zeegoeshere

I'm always terrified of commenting in race debates because I am not American, and even though I have lived in North America, I am not immersed in the same race issue in the same way that American authors would be. (Of course, we have our own race issues here in the UK, but they are differently composed and expressed, and don't translate to America any better than American race issues translate to us.) I therefore live in fear I'll say something that trips every single American's OMG EVIL HATE button, probably completely unintentionally.

That said, a while back I was chatting to someone in IM about writing girl!Travis, as a teenager, meeting Matt as in canon, because I adore the Travis/Matt canon. So we were talking about this story and sketching out the plot, but the problem that occurred to me is that on top of my permanent problem of writing in an American universe, I would now be trying to write in a specifically black American universe. It seemed to me if I wanted to write an interesting story about a young Travis meeting a young Matt, whether I gender swap them or not, I've got some fundamental issue of knowing how to write the role, if any, that their skin colour would have played in getting to know one another as teenagers. It seems that any assumption either way (it would have no impact, or it would be a really important thing that would occasion comment from friends and family) is extremely dangerous for me to make in terms of tripping those OMG EVIL HATE buttons, and it's not like I have canon for it, or I have someone I can ask to fact check and beta for me specifically on those issues. Unlike getting someone to American-language pick, where one's country of origin is very clear on LJ, it would be exceptionally awkward to poll my LJ friends for the purposes of my utility and say hi, what ethnicity are you? (And again, bear in mind I live a very very long way from most people on my list, and being foreign I don't necessarily read social cues with the same knowledge. So someone who specifically referred to something that you might think of as very obviously giving away their ethnicity, I would probably be oblivious to. So unless someone SAYS they are of a particular ethnicity, or posts photos, or in a few cases, I have met them, then I have no idea.)

So this comment can be summed up as follows: I would like to write PoC stories, and if I were going to, I would want to write a good story, just because that's kind of my aim in life anyway. I am not sure if it would be worse for me to write as if the character's race is immaterial, or to pretend I know anything about how it would impact the plot/story/relationship and potentially inadvertently say something utterly disastrous. If I were to write my girl!Travis in something other than chat log, something that would be held up to public scrutiny, I would want to handle the race issue interestingly, sensitively, and appropriately. I just lack confidence in my ability to do so, and because of the super-charged atmosphere in American universe fandoms when it comes to race, thus far I have shied away from the risk of writing the story and getting it completely and utterly wrong.