And therein lies the rub. The fact that the D&D is small... does that mean they can be excused for not having PoC representation in their writing, or is that no excuse? It's really no different than asking if a Caucasian author should be allowed to write a book with black protagonist. Some people would say that the author doesn't have the knowledge of the black experience to be truthful in their work so that they shouldn't do so... but others would ask that if we want representation of all culture in media, doesn't an author have to do so anyway?
And the fantasy genre adds further wrinkles. It allows authors and readers to ask, "What do we
really mean by 'black'?" If Perkins had written what he wrote about Chult but presented it as a depiction of, say, historical Zanzibari culture*, he would be getting much stronger criticism -- and if he presented it as a depiction of African-American culture, he'd just be laughed out of town. The fiction that this is an alternate world provides some creative license. Chultans are, in some sense, not the same black people as those in the real world who have experienced "the black experience". They've got their own Chultan experience.
However, we'd have to be pretty thick to think that's the end of the story, because, of course, Chult is obviously coded to invoke real-life Africa, from its material culture and language to its history of imperialist exploitation (which I must admit I'd forgotten about until reading the article, not being a close follower of the Forgotten Realms). That draws it right back into the conversation about black experiences. But to what extent? There
is still some wiggle room; as I said, even in criticizing Perkins we're doing it very differently than we would if he'd written about "Zanzibar". Where do we draw the line between acceptable fantasy invention and insensitivity?
And what about fantasy cultures whose natives have dark skin but which
don't so clearly invoke real-life Africa? Say, black herders of giant pillbugs and farmers of nutritious lichen living on a range of rainy plateaus. Do the writers of these cultures have some responsibility to reflect black experiences? Or perhaps some responsibility to
avoid topics which might be taken as casting that reflection? What does it mean if we write a pillbug-herder character as experiencing discrimination? What does it mean if we write a pillbug-herder character as being privileged?
I don't have answers to any of these questions. The topic of race in fiction is a minefield with no map and, indeed,
subjective mines.
*Incidentally, that's the one line that kind of made me cringe in the article, about reducing Africans from kings and queens to tradesmen, "a path they learned not from their own but from their neighbors." Um... what?
And we have to just hope that people understand that and acknowledge the attempt at inclusiveness, even if they can find criticism of the parts of the result.
And we also have to REALLY hope that the creative person doesn't become defensive at the criticism. Because oftentimes what then results is the over-reaction and the person gets so defensive that they lash out and become exactly what they were trying not to be. The #NotAllMen type of reaction (for example) where someone gets offended when a woman makes a criticism of men in general, and he takes such offense he ends up reacting misogynistically off of it. With reactions like "F- that B-!" or whatever. Thereby in many ways proving the point.
Fortunately, this seems to be what's happening here. The criticism is leveled reasonably and leaves open the possibility of improvement rather than writing off the criticized party as a monster. And the reactions of the mostly-white mostly-creative-people here have been, mostly, open and thoughtful. And while I haven't seen any reaction from Chris Perkins himself, for all his faults he's never given me the impression of being a "F- that B-!" sort of person.
And on the subject of the people here being mostly white, myself included: yes, having more minority opinions in the conversation would improve it. However, these criticisms are being leveled at, well, us. It's not inappropriate for us to talk about it. We damn well ought to.
