I know this is two weeks old but as I stumbled on it today I wanted to add to it.
As a PoC, I think the first and last thing in your mind when you write a character of a different culture, ethnicity, religion, gender or ableness, is the question "but why". Every time you have a character whose experience you don't understand first hand do somethin, ask yourself why? If the answer is it's what you would do, or what your beta reader said was realistic, or what you gather from direct observation, then go with it and put it in front of as many betas as you can before you send it out into the world. If your answer is "well because that's what those people do", then stop, assess your own bias and start again.
There are some things that are always going to be "wrong" when it comes to writing another tribe of people. Cultural differences don't require a skin color and it's really the success or failure of capturing a culture that will garner praise or cause offense. In my Therian World and my Angelic Prophecies series that kicks off next year, my shifter and angels cover the spectrum of coloring and ethnicity, but their cultures are Therian and Celestial respectively. Each are knowledgeable in the human equivalent culture but their motivations and behaviors are of their preternatural culture and they act accordingly.
Your Archangels should be no different. The color of their skin, the texture of their hair and the shape of their eyes has nothing to do with the Angelic culture they descend from and that shapes their motivations. It's not cultural appropriation if the culture in question is an inclusive one of your own making. The point where you start making them act differently based in the human facade they wear, that's when you'll have crossed into dangerous, perhaps outright offensive territory.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: Tue, Apr. 26th, 2011 04:48 am (UTC)As a PoC, I think the first and last thing in your mind when you write a character of a different culture, ethnicity, religion, gender or ableness, is the question "but why". Every time you have a character whose experience you don't understand first hand do somethin, ask yourself why? If the answer is it's what you would do, or what your beta reader said was realistic, or what you gather from direct observation, then go with it and put it in front of as many betas as you can before you send it out into the world. If your answer is "well because that's what those people do", then stop, assess your own bias and start again.
There are some things that are always going to be "wrong" when it comes to writing another tribe of people. Cultural differences don't require a skin color and it's really the success or failure of capturing a culture that will garner praise or cause offense. In my Therian World and my Angelic Prophecies series that kicks off next year, my shifter and angels cover the spectrum of coloring and ethnicity, but their cultures are Therian and Celestial respectively. Each are knowledgeable in the human equivalent culture but their motivations and behaviors are of their preternatural culture and they act accordingly.
Your Archangels should be no different. The color of their skin, the texture of their hair and the shape of their eyes has nothing to do with the Angelic culture they descend from and that shapes their motivations. It's not cultural appropriation if the culture in question is an inclusive one of your own making. The point where you start making them act differently based in the human facade they wear, that's when you'll have crossed into dangerous, perhaps outright offensive territory.
Thanks for the friend add! :)
~Xakara