example, having a region that’s Fantasy Nigeria (West Africa) but their hair has traditions from Eritrea (East Africa) “just because” reads to me as homogenizing, as if they’re interchangeable and there’s no history, cultural or regional considerations to these styles, which there would be.
There may be overlap and similar styles worn across the continent, but blending them at random is questionable to me. If there’s cultural sharing, you may want to show that’s what is happening.
The more you take from these countries and give them a recognizable fantasy representative, the more you’ll have to be mindful with the liberties you take. Sometimes, the line between creative liberties and misrepresentation is thin. Yes, it’s a fantasy and you can technically do as you please. But there’s still a real audience reading your book. You’ll want to be respectful to the actual people who live in those places.
Narrow your focus
Your goal is to normalize African hairstyles. That’s a whole lot of ground to cover, as the continent is vast with so many cultures within. I’d recommend narrowing your focus onto a few regions, while only touching lightly in other areas. At least until you feel like you can handle such a large undertaking of representation
Check your motives and get feedback
You mention being mixed race but I’m not sure if that includes being in the African Diaspora.
Please determine if this is an undertaking you’re equipped and willing to take on. Making it your job to normalize African cultures, as a non-Black person, is not something all will welcome, so do expect some pushback depending on your reader, especially if they find depictions disrespectful. There’s the risk of Savior and exotification attitudes easing in, if you’re not careful. Criticism can be useful feedback, so keep an open mind.
Listen to beta readers from the groups is going to be a good idea. Showing them your intended ideas will give you the best feedback vs. any assumptions I can make about your story.
~Mod Colette
Check out some relevant posts:
High Fantasy World Building, with Real World Inspiration, Fantasy PoC & Fetishization
How To Blend Cultures (Without Making Impossible Mixes)
Representation in Avatar the last airbender
~Mod Colette
why are british people always so mad when people make jokes about their accents. sorry you say yewchube. it’s funny though innit
This is something I’ve been dying to talk about.
There’s something called culture. People (especially USAmericans) think of culture as cultural dress, cultural food, cultural music. These are culture, but they are only the very superficial aspects of it. Like the icing on your cake. Far more deep rooted is the more meaty bits of culture: the attitudes, the ideas, the taboos.
There’s a guy on tiktok who has done a series that shows this very well, of Germans Vs Irish. In one video the German offers the Irish person two kinds of tea, green or black. The Irish person keeps putting off the choice with things like “Oh sure whatever is easiest”, “Which have you more of?” and, “Ah sure I don’t want to cause a fuss” whereas the German just wants a straight answer. This is a cultural difference of politeness.
Here in the UK, accents mark your class very openly. They let everyone know where you’re from (though this has become less pronounced in the last 50 years,) and what your background is. A lot of people (especially northerners, but also a fair contingent of working class southerners) face discrimination on the basis of their accents.
Some of us (myself included) even change register (though I believe USAmericans call it code switching) in and out of our regional accent and a close approximation of RP. We learn to do it because it makes us seem more intelligent (even though it shouldn’t) and helps us be taken more seriously.
Thus, our country carries a lot of baggage when it comes to accents. Especially those of the working class who have had their accents made fun of, or have faced discrimination based on it.
So when someone outside the country (usually USAmericans) makes fun of our accents they’re stepping on a lot of cultural taboos and boundaries. Especially because the “It’s Chewsday, gonnae wot-ch sum yewchube innit” is a working class accent.
Now, that’s not to say we can’t take a joke, but this is the kind of joke you share with someone who you have been friends with for a while. My boyfriend often will pick up on the way I say certain words, in much the same fashion I pick up on his idiosyncrasies of speech (English isn’t his first language so he says stuff like close the lights, which is adorable.) If we aren’t predisposed to liking you, then the joke you’re trying to make is more like an insult.
The way I like to think of it is if you were in a pub, and made those sorts of jokes to someone. If they knew you, and they liked you, they’d probably laugh along. If they didn’t like you or know you, they would punch you in the jaw.
