Today is the first day I, an indian, found out that we are stereotyped as "not showering" and I am truly speechless because my grandparents used to wake up every day to curse at white people for not showering and wearing shoes inside the house bshshdbdgd
I am a white person and this is forbidden in my house. Also, lying on the bed with shoes. Like, are you guys (people who do it) okay? Who hurt you? Who are you running away from?
"Is she a good representation of Indian people if she is too white?" Me, a Chinese person who is only fluent in English and nearly completely illiterate in Mandarin: chuckles "I'm in danger..."
I'm mixed and despite being raised by my Salvadorian dad as well, I barely know any Spanish or anyhting about the culture. I only really feel connected to the norse side of my heritage
Indian American here. There’s no winning. People are always going to criticize you. Too many white characters vs don’t write outside your culture because you don’t have the experience so you don’t have the right. Have non white characters? The non white characters are acting too white. Oh , they’re not acting “white?” They’re a racist stereotype! There’s no winning. Now there are authors that write characters horribly, but there are also online mobs ready to tear creators apart for every little thing that they personally for some reason don’t like that they find offensive. Internet fan culture is toxic. Many creators are scared to be creative. Heck, people get death threats on twitter if they don’t make a ship happen. There’s no room for growth or development or plot twists. You have to be perfect for everyone always or face a landslide of cruelty. That’s so exhausting.
@@cloudyheart5148 i think the point of the original comment is that there will always be someone who will find something wrong with your work. this can happen even if you do your best and avoid stereotypes and genuinely research and respect the culture of your character. kind of like cindy said--what if an author wrote an asian character that was, like, good at math? or very smart in general? even if it made complete sense in the story, one could definitely see it as a perpetuating a stereotype. so, yeah, where do we draw the line?
Anna K exactly. It’s easy to say “just do research and you’ll be fine 🙄” but the problem is not everyone agrees. Just go to Twitter and you’ll see different “woke” people tearing each other apart to be the most righteous. If you think interviewing 1000 people of the same culture or sex or whatever will result in them all agreeing, well that’s just ignorant.
To all those people saying she doesn’t speak the language- Marathi IS an Indian language from Maharashtra which is where her father was from. Also she spoke Sanskrit which is like a mother to SO many Indian languages... I genuinely don’t know how they thought she didn’t speak an Indian language.
As someone's who's been called whitewashed by my own people and stereotyped in white spaces...both can happen but that's not the case with this book/protagonist.
as an indian person it's also quite interesting that u see a character not showering and ur thought immediatly goes to "oh that's because she's indian isnt she". like??? maybe the problem is YOU if you that's where ur thoughts go, esp when people of other races also don't shower in the school.
I thought the exact same thing! People blame others for being the cause of triggering their mindset. "Oh, this book make me realise I think indians are not hygenic, this book should be cancelled for exposing me!"
Honestly, I read and loved this book. I am a black woman with dreadlocks and I guess I wasn't effected by that paragraph because I didn't remember it until this video. I think a major issue with internet "wokeness" is that it is often taken to the extreme. As a POC I appreciate that there are people who want so badly to be allies. The issue becomes when an allies cries of outrage drown out those of actual POC's. I think we as human beings need to be more understanding and look at the intentions of people rather than just the action. It is easier to correct a misguided but well intended action then outright bigotry. But if the person is feeling attacked you end up traumatizing them instead of guiding or teaching them. No one is an outright cultural expert including POC's
Black too, and honestly was confused by the deadlocks backlash. I get "why" but it almost feels like people where looking for a fight. Deadlock are a perfectly normal hair style for young adults and can produce thick sections of hair. There's a comment somewhere else in this section saying this problem could have been adverted if the author had just said "locks of hair" which kinda annoyed me. It's almost like we can't even get to normalize back hairstyles and you have to make it almost white washed with "locks". Like saying these leeches get into dreadlocks conveyed a message to me that even if your hair is clean and managed you can't go with low maintenance long hairstyles because of this risk. If people are so unfamiliar with dreadlocks and that kids those age would see as an option to help improve their hygiene, how are you supposed to incorporate natural everyday influences from black culture? Honestly, if they had said "locks" of hair, what hairstyles would they have even been talking about that would fulfill the necessary need of hiding something because you don't go through all your hair, just do touch ups? Protective styles, right? And then you just have another case of where something is black in theory, but not black in application.
I'm white/asian, but I figure that the dreadlock paragraph was more from just the writer not even knowing about the history of prejudice around dreadlocks, so they probably wrote it from the same perspective of "long hair is bad 'cause it can be grabbed" within the context of the story. So it's interesting because this is technically a racially neutral or color blind perspective, but becomes racial in the context of our society.
I was hesitant to read this book because of all the comments but I'm gonna give it a chance. It seems that I'll need to read it for myself before I judge it. I loved her other book 'Uprooted' and bought this book before all the comments flooded in so I guess I'll see if it is worth the money or time.
@@kylehahn4410 the history of dreadlocks is a moot point. In the context of the story, no matter the history of dreadlocks, long hair would be a risk. If the author went out of her way to say long hair the risk but dreadlocks aren't because she was afraid of of continuing dreadlock prejudice then that would actually be slight racism as she would be seeing and treating black hair as "different" hair. Being realistic about the world you live in, where literal trays of lunch food for the kids can have monsters in it waiting to kill them, isn't racist in my opinion, it's world building. Having those monsters arbitrarily avoid people of color.... Maybe more racist lol.
Okay but seriously, when did it become a thing for race to be a whole personality. It's 100% part of your identity, but when people write up a character with nothing but their race, they end up relying on stereotypes which does a great disservice to the characters.
This! This has been bothering me so much for the past couple of years, especially here on booktube everyone talking about race as if it's their personality. Dividing people in two the categories of veing "poc" or "white" as if that can tell you anything about the person's background and that it's somehow inclusive enough. Can you tell me that a Black American will have the same experience as a Chinese American or even better someone that actually comes from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana or one of the other many South African countries. And regarding "whiteness", because putting all white people under the same umbrella isn't racist at all, there is such a wide difference between how people in different white countries grow up. I'm from Eastern Europe, I am Slavic, my countrymen where enslaved for 500 years under the Ottoman empire, we were behind the Iron curtain. I can guarantee you, culture wise and how I grew up has nothing in common with someone from France or the UK, even less with a white person from the states. Where you grew up, how you grew up, who where you surrounded by, what major events happened where you lived determine who you are. Your personality is not determined by skin colour but here on booktube that seems to be the common notion.
@@genmea Yes. Thank you so much. This comment is beautiful. I wish Cindy saw this. This is exactly what is wrong with the world right now. How did a skin type become someones whole essence. Does a soul have race? When any of us leave our bodies behind will our tombstone say here lies a person of color or a person of non color? They were as stereotypical as they come. No, why? Because the ones we love will fill our plaques with the things that made our essence, our soul, our light inside us. Because the impact we have on the people around us can very much be from the way we look, but it may also be just from our own morality, personality, and themes in our own lives. We live and breathe the world around us, but we don't have to let it define us. We don't have to let someone tell us how we need to feel. When we break down to someones core, we are not seeing their color, but rather the parts of them that make them who they are. Their traits, their hopes, their dreams, their experiences. And those things, while sometimes affected by a skin color, are not existence on skin alone.
Why would El ever explicitly state that she’s biracial or brown that’s not how people talk if she was a white main character that wouldn’t be expected. It kind of annoying that unless a character is explicitly stated as a POC people will assume they are white.
I can 100% confirm that I never think about myself in terms of race as a mixed person. None of my friends bring it up either. It's almost like they see me as a normal human and not a race. Who would just casually state their race in conversation?
@pink_calculators I was gonna say the same thing! I definitely identify myself as Central Asian pretty often and make jokes about being CA. Idk I just think this conversation can sometimes get too close to the "there's only one race, the human race"/colorblindness rhetoric lmao
i'd rather have a non-white character act "normal" and have a personality rather than always having to remind the audience their race every goddamn second. but that's just my humble opinion as a filipino with zero representation in mainstream media 😴
I was reading skyward by Brandon Sanderson and didn’t realise that the main love interest was supposed to have brown skin until the second book where its just mentioned under one small line. I also didn’t realise that the mc’s close friend was black either until I saw fanart of her either. Other YA books should be like that. Representation matters but its not the defining trait that needs to be shoved in our faces and mentioned every time those character are shown.
I know Cindy from that clip on TikTok where she slaps ACOWAR and says; “bitch what fucking plot? Where is it? Where’s the fucking plot? You look me in the eye right now and tell me what fucking kind of plot there was”
The shower thing is so frustrating to me! She literally _wants_ to shower but can't because it's not safe and she doesn't have a support system. It's a big part of the book.
Cindy is the introspective and analytical English teacher who comes to class slightly tipsy and doesn't hesitate to point out an authors B.S that we all needed all along
@@aijsdijdni3401 I was referring to situations such as the black college student saying, “Frankly, there's just too many white people in here,” and, “This is a space for people of color...” regarding white people being in the multicultural center. The university has since said that the center is for all students, so the term POC only spaces could be taken as a misrepresentation of the situation and I apologize for that, but the sentiment behind such a statement is quite concerning to me. And I’m speaking as a Chinese kid adopted by a white family raised and living in a predominantly white area, both of which I love very much
@@EtamirTheDemiDeer There's some nuance to it. Is is POC only as enforced by white folks, such as in the Jim Crow south? Or is it POC only as enforced by POC in the attempt to create a safe space? They are both technically segregation, but the motivations are very different.
i just finished a deadly education yesterday and i’m guessing a lot of people engaging in this discourse forgot about just how much the author does talk about El’s experience growing up biracial on the commune with her white mother. there are passages describing how the other people in the commune were likely to assume she wasn’t related to her mom, and instances in which the people in the commune wanted El to lead them in an “authentic” yoga practice even though she was a child and had never lived in India before. It was made pretty apparent to me that she was biracial and had experienced the effects of her perceived race growing up
*Me writing a character from a certain race and culture* : Is this well represented? Did I white wash her too much? Im I leaning into stereotypes? Am I being disrespectful? *Me remembering the character is from the same culture and race as me* : 👁👄👁
What the heck is this about the main character not being Indian enough? - How do people even measure that? Oh you have watched Kuch Kuch Hota hai 17 times? - Indian. Oh you have just watched 3 Idiots once? - *White washed* like wth.
To be fair, I don't think any Indian has watched Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai that much, even ones who grew up with cable TV. And if they have, damn I worry for their sanity.
I saw something once which is "If you are white you are allowed to write a black character, but don't write a story about them being black." And I find this a very good concept because you are allowed to write characters who are not yourself, but if you centre the entire story about them being a minority (e.g. coming of age trans/gay story) and you are not part of that minority then it gets tricky. Edit: coming back to this comment a few years later and also reading through criticism in the replies has helped me realise that while what I said is still something agree with there is more wiggle room with writing characters from groups you are not a part of. Also there is one saying that I learnt in the interim that I feel was what I was trying to say originally "Nothing about us, without us" which was originally created by disability advocates and activists who were tried of the very bad disability representation in media which was almost wholly created by abled people. People are able to create stories with characters from minorities which they are a part of, but if they're going to do that then they need to listen to people from those minorities and do the research to write those characters.
I was just thinking something similar to this while watching the video! White authors can write about poc but shouldn’t write about poc struggles and their identities.
Just because something is tricky doesn’t mean you can’t do it correctly…you literally just have to be willing to listen and put their experiences over your own predetermined idea of what the story should be about. Everyone can write about everything, but you have to actually try to understand.
I just finished A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate and came here to see what everyone else thought, but what stands out to me in this video is that no one is talking about how her dad DIED when he was trying to graduate. It's not that she doesn't have a relationship with her dad, it's that he died before she was born and then his family had a very dramatic reaction when they met her. Him not being alive, and his family not wanting to have anything to do with El, is a big factor in how her character grew up.
Full disclosure: i haven't read this book. But, as fully Indian girl living in America, I actually really like they way El seems to be portrayed. I have my food, my religion, and my clothes, but I can't speak Tamil for sht. The fact that El has managed to stay connected to her roots through language and religion is super commendable. That feeling of "not quite Indian enough" is a reality of third culture kids, so I appreciate that its being acknowledged. I'm fully Indian and I still feel super alienated when around Indians from India - I can't imagine how much more different I'd feel if I was half white too. Anyways, I'm rambling, but I think that saying that El isn't "Indian enough" misses the point. It's not like she has zero connections to her Indian heritage - she has language and religion. Fact of the matter is that when you are influenced by multiple cultures in your youth, some aspects tend to get tossed to the side. Criticizing this character for not displaying her heritage the way *you* want her to has echoes of the "coconut" and "ABCD" (American born confused desi) comments a lot of us got when we were younger. And that sht hurts.
I know it’s not the same, but your last line about people’s comments really resonated with me. My mom’s side of the family is South American Hispanic and my Dad’s is heavily German. I’ve had Hispanic people tell me I’m not Hispanic enough for the color of my skin and not speaking Spanish regularly which I do with family cause I’m super self-conscious about it. I’ve been told that I’m not pure, that I don’t understand things about the culture cause I’m mixed. These kind of comments hurt so much for people who feel like they don’t belong to either group. Especially growing up in school you stick out.
*writes an un-stereotyped brown character* You're white-washing them! *writes an non white-washed brown character* You're stereotyping them! People are who they are because of the circumstances under which they are raised, and a half-Indian character that was raised in the UK after being forsaken by her Indian family would probably naturally have some detachment from her Indian heritage. I think some people are outraged by this because it's a social trend to try and find flaws in something. Canceling someone can be appropriate in certain cases, but cancel culture can also be extremely toxic.
I find that the dreadlock part, at least personally as a black person (this isn't universal of course) it felt inclusive. Because I was in my head thinking about how I would survive in this school like oh I wouldn't have to shave I would just braid or lock my hair then instantly got hit with that paragraph. Within the context of the book it felt natural- of course my opinion doesn't trump the feelings of thousands but it felt less like "dreadlocks are dirty" and more like "there's no way have your cake and eat it to- everybody is gonna die" especially since no character got to keep their hair. Everyone's bald. Just like everyone isn't showering.
I'm white, so I don't have any leeway in this discussion, but I got that impression too. So much fantasy only covers how fantasy problems would effect white people, that "lock leeches" felt like it was a purposeful example about how this effects non white people, and specifically black people. No one is excluded from the problems in this book. There are no easy work arounds because an author had no concept of cultural differences. There are many ways to be specifically targeted, here is an example of one of the many ways that can be done. If you have magic, the monsters will get you.
I'm wondering if the problem could have been solved by simply naming another example with a more traditionally white hairstyle that poses similar problems. In that way, it would have been more clear that it has nothing to do with the stereotype it's just a general thing.
i have stick straight hair, but i had a similar thought, im attached to my long hair so i thought, oh i could just keep it in a tight bun and redo it every few days but then nope, that would be the worst thing i could do! i didn’t think the leeches attaching to hair was a sign of the hair being dirty, just that it was hair. i think that people who are actively looking for signs of harmful stereotypes or people who have racist biases and make assumptions off of that might interpret it in the way cindy described but i feel like for the majority of the target audience, they wouldn’t read that deeply into it.
I thought the loc leaches added a layer of horror, kinda liked it. That's too bad she got dragged. But I get it as a black woman who went natural during lockdown. People say the funkiest shit about black hair 😂
I feel like a big problem with the "she's too white cause she doesn't talk about being indian but when she's dirty is because she's indian" is that it's easy for readers to see their own bias and stereotypes in the work. The dreadlocks part was a faux-pas as you said because it was singled out, but if the only informations someone retains about a character is that she's a poc and dirty (when it's a problem shared by others by a given point of the story) and their first thought is to link it to her race perhaps it has less to do with the book itself and more with how people read characters of color?
@@Givebackthescarf forgive me if I'm wrong, but as far as I could tell from this video (I'd never heard of the book, just like watching Cindy's videos. Also I'm white so I understand that my viewing will inherently be different to yours and you can feel well within your rights to correct me on anything I may have gotten wrong or may need to open my eyes to) the point was that you can't maintain your hair, and even if you do you may still get attacked by a monster, so just get rid of the hair altogether. Obviously, you are well within your rights to be annoyed by the insert - that is your opinion, and especially if you've been criticised for your hair before it may hit a nerve that was (seemingly) never intended - but I think that it's important to consider the story itself (its world, its rules, etc.) and why the details are necessary rather than how those details may be perceived in our reality (within reason, there are obviously times where the inserts are written with the intent to be harmful)
As a biracial female, THANK YOU for bringing up the point "how do you get to decide if someone properly portrays their race?"! Seriously, it makes me so mad when people poke fun at me for not speaking a language or enjoying spicy food. Like I'm "less than"
When I was reading a deadly education I really identified and related to El, not just because I’m a prickly bitch but but because I didn’t grow up around my culture. I’m mostly Mexican, my mother is half white and half Mexican but she never learned about Mexican culture because she was raised by my white grandmother. So my mother doesn’t know too much about Mexican culture. I’m in the same boat, obviously I couldn’t learn about my Mexican heritage from my mother and I didn’t grow up by my Mexican-born father. So I have often struggled with not feeling “Mexican enough” because I don’t speak the language or know how to cook the food or celebrate the holidays etc. People have honestly told me that I’m white-washed and I don’t know how to respond to that because...well yeah I suppose because I never learned about my heritage I could be considered white-washed but at the same time I’m obviously not white. My skin is brown. And because my skin is brown people will never actually forget that I’m not really white. So I still have had people be racist towards me. Okay whatever I guess I’m getting off track now. But basically what I’m trying to say is that I could strongly identify with El and I’m sooo sick of people saying that you are not really a poc because you weren’t “raised” in the culture. Okay sorry if this was rambling and confusing. On a lighter note; love you Cindy you’re fucking hilarious.
So you're not white, because your skin is brown but you're also not POC because you're raised in a white culture. Who are you then? Are you even human? (I'm joking, but it sounds like it really sucks. Sorry you have to deal with this)
Dude, I feel you on this so much. My parents americanized my childhood because they were worried about me and my siblings dealing with racism, and as a result none of us speak Spanish or know much about Mexican culture. Even my grandmother complains about us not knowing Spanish, which is ironic considering she said the other day that she regrets not teaching me and my cousins more about our heritage 😓 I'm just starting to learn more about my culture, and I feel so un-Mexican considering the amount of other Mexican American people around me nowadays. It's a struggle, but we can get through it; I believe in us ♡
As a white person who lived her influential years in Mexico. Wth 🤣💀 Being racist towards a POC because they are essentially not a certain race enough... That is the dumbest, most gatekeeping shit I have ever heard. Ignore those people, your race doesn't isn't a personality. That's actually lowkey racist, saying that you can't be Mexican (or of Mexican descent) unless you are fluent in a language and make tacos on a daily basis. They've been watching way to many white movies, with that one mexican guy.
This is so relatable. My mother is an immigrant from Mexico but she was worried about us being bullied if we were too mexican so she assimilated a lot and never spoke spanish. Worse yet, I don't even look Mexican or white so I don't have any place to go. Things are just complicated when it comes to this stuff.
I mean everyone in the book is unhygienic because there are monsters in the showers. That’s nothing to do race and everything to do with the fact the showers are dangerous due to magical beings looking to attack people. All the characters are the same level of dirty unless they have huge amounts of magic stored up
Something about the “the author didn’t say she was brown” is that when a person reads a book their own biases come out- you’re imagining the characters not just based on the words on the page but also the internal biases you have. So if you default to “white until described otherwise” that isn’t just on the author for not describing them well enough. You could have been seeing her as brown the whole time anyway.
That's a very good point. I personally don't always assume the character is white unless proven otherwise. My brain goes wherever it wants. It's a bit like "straight unless proven otherwise". But the straight characters never have to prove they're straight even if they're single and don't have a way to show it.
As a Black person, I don’t think White authors should HAVE TO write people of color if they don’t feel comfortable. Schwab and other popular White authors can be an advocate by spotlighting authors of color. Schwab was doing a series where she was interviewing authors; perhaps interview authors of color or ask to do author visits with authors of color, or write book blurbs for authors of color. There are other ways. Also, they can cast POC in the book adaptation.
