Does it make a difference if the other is truly other or we're just pretending it is?
I should think it would matter to the other, or the people identified as such. You can't claim to write about a big issue, then turn around and use the exact same lies that helped contribute to that issue on the premise of "what if"? Who are you writing this story for, if you do? Not victims of racism, in my opinion, and so it's a club of back-patting like others have said.
I'm sorry, I believe I was vague in my first phrasing, because your reply alongside my quote indicates that perhaps I was not clear. Instead of saying 'Does it make a difference', using that super vague 'it' as a catchall, I should probably have said 'Does the outcome change, do the reactions of people change if the other is truly other or we are just pretending they are?' My secondary 'it' in reference to 'other' was also probably unnecessarily dehumanizing (though I didn't mean it that way, since I was intending to speak in the abstract as opposed to the concrete i.e. real othered peoples). IOW, I'm not asking whether it's important to people whether they are or are not othered. That's not even a question that entered my mind (because duh, of course it matters to them). Rather, the question I was taking away from the story was whether racism (or speciesism) must necessarily play out over and over again, just as bloodily and painfully for all involved because blah blah Santayana. In which case, since you're on about the purpose of the story, I would say that the purpose (or a purpose?) of the story was to lay out the history, in order that somebody might wisen up enough not to repeat it. Though I have to caveat, because I'm not big on stories with purpose, and I'm always loathe to impute author motivations because of the gulf the text creates between author and reader.
I'm not the race relations police, I'm white to boot, so I hope I don't show my own ass here. But this story bothered me a lot.
If you are, you're not likely to get called on it, because, unfortunately, there are very few active POC posters on the EP forum threads. I would honestly like to see/hear analysis and deconstructions of the story by POCs, because it's pretty much a whiteywhitewhite echo chamber in here, but I don't believe I'll get them, and I can't blame POCs who choose not to come into this space.
It is so, SO easy to show a raving bigot with a bullhorn and some rocks to throw. It's much harder to realize when you are: fetishizing someone from a different place or culture, citing some physical or cultural aspect of yourself as "normal", creating a "noble savage" image even if it's a "positive" one, viewing a mixed-race child as some sort of symbol, stating that your pain is somehow worse than another's because you are not a minority and you're still daring to be an activist...
You know, it's my opinion (as I stated further up) that the story showed the whole spectrum, though I'm clearly in the minority on that interpretation, even though I believe I can back it up with textual examples (and did). And you did the same, but then said that those examples didn't count because the author did it on accident or didn't mean it. Alas, that's a place where I can't debate because I don't deal in authorial intent when I can help it. Though I will say this: I didn't believe the main character to be heroic, and I don't believe she gets out of the story without consequences.
I'm curious as to what would be a helpful way to handle an idea such as racism in a story. It strikes me as a strange assertion, to demand or hope or expect that stories be helpful. Helpful to what? To whom? How would a story be an effective anti-racism story? Can you show me an example?
Seriously?
Yes. Seriously. Totally. I want someone to point me out a story and tell me: "SEE! That's an effective anti-racist story." And you know, I'm totally on board with all fiction is political. I'm not on board with stories as activism, though. In the first place, stories as activism are a waste of time, you get your point across much more effectively by protesting, voting, rallying and/or waving guns around. Actual activism > story activism. In the second place, stories as didactic lessons are usually didactic first and art second, and I like my art to be art first and everything else second.
I'll also point out, just so you know, that my question was specifically directed to eytanz because, in the past, I believe eytanz and myself were pretty much in the same boat re:art that is art first and didactic (or anything else) second. So he's either changed his mind generally, or only with regards to this story, which is what I find curious...why does dealing in the subject of race change the bar on what the story is supposed to accomplish?