HOWEVER: I recognise this post as a joke. I don’t personally find these jokes offensive, but then no one really makes fun of me or considers me stupid because of my accent.
Oh that actually makes a lot of sense! It’s like how it’s assumed in media that the southeastern Appalachian (‘hick’ or ‘redneck’) accent is audible shorthand for ‘this American character is stupid.’ That sentiment reinforces negative stereotypes about that region which has historically been home to a large working class population that has suffered from an underfunded education system and other systematic abuses. It is ultimately an underhanded joke, but not everyone from America (or even the region necessarily) considers it to be offensive despite its classist nature.
yes, that’s basically it! it grinds my gears when certain Very Online Americans will quite rightly say that europeans have no right to mock the us’ lack of healthcare/gun control and working-class accents…but then turn around and act like working-class british accents and foods are hilarious and should be mocked ‘bc of colonialism and the bp oil spill’ as though all british people are directly responsible for the oil spill. and then some of them conveniently forget that there are in fact british people of colour - in the wake of brexit, a smug american blog defended saying that british people upset by the referendum were getting ‘karma’ for the british empire, even when british poc pointed out that they were the ones most likely to be negatively affected by brexit, by saying ‘obviously i don’t mean you’, to which said british poc responded ‘THEN WHY DID YOU SAY BRITISH PEOPLE’
The hatred, by the privileged of England, towards Scotland and any Scottish accent was so pervasive that my mother wouldn’t let my brother and I develop a Scottish accent. She was born in Jamaica but her family moved to London when she was 11. She moved to Scotland when she was pregnant with me. Both my brother and I were born in Scotland and spent out entire childhood there. Mum was adamant that neither of us would have the local accent. It was “common” and “low class” and “would hinder us in the future”. She used to fine us half our pocket money if we used any Scottish slang or said anything in a Scottish accent. I got bullied at school for having a “posh English accent” but she thought my job prospects were more important than a modicum of happiness at school. My outsider status was doubled by that. I was brown and “English”.
Even now, after decades in Scotland, I still don’t sound Scottish. The English hear a slight lilt but that disappears as soon as I spend any time with them.
I feel alienated on two fronts now, skin colour and accent. And one of those was avoidable if it hadn’t been for the prejudice against against perceived lower class accents. Even in Jamaica Mum learnt to speak in an English accent like the white girls at her school. She could switch between the two. Jamaican with her parents, posh English everywhere else. Why couldn’t I have had that?
The fact that a lot of regional actors are expected to code-switch their accent patterns the a kind of neutral English accent in Britain shows how pervasive the classism is.
When Christopher Eccleston was cast as the Doctor in Doctor Who, people were surprised that he used his own northern accent, instead of performing with an accent like every Doctor before him. That was only 15-ish years ago.
Even now, this still happens - James McAvoy made a very vocal protest a couple of years back about a critic who complained about the use of Scots accents and only applauded the “plummy English” accent of one character in a play.
Regional and working class accents were used as joke accents for decades in British media. Look up old broadcasts and notice how many people only speak RP English (ie. the formal pronunciation that smacks of elocution lessons and enunciation). As media accessibility and productions expanded, there have been more regional accents showing up, but it’s still a big problem.
Putsimply when you mock “innit” you’re mocking poor people and often people of colour. Boris Johnson doesn’t say “innit bruv”.
What shoes are good for your feet? How have shoes changed over the years from culture to culture? Are feet inherently dirty as many people think? Juliette Wade gives a detailed account of her view of possible answers to these questions. In her words, the point she is trying to make in her article is ‘to bring attention to the way that different cultures perceive feet, shoes, how they are used and what is beautiful of ugly about them.’ What do you think? Do you know any cultures who have different attitudes to feet? http://talktoyouniverse.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/feet-and-shoes-across-cultures.html