Going a little bit on the tangent of casting a POC in the book adaptation (assuming it's about the movie rights for Addie LaRue that Cindy talked about at the start?) by bringing up Shadow and Bone adaptation that now features POC leads where as in the books, the original trilogy, they were just assumed white. The point of me bringing this up is to see how the POC will work for a Addie LaRue movie, especially with Schwab being a white author, unless the other wonderful ways you've talked about + including voices of people of colour to determine the protag's arc/path are taken. The creative liberties are endless, YET there's still an argument for that about how it's all so performative, as it is sometimes discussed in the Grishaverse fandom, since people still think that Leigh is just making them for the sake of it. I think it'll simply boil down to the satisfaction of the fandom and the viewers of the casts' and the characters' portrayal (coded or explicit) in the show, perhaps. As for Addie LaRue, I haven't read the book so I'm not sure how the PoC integration can take place where the struggles and the joy of being someone and celebrating an identity can be shown in addition to some themes that apply to Addie's life that reflect the people of the world. Idk lol, this is not entirely related to your comment but it prompted me to consider this angle from what else I know and have seen. Also idk if Cindy will read this but if you do, dude, thanks for these videos!
@@sai-bi2rh if I’m understanding your comment correctly, you’re asking if by making these characters Black is it going to celebrate their Blackness-culture, etc? In the case of Addie, I wasn’t thinking about changing the main characters’ races in the adaptation; I was thinking more about a couple of minor characters like Sam and Robbie. Bea is already Black in the book. Back to your comment, Sam is an artist and her work could reflect Black culture but sometimes Black people are just okay with seeing a Black person on the screen. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be about their Blackness. Consider Bridgerton. I personally was okay with the backstory of how Black people held royal titles in 19th century England but I know some Black people didn’t think it was explored enough. I’ve seen many period movies and there are never any Black people so for me, just seeing Black people in an English period drama was fantastic. Now, was I a bit bummed that the main characters were both light-skinned? Yes. Did I wish one of them was a darker skinned person with kinkier hair? Yes. But let’s not get into that; I was satisfied by the rep. 😂
Exactly! I hate the fact that it's almost like they're overrepresenting and hurting their own work by essentially being bullied into working POC into their works. That's shitty and wrong.
@Squidward yeaaaa i have those problems too, my american accent just gets in the way whenever I speak Indonesian (fun fact, I have never lived at America or any other English-speaking country, I live purely in Indonesia).
same , im bangladeshi and my inner monologue is in english , i struggle to speak my mother tongue , even tho i fucking live in the country since birth ! and i struggle with english too . i just have shit speaking skill even tho i talk too much when im in a convo about smth i like , i cant read bangla aloud properly and it messes with my brain , but my english recitation is great ! im just a disapointment
i feel like some of the people calling her out were actually subconsciously being racist and i think that kinda goes to speak on this bigger issue. sometimes, its not even the author's fault, its these people pinpointing their own racial stereotypes onto a character because of their race, something as small as, like you said, being good at math. when i read the line about not showering, i know 100% my mind did not go to "oh its because she's indian right?" it went to "oh, its part of the world's dynamic." so why is that the main reaction when it was not how it was intended at all? i think a lot of these people accidentally exposed their own prejudices and its interesting
It states quite clearly that most people there don't shower more than once or twice a week. And her less because she comes across with an evil vibe. Nothing to do with anything Indian or any other race.
Yeah, people are making a grave mistake if they believe they lack prejudice just because mentally they agree that it’s wrong. People that assume they have no prejudice because of that are very likely to let prejudices they didn’t know they had go unchecked, and that seems to be what’s happening with these people.
It’s the same issue with LGBT representation, there’s no such thing as a universal experience so any way you write a character is going to resonate with some people and not others. It’s why “the main character isn’t relatable” is kind of a bullshit criticism.
Every LGBT+ person has come out, that's universal. How this is received varies. Write about being generally accepted unless you have experiences similar to having your identity rejected.
@@MrGreyseptember same. I haven’t had any experiences (bi, closeted), so I’d have to do research if I ever do a contemporary LGBT story. A benefit of fantasy, at least.
I was literally bullied as a kid for not being "Filipino" enough because I didn't speak the language and not repping my country, like y'all I was born in America 😩
@@miracel3075 I know not every Filipino is like the bullies I encountered, it was such an shock to me because I've always been around my Filipino side, more so than my Hispanic side, and I was never conscious of "not being Filipino enough."
she really could’ve just said that long hair is dangerous 😭 why specify dread locks.. when it sounds like anyone with long, thick hair could be susceptible
As a non-american, I literally cannot distinguish between what's a common stereotype there and a character trait, so I don't really have a knee jerk reaction to something potentially offensive. So, a lot of these things really just make me sad for the authors of all these books.
As a mixed race person, I'm really interested in the "biracial protagonist" conversation. I'm half Puerto Rican, but I don't speak Spanish, cook traditional food, or dance. If I was a protagonist written by a white author, how would they "show" an audience my ethnicity? Can we easily define what it means to be a part of a racial or ethnic group without relying on stereotypes? I have so many questions lol In regards to cancelling authors - Rowling has dug her transphobic heels in, so I'm not waiting for her redemption arc. But it seems like Naomi could improve with more anti-bias education, broader life experiences, and sensitivity readers (disclaimer: I haven't read A Deadly Education). As someone who has said transphobic and ableist things before, I've always been grateful for the folks that held me accountable and prompted me to do better. Every situation is different, but I try to offer others the same grace that was offered to me. I do believe people can change, but no one is required to wait around to see if you do.
I don't think sensitivity readers are a good alternative. I mean, how can you claim to be an expert at being queer or a poc (or both)?? I think it's better to consult with various people who belong to the marginalized group you're trying to portray and hear their different opinions, not hire someone to tell you.
@@Otra_Chica_de_Internet Strong agree. And also, this should be part of ongoing research and discussions from various people and sources before there is even anything to read. It shouldn't be something that only comes up on the tag-end of a near-final draft, and too often that's what sensitivity readers end up being.
You are totally right because I was honestly sitting here like "I wish you could include something like that without it being problematic as the idea in itself is super creepy". I don't think the author was being deliberately shitty, but yeah, easy pothole to avoid.
And the author could’ve used any type of hairstyle as an example to get the point across. As long as their hair was long, it would’ve worked. If she’s set on specific hairstyles maybe she could’ve talked about something that’s not associated with any specific race. Like she could’ve had an event where the main character mentioned a girl she knew who wore French braids every day until “the incident” then she could go into describing the gruesome details
@@bmiller7419 she did. Its just people who didn't read the book and just "heard" what happens are mostly the loudest voices. It's mentioned that any long hair is dangerous and one isolated incident happened to a student with dreads. There's horrible things happening to all kinds students there. I don't want to belittle someone's feelings but in the context of those of us who read it, I think it's not that outrageous...
im sure someone's replied with this already, but instead of dreadlocks, she should have just said "long hair". same pun, same world-building, less emphasis on a particular culture
What if we don't, "Cancel" the book? What if we just acknowledge that it's flawed, give feedback to the creator, let them sit on it, and with goodwill, give them a chance to learn from it? For what comprises a human but successes and failures? More so, who are we to deny redemption? Are we the humane in denying someone the chance to fail? Are we the humane in denying someone the chance to succeed? To take away someone else's right, to be human?
I'm black, and I'm literally struggling to write my black characters. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells; For my manga the main girl is dark skinned, with vitiligo, and is aggressive, which is a negative stereotype. But is it an issue if I include other dark skinned girls who aren't aggressive? Cause honestly, in action anime especially, aggressive characters are so common, so I don't think that should go back to her race, cause like you said, race doesn't determine someone's personality. And secondly, for my actual novel, one of the 3 main characters is black, and now I'm like, are people even gonna know he's black 😂 It was mentioned once, and it will be mentioned one or two times again since, racism is sorta a factor in my story, but sometimes I think people are gonna think he's white. Like, I'm black, but if a character exactly like me were to be written in the story, with only ever being referenced to being black once, they would think I was white 😂 At some point, I think people need to realize that not every poc in a book, will be enriched with their own culture, especially if the book is written in America, and that just because the poc representation isn't the way you want it, doesn't mean it's not representation. Also, if people want people to include more poc in books, they have to be willing to accept an author's mistake, especially since most authors are white. As long as what they did truly wasn't intended to offend anyone, and they do right by their mistake, I think we should just let them take it as a learning experience. Cause if we just bash them and "cancel" them, it might drive other authors away from writing poc, which would lead to less representation
Dude, it's best to not let videos like these get to you. At the end of the day, no one is subjecting themselves to the grueling, painful process of writing just to support social issues and push agendas. If your heart is in the right place, and you're not portraying any particularly heinous stereotypes about minorities, then I say fuck it. People have misconceptions about cultures all the time. Doesn't mean they need to quit writing, or be so anxious about offending someone that it sucks tbe fun out of writing.
The act of aggression itself isn't negative it's the actions you do while you're aggressive. You can be aggressively helpful or aggressively toxic. It isn't black and white, I'm a writer as well. I REALLY don't base my characters stuck in typical culture tropes especially if it isn't based in our world and or there are powers since that's a whole different dynamic that can easily change history itself. Why would I impose slavery on any race as a background of their existence if I didn't have to and since I not bound by it I won't write it if I can help it. Since I think there's more to characters than that aspect of our own existence. Yet I agree people need to kinda chill because I'm one of the types that can easily get petty and create something to really piss those types off. Yet I do understand if people get upset at what I do no matter what I'll stop appealing to them and do what makes me happy which is what art should be first and formost. Are YOU happy with it, damn what anybody else thinks. That's what constructive criticism should be bashing people and or bullying them is gonna make them shell-up or give up...
I once saw a popular tumblr post that said something to the effect of "able bodied white women shouldn't write. We don't need them anymore." What kinda attitude is that? "Don't follow your dreams, kids. Your thoughts have no worth."
That's literally just discrimination lmao, I don't understand how these people aren't aware that shit like this is exactly what racists and fascists say but just towards another group of people.
@@matrixpolaris679 not the nazism and fascism card... sorry but this is definitely exaggerating and its literally no different from people trying to act woke
@@lowquality49 I'm not just calling that a fascist-lite comment out of nowhere, how is saying that able-bodied white women shouldn't write any different from saying jews or black people shouldn't write? It's the same discriminatory and racist beliefs that racists or fascists have, just against another demographic. Obviously I don't think a comment like that is as dangerous as actual fascism, but it's the exact same line of thinking and no one should be defending that, no matter which group is being discriminated against.
futurestoryteller any time you hear a complaint of a character not being enough of something or too much of something it’s a complaint on their uniqueness. “Not Indian enough, not feminine enough, too edgy, too emotional.”
I'm indian and i don't really think that the "not-showering" world building is much of a problem. I think it was just what it is, a world building detail and has nothing to do with being indian. But yeah, that's my opinion. I think she was a well-written character and have no problem with this part specifically.
Same, dont think its much of a problem either. Its more of world building, and people on Twitter like to nit pick a lot of things for the sake of doing it.
@@raniidaki3543 yeah i agree. the dreadlocks thing was totally out of line and definitely bad but i don't think the showering this was an issue as EVERYONE was doing it. Everyone is the school, she was not an exception just because she was an indian. and as cindy said, it can also be traced to, that she has a hippie mom. I do not think the author was stereotyping in this scenario. Also, i didn't know that it was a stereotype that we Indians do not shower because most of the households encourage showering every morning. And my mom yells at me if i do not-
I think the whole Dreadlock thing would have had no issues if the author had said "Having any sort of long hair... is an issue, lock leeches, whatever..." She gets to keep the world building detail, it's automatically not tied to race, and it adds consistency.
I was looking for a comment like this! Any issues could have been dealt with by changing ‘dreadlocks’ to ‘long hair’. Lock leeches are a super interesting detail and they really help drive home the point that anything could kill you in this world. It wouldn’t just be people who wear dreadlocks that would have an issue with lock leeches, it would be anybody with long hair so I don’t see why it wasn’t written that way.
I also think something like adding more examples of what hairstyles are problematic in that world? Like long curly hair, straight but thick hair, etc...
@@orimengu She kinda-sorta did, but it was more of a character point, well apart from and after the bit with the lockleeches. Another character keeps her hair long and thick and perfectly coiffed, partly with magic, as a boast--i.e., "I have the power to burn to do this without risking my safety, don't mess with me." Which could be seen as reinforcing the original point, or undermining it. It underlines the danger of having long hair in the Scholomance, but it also says "this person has long hair *but not dreadlocks* and can get away with it as long as she devotes some of her magic to doing it", so the lockleech thing still stands out.
So, she explains that everyone cuts their hair, or almost everyone? And then describes lock leeches in particular? I don't see a problem with that. It seems like it was clear that all long hair is dangerous in this world where people die every single day. Maybe there could have been more discussion about the specific dangers of long hair. Like if people who don't have locs don't have to worry about lock leeches, what are they actually worried about? Or is it that lock leeches are easier to find in hair that's not worn in locs and therefore less dangerous to people who don't have locs? That makes sense to me. If you've got about two weeks to find this thing before you die, it makes sense that it might be easier to find in loose hair than in clumps of hair. Especially as it seems to be a stealthy creature anyway.
Hey Welsh girl here, I'll put in my opinion here. This is only based on Cindy's video, I haven't read the book or what others have said about the book. So I'm sorry if I've got the wrong idea about anything. Sorry it's long. It seems like a lot of the criticism is about not properly representing her Indian heritage. But what the character knows about her Indian side mirrors people who I know in real life growing up in Wales. Many people have a Welsh parent and a parent from another country. Even so they acted like everyone else cause we all grew up together. Some of them know the language of their non-Welsh parent because they'll speak it at home with them. Many people don't speak Welsh today is because we were not not allowed to for hundreds of years by our English rulers. It was punished by cutting off our tongues. So I agree that not knowing a language doesn't take away your nationality. Cindy didn't say whether this character knows Welsh, nor did she say whether the character discusses any Welsh folklore or celebrations. Cindy herself refered to this character as white more times than Welsh, so I'm guessing people focused more about that this is a white culture, rather than it being Welsh culture. Honestly that's disappointing. There's not many Welsh characters around, and even in this case it seems like people want to suppress it. Take the shower thing. Cindy said some people didn't like it because they say it's a bad stereotype of Indian people being dirty. But it's also a bad stereotype of Welsh people. But looking at the story context, it's not offensive to me. I feel like the author wrote this book with good intentions, and I have experienced way worse intentionally offensive things towards my culture. That said I just realised I wrote this thinking this character grew up in Wales. But I've never heard of a hippy camp, and camping in Wales weather all year round sounds like a bad time. 'Hippy' does make me think US. So does this take place in the US? Cause if she grew up in the US, she's probably not going to act Welsh or Indian cause she grew up with a US culture. Are people only talking about the Indian portrayal because she was written like a white American, but they don't know anything about Welsh culture so don't realise that this character doesn't properly represent that either? You don't need to answer, I only wrote down my thoughts as I didn't see any other Welsh views in the comments.
Most people in the US aren’t even aware of the language suppression in Wales (among others) by the English. I’m American with Welsh ancestry, and I had no feckin’ idea until I took a linguistics class in university. We were assigned to write a paper analyzing a language, and I found some books on Welsh in the school library that included historical context. I was NOT prepared! Later I was able to visit a beautiful village in Wales where it was (I think) 70% Welsh speaking. It was the strangest experience to be in the UK (where the US assumes the whole rabbit is English-speaking) and not be able to understand conversations around me or read anything in the stores, except the labels printed on mass-produced items like pain killers or cold medicine. I had been traveling for a bit by then and was used to how people were standoffish to me as an American tourist, yet I was treated kinder in Wales than the English family members I was with (who spoke Welsh). It was really eye opening. And reflects what Cindy said about everyone has blind spots toward the end of the video. :/ And I’d agree the hippie commune is way more American, but I haven’t read the book in question so I’m not sure if that was the author’s term or Cindy’s.
Part of the issue I noticed, is that in discussions of race and cultural people see everyone with light skin as a universal“White.” When really we have just a much diversity in our history and cultures as every other color in the rainbow. English, Welsh, German, Etc.
This is my issue with writers writing as if all the western-world is the same and just labelling it a white culture rather than the region they're from. I live in Northern England and I've noticed when people write about my region without being from here its basically just as a backdrop and its not written as a cultural region.
Hippy communities are a thing here in west wales which was at it's peak during the 70's. However they tend to trend towards english incomers more. Some of course some have settled over the years but there is often tension between the community and local welsh speakers over percieved attitudes to local culture and the language, and of course differing attitudes towards farming and land amongst farmers. Honestly a biracial Indian/Welsh girl raised by a gog (north walian, where there's the highest majority of speakers for those not in the know) in an english hippy commune in the welsh language heartlands who might also which to reconnect with the her father's heritage would be an amazing pov for a book that uses linguistics as the basis for its magic system, however I've not been able to find much thoughts on that. (I've not heard so much about cutting of tounges for speaking welsh. The beating of children for speaking welsh happened, as well as to a greater influence, the barring of the welsh language from court and public office till recently. There may have been a few laws that targeted welsh people within english towns that that punished them by cutting off hands?)
As a Mexican, I have always disliked when white authors attempt to write 'Hispanic' characters. We usually become a stereotype and it bugs me. It is always a character with a heavy accent, from a poor background and a family of criminals. Stop doing that. It just bugs me because it is never done right and sometimes written off as a joke. I prefer for white authors to only write characters they feel comfortable with.
The thing is, they write us as if they were writing from the US even if it's a fantasy setting. What? Don't they realize that we latin americans come from completely different countries that have completely different cultures? Don't they realize that the whole "hispanic" concept exists only in the USA? I agree with what you said, they're not being inclusive, they're just ignorant.
I find it most annoying when these characters are over-sexualized or rude. Like, I don’t know how to say it exactly, but I’ve never seen a hispanic character that’s like...elegant
I have not read this book, but it SOUNDS to me like El's representation is fine? Many MANY poc are not culturally connected to their race, and she's biracial too (which I think is also important representation, biracial people exist), and was only raised by one of her parents. If we're asking white people to include poc for visiblity, and so there are roles for non white people in adaptations, this is a good take. A white person includes a visible minority, but doesn't assume she can write for the lived experience of someone of indian culture, so she has the character disconnected from her dad's side of the family. I don't know, this character sounds fine to me. It really does feel like you can not win as an author online. People get so mad about everything, but its interesting to note like you said how you had that comment from that indian girl who really liked the representation. So you have people up in arms and enraged about stuff that made a poc belonging to the group in question happy.
I recognize this is a late reply, but if it helps to have that support for your point: El in the book was also not really able to connect with her dad's side of the family. Like it's not even just the author avoiding it in some way, it's literally part of the story that there were obstacles and conflict surrounding who got custody of El and that it resulted in El literally not being able to have that connection. I personally see El working to learn Marathi and Sanskrit as her way of trying to make that connection to her heritage when she doesn't have many other ways to do so.
Definitely, definitely read this book if you get a chance; I loved it with my whole chest and El is AMAZING. It is funny and tragic and action-packed and so, so clever, and it makes some incredibly valuable points about economic privilege (and why aren't we gushing more about THAT?)
Yes, I agree with you. I found characters like El relatable in their ignorance of their father's culture. There is a joke among Black people, that mixed kids raised by Black mothers are more woke, than mixed kids raised by White mothers (those kids are more likely to align with White Supremacy). I dont know, what she tried to achieve with that loc paragraph. Black people dont get lice. So, ...
Its not really mentioned in this vid, but the book is explicitedly about the struggle against class and privelige. While El isn't an outsider because of her race (her father's family is actually from a high class from what I recall), I do think it adds an extra layer that El is biracial.
Honestly, I feel like diverse characters get over-criticized even when written by POC authors. When Crazy Rich Asians came out as a movie, soooo many people were upset with the lack of socioeconomic diversity and the fact that it was only focusing on E Asians in such a diverse place as Singapore. While those are fair points, it just bothered me why does anything with POC usually gets more judgement? Like there’s sooo many rom-coms with only rich people or one race, but I’m not seeing the same amount of backlash/discussion? I do think nuanced representation matters but that’s why we need multiple stories, can’t expect everything from one author/book/movie, because our experiences as Asians (or any other culture/group) isn’t a monolith. I just want to see more stories who are like me in Western media (even though I’m S Asian I was still so hyped when CRA came out!) I think white authors should use their platform to help tell these diverse stories but only with good research and intent. I think Naomi did an imperfect job but I don’t think she should be canceled or discouraged by that. I still want to read that book, diverse premise with decent execution.
