Like many other people I've found through researching the topic I'm trying my best to depict someone who is of Indigenous American decent without falling into any harmful stereotypes and insensitivity towards the culture at large. I admittedly have only minor knowledge of Indigenous American culture using partial real world relationships from my own life as a starting point (My my aunt is married to a man who is of BlackFoot decent and my cousins are of mixed race). What I've learned from those relationships has been helpful, but I feel I need further input on my characters relationships and any advice would be welcomed especially in terms of naming my indigenous characters, describing their skin, and any general input on say personal experiences being a indigenous person growing up in a modern setting would be great.
2 Answers
We aren't experts on non-racism here, we are writers, and we can only help you with the writing aspects of your question.
As with any topic you are not sufficiently familiar with, if you want to write in a non-racist manner about a specific culture or ethnic group, what you need to do is research: What is racism, what does not being racist entail, how does the culture or ethnicity that you want to write about want to be treated (e.g. are there terms they find offensive)? And the relevant details of the culture (e.g. personal names).
The second part in approaching this to my mind is using common sense. It is not offensive to describe a person's hair color, but it is offensive to describe a non-existent connection between hair color and intelligence. The same with skin color. It is a banal fact that some people have lighter skin and that some light skin is more pale and other skin more rosy, for example. But if you portray a non-existent connection between skin color and personality traits, for example, your writing becomes racist. If you just describe the color of a person's skin, in my opinion (!) you should be fine.
But if you feel you want to describe a character's skin color, ask yourself why you want to do so! If all your characters where from the same ethnic background, e.g. all were Norwegians, would you then describe the different hues of their skin? Would you name the different shades of blond that they are or their different eye colors? If not, why would you describe skin color for characters from different ethnic backgrounds? There are situations where skin color is relevant (e.g. for someone admiring the beauty of another person) and situations where it should be irrelevant (e.g. when interviewing someone for a job). So become aware what you are actually wanting to write, what is relevant to your story, and what is personal indulgence on your part (e.g. aesthetic fascination with certain ethnic traits) and should be trimmed.
Finally, the major approach to writing in a non-racist manner is to approach each character as a person instead of a representative of their culture or ethnicity. People from the same background are widely different. Not every German wears leather trousers, not every African American was in a criminal gang. At the same time, people from the same backgrounds often have certain experiences in common. Their culture shapes them, but not in a stereotypical manner. So from your understanding of human nature, try and create realistic characters and treat them with the respect they deserve. If you do, you can write about Germans with leather trousers, because of course they exist.
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I believe @Ben has given a really thorough and useful answer to a lot of the concerns that can be found in the question, and this answer can be considered an addition to it rather than an alternative to it.
What Ben points out about different potentially problematic areas of writing the story you're describing can also be phrased as questions. Those questions should be taken seriously and could could be the following:
Main question: What is the actual content or experiences of the story you want to write?
Sub-questions 1: IS the cultural/ethnic background or heritage actually relevant for that story?
If your answer to the question is 'yes', then you should be able to answer a lot of follow-up questions related to cultural/ethnic background and how it plays into the story, such as:
- Sub question 2: Are the different heritages of the romantically involved characters directly or indirectly influencing the story?
Directly: Their differences complicates their relationship not simply because because they are different people (everybody's different from someone else), but because they are culturally different). Perhaps their getting to know each other breaks down stereotypes that they've grown up hearing.
Indirectly: They experience (separately or when together) situations where other people treat them differently because of their (visible) differences, and thus have to 'deal with' this. This is discrimination and is most likely a very relevant aspect of writing stories with minorities authentically.
It could be a mix of the two, and follow-up questions would be; 'How ____?"
Ask yourself: Are these the type of things you actually want to explore in your story?
These are valuable questions/problems to write about, but they should be done so in an authentic way. If you do not address these questions or handle them properly, your story may come off as a kind of 'cultural fetishism', as in 'You're fascinated with the distinct (typical) appearance and/or culture of people fo a certain heritage'. This may indeed be the case, and it doesn't in itself make you 'a bad person'. If anything, showing interest in the culture/background of those different from ourselves is foundational of a functioning and well-mixed multicultural society. However, the fascination tends to stand in contrast to actually seeing individuals of 'the fascinated group' as people - as full, individual persons for whom their heritage is only part (albeit often/for some a large part) of who they are, and not equal to who they are. Reducing them to their heritage leads to discrimination. Thus, as Ben says, you should be careful with your portrayal.
Representation matters, two-fold: Different experiences should be shown, known and understood, both A: for the understanding and recognition of the people living those experiences by those that do not, and B: for the people living those experiences to see 'themselves' represented in worlds and stories that move people. The stories we read and tell are implicitly 'the stories that matter' - 'the lives that are worth living'.
It seems that you are in fact aware of these risks to a certain degree, but perhaps you should thoroughly consider what your story is actually about apart from being a romance, and whether cultural differences are actually a meaningful part of it.
I'm not writing this to discourage you, but as comments have also pointed out, people generally (should) write what they know, and for you, there could be a lot of things to get to know. That could be a great experience and could result in a great story. It may, however, not be what you're going for.
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