To everyone down voting and assuming this is ragebait, I would ask we take a step back. I think this is a genuine question and I can't help but feel a bit heard that someone is asking it.

In the midst of all this ridiculous culture-warring, creators have a ton of anxiety now. It's one thing to be afraid your creation will get you laughed at for being cringey, (as if that's not a huge barrier already).

But it's another entirely when it feels like in this era of "all art is political", writing anyone who has recognizable human qualities will forcibly put you, the creator, into some ideological category where you'll be scrutinized and judged personally based on your work's perceived "agenda."

The right with their relentless "woke-hunting", the left with their "purity tests" to blame you for not championing their particular social cause. Showing your art seems to inevitably involve chumming the waters to the terminally online. This can also produce anxieties of being doxxed or something if it's high profile enough.

That being said: My heart is warmed by all the overwhelmingly level headed responses in this thread. Seriously. It gives me hope.

Please notice I said FEELS a lot up there...Our perception is definitely muddied by how social media tends to megaphone the worst of society, and it tends to discourage us from being seen or interacting with others.

I'm glad threads like this demonstrate how genuine people can be. It provides quite a contrast.

I don’t care if a story has white cis-het etc men like me in it at all, but then I’m ASD so don’t take that as a rule.

It might me the case of correlation. They think all diversity is bad because a few shows with notably diverse cast were bad. For example, in DA:Veilguard, there is a companion named Taash, who is non-binary, who acts brattish and manly, despite being biologically a woman. I admit that some of her dialogues can be classified as cringe, but calling an entire game bad because of one badly written character is kinda stupid, IMO.

I love this quote a lot, "Art disturbs the comfortable and comforts the disturbed." I am only paraphrasing it here, but you get the gist.

Write as you see fit your story should be. You can't please both greeks and trojans. If you think a given character is necessary, put them in your story.

And taking a risk of sounding ignorant and out of touch: why such concern for skin colors?

As long as you're not disproportionately representing one ethnicity as being worse than others ignore em and write what fits the story

Imo the only issue is when they are written poorly and/or used as comic relief, in the same way that it kinda sucks when writers use gay guys as comic relief

<sigh> stop with the "right-wing ideological white men" thing. It's not political at this point.

A lot of "racially aware" writers seem to have ended up in a headspace where they can't write white without making them a punching bag. It's obvious. It's childish. It's racist. People of all races will be angry when their only representation in a piece of work is a lazy stereotype. You don't need to be right-wing for that.

You can say "well now they know how it feels", but that just means you've also sunk to the lowest level.

Unless race is critical to the plot, there's no need to lean into it. Emphasising division breeds division. Just write a good story.

Unless melanin levels play a part in the story (Huck Finn, Mockingbird etc) then there’s no reason to even think about it. Describe to me how the following character looks: they go by the name Jordan and work in a Japanese restaurant in Cape Town. Everybody will picture someone different…

My advice is to not concern yourself at all with what right-wing folks want to get upset about when it comes to your art. Their bigotry should not influence what you want to create.

You can't please everyone, so pick the audience you want to write to. If you don't care what angry white guys think, then create your characters however you like.

Ragebait on lemmy... Ugh

Write who you are imagining, who you think the person is - don't cater to anyone. Not right, not left, you are the author, write who you think it should be.

Don’t make life choices based on the opinion of white supremacists.

Just ignore the losers and write whatever you want.

They are going to complain about erasure then, you can never please the right-wing crowd, don't try to.

I have a half baked story about friends, and the only white guy is a decoy hero that turns out to be the villain and dies a horrible death, leading the way to reveal the actual enemies of the story, cats.

What I say is, to hell with right wingers, they will hate your story if they are not the center of attention. Most media that includes minorities, does so putting them as token characters, so they don't rob the spotlight to the white person. Write whatever story feels good for you, aim to write the best story you can, and even if right wingers attack, you had made people happy with your work.

Why does the story have to have race as a point?

Does a character have to be white or Latino or Asian, etc?

If the race or sex of the character adds nothing to the story, why include it in the first place?

Is the story less if the reader to knows the character is a Hispanic female?

If race or sex isn't relevant to the story, then it is unnecessary to include and robs the reader of imagining the character based on their own biases and divinations your writing imparts. If you can write a truely great piece of work without saying what gender or race any character is, that would be remarkable.

Make them yellow like the simpsons.

What kind of "better" do you have in mind to aim for here? Why do you want that?

Right wing ideological white men are the original Karen's, they can't help but complain about everything, especially if those things have literally no bearing on their existence whatsoever.

They're all like "Those people over there are having fun without bothering anyone else, how dare they! I'm going to complain to their manager. And then when their manager calls me a chucklefuck and tells me to fuck off I'm going to complain to a bunch of other right wing arseholes and see if we can't ruin their fun forever with super fun bureaucracy."

If you don't include them they will be mad, if you do include them they will also be mad.

Make art you would like and dont worry about what people want. Youll develop an audience who like the same things you do.

Always tread the high ground. You do not need to make any statements or push any sentimental or ideological perspective.

If you are into it, read The God Emperor of Dune for a great example of exploring complexity of characters and how to tackle the subject.

Leto II is extremely dominant and authoritarian to he point of instability and terrorism and yet at the same time he is also the most altruistic and kind person in the Dune universe. Duncan is the lover ladies man and ideologue but also foolish and impulsive. Siona is a strong women and on of the main characters and yet there is not even the slightest hint of some feminist agenda even though this was written in the 1960's to 1970's. Hwi is a beautiful smart woman with depth that is torn between the love of two men. Nayla is a shallow but likable soldier with remarkable loyalty. She is part of an all women's army called The Fish Speakers. There is even a passage where this army goes out of control and rapes men. This is the only element of the book that I felt like it was clearly delineating Frank Herbert's stance that the women in this book were in fact a ideological choice and more than just great character building. Yet still, nothing about this was forceful, it was simply amusing in breaking preconceptions of my reality. I highly recommend the read.

If you think about it and want to be cynical and game the system intentionally not making white men the protagonist. Will piss off right wingers. They boycot it and create a bunch of press then everyone else rush to your defense and you sell even more copies.

Hmm... I haven't observed that pattern myself so I can't speak from personal experience but... if you've got right-wing-douches complaining about your work that might be effective advertising to your target audience?

I have a question of my own that isn't quite related but is in the same pond of water. I'm considering writing a story from the perspective of a post-op trans-masc person. I worry about a trans story coming from my mouth though, I'm a cis het white male American.

I have begun composing the story based on the following logic. Before I worry if I'm the right person to tell a story, I might as well write the story first and judge its merit once it exists. Plus, I could then take the story to trans people and ask them if this story feels honest/respectful.

My question is this I guess, does my logic make sense? Are there any points you would recommend I keep in mind as I work on this story?