My thoughts as a 100% ethnically Korean American: I don't think authors are obligated to write anything but what they want to write. Would it be nice to see POC representation? Yes, obviously. Should it be encouraged? Yes, obviously. But attacking authors for not writing POC and also attacking them for writing POC "badly" will not encourage more representation, it will do the opposite. Everyone is entitled to their honest opinions, but authors are allowed to write what they want to write. If they write offensive stuff, they'll be called out for it, and either decide to change or not. Blindly attacking them isn't going to make authors any more likely to write POC, so I'm not sure what the end goal would be in "canceling" them in terms of increasing representation. POC have different ideas on what is offensive. I got angry at the criticisms of "whitewashing a POC" because it makes sense that she feels "more white" and to say otherwise is incredibly offensive to myself and many other POC who feel like they aren't ____ enough or that they're too white. It's impossible for any author to satisfy everyone reading their book. I'm rambling, so I'll end with this. Read books with POC representation. Offer critiques of things you think are offensive and can be changed without lambasting the author for being racist. Most people are ignorant, rather than malicious. Innocent until proven guilty. If the author makes changes, great! If not, move on to other books and authors with POC representation. Gradually, as people live life and meet new people and learn new things, POC representation will increase.
Honestly I'm so done with cancel culture, there have been so many times where I see people get pissed about the smallest things that for me make no sense (the people getting angry about the protagonist not showering, when NOBODY does is a perfect example), one thing is if the person cancelled hasn't apologised or doesn't change what was seen as wrong, but I feel so bad for people who do try to grow from their mistakes but keep getting harassed from a mistake they could have done 5 years ago 💀 everyone changes, we need to learn to educate about why something is wrong and not just plain cancel people for the rest of their life
You can. Just write and enjoy the process. Put your work out there and - as good advice to all artists - never read your own press. Create for your own muse and the joy that you find in that act. Nothing else matters.
That would be sad if true. You can write about anything you want, including creating characters based on stereotypes if you wish to. It might be unimaginative, lazy or humorous but if you wish to do so, then you should only have the same worries any author has in whether a publishing house will accept your work. If you choose to self-publish then it doesn't matter. You should be able to publish any literature for yourself, on any topic, from any perspective.
If the author really wanted to "show the dangers of having hair while at school", she could have just said the critter lays eggs in hair of any hairstyle which doesn't get enough upkeep or adding that people need to go through their hair with the help of friends to make sure they're safe, like lice or something. No need to target anyone. It would certainly add another layer to why so many people are shaving their heads.
To be fair it makes sense that it would be easier for those things to get into dreadlocks since they're harder to clean and thicker. They also take less showers than usually in the school so that makes dreadlocks an even less optimal choice for the situation. There's a fictional threat and the book explores the best/worst way to deal with that threat. I don't see why it's even offensive. There is no other hairstyle that would be this problematic when dealing with that threat so the author isn't singling out one hairstyle. The hairstyle itself is unique and comed with its own issues that are even true irl. That's where the dreadlocks dirty stereotype comes from because it is a hairstyle that will get your hair dirty if you don't know how to clean them properly.
Writers can write about anything. ANYTHING. The only thing is they should do it well. One of things that I think author should do when writing about something they don't know about (men writing women, women writing men, straight people writing LGBTQIA community people, etc.) is to do research and take interviews. You want to write them, then understand and communicate about what THEY feel, not what YOU think they feel.
Some people disguise blatant racism/homophobia as characters, and you can definitely tell. Black characters are the bad guys, the main leads are white, the smart nerd is Asian, the female lead's best friend is gay (so the main dude isn't "threatened") etc. If you read the book and you can't tell the author's gender/ race/ sexual orientation, that's how you know it's good.
This is why i think it's more important to support minority writers then wanting white people write them. Yes they should, 100% but why are will still looking for white people to write black characters before we are looking to just read books written by black people. It's seems like that's a bigger problem to me.
That's the dogwhistle they too often used they always want white to give this and that instead of our right supporting the creators. Like out of ALL the manga people read and buy they can't buy what hispanic and black creators do. Then that also goes into sometimes even we don't read it. Like I personally avoid any type of hard "struggle" content.
@@ExeErdna But aren't many stories about the "struggle"? How many stories have you read where characters are fighting some great evil? How many stories are you reading where characters are considered outsiders by their society? Fantasy in particular is about politics, oppression, race and/or religion disguised as fantastical creatures. Harry Potter being an example. What needs to be done is people rewire their brains and truly understand WHY they avoid certain books by certain authors.
@@thezarellianseries3348 "Hood struggle" not typical hero's journey works. Also no people don't need to rewire anything. If they want to not read something that's them. Since I know a lot of people that don't read comics and manga. I wouldn't fault them for not being into it. Like I never really read Harry Potter because I hated reading books like that since forever because it hurts my eyes after a while. Yet I taught myself to read from comics and gained a love for reading from manga.
@@ExeErdna This is what I mean by rewire. There are a plethora of POC authors who don't write about the "hood struggle." Beverly Jenkins, Rebecca Roanhorse, Alyssa Cole, Tomi Adeyemi, Mildred Taylor, Octavia Butler, N. K. Jemisin, and Nnedi Okorafor are just the tip of the iceberg. The point I am making is that people carry biases of what certain authors write without having dived deep into who is writing what. This does not happen to white authors. The point in reading is to widen your experience. You cannot always stick with the same authors. And you certainly were not born liking certain authors. You discovered them. It is not worth more effort to discover other authors, POC authors, who write in the same genre as you prefer. I brought up Harry Potter because it is popular. The series takes some aesthetics from WW2. Many stories, whether fantasy to literary, always focus on a struggle which is often the individual vs society. There is this coding that POC authors ONLY write about certain topics but if you pay attention to what white authors are writing, you realize their focus is the same as POC authors.
I really appreciated the part where you discussed the character's biracial ethnicity. I'm biracial but I was raised in white culture with very little connection to my other side. Now I feel like I can't identify with either because I don't look white but I'm some kind of tourist if I try to learn about the other side of my heritage.
This reminded me of when I went to visit my grandpa who’s Caribbean and lives there and me and my sister (both biracial black/white) got told we were “clearly tourists” by a white Canadian couple who’d moved there after retiring
This comment makes me think about my weird situation. I have Cherokee in me (as in, direct line to the Dawes rolls, indisputable, I'm not one of those "generokee" people who heard family lore about a connection, but actual provable heritage), and was raised with a lot of Native American culture, as well as some French culture (I'm actually mostly French, though more Cherokee than the current chief). Because I'm pasty as fuck, if I try to participate in anything NA now, my ass would get called out for appropriation. So, as an adult, I've leaned hard into my French heritage, and that's what my daughter is being raised with as well. It's annoying that culture gets assigned by skin color instead of actual heritage. If you're not X color enough, you don't to claim your culture. If you're too Y, you'd better claim the color-matched culture or else you're a traitor.... It's bullshit.
The point about immigrant children really hit home for me! As someone who has full Turkish family on both branches but was born and raised in the US, I’m certainly not biracial, but I do struggle a lot with my racial identity not being emblazoned across my chest for the masses the same as it is for my family that was born overseas. Anytime I speak english my accent is strongly midwestern, I don’t wear a hijab - my behaviors are heavily affected by my childhood, but that has never even once made me “white.” I am Turkish-American, and I will always be so.
Hi Cindy, I wanted you to know that I quit watching your videos after my mom died from COVID-19. Your videos were something that made me laugh and that made me look forward to the future for more content. After starting therapy and getting on medication, this is the first video I'm watching since she died. I know she'd want me to be happy. I look forward to watching you again. Thank you, friend.
I'm so, so glad to hear someone finally talking about this. I feel like all too often, people just want to be outraged. They don't actually want anyone to learn and be forgiven and grow. And it's very sad to see, because we ALL make mistakes, and yet some people seem to think they'll never be on the receiving end of this kind of cancel culture stuff. I get being angry about certain things, but I swear, in the past few years, I've never seen one single apology from a public figure be accepted as "good enough." I read some apologies and I think, "oh, good. I'm glad they learned something and seem to be applying it, and they seem like they understand what was wrong about it and how to do better in the future." And then I see all the nasty comments just condemning them, saying their apology is BS and it's not good enough. And I'm just left wondering, what do you want from them then? Is there actually anything that would ever be good enough? One particular apology I read, which was the most genuine apology I've ever seen in my life, taking full responsibility, not making excuses, etc, has still been condemned by tons of people as "not good enough." And I think for those kinds of people, nothing ever will be. Anything short of getting things right and perfect the first time will never be good enough. Which to me, seems rather arrogant, because I'd be willing to bet every single one of those people has made a big mistake in their life that they were forgiven for and allowed to grow from. It's just sad. People need to be allowed to make mistakes, take ownership and learn, and not be outcast for all of eternity for something they did years ago and don't agree with anymore.
I don't see why we can't just give people the benefit of the doubt, come to them politely and say "hey, I'm sure you didn't mean anything by this, but just so you know, what you just wrote here is pretty offensive and can be harmful to people, and here's why." And if they listen kindly and understand and say "wow, I had no idea. I should change that, because I don't want to hurt anybody, and that wasn't my intent," then honestly, anyone who continues to vilify that person is just ridiculous. That's called kindness and compassion, learning and growth. People need to stop equating someone like that with someone who doesn't give a crap about how anyone else feels and is just going to do whatever they want regardless.
And I'll admit, as a white author, it does make me a little nervous to write any non-white characters. Which is the opposite of what we should want people to feel. I personally love exploring other cultures, and I think that's a good thing. I have a side character I'm writing right now who is Mexican, and I've really enjoyed diving into her character and researching Mexican culture to add more detail to her story. Same with another character I have for a future project, who is an Indian man. I really enjoy adding diversity of race to my books, and I like to take that opportunity to explore more about a culture I might not have known much about before. Research and learning new things is just one of many things I love about being a writer. So it's disappointing to feel simultaneously encouraged to do this (by those who say we need more diversity and fewer all-white casts) and discouraged to do this (by those who say to stay in your lane and write what you know, and by those who might say they want more diversity but will then immediately cancel anyone who makes a mistake in writing it). At the end of the day, I have to do what I believe is right by me and by God and what is best for the world. And that is to write (hopefully) rich, full characters who are diverse in race, class, thought, background, etc. I don't think it's right to suppress my desire to write characters who are different than me, especially when it adds to my value of those cultures and people who I might not have known much about before. So yeah. I'm gonna keep doing that. But it's also touch because there are too many differing opinions who all have the tendency to "cancel" people. Like for instance, with my charcater who is Mexican, every time I have her speaking Spanish mixed with English, I think "is this too far? Is this going to look like a stereotype?" But then if I remove all Spanish, you might have people who say you just wrote that the person is Mexican but did nothing to make them actually seem Mexican. But what does "seeming Mexican" even mean, without falling into stereotyping territory? There's just a lot to consider, and it's a little frustrating to not be able to just write a good character without worrying about every little thing being potentially offensive to someone. Which is probably why a lot of white authors don't write characters of other races at all,which is a shame. At the end of the day, I just have to go with my gut. I absolutely love my character's mixed Spanish/English, and I love to see the main character slip into Spanish when he's with her, because to me that highlights their closeness. So if someone wants to say it's just a stereotype and ignore all the other reasons I might have chosen for her to speak that way, I can't really change the way they see it. I'm just doing my best and writing characters I think are enjoyable to read about.
I think the people harmed by someone's mistakes have a right to not accept their apology if they don't want to, or accept it and cut that person out of their life regardless. But I do think there's an issue on the internet of people doing this and continuing to harass the person about it at every opportunity, whether it's relevant or no. Which, it's fine to still be mad at them but I feel at a certain point you need to move on? Especially if this person came back with a heartfelt apology and has walked the talk since, like put active effort into growing. At a certain point you have to admit that you're still mad because you're still mad, and not because this person has continued giving you new reasons to be mad.
But what's worse is they never say what is good enough, just that the apology isn't good enough. If they're unwilling to even give out that information, it's time to start ignoring them. They're not speaking from a place of caring for others, they're speaking from what I've started calling a J. Jonah Jameson platform, the "I shall tear you down for your mistakes because I refuse to better myself" mentality.
@@RoseBaggins There are people who go as far as sending death threats. And I have no doubt some are crazy enough to actually kill a person. That happened quite a few times in history when former fans killed celebrities. All of this can end badly because anger clouds the mind and people may want to physically cancel a person's life. Rage like this easily makes people a worse kind of a monster.
"If she isn't speaking the language, is she really indian?" Me, a Latine person whose parents speak Spanish and is constantly scolded by their grandmother for not knowing Spanish: 👉👈👀.....
As a Latina who has lived in a Latin country all her life, I would encourage you to learn Spanish. First, it makes you enjoy Latino traditions better and connect with them. Second, it's SOOO much more fun than English. Like, insults and expressions are the most creative things in the world. English could never reach that level
Latina here, I relate to this a lot! The constant scolding had me apprehensive to learn Spanish when I was younger...I'm trying to get better at it though.
Same. a LOT of my own people made me feel like I "wasn't Dominican Enough (tm)" and it actually discouraged me from learning at all. It's not your fault. My parents speak it and to this day I wished they'dve taught me instead of using it to block out communication with me. I understand it more than I can speak it, which still counts as some form of bilingualism... Don't worry! It's not your fault and it's absolutely your choice on whether or not you wanna learn it.
Yessss!!! This topic gets me so heated!! As a black girl who got bullied for 'not acting black enough' or called an 'oreo' by OTHER BLACK PEOPLE. It really hurts, do you want me to act like a stereotype or not? Pick a side.
Someday these folks will (hopefully) learn that it is not the trope that is important, but what the writer does with it. If a trope is presented with no augmentation or further commentary, then, yes, it is reductive and lazy and deserves to be called out. If they use the trope as a launchpad to explore other ideas, then they are telling a story that is unique to them.
On the whole ‘’how should a poc character be portrayed’’ thing, the answer is opening the doors so that all kinds poc characters with different relationships and experiences can be portrayed in the mainstream. I think that because we poc are so USED to getting like, five poc characters a year, we demand them to fit our own experiences because we are so desperate to finally get something. To finally see ourselves. But the problem with that is, no one ever turns to a white character with the same criticism. White characters are allowed to be whatever they want to be and no one bats an eye. There are all kinds of white characters living all sorts of lifestyles to the point where everyone gets some sort of representation. Because that is the standard. But we NEED to start demanding the same thing. We need to let a poc character be something that you personally may not relate too and then not ask for that character to be portrayed closer to YOUR experience but instead demand more poc characters in general. We need representation to the point where all different sorts of poc can have someone they see themselves in. Like the reason I, a Muslim girl get so riled up when a Muslim girl takes of her hijab and instantly becomes ‘’free’’ is not because I don’t think that that experience shouldn’t or doesn’t deserve be portrayed. It bothers me because that is the ONLY representation we get. And when every single Muslim girl in books or on tv is portrayed that way it reinforces the whole poor poor repressed muslim girl thing. I don’t think people should stop writing characters struggling with their religion. There can be a Muslim girl who feels forced to wear the hijab, but she cannot be the only one. What I’m trying to say is, don’t get too hocked up on how one poc character is too this and should really be that. Its playing into the whole only 5 characters per year thing in my opinion where we settle on the lack of representation and ask for the characters to change when we really should demand for more poc characters to the point where that isn’t going to be an issue anymore.
yo yes. i think an easy solution i've often suggested is to always have more than one of a specific minority. That way they get to be different and the one token character isn't carrying the entire weight of their identity alone. show a Muslim character who dislikes her hijab AND one who loves her hijab. Let them talk and let them make their different choices that are both valid
all thisss also as an indian teenager who hasn't actually read the book, I don't see anything wrong with the her alleged portrayal of a biracial protagonist? it's more than what I expect from a white author trying to be inclusive, because she didn't grow up indian and people looking for a multi-faceted depiction of an indian character in all our rich *culture* should probably pick up a book by an indian author - we don't get as much spotlight in the western world but we do exist and naomi's choice to include a biracial MC doesn't hurt us in any way. she's a white author trying to realistically depict the complex world we live in through a lens that does not get enough rep, and from my experience white authors who try to go into all our *culture* usually end up going overboard with stereotypes. not to mention a lot of our experiences vary - the traditional perception of our culture across the world and even in our own country is clouded by a north-centric (as in north india) lens, plus there are plenty of indian immigrant kids who aren't very connected to their roots. from what I gather the way she handled the biracial rep was actually pretty great, especially if she did sprinkle elements of some aspects of the culture and one of the primary religions into her worldbuilding.
Kinda reminds me when Rick Riordan was cancelled by booktwitter (ugh) for some small sh*t like making a latino character like tacos. They called him a racist even if he has been using his white old man privilegies for writing disabled, poc and lgbt+ characters in children's books since ever 👀
“You have no excuse not to write poc but if you make at least one mistake just dont even try and better just die mkay?” Wow love that toxic cancel culture❤️
I really hate the internet mentality of “you have to write these ethnic people this certain way as to not fall into white boring in order to make ethnic people feel good” I’m Syrian Venezuelan and it’s so hurtful to see people angry at characters being mixed or characters deviating from stereotypical experiences of ethnicity. I also feel it washes down the character building itself and just centers on “is this good representation” when truly, I feel like a character is good when it allows the reader to relate, in one way or another. As a Syrian Venezuelan I don’t feel like a white character shuts a door in my face, it’s simply a different reality than my own and a different experience. If I happen to read a book set in Syria, I will smile at the references, same with Venezuelan representation. However I feel like consistent nitpicking rather than educating, when it comes to holding authors accountable for writing that is ACTUALLY harmful has been lost a bit. It deters the representation they seek to find because what author wants to write and then fall into a Twitter war? Even I, a nonwhite author, would be freaking scared to draw from my own experiences of Syrian culture in venezuela because it might not align with other’s. It’s counterproductive. Instead of viewing each book and character and description of said character’s experiences as something new and fresh, we are seeing it as clear cut, “must be this way” representation. Which I’m my opinion, just works against having poc experiences in books. They will all be different because we’ve lived different experiences and versions of it. Doesn’t make it any less valid. It’s honestly just annoying atp
this entire thing just makes me not want to write so i can't imagine how white authors feel. which sounds too preachy i know. i think white authors over everyone else have an obligation to write worlds that are inclusive and reflect society as it is today. however if you're gonna attack someone who's intentions were clearly good and who has rectified the situation as best as she could, you're a *terrible* person to me. like there's some personal responsibility there if you go that far. the naomi lady isn't someone like sia who acts like she did nothing wrong and acts like the spokesperson for autistic youth. the naomi lady wanted to write a diverse story and ppl were ready to split her throat. seriously why the hell would white authors want to even try lol. its not just white authors tho. there was that east-asian author who got cancelled and had her book postponed because people on twitter didn't like a book that hadn't even come out yet. in my opinion criticism like this does more harm than good. also el is basically me. a "white-washed" brown girl because i have no tie to my native culture. i mean honestly isn't it dangerous to assign status-quo culture "white" as much as it is to otherise people?
I think I remember the situation with the east-asian author you are referring to? If I remember correctly a load of Americans got angry at her for an alleged insensitive portrayal of slavery. Which would be a valid complaint if it wasn't for the fact that the reason it was not a good portrayal of historical American slavery was because she based it on modern day slavery in China? So Twitter cancelled an Asian author for racism because she represented an issue from her home culture not an American one...
@@emma7933 yup shes a chinese immigrant living in america and wanted to write a story based on human trafficking and indentured servitude in Asia. Part of the problem was the blurb said something like "a world where oppression isnt based on skincolor" or some shit but like that's the marketing ppl's fault not the author. She also got dogpiled on twitter by so many people based off a few people who read arcs, primarily elleonwords. They were angry about a scene where an apparent black slave was killed protecting and dying in the arms of a white "savior" but they were going off the fact that this character had tan skin and curly hair...like... anyway the author apologized for not considering American context when releasing this book despite not writing about american slavery or hinting at it at all. She took any mention of the girls skin color out of the book too. And even then ppl said it wasnt enough. Its painful to know that so many ppl will shit on a book without reading it and that theres always gonna be outrage no matter what you write. So tiring. The author apologized (despite not writing what they claim she wrote) and did everything, like put the book through sensitivity reading before putting it out to the public but it's still not enough for some ppl. Really messed up. It seems like shes doing fine now but what a traumatic experience when your intention was to write about something important and significant to you...
@@null6955 oh, I didn't know that it was the publisher that messed up like that that explains a lot. I think there is also something to be said in that a lot of time "cancelling" someone only works if they aren't in a position of power. Which means that rich, white creators (thinking of Rowling and Sia here) who do genuinely bad and harmful stuff get away with some angry people on Twitter saying they don't like them, (and a Golden Globe and journalism award nomination), but then minority authors just starting out end up with their career almost ending over a dodgy blurb and a miscommunication. A part of me feels like we need different words for these different things because when people talk about "cancel culture" they can mean anything from "I'm sad I can't say the n-word in public anymore" to actual bad situations like the one above. There is an actual problem but people only talk about the problem that doesn't exist, (recently in my country, the UK, the government just passed a law that basically means academic research into topics that make Britain look bad like slavery and the empire might not get funding, to protect British history from "woke warriors", whoever they are) and that annoys me.
@@emma7933 that's an excellent point! That there is a power imbalance. I think what bothers me the most about this situation in particular is that this was a young chinese author who got cancelled bc she was "an anti-black poc" and the sin wasnt just being anti-black but also being Chinese. The amount of bs I saw saying "solidarity doesnt exist" when in reality they were failing to listen to a marginalized community themselves. Its bonkers. I wish ppl weren't so hostile at everything, especially bc this dogpiling was caused by a few arc readers who literally saw what they wanted to see in the text. So many other arc readers pointed out how this wasnt the case. It sucks to see so many bad people use "cancel culture has gone too far" to justify their bad takes and the consequences of those bad takes, but wow the ppl who do the cancelling need to get a mirror.
@@null6955 yeah. I think as well there is a huge difference between explaining why a movie is deeply problematic and asking for it's Golden Globe nomination to get rescinded (I'm autistic and accidentally got sucked into the Sia drama) and deliberately trying to sink a new author's career. Like even if a criticism is true, surely the goal should be what has happened with Naomi Novik in this occasion (the removal of the racist passage and an apology), not the wholesale destruction of a livelihood. The only time I think I'd support that would be like for creators that are outed as abusers or actively fund hate organisations and things. It does make me wonder how many of the people hounding Amelie When Zhao were more interested in feeling like they had power over someone than the alleged issue of racism. I'd argue someone like Rowling is far more of an issue given how transphobic the UK is and how her completely bigoted essay could easily be someone's first exposure to TERF ideology, which is rather good at hiding it's bigotry in left-wing sounding language. But you can't really cancel a billionaire and get to experience a power trip from that.
you can't expect a white author to authentically write about POC... like uhm what well of experience are you expecting them to draw from? At this point whether they do or don't their toast.
I've lived in poverty my whole life, I was bullied throughout school because I was a white kid in a predominantly black environment. On the flipside I also recognized teachers showing me special attention or cutting me slack for seemingly "no reason", I mean I got the impression that I was smart after awhile, but I never felt like I was anybody special. We used to have these blue hall passes in middle school, on a couple of occasions I folded up a random sheet of blue paper and I would wander the hallways, to skip class, leave school, whatever. I didn't do it often but I was asked once if I had a pass, I flashed the empty folded blue square, and the teacher said "alright" and just waved me away. Another black kid was right behind me and the teacher asked him for his pass, he held it up and said "Got it right here." The teacher said "Yeah, nice try, show it to me." and walked over to take it out of his hand. That was really significant to me because he actually had a pass to go to the bathroom, and I just lied like it was nothing, the kid didn't even point out how unfair it was. I don't know what kind of reputation he had, but I also know I didn't know that teacher at all. They just assumed I was telling the truth. I usually had a very small group of friends in school. Mostly smart kids who had a reputation for getting in trouble. Sometimes one other white kid would gravitate towards me, or the group. it wasn't until I finally got to high school that there was a large enough group of white kids to form their own clique, by then I had no desire to seek out people I could "relate to" in such a superficial way, not that I can remember any time when I might have. My brother mostly hung out with them, and interestingly the darkest kid in school was in that group because the other kids wouldn't stop making fun of how dark he was. Anything I didn't or couldn't experience firsthand I think I've gotten close enough to relate to. Call me crazy but I think my well of experience goes pretty deep. On the other hand I have a pretty terrible memory so I fear relying too much on personal experience for any of my storytelling.
@@futurestoryteller Here's the thing you would only be able to write about your experience as an observer and not as a POC. What Cindy is arguing here is the issue of authenticity, which I don't think white authors will be able to master because they are writing about experiences they have never had and so they can't relate to them on a fundamental core level. However I do believe that white authors should write POC and rise to the challenge, we can deal with correcting the issues and misrepresentations along the way.
@@sivumanzini2051 Perhaps I placed an over-emphasis on teachers' favoritism, I know it's not the _complete_ experience but you did hear me say that I was intimidated, beat up, and outcast for like 12 years because I didn't have the right skin color? I never said anything unless I thought someone was trying to kill me either, because I didn't want to be a "snitch"
@@futurestoryteller This is weird to say, but it's nice to see someone with a similar-ish story. I'm a white female and I grew up in a VERY diverse area and was bullied alongside the only other white kid in my class for years. I was punched, picked on daily, and I never understood why. I also live in an area with very little white people but I don't mind at all. I just never really met anyone else who had a similar experience to me (and I wasn't treated much better compared to others. I've been watched/trailed by people in stores and had people straight up ignore me when I wanted to try something on. It's a rough world...but I'm still privileged, I won't deny that)
@@BooksToAshes Yeah, I've been to extremely low class restaurants where waiters still just ignore you if you look poor enough. And had other experiences that I probably would've assumed were racially motivated if I weren't so obviously in the racial majority. It's not hard to imagine what it would be like to have these happen to you all the time. Especially since they're not _that_ uncommon anyway. I actually always knew why I was being picked on in a broader social context, to an extent, I just didn't get why the other kids couldn't grasp that I was an individual and not an avatar for my entire race. Personally I think it's sad that I explain that I think I can relate my life experience to empathize with other people, and some of those same people tell me that I don't have a right to think that, because I _can't_ know what other people's experiences are, as if it's fair to say everyone knows what my life experience has been. Also this idea that research is going to give me a better idea than my life experiences... it's so cold and detached. Demoralizing
As someone with a black parent and an Indian parent, I really appreciated this video! I was conflicted reading The Scholomancer series for a few reasons, but I still really liked both books. I think the author wrote El well. Which is more than I can say for some white authors who write their side POC characters (looking at you SJM). I remember reading it and getting so excited when I saw that she was half Indian. It seemed like Naomi actually did some research, unlike other authors who just… go with the flow lol. I liked the world building, and I saw that Naomi has promised to be more sensitive for the 3rd book so I’m excited to see how she does that
I kept thinking square space was the same as skill share and I was like how do they decide if they talk about the classes thing or the website thing... I literally just got it
It's things like this that makes me nervous to attempt to write outside of my cultural and social experiences. I'm Latina but I'd like to write about people from other cultures or experiences, and it's difficult and terrifying, especially with the internet as built-in criticism. Writing fiction is already very hard so maybe I'll just turn to science fiction and write about aliens instead... Regardless, thank you Cindy for your perspective!
The whole concept of having to eliminate parts of yourself in order to simply have a better chance of survival but still having to look over your shoulder all the time because a threat may be lurking behind every corner is especially interesting considering Naomi Novik is half-Jewish. I'm Jewish myself, and I know some of my relatives hide the visible parts of their Jewish identity (don't wear a kippa, shaved their peyos) to minimise the antisemitism they're subjected to but every once in a while they're still harassed and called "dirty Jew-face"
I was told in college by a professor, since I look white and am cis-het male, my perspective is already covered. I cannot possibly have anything interesting to say, I take up too much space already, and therefore should stay completely silent.
I’m biracial (half German, half Puerto Rican) and I often struggle with feeling like I’m too white because I look exactly like my German mom to the point that people don’t believe me when I tell them that I’m half Hispanic.
Most of my Puerto Rican relatives are the pastiest people with dark curly hair you could meet. Someone asked me if our 2nd Italian exchange student was my biological sister when we took her camping EDIT: My full blooded Spaniard child of immigrants Paternal Grandpa is darker than my maternal Puerto Rican Grandma
@@clarehidalgo the male side of my Puerto Rican side we’re actually original from Italy but we’re forced to leave (they were doing something illegal idk) so they ran away to Puerto Rico where they started mixing with ppl there.
I loved the way that Books are my Social Life addressed this in the video “Should White Authors Write POC???” Definitely supporting and uplifting and reading books written from different perspectives and from people from those countries, places, backgrounds, etc
Yeah definitely agree with this perspective. Cancelling someone who apologizes and tries to make things right surely can't be the best way forward...tho there are still plenty of people who need to be "deplatformed" rather than cancelled--who promote something so hurtful/toxic/dangerous that they should no longer have a voice. That's where I see a distinction, at least: definitely call out people and give them a chance to apologize, but also limit chances for really harmful behavior to escalate.
From what I've witnessed, it seems like you cannot satisfy everyone. Authors should be aware of what they write, but they will never satisfy anyone. Our world is too diverse for authors to write in characters that appeal to everyone. To one person, the mixed character might be relatable whereas another will see it as offensive and poorly written. Someone will always be offended no matter what an author does.
"I read this book because of the controversy around it and I wanted to read it to get the full context." Thank you. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people trash something based solely on what others have said or written about it and never take the time to make their own assessment.
I personally feel like the problem can be minimized when both readers and writers stop expecting/attributing certain behaviors from/to characters simply due to their race or skin color. It bothers me that people criticize the inability to tie personality to race as a form of "misrepresentation." Isn't reducing complex personality to skin color exactly what's harmful? Of course, cultural elements can affect someone's personality, but they can very much not influence one's personality either. I haven't read _A_ _Deadly_ _Education_ but, as a poc myself, hearing the perspectives presented here, I would applaud the author's attempt at being more inclusive. Of course, cancel culture is a whole other can of worms. When mistakes are not forgiven, the backlash too harsh, other attempts will be discouraged. My personal stance is to encourage attempts at diversity, and, when mistakes are made, point them out, then *move on.*
Something I also think is interesting about this topic is how when white/straight/etc content creators show their support or put characters from minorities into their stories, people are super quick to assume that they're doing it for attention or to be an "gay/neurodivergent/etc icon". When Harry Styles started presenting himself with a more femenine look and using it for his public persona, I couldn't stop hearing people saying "oh, now everyone wants to be a gay icon", ignoring the fact that maybe he doesn't have any intentions beyond the fact that he likes looking like that. Another more extreme example I think is Taylor Swift and the You Need To Calm Down mv. She recieved and incredible amount of hate for her political silence, with people even referencing her as a nazi. But when she broke her silence and release yntcm, people started, again, hating her for her performatic activism and the classist subtones of the video. Even tho I strongly agree with some of the criticism, hearing people talking about how evil she was for "wanting to be a gay icon" absolutly blow me away. Like idk, is a really complex concept and everyone should have a different opinion about that. But I feel that sometimes we should let people do things without thinking they have hidden intentions.
these people never consider that maybe people like Harry Styles and Lil Nas are showing their feminine sides because it's more accepted. Because they won't be shunned. This heteronormative society forgets that gay people exist, that fem boys exist, and that they always have.
Half of this video just felt nauseating because of how hyper critical people can be about the presentation of poc/nonwhite people. As a Mexican with clearly brown skin, I do not resonate with Mexican references, the Spanish language or any of the culture. It alienates me. People clearly look down at me because I'm not "Mexican enough" so to sit here and see time and time again how people hate how "this certain character doesn't seem/doesn't act the 'correct' way of their race/ethnicity" just feels very disheartening. I'm glad you touched on that subject of "how do you prove it" because for me, in my experience, it is very, very depressing to sit here and feel not good enough because I don't fit the mold people want me to, and people expect me to accept certain prejudices because of it. Its gotten to the point, I don't even feel comfortable saying I'm Mexican anymore.
I find this whole thing so frustrating. Deadly Education is one of the best YA books I've read in a long time. The way she intertwines her magic system with systems of class and inherited wealth and power, and how theoretically equal things can be systemically biased, and had characters interacting with that from a variety of perspectives, is amazing. Paired with an amazing world build, really good prose, and a great cast. It seems deeply unfair that none of that weighs against a series of criticisms that are overwhelmingly minor in the story or completely subjective as flaws.
When most people say they want a South Asian, or any person of color, to be the protagonist, my personal interpretation of that is that they want someone who is in touch with that culture, the norms of that society, who can talk about and reference the aspects of that society that readers who are also of the same ethnicity, religion, race, etc also experience. I don't think someone who is portrayed as biracial is 'white washed' because she isn't in touch with her Indian roots, because of course, at times biracial children, children of immigrants, and many others struggle to connect with a culture they have very limited contact with and that doesn't make them 'less Indian' (or whichever ethnicity, race, religion they belong to). It's just disappointing to hear about a South Asian protagonist and then find out that despite being South Asian, there isn't much that connects the two of you because their experiences are similar to experiences of other white protagonists and not to those of a someone who is connected with the culture this character belongs to. That's just a personal opinion though, I'm not sure if I got what I was trying to say across well xD
Honestly, the internet just absolutely loves a good witch hunt so even when they are right its very much less about the issue at hand and more about isolating someone. I think more than just authors we should also talk about how the community reacts to it, yk?
@@withcindy absolutely, its almost like people dont like some people on principle and are just waiting for them to mess up so they have an excuse to jump them
As an Indian I seriously never understood the idea behind Indians being Unhygeinic, when in most rural places in India, you cant enter the kitchen without showering, cant attend religious ceremonies, go for work, etc. The fact that indians use water instead of toiler paper is proof enough :D. This is carried to the point where in women or period were not even allowed to go near these places for the number of days their periods lasted. that is pretty horrible but you can see that indians are very particular about hygiene.
@RuthMadisonAuthor for sure they do. Partly racism+slavery, and partly I think because of immigration. At least to my knowledge of the early U.S. they viewed immigrants as dirty because they were poor and did not fit their religious standards. So basically for a long time poc=slaves=dirty and immigrants= poor= dirty
@@withcindy if I ever happen to write something hiring own voices reviewers would be one of my top priorities cause I know that I know by far not enough
"deadly education"
me going to in-person classes: 👀
NOOOOOOOOOO
@@withcindy skskskkssk this is pinned? omg :O
Someone had to say it
you really are risking it all sis lol
@@PeachSweetxo I am 😔😔😔
Today is the first day I, an indian, found out that we are stereotyped as "not showering" and I am truly speechless because my grandparents used to wake up every day to curse at white people for not showering and wearing shoes inside the house bshshdbdgd
I am a white person and this is forbidden in my house. Also, lying on the bed with shoes. Like, are you guys (people who do it) okay? Who hurt you? Who are you running away from?
this is so true😂
So trueee like Indians hold hygiene so high up that outside shoes are not allowed inside the house and we are dirty 🤣
this is the realest thing I've ever heard
@@ScorpionFlower95 ikr I would be so uncomfortable with shoes in my bed like wtf is wrong with you bro 🧐
"Is she a good representation of Indian people if she is too white?"
Me, a Chinese person who is only fluent in English and nearly completely illiterate in Mandarin: chuckles "I'm in danger..."
Tbh same
Hah! As a Chinese, I agree. English is just soo much easier.
LMAO don't call me out
_Wen mang_ solidarity, friend! 🙌
I'm mixed and despite being raised by my Salvadorian dad as well, I barely know any Spanish or anyhting about the culture. I only really feel connected to the norse side of my heritage
Indian American here. There’s no winning. People are always going to criticize you. Too many white characters vs don’t write outside your culture because you don’t have the experience so you don’t have the right. Have non white characters? The non white characters are acting too white. Oh , they’re not acting “white?” They’re a racist stereotype! There’s no winning. Now there are authors that write characters horribly, but there are also online mobs ready to tear creators apart for every little thing that they personally for some reason don’t like that they find offensive. Internet fan culture is toxic. Many creators are scared to be creative. Heck, people get death threats on twitter if they don’t make a ship happen. There’s no room for growth or development or plot twists. You have to be perfect for everyone always or face a landslide of cruelty. That’s so exhausting.
It's not hard to do research on stereotypes before making a character miss me with the woe is me
@@cloudyheart5148 i think the point of the original comment is that there will always be someone who will find something wrong with your work. this can happen even if you do your best and avoid stereotypes and genuinely research and respect the culture of your character. kind of like cindy said--what if an author wrote an asian character that was, like, good at math? or very smart in general? even if it made complete sense in the story, one could definitely see it as a perpetuating a stereotype. so, yeah, where do we draw the line?
Anna K exactly. It’s easy to say “just do research and you’ll be fine 🙄” but the problem is not everyone agrees. Just go to Twitter and you’ll see different “woke” people tearing each other apart to be the most righteous. If you think interviewing 1000 people of the same culture or sex or whatever will result in them all agreeing, well that’s just ignorant.
Cloudy Heart “iT’s NoT hArD tO dO rEsEaRcH”
@@studybuddy. oh my god you can use caps want a cookie!
To all those people saying she doesn’t speak the language- Marathi IS an Indian language from Maharashtra which is where her father was from. Also she spoke Sanskrit which is like a mother to SO many Indian languages... I genuinely don’t know how they thought she didn’t speak an Indian language.
Ikr! And what is exactly Indian enough for them? There’s a shit ton of languages that are spoken in India! Istg these people-
Hey can we....can we be friends?
🥺👉👈 None of my friends read books! I have nobody to talk to about fandoms and my favourite ships lol
@@115_vaibhavidangre4 ohmygod YES! My friends don’t read books too 🙄✋🏽 They’re all missing out tbh
@@palakvadher1053 ikr! But idk how to do this. Should we like exchange instagram ids or something? Assuming you have an account
People complaining probably those who are ignorant about the diversity of countries not their own
“If she isn’t speaking the language, is she really Indian?”
Me, half Filipino and half Cuban who doesn’t speak Tagalog or Spanish: uh oh bestie 😍
Me, fully Filipino who doesn’t understand tagalog and doesnt have a good relationship with my cousins: 🏃🏻♀️ 💨💨
It's ok I barely speak Viet
Me, a half filipino and half puerto rican who can barely speak tagalog or spanish: 😀😀😀
@@baguette_5867 wow we’re twinning 😘😘😜
Same, I barely speak Tagalog or Spanish and I'm half-Filipino and half-Mexican haha hey besties.😝
'Is she white washed or is she an Indian girl being stereotyped?' Cindy said pick a struggle😂
Pretty much!!
People were saying she was "white washed" but also "brown and dirty"
See if you wanna have either critique go off but im kinda miffed people wanna have both.
like miss girl pick one you can't have both
/s /j
As someone's who's been called whitewashed by my own people and stereotyped in white spaces...both can happen but that's not the case with this book/protagonist.
as an indian person it's also quite interesting that u see a character not showering and ur thought immediatly goes to "oh that's because she's indian isnt she". like??? maybe the problem is YOU if you that's where ur thoughts go, esp when people of other races also don't shower in the school.
I thought the exact same thing! People blame others for being the cause of triggering their mindset. "Oh, this book make me realise I think indians are not hygenic, this book should be cancelled for exposing me!"
When the woke people turn out to be the racists themselves 😳
this is a chicken and egg problem
did the association come first or was it after race reveal?
@@YoureRightIThink it's always the white liberals with their victimisation bs like . Come on
Waaaaait who the heck showers in school ewww
Is this an American thing? We have showers in the school too but nobody ever uses them
Honestly, I read and loved this book. I am a black woman with dreadlocks and I guess I wasn't effected by that paragraph because I didn't remember it until this video. I think a major issue with internet "wokeness" is that it is often taken to the extreme. As a POC I appreciate that there are people who want so badly to be allies. The issue becomes when an allies cries of outrage drown out those of actual POC's. I think we as human beings need to be more understanding and look at the intentions of people rather than just the action. It is easier to correct a misguided but well intended action then outright bigotry. But if the person is feeling attacked you end up traumatizing them instead of guiding or teaching them. No one is an outright cultural expert including POC's
Black too, and honestly was confused by the deadlocks backlash. I get "why" but it almost feels like people where looking for a fight. Deadlock are a perfectly normal hair style for young adults and can produce thick sections of hair.
There's a comment somewhere else in this section saying this problem could have been adverted if the author had just said "locks of hair" which kinda annoyed me. It's almost like we can't even get to normalize back hairstyles and you have to make it almost white washed with "locks".
Like saying these leeches get into dreadlocks conveyed a message to me that even if your hair is clean and managed you can't go with low maintenance long hairstyles because of this risk.
If people are so unfamiliar with dreadlocks and that kids those age would see as an option to help improve their hygiene, how are you supposed to incorporate natural everyday influences from black culture?
Honestly, if they had said "locks" of hair, what hairstyles would they have even been talking about that would fulfill the necessary need of hiding something because you don't go through all your hair, just do touch ups? Protective styles, right?
And then you just have another case of where something is black in theory, but not black in application.
I'm white/asian, but I figure that the dreadlock paragraph was more from just the writer not even knowing about the history of prejudice around dreadlocks, so they probably wrote it from the same perspective of "long hair is bad 'cause it can be grabbed" within the context of the story. So it's interesting because this is technically a racially neutral or color blind perspective, but becomes racial in the context of our society.
dang girl, too much common sense in this comment. great points 👍
I was hesitant to read this book because of all the comments but I'm gonna give it a chance. It seems that I'll need to read it for myself before I judge it. I loved her other book 'Uprooted' and bought this book before all the comments flooded in so I guess I'll see if it is worth the money or time.
@@kylehahn4410 the history of dreadlocks is a moot point.
In the context of the story, no matter the history of dreadlocks, long hair would be a risk.
If the author went out of her way to say long hair the risk but dreadlocks aren't because she was afraid of of continuing dreadlock prejudice then that would actually be slight racism as she would be seeing and treating black hair as "different" hair.
Being realistic about the world you live in, where literal trays of lunch food for the kids can have monsters in it waiting to kill them, isn't racist in my opinion, it's world building.
Having those monsters arbitrarily avoid people of color.... Maybe more racist lol.
cindys comment section is like a family reunion without the racist grandparents but double the wine aunt that questions her sexuality
I'm so glad I don't have racist grandparents... But I do have a drunken aunt
soo true & i luv ur kaz brekker profile pic. the crows are a part of a collage on the background of my phone right now ;D
Omg I LOVE this comment🤣🤣🤣
Why is this so accurate
@@cm1868 six of crows is still my life
"Being a specific race is not a personality traits "
❤👄❤
And yet the internet would beg to differ lol
Okay but seriously, when did it become a thing for race to be a whole personality. It's 100% part of your identity, but when people write up a character with nothing but their race, they end up relying on stereotypes which does a great disservice to the characters.
This! This has been bothering me so much for the past couple of years, especially here on booktube everyone talking about race as if it's their personality. Dividing people in two the categories of veing "poc" or "white" as if that can tell you anything about the person's background and that it's somehow inclusive enough. Can you tell me that a Black American will have the same experience as a Chinese American or even better someone that actually comes from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana or one of the other many South African countries.
And regarding "whiteness", because putting all white people under the same umbrella isn't racist at all, there is such a wide difference between how people in different white countries grow up. I'm from Eastern Europe, I am Slavic, my countrymen where enslaved for 500 years under the Ottoman empire, we were behind the Iron curtain. I can guarantee you, culture wise and how I grew up has nothing in common with someone from France or the UK, even less with a white person from the states.
Where you grew up, how you grew up, who where you surrounded by, what major events happened where you lived determine who you are. Your personality is not determined by skin colour but here on booktube that seems to be the common notion.
@@genmea Yes. Thank you so much. This comment is beautiful. I wish Cindy saw this. This is exactly what is wrong with the world right now. How did a skin type become someones whole essence. Does a soul have race? When any of us leave our bodies behind will our tombstone say here lies a person of color or a person of non color? They were as stereotypical as they come. No, why? Because the ones we love will fill our plaques with the things that made our essence, our soul, our light inside us. Because the impact we have on the people around us can very much be from the way we look, but it may also be just from our own morality, personality, and themes in our own lives. We live and breathe the world around us, but we don't have to let it define us. We don't have to let someone tell us how we need to feel. When we break down to someones core, we are not seeing their color, but rather the parts of them that make them who they are. Their traits, their hopes, their dreams, their experiences. And those things, while sometimes affected by a skin color, are not existence on skin alone.
I often make up a characters personality and then design their appearance, I feel like this is a better way of doing it?
Why would El ever explicitly state that she’s biracial or brown that’s not how people talk if she was a white main character that wouldn’t be expected. It kind of annoying that unless a character is explicitly stated as a POC people will assume they are white.
White should not be considered the default!
I can 100% confirm that I never think about myself in terms of race as a mixed person. None of my friends bring it up either. It's almost like they see me as a normal human and not a race. Who would just casually state their race in conversation?
@@miracel3075 I never saw it that way, but you're so right!
@pink_calculators I was gonna say the same thing! I definitely identify myself as Central Asian pretty often and make jokes about being CA. Idk I just think this conversation can sometimes get too close to the "there's only one race, the human race"/colorblindness rhetoric lmao
i'd rather have a non-white character act "normal" and have a personality rather than always having to remind the audience their race every goddamn second. but that's just my humble opinion as a filipino with zero representation in mainstream media 😴
amen
I was reading skyward by Brandon Sanderson and didn’t realise that the main love interest was supposed to have brown skin until the second book where its just mentioned under one small line. I also didn’t realise that the mc’s close friend was black either until I saw fanart of her either. Other YA books should be like that. Representation matters but its not the defining trait that needs to be shoved in our faces and mentioned every time those character are shown.
@@saarah0006 Right!! It's like.. thanks, great idea, love the inclusivity, good concept- but horrible execution lmao
@@saarah0006 can't argue with that, dude's a god when it comes to writting.. A modern genius...
nah, let's not ask representation from murica. they'll probably just mess it up
I'm a black woman who was way more offended by the exposition dumps.
LOL IKR
Those are some Christopher Nolan-level exposition dumps lol
I didn't even make it to the dreadlocks bit because the exposition was just painful and I had to DNF 😵
I liked the book, but Jesus, so true KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
LOL, they were the true villain of the story
Cindy: isn't that the person who made fairy dick jokes?
The internet: isn't that the furry booktuber?
I am known for many things
She is multifaceted
As many different faces as a dodecahedron
ngl the first video I watched from withcindy was full of fairy dick jokes. I had no choice but to subscribe
I know Cindy from that clip on TikTok where she slaps ACOWAR and says; “bitch what fucking plot? Where is it? Where’s the fucking plot? You look me in the eye right now and tell me what fucking kind of plot there was”
The shower thing is so frustrating to me! She literally _wants_ to shower but can't because it's not safe and she doesn't have a support system. It's a big part of the book.
if she isnt speaking the language, is she really indian?
India: *has english as its national language*
*one of the two official languages. India does not have a national language :)
@@dorothea_ivy doesn't india have over 20 something official languages
@@pyromania2280 it does.
@@pyromania2280 india has 22 officially recognized languages and english and hindi are at the top
Also india does not have a national language
@@brunetteartist24 oh ok
Cindy is the introspective and analytical English teacher who comes to class slightly tipsy and doesn't hesitate to point out an authors B.S that we all needed all along
It's what I'm here for
“Everybody makes mistakes” cindy that’s still not a valid excuse for your dry love life and you know it
XD
I love how she has yet to reply to this comment. She's been caught.
😔😔😔
when woke twitter is so woke it is actually conservative
poc only spaces is legit just segregation and it scares me
@@EtamirTheDemiDeer um...POC only places...?
@@aijsdijdni3401 I was referring to situations such as the black college student saying, “Frankly, there's just too many white people in here,” and, “This is a space for people of color...” regarding white people being in the multicultural center. The university has since said that the center is for all students, so the term POC only spaces could be taken as a misrepresentation of the situation and I apologize for that, but the sentiment behind such a statement is quite concerning to me. And I’m speaking as a Chinese kid adopted by a white family raised and living in a predominantly white area, both of which I love very much
@@EtamirTheDemiDeer There's some nuance to it. Is is POC only as enforced by white folks, such as in the Jim Crow south? Or is it POC only as enforced by POC in the attempt to create a safe space? They are both technically segregation, but the motivations are very different.
@@azraphon you make an excellent point, thank you
i just finished a deadly education yesterday and i’m guessing a lot of people engaging in this discourse forgot about just how much the author does talk about El’s experience growing up biracial on the commune with her white mother. there are passages describing how the other people in the commune were likely to assume she wasn’t related to her mom, and instances in which the people in the commune wanted El to lead them in an “authentic” yoga practice even though she was a child and had never lived in India before. It was made pretty apparent to me that she was biracial and had experienced the effects of her perceived race growing up
Exactly this - she even recalled receiving a racist comment about her skin colour!
*Me writing a character from a certain race and culture* : Is this well represented? Did I white wash her too much? Im I leaning into stereotypes? Am I being disrespectful?
*Me remembering the character is from the same culture and race as me* : 👁👄👁
Lmaooo me with my MC 😂
Bro I relate too much
Literally yup yup yup
Omg dude same XD
I know this comment is old but I relate to this so much lol
What the heck is this about the main character not being Indian enough? - How do people even measure that?
Oh you have watched Kuch Kuch Hota hai 17 times? - Indian.
Oh you have just watched 3 Idiots once? - *White washed*
like wth.
"Oh, you're half Indian? Name three of their bands."
true true like we shouldn't be asked to prove our racial identity
KUCH KUCH HOTA HAI DKSKSJALSLSKS-
To be fair, I don't think any Indian has watched Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai that much, even ones who grew up with cable TV. And if they have, damn I worry for their sanity.
@@ariagrace8117 Anjali haunts my dreams still... i fear for my life
*flicks nose*
I saw something once which is "If you are white you are allowed to write a black character, but don't write a story about them being black." And I find this a very good concept because you are allowed to write characters who are not yourself, but if you centre the entire story about them being a minority (e.g. coming of age trans/gay story) and you are not part of that minority then it gets tricky.
Edit: coming back to this comment a few years later and also reading through criticism in the replies has helped me realise that while what I said is still something agree with there is more wiggle room with writing characters from groups you are not a part of.
Also there is one saying that I learnt in the interim that I feel was what I was trying to say originally "Nothing about us, without us" which was originally created by disability advocates and activists who were tried of the very bad disability representation in media which was almost wholly created by abled people.
People are able to create stories with characters from minorities which they are a part of, but if they're going to do that then they need to listen to people from those minorities and do the research to write those characters.
I've read this too and I think it's a fantastic piece of advice!
This absolutely sums my thoughts up on this topic.
I was just thinking something similar to this while watching the video! White authors can write about poc but shouldn’t write about poc struggles and their identities.
Just because something is tricky doesn’t mean you can’t do it correctly…you literally just have to be willing to listen and put their experiences over your own predetermined idea of what the story should be about. Everyone can write about everything, but you have to actually try to understand.
I get what you're saying, I can't help finding it weird to make rules of what can & can't be written though.
That's a bit creepy.
I just finished A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate and came here to see what everyone else thought, but what stands out to me in this video is that no one is talking about how her dad DIED when he was trying to graduate. It's not that she doesn't have a relationship with her dad, it's that he died before she was born and then his family had a very dramatic reaction when they met her. Him not being alive, and his family not wanting to have anything to do with El, is a big factor in how her character grew up.
Full disclosure: i haven't read this book. But, as fully Indian girl living in America, I actually really like they way El seems to be portrayed. I have my food, my religion, and my clothes, but I can't speak Tamil for sht. The fact that El has managed to stay connected to her roots through language and religion is super commendable. That feeling of "not quite Indian enough" is a reality of third culture kids, so I appreciate that its being acknowledged. I'm fully Indian and I still feel super alienated when around Indians from India - I can't imagine how much more different I'd feel if I was half white too. Anyways, I'm rambling, but I think that saying that El isn't "Indian enough" misses the point. It's not like she has zero connections to her Indian heritage - she has language and religion. Fact of the matter is that when you are influenced by multiple cultures in your youth, some aspects tend to get tossed to the side. Criticizing this character for not displaying her heritage the way *you* want her to has echoes of the "coconut" and "ABCD" (American born confused desi) comments a lot of us got when we were younger. And that sht hurts.
Fck that was a lot longer than i expected lmao
Very well said!
very valid
yeahhh can’t speak tamil gang
I know it’s not the same, but your last line about people’s comments really resonated with me. My mom’s side of the family is South American Hispanic and my Dad’s is heavily German. I’ve had Hispanic people tell me I’m not Hispanic enough for the color of my skin and not speaking Spanish regularly which I do with family cause I’m super self-conscious about it. I’ve been told that I’m not pure, that I don’t understand things about the culture cause I’m mixed. These kind of comments hurt so much for people who feel like they don’t belong to either group. Especially growing up in school you stick out.
*writes an un-stereotyped brown character* You're white-washing them!
*writes an non white-washed brown character* You're stereotyping them!
People are who they are because of the circumstances under which they are raised, and a half-Indian character that was raised in the UK after being forsaken by her Indian family would probably naturally have some detachment from her Indian heritage. I think some people are outraged by this because it's a social trend to try and find flaws in something. Canceling someone can be appropriate in certain cases, but cancel culture can also be extremely toxic.
soooo late to this video lol but this represents my opinion exactly!!
This!
I find that the dreadlock part, at least personally as a black person (this isn't universal of course) it felt inclusive. Because I was in my head thinking about how I would survive in this school like oh I wouldn't have to shave I would just braid or lock my hair then instantly got hit with that paragraph. Within the context of the book it felt natural- of course my opinion doesn't trump the feelings of thousands but it felt less like "dreadlocks are dirty" and more like "there's no way have your cake and eat it to- everybody is gonna die" especially since no character got to keep their hair. Everyone's bald. Just like everyone isn't showering.
I'm white, so I don't have any leeway in this discussion, but I got that impression too. So much fantasy only covers how fantasy problems would effect white people, that "lock leeches" felt like it was a purposeful example about how this effects non white people, and specifically black people. No one is excluded from the problems in this book. There are no easy work arounds because an author had no concept of cultural differences. There are many ways to be specifically targeted, here is an example of one of the many ways that can be done. If you have magic, the monsters will get you.
I'm wondering if the problem could have been solved by simply naming another example with a more traditionally white hairstyle that poses similar problems. In that way, it would have been more clear that it has nothing to do with the stereotype it's just a general thing.
i have stick straight hair, but i had a similar thought, im attached to my long hair so i thought, oh i could just keep it in a tight bun and redo it every few days but then nope, that would be the worst thing i could do! i didn’t think the leeches attaching to hair was a sign of the hair being dirty, just that it was hair. i think that people who are actively looking for signs of harmful stereotypes or people who have racist biases and make assumptions off of that might interpret it in the way cindy described but i feel like for the majority of the target audience, they wouldn’t read that deeply into it.
I thought the loc leaches added a layer of horror, kinda liked it. That's too bad she got dragged. But I get it as a black woman who went natural during lockdown. People say the funkiest shit about black hair 😂
I feel like a big problem with the "she's too white cause she doesn't talk about being indian but when she's dirty is because she's indian" is that it's easy for readers to see their own bias and stereotypes in the work. The dreadlocks part was a faux-pas as you said because it was singled out, but if the only informations someone retains about a character is that she's a poc and dirty (when it's a problem shared by others by a given point of the story) and their first thought is to link it to her race perhaps it has less to do with the book itself and more with how people read characters of color?
Yes.
@@Givebackthescarf....but everybody was dirty????
@@Givebackthescarf forgive me if I'm wrong, but as far as I could tell from this video (I'd never heard of the book, just like watching Cindy's videos. Also I'm white so I understand that my viewing will inherently be different to yours and you can feel well within your rights to correct me on anything I may have gotten wrong or may need to open my eyes to) the point was that you can't maintain your hair, and even if you do you may still get attacked by a monster, so just get rid of the hair altogether. Obviously, you are well within your rights to be annoyed by the insert - that is your opinion, and especially if you've been criticised for your hair before it may hit a nerve that was (seemingly) never intended - but I think that it's important to consider the story itself (its world, its rules, etc.) and why the details are necessary rather than how those details may be perceived in our reality (within reason, there are obviously times where the inserts are written with the intent to be harmful)
As a biracial female, THANK YOU for bringing up the point "how do you get to decide if someone properly portrays their race?"! Seriously, it makes me so mad when people poke fun at me for not speaking a language or enjoying spicy food. Like I'm "less than"
you're valid too
When I was reading a deadly education I really identified and related to El, not just because I’m a prickly bitch but but because I didn’t grow up around my culture. I’m mostly Mexican, my mother is half white and half Mexican but she never learned about Mexican culture because she was raised by my white grandmother. So my mother doesn’t know too much about Mexican culture. I’m in the same boat, obviously I couldn’t learn about my Mexican heritage from my mother and I didn’t grow up by my Mexican-born father. So I have often struggled with not feeling “Mexican enough” because I don’t speak the language or know how to cook the food or celebrate the holidays etc. People have honestly told me that I’m white-washed and I don’t know how to respond to that because...well yeah I suppose because I never learned about my heritage I could be considered white-washed but at the same time I’m obviously not white. My skin is brown. And because my skin is brown people will never actually forget that I’m not really white. So I still have had people be racist towards me. Okay whatever I guess I’m getting off track now. But basically what I’m trying to say is that I could strongly identify with El and I’m sooo sick of people saying that you are not really a poc because you weren’t “raised” in the culture. Okay sorry if this was rambling and confusing.
On a lighter note; love you Cindy you’re fucking hilarious.
Aww that's valid 🥺
So you're not white, because your skin is brown but you're also not POC because you're raised in a white culture. Who are you then? Are you even human?
(I'm joking, but it sounds like it really sucks. Sorry you have to deal with this)
Dude, I feel you on this so much. My parents americanized my childhood because they were worried about me and my siblings dealing with racism, and as a result none of us speak Spanish or know much about Mexican culture. Even my grandmother complains about us not knowing Spanish, which is ironic considering she said the other day that she regrets not teaching me and my cousins more about our heritage 😓
I'm just starting to learn more about my culture, and I feel so un-Mexican considering the amount of other Mexican American people around me nowadays. It's a struggle, but we can get through it; I believe in us ♡
As a white person who lived her influential years in Mexico.
Wth 🤣💀
Being racist towards a POC because they are essentially not a certain race enough...
That is the dumbest, most gatekeeping shit I have ever heard.
Ignore those people, your race doesn't isn't a personality. That's actually lowkey racist, saying that you can't be Mexican (or of Mexican descent) unless you are fluent in a language and make tacos on a daily basis. They've been watching way to many white movies, with that one mexican guy.
This is so relatable. My mother is an immigrant from Mexico but she was worried about us being bullied if we were too mexican so she assimilated a lot and never spoke spanish. Worse yet, I don't even look Mexican or white so I don't have any place to go. Things are just complicated when it comes to this stuff.
the irony of indians being stereotyped as unhygienic when we invented shampoo, wow
Yes I was about to comment the same thing lol
yasssss
I mean everyone in the book is unhygienic because there are monsters in the showers. That’s nothing to do race and everything to do with the fact the showers are dangerous due to magical beings looking to attack people. All the characters are the same level of dirty unless they have huge amounts of magic stored up
@@kimsward4065 i wasn't talking about the book im just saying the fact that it is a stereotype in general is absurd lol
@@insiya7810 It’s not one I’ve heard, I’m sorry you’ve dealt with that. It seems intensely dumb
Something about the “the author didn’t say she was brown” is that when a person reads a book their own biases come out- you’re imagining the characters not just based on the words on the page but also the internal biases you have. So if you default to “white until described otherwise” that isn’t just on the author for not describing them well enough. You could have been seeing her as brown the whole time anyway.
That's a very good point. I personally don't always assume the character is white unless proven otherwise. My brain goes wherever it wants. It's a bit like "straight unless proven otherwise". But the straight characters never have to prove they're straight even if they're single and don't have a way to show it.
As a Black person, I don’t think White authors should HAVE TO write people of color if they don’t feel comfortable. Schwab and other popular White authors can be an advocate by spotlighting authors of color. Schwab was doing a series where she was interviewing authors; perhaps interview authors of color or ask to do author visits with authors of color, or write book blurbs for authors of color. There are other ways. Also, they can cast POC in the book adaptation.
I agree!
Going a little bit on the tangent of casting a POC in the book adaptation (assuming it's about the movie rights for Addie LaRue that Cindy talked about at the start?) by bringing up Shadow and Bone adaptation that now features POC leads where as in the books, the original trilogy, they were just assumed white.
The point of me bringing this up is to see how the POC will work for a Addie LaRue movie, especially with Schwab being a white author, unless the other wonderful ways you've talked about + including voices of people of colour to determine the protag's arc/path are taken. The creative liberties are endless, YET there's still an argument for that about how it's all so performative, as it is sometimes discussed in the Grishaverse fandom, since people still think that Leigh is just making them for the sake of it.
I think it'll simply boil down to the satisfaction of the fandom and the viewers of the casts' and the characters' portrayal (coded or explicit) in the show, perhaps. As for Addie LaRue, I haven't read the book so I'm not sure how the PoC integration can take place where the struggles and the joy of being someone and celebrating an identity can be shown in addition to some themes that apply to Addie's life that reflect the people of the world.
Idk lol, this is not entirely related to your comment but it prompted me to consider this angle from what else I know and have seen. Also idk if Cindy will read this but if you do, dude, thanks for these videos!
@@sai-bi2rh if I’m understanding your comment correctly, you’re asking if by making these characters Black is it going to celebrate their Blackness-culture, etc? In the case of Addie, I wasn’t thinking about changing the main characters’ races in the adaptation; I was thinking more about a couple of minor characters like Sam and Robbie. Bea is already Black in the book. Back to your comment, Sam is an artist and her work could reflect Black culture but sometimes Black people are just okay with seeing a Black person on the screen. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be about their Blackness.
Consider Bridgerton. I personally was okay with the backstory of how Black people held royal titles in 19th century England but I know some Black people didn’t think it was explored enough. I’ve seen many period movies and there are never any Black people so for me, just seeing Black people in an English period drama was fantastic. Now, was I a bit bummed that the main characters were both light-skinned? Yes. Did I wish one of them was a darker skinned person with kinkier hair? Yes. But let’s not get into that; I was satisfied by the rep. 😂
Exactly! I hate the fact that it's almost like they're overrepresenting and hurting their own work by essentially being bullied into working POC into their works. That's shitty and wrong.
"If she isn't speaking the language, is she really Indian?"
Me, an Indonesian that speaks Indonesian like a gibbon trying to do quantum physics : 🧍♀️
Holy crap, your username is my first name and my moms first name! And there both spelled the same as ours! Cool!
Also, I still don't know what "Indian" language means. Which one of the 442...?
I see you have 710 in Indonesia. Good luck with that...
@@RiedSiheal unch sis 😔
@Squidward yeaaaa i have those problems too, my american accent just gets in the way whenever I speak Indonesian
(fun fact, I have never lived at America or any other English-speaking country, I live purely in Indonesia).
same , im bangladeshi and my inner monologue is in english , i struggle to speak my mother tongue , even tho i fucking live in the country since birth ! and i struggle with english too . i just have shit speaking skill even tho i talk too much when im in a convo about smth i like , i cant read bangla aloud properly and it messes with my brain , but my english recitation is great ! im just a disapointment
i know this video will be good because cindy quoted hannah montana
How could I not
Because she was indeed a great philosopher that’s why
You know what, you're right. 👈😬👈
i feel like some of the people calling her out were actually subconsciously being racist and i think that kinda goes to speak on this bigger issue. sometimes, its not even the author's fault, its these people pinpointing their own racial stereotypes onto a character because of their race, something as small as, like you said, being good at math. when i read the line about not showering, i know 100% my mind did not go to "oh its because she's indian right?" it went to "oh, its part of the world's dynamic." so why is that the main reaction when it was not how it was intended at all? i think a lot of these people accidentally exposed their own prejudices and its interesting
exactly! a lot of the criticisms for this book came from 'allies' accidentally exposing their internalized racism
It states quite clearly that most people there don't shower more than once or twice a week. And her less because she comes across with an evil vibe. Nothing to do with anything Indian or any other race.
Yeah, people are making a grave mistake if they believe they lack prejudice just because mentally they agree that it’s wrong. People that assume they have no prejudice because of that are very likely to let prejudices they didn’t know they had go unchecked, and that seems to be what’s happening with these people.
Exactly. And you CANNOT control readers' responses.
You are 100% WRONG about JK Rowling. Bad bandwagon to jump on, Ms Cindy.
It’s the same issue with LGBT representation, there’s no such thing as a universal experience so any way you write a character is going to resonate with some people and not others. It’s why “the main character isn’t relatable” is kind of a bullshit criticism.
Every LGBT+ person has come out, that's universal. How this is received varies.
Write about being generally accepted unless you have experiences similar to having your identity rejected.
I'm an LGBTQ+ person who doesn't know how to write LGBTQ+ characters so people don't say it's not a true representation.
A great way to avoid many stereotypes is just writing more minority characters and representing even more and with different nuances.
@@MrGreyseptember same. I haven’t had any experiences (bi, closeted), so I’d have to do research if I ever do a contemporary LGBT story.
A benefit of fantasy, at least.
Wasnt there a recent issue with a trans or bi main character being critiqued for being stereotypical and it turned out to be autobiographical??
I was literally bullied as a kid for not being "Filipino" enough because I didn't speak the language and not repping my country, like y'all I was born in America 😩
@@miracel3075 I know not every Filipino is like the bullies I encountered, it was such an shock to me because I've always been around my Filipino side, more so than my Hispanic side, and I was never conscious of "not being Filipino enough."
she really could’ve just said that long hair is dangerous 😭 why specify dread locks.. when it sounds like anyone with long, thick hair could be susceptible
Right?!
Right like she could have included ponytails, braids or even wearing hats like why did she only mention dreadlocks 😂 that’s my problem
THIS
She could even specify curly hair. It seems like it would be especially good at hiding things, without singling out an entire race.
It just doesn’t make sense either. Lice and fleas are real life examples that go in anyone’s hair.
As a non-american, I literally cannot distinguish between what's a common stereotype there and a character trait, so I don't really have a knee jerk reaction to something potentially offensive. So, a lot of these things really just make me sad for the authors of all these books.
The thing is that people are bigoted in so many ways that there is just way too many stereotypes that get thrown around, often contradictory ones.
@@Givebackthescarf That's fair, I can't really recall the exact context in which I wrote the comment since it's 2 years old.
As a mixed race person, I'm really interested in the "biracial protagonist" conversation. I'm half Puerto Rican, but I don't speak Spanish, cook traditional food, or dance. If I was a protagonist written by a white author, how would they "show" an audience my ethnicity? Can we easily define what it means to be a part of a racial or ethnic group without relying on stereotypes? I have so many questions lol
In regards to cancelling authors - Rowling has dug her transphobic heels in, so I'm not waiting for her redemption arc. But it seems like Naomi could improve with more anti-bias education, broader life experiences, and sensitivity readers (disclaimer: I haven't read A Deadly Education). As someone who has said transphobic and ableist things before, I've always been grateful for the folks that held me accountable and prompted me to do better. Every situation is different, but I try to offer others the same grace that was offered to me. I do believe people can change, but no one is required to wait around to see if you do.
I love how sensible this comment is!
I don't think sensitivity readers are a good alternative. I mean, how can you claim to be an expert at being queer or a poc (or both)?? I think it's better to consult with various people who belong to the marginalized group you're trying to portray and hear their different opinions, not hire someone to tell you.
@@Otra_Chica_de_Internet Strong agree. And also, this should be part of ongoing research and discussions from various people and sources before there is even anything to read. It shouldn't be something that only comes up on the tag-end of a near-final draft, and too often that's what sensitivity readers end up being.
The whole lockleaches thing would have been SO easy to avoid if she just formed the pun with "locks of hair" instead of "dreadlocks"
Right???
You are totally right because I was honestly sitting here like "I wish you could include something like that without it being problematic as the idea in itself is super creepy". I don't think the author was being deliberately shitty, but yeah, easy pothole to avoid.
And the author could’ve used any type of hairstyle as an example to get the point across. As long as their hair was long, it would’ve worked. If she’s set on specific hairstyles maybe she could’ve talked about something that’s not associated with any specific race. Like she could’ve had an event where the main character mentioned a girl she knew who wore French braids every day until “the incident” then she could go into describing the gruesome details
@@bmiller7419 she did. Its just people who didn't read the book and just "heard" what happens are mostly the loudest voices. It's mentioned that any long hair is dangerous and one isolated incident happened to a student with dreads. There's horrible things happening to all kinds students there. I don't want to belittle someone's feelings but in the context of those of us who read it, I think it's not that outrageous...
im sure someone's replied with this already, but instead of dreadlocks, she should have just said "long hair". same pun, same world-building, less emphasis on a particular culture
What if we don't, "Cancel" the book?
What if we just acknowledge that it's flawed, give feedback to the creator, let them sit on it, and with goodwill, give them a chance to learn from it?
For what comprises a human but successes and failures?
More so, who are we to deny redemption?
Are we the humane in denying someone the chance to fail?
Are we the humane in denying someone the chance to succeed?
To take away someone else's right, to be human?
yessssss
If you cut me do I not bleed? Well said.
Yes.
This is Twitter we're talking about. Twitter is where all nuance goes to die.
I'm black, and I'm literally struggling to write my black characters. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells; For my manga the main girl is dark skinned, with vitiligo, and is aggressive, which is a negative stereotype. But is it an issue if I include other dark skinned girls who aren't aggressive? Cause honestly, in action anime especially, aggressive characters are so common, so I don't think that should go back to her race, cause like you said, race doesn't determine someone's personality. And secondly, for my actual novel, one of the 3 main characters is black, and now I'm like, are people even gonna know he's black 😂 It was mentioned once, and it will be mentioned one or two times again since, racism is sorta a factor in my story, but sometimes I think people are gonna think he's white. Like, I'm black, but if a character exactly like me were to be written in the story, with only ever being referenced to being black once, they would think I was white 😂 At some point, I think people need to realize that not every poc in a book, will be enriched with their own culture, especially if the book is written in America, and that just because the poc representation isn't the way you want it, doesn't mean it's not representation. Also, if people want people to include more poc in books, they have to be willing to accept an author's mistake, especially since most authors are white. As long as what they did truly wasn't intended to offend anyone, and they do right by their mistake, I think we should just let them take it as a learning experience. Cause if we just bash them and "cancel" them, it might drive other authors away from writing poc, which would lead to less representation
Dude, it's best to not let videos like these get to you. At the end of the day, no one is subjecting themselves to the grueling, painful process of writing just to support social issues and push agendas. If your heart is in the right place, and you're not portraying any particularly heinous stereotypes about minorities, then I say fuck it. People have misconceptions about cultures all the time. Doesn't mean they need to quit writing, or be so anxious about offending someone that it sucks tbe fun out of writing.
@@acidbebop3593 Thanks, I needed that.
Acid Bebop is right !!
The act of aggression itself isn't negative it's the actions you do while you're aggressive. You can be aggressively helpful or aggressively toxic. It isn't black and white, I'm a writer as well. I REALLY don't base my characters stuck in typical culture tropes especially if it isn't based in our world and or there are powers since that's a whole different dynamic that can easily change history itself. Why would I impose slavery on any race as a background of their existence if I didn't have to and since I not bound by it I won't write it if I can help it. Since I think there's more to characters than that aspect of our own existence.
Yet I agree people need to kinda chill because I'm one of the types that can easily get petty and create something to really piss those types off. Yet I do understand if people get upset at what I do no matter what I'll stop appealing to them and do what makes me happy which is what art should be first and formost. Are YOU happy with it, damn what anybody else thinks. That's what constructive criticism should be bashing people and or bullying them is gonna make them shell-up or give up...
how do you know that most authors are white? do you just mean famous authors or just authors in general?
I once saw a popular tumblr post that said something to the effect of "able bodied white women shouldn't write. We don't need them anymore." What kinda attitude is that? "Don't follow your dreams, kids. Your thoughts have no worth."
if i cripple myself can i write now
That's literally just discrimination lmao, I don't understand how these people aren't aware that shit like this is exactly what racists and fascists say but just towards another group of people.
@@matrixpolaris679 not the nazism and fascism card... sorry but this is definitely exaggerating and its literally no different from people trying to act woke
@@lowquality49 I'm not just calling that a fascist-lite comment out of nowhere, how is saying that able-bodied white women shouldn't write any different from saying jews or black people shouldn't write? It's the same discriminatory and racist beliefs that racists or fascists have, just against another demographic. Obviously I don't think a comment like that is as dangerous as actual fascism, but it's the exact same line of thinking and no one should be defending that, no matter which group is being discriminated against.
Wtf
Trying to make a character relatable: “a basic bland stereotype”
Try to make a character unique: “unrelatable clearly the author knows nothing”
:(
How "unique" are we talking here, I almost never hear the second one.
futurestoryteller any time you hear a complaint of a character not being enough of something or too much of something it’s a complaint on their uniqueness. “Not Indian enough, not feminine enough, too edgy, too emotional.”
The lines are very blurred, people will get mad if a story is lacking diversity but then tell white authors not to write POC
Write aliens I guess🤷♀️
I'm indian and i don't really think that the "not-showering" world building is much of a problem. I think it was just what it is, a world building detail and has nothing to do with being indian. But yeah, that's my opinion. I think she was a well-written character and have no problem with this part specifically.
Yeah I've seen mixed reactions in this!
Same, dont think its much of a problem either. Its more of world building, and people on Twitter like to nit pick a lot of things for the sake of doing it.
@@raniidaki3543 What do you mean "Nit pick"? Are you having a go at Indians, picking nits out of their hair because they don't shower? Shame on you!
@@Mecharnie_Dobbs hahaha I am Indian too💖
@@raniidaki3543 yeah i agree. the dreadlocks thing was totally out of line and definitely bad but i don't think the showering this was an issue as EVERYONE was doing it. Everyone is the school, she was not an exception just because she was an indian. and as cindy said, it can also be traced to, that she has a hippie mom. I do not think the author was stereotyping in this scenario. Also, i didn't know that it was a stereotype that we Indians do not shower because most of the households encourage showering every morning. And my mom yells at me if i do not-
I think the whole Dreadlock thing would have had no issues if the author had said "Having any sort of long hair... is an issue, lock leeches, whatever..."
She gets to keep the world building detail, it's automatically not tied to race, and it adds consistency.
exactly! naming dreadlocks specifically was totally unnecessary
I was looking for a comment like this! Any issues could have been dealt with by changing ‘dreadlocks’ to ‘long hair’. Lock leeches are a super interesting detail and they really help drive home the point that anything could kill you in this world. It wouldn’t just be people who wear dreadlocks that would have an issue with lock leeches, it would be anybody with long hair so I don’t see why it wasn’t written that way.
I also think something like adding more examples of what hairstyles are problematic in that world? Like long curly hair, straight but thick hair, etc...
@@orimengu She kinda-sorta did, but it was more of a character point, well apart from and after the bit with the lockleeches. Another character keeps her hair long and thick and perfectly coiffed, partly with magic, as a boast--i.e., "I have the power to burn to do this without risking my safety, don't mess with me." Which could be seen as reinforcing the original point, or undermining it. It underlines the danger of having long hair in the Scholomance, but it also says "this person has long hair *but not dreadlocks* and can get away with it as long as she devotes some of her magic to doing it", so the lockleech thing still stands out.
So, she explains that everyone cuts their hair, or almost everyone? And then describes lock leeches in particular? I don't see a problem with that. It seems like it was clear that all long hair is dangerous in this world where people die every single day. Maybe there could have been more discussion about the specific dangers of long hair. Like if people who don't have locs don't have to worry about lock leeches, what are they actually worried about? Or is it that lock leeches are easier to find in hair that's not worn in locs and therefore less dangerous to people who don't have locs? That makes sense to me. If you've got about two weeks to find this thing before you die, it makes sense that it might be easier to find in loose hair than in clumps of hair. Especially as it seems to be a stealthy creature anyway.
Hey Welsh girl here, I'll put in my opinion here. This is only based on Cindy's video, I haven't read the book or what others have said about the book. So I'm sorry if I've got the wrong idea about anything. Sorry it's long.
It seems like a lot of the criticism is about not properly representing her Indian heritage. But what the character knows about her Indian side mirrors people who I know in real life growing up in Wales. Many people have a Welsh parent and a parent from another country. Even so they acted like everyone else cause we all grew up together. Some of them know the language of their non-Welsh parent because they'll speak it at home with them.
Many people don't speak Welsh today is because we were not not allowed to for hundreds of years by our English rulers. It was punished by cutting off our tongues. So I agree that not knowing a language doesn't take away your nationality.
Cindy didn't say whether this character knows Welsh, nor did she say whether the character discusses any Welsh folklore or celebrations. Cindy herself refered to this character as white more times than Welsh, so I'm guessing people focused more about that this is a white culture, rather than it being Welsh culture. Honestly that's disappointing. There's not many Welsh characters around, and even in this case it seems like people want to suppress it.
Take the shower thing. Cindy said some people didn't like it because they say it's a bad stereotype of Indian people being dirty. But it's also a bad stereotype of Welsh people. But looking at the story context, it's not offensive to me. I feel like the author wrote this book with good intentions, and I have experienced way worse intentionally offensive things towards my culture.
That said I just realised I wrote this thinking this character grew up in Wales. But I've never heard of a hippy camp, and camping in Wales weather all year round sounds like a bad time. 'Hippy' does make me think US. So does this take place in the US? Cause if she grew up in the US, she's probably not going to act Welsh or Indian cause she grew up with a US culture. Are people only talking about the Indian portrayal because she was written like a white American, but they don't know anything about Welsh culture so don't realise that this character doesn't properly represent that either?
You don't need to answer, I only wrote down my thoughts as I didn't see any other Welsh views in the comments.
Most people in the US aren’t even aware of the language suppression in Wales (among others) by the English. I’m American with Welsh ancestry, and I had no feckin’ idea until I took a linguistics class in university. We were assigned to write a paper analyzing a language, and I found some books on Welsh in the school library that included historical context. I was NOT prepared!
Later I was able to visit a beautiful village in Wales where it was (I think) 70% Welsh speaking. It was the strangest experience to be in the UK (where the US assumes the whole rabbit is English-speaking) and not be able to understand conversations around me or read anything in the stores, except the labels printed on mass-produced items like pain killers or cold medicine. I had been traveling for a bit by then and was used to how people were standoffish to me as an American tourist, yet I was treated kinder in Wales than the English family members I was with (who spoke Welsh). It was really eye opening. And reflects what Cindy said about everyone has blind spots toward the end of the video. :/
And I’d agree the hippie commune is way more American, but I haven’t read the book in question so I’m not sure if that was the author’s term or Cindy’s.
Part of the issue I noticed, is that in discussions of race and cultural people see everyone with light skin as a universal“White.” When really we have just a much diversity in our history and cultures as every other color in the rainbow. English, Welsh, German, Etc.
This is my issue with writers writing as if all the western-world is the same and just labelling it a white culture rather than the region they're from.
I live in Northern England and I've noticed when people write about my region without being from here its basically just as a backdrop and its not written as a cultural region.
Hippy communities are a thing here in west wales which was at it's peak during the 70's. However they tend to trend towards english incomers more. Some of course some have settled over the years but there is often tension between the community and local welsh speakers over percieved attitudes to local culture and the language, and of course differing attitudes towards farming and land amongst farmers.
Honestly a biracial Indian/Welsh girl raised by a gog (north walian, where there's the highest majority of speakers for those not in the know) in an english hippy commune in the welsh language heartlands who might also which to reconnect with the her father's heritage would be an amazing pov for a book that uses linguistics as the basis for its magic system, however I've not been able to find much thoughts on that.
(I've not heard so much about cutting of tounges for speaking welsh. The beating of children for speaking welsh happened, as well as to a greater influence, the barring of the welsh language from court and public office till recently.
There may have been a few laws that targeted welsh people within english towns that that punished them by cutting off hands?)
She was raised by her mom who is not Indian because her father who was Indian die before she was born
As a Mexican, I have always disliked when white authors attempt to write 'Hispanic' characters. We usually become a stereotype and it bugs me. It is always a character with a heavy accent, from a poor background and a family of criminals. Stop doing that. It just bugs me because it is never done right and sometimes written off as a joke. I prefer for white authors to only write characters they feel comfortable with.
They're literally always a housekeeper with an attitude called Maria.
@@xavierrodriguez1370 or a guy who's always speaking spanglish lol
The way Mexican people and Black people are portrayed has always been terrible. It is as if the authors really do believe the stereotypes.
The thing is, they write us as if they were writing from the US even if it's a fantasy setting. What? Don't they realize that we latin americans come from completely different countries that have completely different cultures? Don't they realize that the whole "hispanic" concept exists only in the USA? I agree with what you said, they're not being inclusive, they're just ignorant.
I find it most annoying when these characters are over-sexualized or rude. Like, I don’t know how to say it exactly, but I’ve never seen a hispanic character that’s like...elegant
I have not read this book, but it SOUNDS to me like El's representation is fine? Many MANY poc are not culturally connected to their race, and she's biracial too (which I think is also important representation, biracial people exist), and was only raised by one of her parents.
If we're asking white people to include poc for visiblity, and so there are roles for non white people in adaptations, this is a good take. A white person includes a visible minority, but doesn't assume she can write for the lived experience of someone of indian culture, so she has the character disconnected from her dad's side of the family.
I don't know, this character sounds fine to me. It really does feel like you can not win as an author online. People get so mad about everything, but its interesting to note like you said how you had that comment from that indian girl who really liked the representation. So you have people up in arms and enraged about stuff that made a poc belonging to the group in question happy.
I recognize this is a late reply, but if it helps to have that support for your point:
El in the book was also not really able to connect with her dad's side of the family. Like it's not even just the author avoiding it in some way, it's literally part of the story that there were obstacles and conflict surrounding who got custody of El and that it resulted in El literally not being able to have that connection. I personally see El working to learn Marathi and Sanskrit as her way of trying to make that connection to her heritage when she doesn't have many other ways to do so.
Definitely, definitely read this book if you get a chance; I loved it with my whole chest and El is AMAZING. It is funny and tragic and action-packed and so, so clever, and it makes some incredibly valuable points about economic privilege (and why aren't we gushing more about THAT?)
Yes, I agree with you. I found characters like El relatable in their ignorance of their father's culture. There is a joke among Black people, that mixed kids raised by Black mothers are more woke, than mixed kids raised by White mothers (those kids are more likely to align with White Supremacy).
I dont know, what she tried to achieve with that loc paragraph. Black people dont get lice. So, ...
Its not really mentioned in this vid, but the book is explicitedly about the struggle against class and privelige. While El isn't an outsider because of her race (her father's family is actually from a high class from what I recall), I do think it adds an extra layer that El is biracial.
Honestly, I feel like diverse characters get over-criticized even when written by POC authors. When Crazy Rich Asians came out as a movie, soooo many people were upset with the lack of socioeconomic diversity and the fact that it was only focusing on E Asians in such a diverse place as Singapore. While those are fair points, it just bothered me why does anything with POC usually gets more judgement? Like there’s sooo many rom-coms with only rich people or one race, but I’m not seeing the same amount of backlash/discussion? I do think nuanced representation matters but that’s why we need multiple stories, can’t expect everything from one author/book/movie, because our experiences as Asians (or any other culture/group) isn’t a monolith. I just want to see more stories who are like me in Western media (even though I’m S Asian I was still so hyped when CRA came out!) I think white authors should use their platform to help tell these diverse stories but only with good research and intent. I think Naomi did an imperfect job but I don’t think she should be canceled or discouraged by that. I still want to read that book, diverse premise with decent execution.
My thoughts as a 100% ethnically Korean American:
I don't think authors are obligated to write anything but what they want to write. Would it be nice to see POC representation? Yes, obviously. Should it be encouraged? Yes, obviously. But attacking authors for not writing POC and also attacking them for writing POC "badly" will not encourage more representation, it will do the opposite. Everyone is entitled to their honest opinions, but authors are allowed to write what they want to write. If they write offensive stuff, they'll be called out for it, and either decide to change or not. Blindly attacking them isn't going to make authors any more likely to write POC, so I'm not sure what the end goal would be in "canceling" them in terms of increasing representation.
POC have different ideas on what is offensive. I got angry at the criticisms of "whitewashing a POC" because it makes sense that she feels "more white" and to say otherwise is incredibly offensive to myself and many other POC who feel like they aren't ____ enough or that they're too white. It's impossible for any author to satisfy everyone reading their book.
I'm rambling, so I'll end with this. Read books with POC representation. Offer critiques of things you think are offensive and can be changed without lambasting the author for being racist. Most people are ignorant, rather than malicious. Innocent until proven guilty. If the author makes changes, great! If not, move on to other books and authors with POC representation. Gradually, as people live life and meet new people and learn new things, POC representation will increase.
This.
"Our mistakes will be crucified by the internet"
Smash cut to Cindy being haunted by furry accusations
NOOOOOOO
Honestly I'm so done with cancel culture, there have been so many times where I see people get pissed about the smallest things that for me make no sense (the people getting angry about the protagonist not showering, when NOBODY does is a perfect example), one thing is if the person cancelled hasn't apologised or doesn't change what was seen as wrong, but I feel so bad for people who do try to grow from their mistakes but keep getting harassed from a mistake they could have done 5 years ago 💀 everyone changes, we need to learn to educate about why something is wrong and not just plain cancel people for the rest of their life
so in conclusion, as an author, you can't win
You can. Just write and enjoy the process. Put your work out there and - as good advice to all artists - never read your own press. Create for your own muse and the joy that you find in that act. Nothing else matters.
This.
that's why i (asian) am afraid to write a book about people. i'm just gonna write about plants haha
lmfao im just gonna write about cats
That would be sad if true. You can write about anything you want, including creating characters based on stereotypes if you wish to. It might be unimaginative, lazy or humorous but if you wish to do so, then you should only have the same worries any author has in whether a publishing house will accept your work. If you choose to self-publish then it doesn't matter. You should be able to publish any literature for yourself, on any topic, from any perspective.
i would read that book
I would be down for that book.
If the author really wanted to "show the dangers of having hair while at school", she could have just said the critter lays eggs in hair of any hairstyle which doesn't get enough upkeep or adding that people need to go through their hair with the help of friends to make sure they're safe, like lice or something. No need to target anyone. It would certainly add another layer to why so many people are shaving their heads.
Exactly!
To be fair it makes sense that it would be easier for those things to get into dreadlocks since they're harder to clean and thicker. They also take less showers than usually in the school so that makes dreadlocks an even less optimal choice for the situation.
There's a fictional threat and the book explores the best/worst way to deal with that threat. I don't see why it's even offensive. There is no other hairstyle that would be this problematic when dealing with that threat so the author isn't singling out one hairstyle. The hairstyle itself is unique and comed with its own issues that are even true irl. That's where the dreadlocks dirty stereotype comes from because it is a hairstyle that will get your hair dirty if you don't know how to clean them properly.
Writers can write about anything. ANYTHING. The only thing is they should do it well. One of things that I think author should do when writing about something they don't know about (men writing women, women writing men, straight people writing LGBTQIA community people, etc.) is to do research and take interviews. You want to write them, then understand and communicate about what THEY feel, not what YOU think they feel.
Preach!
completely agree!
Some people disguise blatant racism/homophobia as characters, and you can definitely tell. Black characters are the bad guys, the main leads are white, the smart nerd is Asian, the female lead's best friend is gay (so the main dude isn't "threatened") etc.
If you read the book and you can't tell the author's gender/ race/ sexual orientation, that's how you know it's good.
This is why i think it's more important to support minority writers then wanting white people write them. Yes they should, 100% but why are will still looking for white people to write black characters before we are looking to just read books written by black people. It's seems like that's a bigger problem to me.
I wholeheartedly agree. This is an opportunity to widen the platform for POC authors.
That's the dogwhistle they too often used they always want white to give this and that instead of our right supporting the creators. Like out of ALL the manga people read and buy they can't buy what hispanic and black creators do. Then that also goes into sometimes even we don't read it. Like I personally avoid any type of hard "struggle" content.
@@ExeErdna But aren't many stories about the "struggle"? How many stories have you read where characters are fighting some great evil? How many stories are you reading where characters are considered outsiders by their society? Fantasy in particular is about politics, oppression, race and/or religion disguised as fantastical creatures. Harry Potter being an example. What needs to be done is people rewire their brains and truly understand WHY they avoid certain books by certain authors.
@@thezarellianseries3348 "Hood struggle" not typical hero's journey works. Also no people don't need to rewire anything. If they want to not read something that's them. Since I know a lot of people that don't read comics and manga. I wouldn't fault them for not being into it. Like I never really read Harry Potter because I hated reading books like that since forever because it hurts my eyes after a while. Yet I taught myself to read from comics and gained a love for reading from manga.
@@ExeErdna This is what I mean by rewire. There are a plethora of POC authors who don't write about the "hood struggle." Beverly Jenkins, Rebecca Roanhorse, Alyssa Cole, Tomi Adeyemi, Mildred Taylor, Octavia Butler, N. K. Jemisin, and Nnedi Okorafor are just the tip of the iceberg. The point I am making is that people carry biases of what certain authors write without having dived deep into who is writing what. This does not happen to white authors. The point in reading is to widen your experience. You cannot always stick with the same authors. And you certainly were not born liking certain authors. You discovered them. It is not worth more effort to discover other authors, POC authors, who write in the same genre as you prefer.
I brought up Harry Potter because it is popular. The series takes some aesthetics from WW2. Many stories, whether fantasy to literary, always focus on a struggle which is often the individual vs society. There is this coding that POC authors ONLY write about certain topics but if you pay attention to what white authors are writing, you realize their focus is the same as POC authors.
I really appreciated the part where you discussed the character's biracial ethnicity. I'm biracial but I was raised in white culture with very little connection to my other side. Now I feel like I can't identify with either because I don't look white but I'm some kind of tourist if I try to learn about the other side of my heritage.
I think many ppl feel like that!
This reminded me of when I went to visit my grandpa who’s Caribbean and lives there and me and my sister (both biracial black/white) got told we were “clearly tourists” by a white Canadian couple who’d moved there after retiring
'A tourist is a person visiting a place for pleasure or interest'
This comment makes me think about my weird situation. I have Cherokee in me (as in, direct line to the Dawes rolls, indisputable, I'm not one of those "generokee" people who heard family lore about a connection, but actual provable heritage), and was raised with a lot of Native American culture, as well as some French culture (I'm actually mostly French, though more Cherokee than the current chief). Because I'm pasty as fuck, if I try to participate in anything NA now, my ass would get called out for appropriation. So, as an adult, I've leaned hard into my French heritage, and that's what my daughter is being raised with as well. It's annoying that culture gets assigned by skin color instead of actual heritage. If you're not X color enough, you don't to claim your culture. If you're too Y, you'd better claim the color-matched culture or else you're a traitor.... It's bullshit.
The point about immigrant children really hit home for me! As someone who has full Turkish family on both branches but was born and raised in the US, I’m certainly not biracial, but I do struggle a lot with my racial identity not being emblazoned across my chest for the masses the same as it is for my family that was born overseas. Anytime I speak english my accent is strongly midwestern, I don’t wear a hijab - my behaviors are heavily affected by my childhood, but that has never even once made me “white.” I am Turkish-American, and I will always be so.
Yeah identity is so complicated like that!
Hi Cindy, I wanted you to know that I quit watching your videos after my mom died from COVID-19. Your videos were something that made me laugh and that made me look forward to the future for more content. After starting therapy and getting on medication, this is the first video I'm watching since she died. I know she'd want me to be happy. I look forward to watching you again. Thank you, friend.
i'm so sorry about your mom, you're absolutely right that she would want you to be happy
I'm so, so glad to hear someone finally talking about this. I feel like all too often, people just want to be outraged. They don't actually want anyone to learn and be forgiven and grow. And it's very sad to see, because we ALL make mistakes, and yet some people seem to think they'll never be on the receiving end of this kind of cancel culture stuff.
I get being angry about certain things, but I swear, in the past few years, I've never seen one single apology from a public figure be accepted as "good enough." I read some apologies and I think, "oh, good. I'm glad they learned something and seem to be applying it, and they seem like they understand what was wrong about it and how to do better in the future." And then I see all the nasty comments just condemning them, saying their apology is BS and it's not good enough.
And I'm just left wondering, what do you want from them then? Is there actually anything that would ever be good enough? One particular apology I read, which was the most genuine apology I've ever seen in my life, taking full responsibility, not making excuses, etc, has still been condemned by tons of people as "not good enough." And I think for those kinds of people, nothing ever will be. Anything short of getting things right and perfect the first time will never be good enough.
Which to me, seems rather arrogant, because I'd be willing to bet every single one of those people has made a big mistake in their life that they were forgiven for and allowed to grow from. It's just sad. People need to be allowed to make mistakes, take ownership and learn, and not be outcast for all of eternity for something they did years ago and don't agree with anymore.
I don't see why we can't just give people the benefit of the doubt, come to them politely and say "hey, I'm sure you didn't mean anything by this, but just so you know, what you just wrote here is pretty offensive and can be harmful to people, and here's why."
And if they listen kindly and understand and say "wow, I had no idea. I should change that, because I don't want to hurt anybody, and that wasn't my intent," then honestly, anyone who continues to vilify that person is just ridiculous.
That's called kindness and compassion, learning and growth. People need to stop equating someone like that with someone who doesn't give a crap about how anyone else feels and is just going to do whatever they want regardless.
And I'll admit, as a white author, it does make me a little nervous to write any non-white characters. Which is the opposite of what we should want people to feel.
I personally love exploring other cultures, and I think that's a good thing. I have a side character I'm writing right now who is Mexican, and I've really enjoyed diving into her character and researching Mexican culture to add more detail to her story. Same with another character I have for a future project, who is an Indian man.
I really enjoy adding diversity of race to my books, and I like to take that opportunity to explore more about a culture I might not have known much about before. Research and learning new things is just one of many things I love about being a writer. So it's disappointing to feel simultaneously encouraged to do this (by those who say we need more diversity and fewer all-white casts) and discouraged to do this (by those who say to stay in your lane and write what you know, and by those who might say they want more diversity but will then immediately cancel anyone who makes a mistake in writing it).
At the end of the day, I have to do what I believe is right by me and by God and what is best for the world. And that is to write (hopefully) rich, full characters who are diverse in race, class, thought, background, etc. I don't think it's right to suppress my desire to write characters who are different than me, especially when it adds to my value of those cultures and people who I might not have known much about before.
So yeah. I'm gonna keep doing that.
But it's also touch because there are too many differing opinions who all have the tendency to "cancel" people. Like for instance, with my charcater who is Mexican, every time I have her speaking Spanish mixed with English, I think "is this too far? Is this going to look like a stereotype?" But then if I remove all Spanish, you might have people who say you just wrote that the person is Mexican but did nothing to make them actually seem Mexican. But what does "seeming Mexican" even mean, without falling into stereotyping territory?
There's just a lot to consider, and it's a little frustrating to not be able to just write a good character without worrying about every little thing being potentially offensive to someone. Which is probably why a lot of white authors don't write characters of other races at all,which is a shame.
At the end of the day, I just have to go with my gut. I absolutely love my character's mixed Spanish/English, and I love to see the main character slip into Spanish when he's with her, because to me that highlights their closeness. So if someone wants to say it's just a stereotype and ignore all the other reasons I might have chosen for her to speak that way, I can't really change the way they see it. I'm just doing my best and writing characters I think are enjoyable to read about.
I think the people harmed by someone's mistakes have a right to not accept their apology if they don't want to, or accept it and cut that person out of their life regardless. But I do think there's an issue on the internet of people doing this and continuing to harass the person about it at every opportunity, whether it's relevant or no.
Which, it's fine to still be mad at them but I feel at a certain point you need to move on? Especially if this person came back with a heartfelt apology and has walked the talk since, like put active effort into growing. At a certain point you have to admit that you're still mad because you're still mad, and not because this person has continued giving you new reasons to be mad.
But what's worse is they never say what is good enough, just that the apology isn't good enough. If they're unwilling to even give out that information, it's time to start ignoring them. They're not speaking from a place of caring for others, they're speaking from what I've started calling a J. Jonah Jameson platform, the "I shall tear you down for your mistakes because I refuse to better myself" mentality.
@@RoseBaggins There are people who go as far as sending death threats. And I have no doubt some are crazy enough to actually kill a person. That happened quite a few times in history when former fans killed celebrities. All of this can end badly because anger clouds the mind and people may want to physically cancel a person's life. Rage like this easily makes people a worse kind of a monster.
"If she isn't speaking the language, is she really indian?"
Me, a Latine person whose parents speak Spanish and is constantly scolded by their grandmother for not knowing Spanish: 👉👈👀.....
As a Latina who has lived in a Latin country all her life, I would encourage you to learn Spanish. First, it makes you enjoy Latino traditions better and connect with them. Second, it's SOOO much more fun than English. Like, insults and expressions are the most creative things in the world. English could never reach that level
Latina here, I relate to this a lot! The constant scolding had me apprehensive to learn Spanish when I was younger...I'm trying to get better at it though.
Fucking same
Same. a LOT of my own people made me feel like I "wasn't Dominican Enough (tm)" and it actually discouraged me from learning at all. It's not your fault. My parents speak it and to this day I wished they'dve taught me instead of using it to block out communication with me. I understand it more than I can speak it, which still counts as some form of bilingualism... Don't worry! It's not your fault and it's absolutely your choice on whether or not you wanna learn it.
Yessss!!! This topic gets me so heated!! As a black girl who got bullied for 'not acting black enough' or called an 'oreo' by OTHER BLACK PEOPLE. It really hurts, do you want me to act like a stereotype or not? Pick a side.
Someday these folks will (hopefully) learn that it is not the trope that is important, but what the writer does with it. If a trope is presented with no augmentation or further commentary, then, yes, it is reductive and lazy and deserves to be called out. If they use the trope as a launchpad to explore other ideas, then they are telling a story that is unique to them.
On the whole ‘’how should a poc character be portrayed’’ thing, the answer is opening the doors so that all kinds poc characters with different relationships and experiences can be portrayed in the mainstream. I think that because we poc are so USED to getting like, five poc characters a year, we demand them to fit our own experiences because we are so desperate to finally get something. To finally see ourselves. But the problem with that is, no one ever turns to a white character with the same criticism. White characters are allowed to be whatever they want to be and no one bats an eye. There are all kinds of white characters living all sorts of lifestyles to the point where everyone gets some sort of representation. Because that is the standard. But we NEED to start demanding the same thing. We need to let a poc character be something that you personally may not relate too and then not ask for that character to be portrayed closer to YOUR experience but instead demand more poc characters in general. We need representation to the point where all different sorts of poc can have someone they see themselves in. Like the reason I, a Muslim girl get so riled up when a Muslim girl takes of her hijab and instantly becomes ‘’free’’ is not because I don’t think that that experience shouldn’t or doesn’t deserve be portrayed. It bothers me because that is the ONLY representation we get. And when every single Muslim girl in books or on tv is portrayed that way it reinforces the whole poor poor repressed muslim girl thing. I don’t think people should stop writing characters struggling with their religion. There can be a Muslim girl who feels forced to wear the hijab, but she cannot be the only one. What I’m trying to say is, don’t get too hocked up on how one poc character is too this and should really be that. Its playing into the whole only 5 characters per year thing in my opinion where we settle on the lack of representation and ask for the characters to change when we really should demand for more poc characters to the point where that isn’t going to be an issue anymore.
yo yes. i think an easy solution i've often suggested is to always have more than one of a specific minority. That way they get to be different and the one token character isn't carrying the entire weight of their identity alone. show a Muslim character who dislikes her hijab AND one who loves her hijab. Let them talk and let them make their different choices that are both valid
@pink_calculators on point !!
@@PandorasExecutioner yesss
I love this comment and the replies because you guys said everything that's on my mind. Have a cookie🍪
all thisss
also as an indian teenager who hasn't actually read the book, I don't see anything wrong with the her alleged portrayal of a biracial protagonist? it's more than what I expect from a white author trying to be inclusive, because she didn't grow up indian and people looking for a multi-faceted depiction of an indian character in all our rich *culture* should probably pick up a book by an indian author - we don't get as much spotlight in the western world but we do exist and naomi's choice to include a biracial MC doesn't hurt us in any way. she's a white author trying to realistically depict the complex world we live in through a lens that does not get enough rep, and from my experience white authors who try to go into all our *culture* usually end up going overboard with stereotypes. not to mention a lot of our experiences vary - the traditional perception of our culture across the world and even in our own country is clouded by a north-centric (as in north india) lens, plus there are plenty of indian immigrant kids who aren't very connected to their roots. from what I gather the way she handled the biracial rep was actually pretty great, especially if she did sprinkle elements of some aspects of the culture and one of the primary religions into her worldbuilding.
Kinda reminds me when Rick Riordan was cancelled by booktwitter (ugh) for some small sh*t like making a latino character like tacos. They called him a racist even if he has been using his white old man privilegies for writing disabled, poc and lgbt+ characters in children's books since ever 👀
tf who DOESN'T like tacos?
@@EtamirTheDemiDeer Tacodile.
Rick has done some cancel worthy stuff, but this ain't it lmao.
As a latino, I can prove 95% of us LOVE tacos.
Ughhh 🌮TACOS🌮
Last time I was this early Cindy wasn't a furry- wait nvm Cindy's always been a furry
Not this slander 😤
omg hey ahgase
"Wait, Cindy is a furry?"
"Always has been"
“You have no excuse not to write poc but if you make at least one mistake just dont even try and better just die mkay?” Wow love that toxic cancel culture❤️
I really hate the internet mentality of “you have to write these ethnic people this certain way as to not fall into white boring in order to make ethnic people feel good” I’m Syrian Venezuelan and it’s so hurtful to see people angry at characters being mixed or characters deviating from stereotypical experiences of ethnicity. I also feel it washes down the character building itself and just centers on “is this good representation” when truly, I feel like a character is good when it allows the reader to relate, in one way or another. As a Syrian Venezuelan I don’t feel like a white character shuts a door in my face, it’s simply a different reality than my own and a different experience. If I happen to read a book set in Syria, I will smile at the references, same with Venezuelan representation. However I feel like consistent nitpicking rather than educating, when it comes to holding authors accountable for writing that is ACTUALLY harmful has been lost a bit. It deters the representation they seek to find because what author wants to write and then fall into a Twitter war? Even I, a nonwhite author, would be freaking scared to draw from my own experiences of Syrian culture in venezuela because it might not align with other’s. It’s counterproductive. Instead of viewing each book and character and description of said character’s experiences as something new and fresh, we are seeing it as clear cut, “must be this way” representation. Which I’m my opinion, just works against having poc experiences in books. They will all be different because we’ve lived different experiences and versions of it. Doesn’t make it any less valid. It’s honestly just annoying atp
this entire thing just makes me not want to write so i can't imagine how white authors feel. which sounds too preachy i know. i think white authors over everyone else have an obligation to write worlds that are inclusive and reflect society as it is today. however if you're gonna attack someone who's intentions were clearly good and who has rectified the situation as best as she could, you're a *terrible* person to me. like there's some personal responsibility there if you go that far.
the naomi lady isn't someone like sia who acts like she did nothing wrong and acts like the spokesperson for autistic youth. the naomi lady wanted to write a diverse story and ppl were ready to split her throat. seriously why the hell would white authors want to even try lol. its not just white authors tho. there was that east-asian author who got cancelled and had her book postponed because people on twitter didn't like a book that hadn't even come out yet. in my opinion criticism like this does more harm than good.
also el is basically me. a "white-washed" brown girl because i have no tie to my native culture. i mean honestly isn't it dangerous to assign status-quo culture "white" as much as it is to otherise people?
I think I remember the situation with the east-asian author you are referring to? If I remember correctly a load of Americans got angry at her for an alleged insensitive portrayal of slavery. Which would be a valid complaint if it wasn't for the fact that the reason it was not a good portrayal of historical American slavery was because she based it on modern day slavery in China? So Twitter cancelled an Asian author for racism because she represented an issue from her home culture not an American one...
@@emma7933 yup shes a chinese immigrant living in america and wanted to write a story based on human trafficking and indentured servitude in Asia. Part of the problem was the blurb said something like "a world where oppression isnt based on skincolor" or some shit but like that's the marketing ppl's fault not the author. She also got dogpiled on twitter by so many people based off a few people who read arcs, primarily elleonwords. They were angry about a scene where an apparent black slave was killed protecting and dying in the arms of a white "savior" but they were going off the fact that this character had tan skin and curly hair...like... anyway the author apologized for not considering American context when releasing this book despite not writing about american slavery or hinting at it at all. She took any mention of the girls skin color out of the book too. And even then ppl said it wasnt enough. Its painful to know that so many ppl will shit on a book without reading it and that theres always gonna be outrage no matter what you write. So tiring. The author apologized (despite not writing what they claim she wrote) and did everything, like put the book through sensitivity reading before putting it out to the public but it's still not enough for some ppl. Really messed up. It seems like shes doing fine now but what a traumatic experience when your intention was to write about something important and significant to you...
@@null6955 oh, I didn't know that it was the publisher that messed up like that that explains a lot. I think there is also something to be said in that a lot of time "cancelling" someone only works if they aren't in a position of power. Which means that rich, white creators (thinking of Rowling and Sia here) who do genuinely bad and harmful stuff get away with some angry people on Twitter saying they don't like them, (and a Golden Globe and journalism award nomination), but then minority authors just starting out end up with their career almost ending over a dodgy blurb and a miscommunication.
A part of me feels like we need different words for these different things because when people talk about "cancel culture" they can mean anything from "I'm sad I can't say the n-word in public anymore" to actual bad situations like the one above. There is an actual problem but people only talk about the problem that doesn't exist, (recently in my country, the UK, the government just passed a law that basically means academic research into topics that make Britain look bad like slavery and the empire might not get funding, to protect British history from "woke warriors", whoever they are) and that annoys me.
@@emma7933 that's an excellent point! That there is a power imbalance. I think what bothers me the most about this situation in particular is that this was a young chinese author who got cancelled bc she was "an anti-black poc" and the sin wasnt just being anti-black but also being Chinese. The amount of bs I saw saying "solidarity doesnt exist" when in reality they were failing to listen to a marginalized community themselves. Its bonkers. I wish ppl weren't so hostile at everything, especially bc this dogpiling was caused by a few arc readers who literally saw what they wanted to see in the text. So many other arc readers pointed out how this wasnt the case. It sucks to see so many bad people use "cancel culture has gone too far" to justify their bad takes and the consequences of those bad takes, but wow the ppl who do the cancelling need to get a mirror.
@@null6955 yeah. I think as well there is a huge difference between explaining why a movie is deeply problematic and asking for it's Golden Globe nomination to get rescinded (I'm autistic and accidentally got sucked into the Sia drama) and deliberately trying to sink a new author's career. Like even if a criticism is true, surely the goal should be what has happened with Naomi Novik in this occasion (the removal of the racist passage and an apology), not the wholesale destruction of a livelihood. The only time I think I'd support that would be like for creators that are outed as abusers or actively fund hate organisations and things.
It does make me wonder how many of the people hounding Amelie When Zhao were more interested in feeling like they had power over someone than the alleged issue of racism. I'd argue someone like Rowling is far more of an issue given how transphobic the UK is and how her completely bigoted essay could easily be someone's first exposure to TERF ideology, which is rather good at hiding it's bigotry in left-wing sounding language. But you can't really cancel a billionaire and get to experience a power trip from that.
My culture was stolen from me through intergenerational colonial ideologies, but that doesn't make me less Māori.
Some of these criticisms feel more problematic than the book itself.
you can't expect a white author to authentically write about POC... like uhm what well of experience are you expecting them to draw from? At this point whether they do or don't their toast.
I've lived in poverty my whole life, I was bullied throughout school because I was a white kid in a predominantly black environment. On the flipside I also recognized teachers showing me special attention or cutting me slack for seemingly "no reason", I mean I got the impression that I was smart after awhile, but I never felt like I was anybody special.
We used to have these blue hall passes in middle school, on a couple of occasions I folded up a random sheet of blue paper and I would wander the hallways, to skip class, leave school, whatever. I didn't do it often but I was asked once if I had a pass, I flashed the empty folded blue square, and the teacher said "alright" and just waved me away. Another black kid was right behind me and the teacher asked him for his pass, he held it up and said "Got it right here." The teacher said "Yeah, nice try, show it to me." and walked over to take it out of his hand. That was really significant to me because he actually had a pass to go to the bathroom, and I just lied like it was nothing, the kid didn't even point out how unfair it was. I don't know what kind of reputation he had, but I also know I didn't know that teacher at all. They just assumed I was telling the truth.
I usually had a very small group of friends in school. Mostly smart kids who had a reputation for getting in trouble. Sometimes one other white kid would gravitate towards me, or the group. it wasn't until I finally got to high school that there was a large enough group of white kids to form their own clique, by then I had no desire to seek out people I could "relate to" in such a superficial way, not that I can remember any time when I might have. My brother mostly hung out with them, and interestingly the darkest kid in school was in that group because the other kids wouldn't stop making fun of how dark he was.
Anything I didn't or couldn't experience firsthand I think I've gotten close enough to relate to. Call me crazy but I think my well of experience goes pretty deep. On the other hand I have a pretty terrible memory so I fear relying too much on personal experience for any of my storytelling.
@@futurestoryteller Here's the thing you would only be able to write about your experience as an observer and not as a POC.
What Cindy is arguing here is the issue of authenticity, which I don't think white authors will be able to master because they are writing about experiences they have never had and so they can't relate to them on a fundamental core level. However I do believe that white authors should write POC and rise to the challenge, we can deal with correcting the issues and misrepresentations along the way.
@@sivumanzini2051 Perhaps I placed an over-emphasis on teachers' favoritism, I know it's not the _complete_ experience but you did hear me say that I was intimidated, beat up, and outcast for like 12 years because I didn't have the right skin color? I never said anything unless I thought someone was trying to kill me either, because I didn't want to be a "snitch"
@@futurestoryteller This is weird to say, but it's nice to see someone with a similar-ish story. I'm a white female and I grew up in a VERY diverse area and was bullied alongside the only other white kid in my class for years. I was punched, picked on daily, and I never understood why. I also live in an area with very little white people but I don't mind at all. I just never really met anyone else who had a similar experience to me (and I wasn't treated much better compared to others. I've been watched/trailed by people in stores and had people straight up ignore me when I wanted to try something on. It's a rough world...but I'm still privileged, I won't deny that)
@@BooksToAshes Yeah, I've been to extremely low class restaurants where waiters still just ignore you if you look poor enough. And had other experiences that I probably would've assumed were racially motivated if I weren't so obviously in the racial majority. It's not hard to imagine what it would be like to have these happen to you all the time. Especially since they're not _that_ uncommon anyway.
I actually always knew why I was being picked on in a broader social context, to an extent, I just didn't get why the other kids couldn't grasp that I was an individual and not an avatar for my entire race.
Personally I think it's sad that I explain that I think I can relate my life experience to empathize with other people, and some of those same people tell me that I don't have a right to think that, because I _can't_ know what other people's experiences are, as if it's fair to say everyone knows what my life experience has been.
Also this idea that research is going to give me a better idea than my life experiences... it's so cold and detached. Demoralizing
cindy quoting the wise philosopher hannah montana is it for me, what a queen, hot girl thingz 🥵
Legends only
As someone with a black parent and an Indian parent, I really appreciated this video! I was conflicted reading The Scholomancer series for a few reasons, but I still really liked both books. I think the author wrote El well. Which is more than I can say for some white authors who write their side POC characters (looking at you SJM).
I remember reading it and getting so excited when I saw that she was half Indian. It seemed like Naomi actually did some research, unlike other authors who just… go with the flow lol. I liked the world building, and I saw that Naomi has promised to be more sensitive for the 3rd book so I’m excited to see how she does that
I kept thinking square space was the same as skill share and I was like how do they decide if they talk about the classes thing or the website thing... I literally just got it
HAHAHA
It's things like this that makes me nervous to attempt to write outside of my cultural and social experiences. I'm Latina but I'd like to write about people from other cultures or experiences, and it's difficult and terrifying, especially with the internet as built-in criticism. Writing fiction is already very hard so maybe I'll just turn to science fiction and write about aliens instead...
Regardless, thank you Cindy for your perspective!
Ur welcome!!
I think interviewing people with the backgrounds you want to write about or getting them as beta readers would help :)
Same, I'll write magical realism instead lmao
As long as those sci fi aliens Dont end up being one note and completely shoved to the sidelines so the one note sci fi humans can take the spotlight
Sometimes I also think that aliens are the only answer. XD
The whole concept of having to eliminate parts of yourself in order to simply have a better chance of survival but still having to look over your shoulder all the time because a threat may be lurking behind every corner is especially interesting considering Naomi Novik is half-Jewish. I'm Jewish myself, and I know some of my relatives hide the visible parts of their Jewish identity (don't wear a kippa, shaved their peyos) to minimise the antisemitism they're subjected to but every once in a while they're still harassed and called "dirty Jew-face"
I was told in college by a professor, since I look white and am cis-het male, my perspective is already covered. I cannot possibly have anything interesting to say, I take up too much space already, and therefore should stay completely silent.
that is just sad, follow your dreams
That is one awful professor, and I'm so sorry you had to deal with them.
Me, a half Mexican who knows no Spanish: “Imma die in this school cuz I don’t know shit 🥲”
Omg haha
Hello, same
I’m biracial (half German, half Puerto Rican) and I often struggle with feeling like I’m too white because I look exactly like my German mom to the point that people don’t believe me when I tell them that I’m half Hispanic.
I’m half Russian and half PuertoRico and I look so freaking white. The only thing that kinda makes me look Hispanic is my curly hair.
Most of my Puerto Rican relatives are the pastiest people with dark curly hair you could meet. Someone asked me if our 2nd Italian exchange student was my biological sister when we took her camping
EDIT: My full blooded Spaniard child of immigrants Paternal Grandpa is darker than my maternal Puerto Rican Grandma
@@clarehidalgo the male side of my Puerto Rican side we’re actually original from Italy but we’re forced to leave (they were doing something illegal idk) so they ran away to Puerto Rico where they started mixing with ppl there.
Hipanic is not a race guys 😭😭😭 why americans like this
I loved the way that Books are my Social Life addressed this in the video “Should White Authors Write POC???” Definitely supporting and uplifting and reading books written from different perspectives and from people from those countries, places, backgrounds, etc
I totally agree!
Yeah definitely agree with this perspective. Cancelling someone who apologizes and tries to make things right surely can't be the best way forward...tho there are still plenty of people who need to be "deplatformed" rather than cancelled--who promote something so hurtful/toxic/dangerous that they should no longer have a voice. That's where I see a distinction, at least: definitely call out people and give them a chance to apologize, but also limit chances for really harmful behavior to escalate.
Cindy is one of my favorite people. She’s so blunt while being sympathetic to human flaws at the same time
From what I've witnessed, it seems like you cannot satisfy everyone. Authors should be aware of what they write, but they will never satisfy anyone. Our world is too diverse for authors to write in characters that appeal to everyone. To one person, the mixed character might be relatable whereas another will see it as offensive and poorly written. Someone will always be offended no matter what an author does.
As an Indian " Not showering " Isn't offensive because clearly its not true!
my mom yells at me if i don't shower even a single day-
That’s not true I am Muslim and Indian that doesn’t happen
@@moimoiyoop never heard of it
@@moimoiyoop Mumbai
"I read this book because of the controversy around it and I wanted to read it to get the full context." Thank you. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people trash something based solely on what others have said or written about it and never take the time to make their own assessment.
I personally feel like the problem can be minimized when both readers and writers stop expecting/attributing certain behaviors from/to characters simply due to their race or skin color. It bothers me that people criticize the inability to tie personality to race as a form of "misrepresentation." Isn't reducing complex personality to skin color exactly what's harmful? Of course, cultural elements can affect someone's personality, but they can very much not influence one's personality either.
I haven't read _A_ _Deadly_ _Education_ but, as a poc myself, hearing the perspectives presented here, I would applaud the author's attempt at being more inclusive.
Of course, cancel culture is a whole other can of worms. When mistakes are not forgiven, the backlash too harsh, other attempts will be discouraged. My personal stance is to encourage attempts at diversity, and, when mistakes are made, point them out, then *move on.*
Thank you for this comment. Exactly my thoughts (but you put it more precisely :))
@@Anita-nw5ts I'm glad! It's such a complex issue :')
Something I also think is interesting about this topic is how when white/straight/etc content creators show their support or put characters from minorities into their stories, people are super quick to assume that they're doing it for attention or to be an "gay/neurodivergent/etc icon". When Harry Styles started presenting himself with a more femenine look and using it for his public persona, I couldn't stop hearing people saying "oh, now everyone wants to be a gay icon", ignoring the fact that maybe he doesn't have any intentions beyond the fact that he likes looking like that.
Another more extreme example I think is Taylor Swift and the You Need To Calm Down mv. She recieved and incredible amount of hate for her political silence, with people even referencing her as a nazi. But when she broke her silence and release yntcm, people started, again, hating her for her performatic activism and the classist subtones of the video. Even tho I strongly agree with some of the criticism, hearing people talking about how evil she was for "wanting to be a gay icon" absolutly blow me away.
Like idk, is a really complex concept and everyone should have a different opinion about that. But I feel that sometimes we should let people do things without thinking they have hidden intentions.
I agree
these people never consider that maybe people like Harry Styles and Lil Nas are showing their feminine sides because it's more accepted. Because they won't be shunned. This heteronormative society forgets that gay people exist, that fem boys exist, and that they always have.
Half of this video just felt nauseating because of how hyper critical people can be about the presentation of poc/nonwhite people. As a Mexican with clearly brown skin, I do not resonate with Mexican references, the Spanish language or any of the culture. It alienates me. People clearly look down at me because I'm not "Mexican enough" so to sit here and see time and time again how people hate how "this certain character doesn't seem/doesn't act the 'correct' way of their race/ethnicity" just feels very disheartening. I'm glad you touched on that subject of "how do you prove it" because for me, in my experience, it is very, very depressing to sit here and feel not good enough because I don't fit the mold people want me to, and people expect me to accept certain prejudices because of it. Its gotten to the point, I don't even feel comfortable saying I'm Mexican anymore.
I find this whole thing so frustrating. Deadly Education is one of the best YA books I've read in a long time. The way she intertwines her magic system with systems of class and inherited wealth and power, and how theoretically equal things can be systemically biased, and had characters interacting with that from a variety of perspectives, is amazing. Paired with an amazing world build, really good prose, and a great cast. It seems deeply unfair that none of that weighs against a series of criticisms that are overwhelmingly minor in the story or completely subjective as flaws.
When most people say they want a South Asian, or any person of color, to be the protagonist, my personal interpretation of that is that they want someone who is in touch with that culture, the norms of that society, who can talk about and reference the aspects of that society that readers who are also of the same ethnicity, religion, race, etc also experience. I don't think someone who is portrayed as biracial is 'white washed' because she isn't in touch with her Indian roots, because of course, at times biracial children, children of immigrants, and many others struggle to connect with a culture they have very limited contact with and that doesn't make them 'less Indian' (or whichever ethnicity, race, religion they belong to). It's just disappointing to hear about a South Asian protagonist and then find out that despite being South Asian, there isn't much that connects the two of you because their experiences are similar to experiences of other white protagonists and not to those of a someone who is connected with the culture this character belongs to. That's just a personal opinion though, I'm not sure if I got what I was trying to say across well xD
Very good point!
Honestly, the internet just absolutely loves a good witch hunt so even when they are right its very much less about the issue at hand and more about isolating someone. I think more than just authors we should also talk about how the community reacts to it, yk?
It's kinda scary tbh 😅
@@withcindy absolutely, its almost like people dont like some people on principle and are just waiting for them to mess up so they have an excuse to jump them
As an Indian I seriously never understood the idea behind Indians being Unhygeinic, when in most rural places in India, you cant enter the kitchen without showering, cant attend religious ceremonies, go for work, etc. The fact that indians use water instead of toiler paper is proof enough :D. This is carried to the point where in women or period were not even allowed to go near these places for the number of days their periods lasted. that is pretty horrible but you can see that indians are very particular about hygiene.
Yes but that doesn't mean the book was talking about Indians if you actually read it at least you will know it has nothing to do with race or culture.
Yeah it is very weird. I could be totally off base but I wonder if white people connect darker skin with dirtiness subconsciously???
@RuthMadisonAuthor for sure they do. Partly racism+slavery, and partly I think because of immigration. At least to my knowledge of the early U.S. they viewed immigrants as dirty because they were poor and did not fit their religious standards. So basically for a long time poc=slaves=dirty and immigrants= poor= dirty
And thats why we need sensitivity readers - letting own voices readers do exactly that would probably have helped with (eg) the dreadlock paragraph
Totally!!
@@withcindy if I ever happen to write something hiring own voices reviewers would be one of my top priorities cause I know that I know by far not enough