An Argument for Radical Kindness
Oct. 11th, 2021 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingThis past weekend, a popular artist on Tumblr opened anonymous asks in order to take drawing suggestions. Someone requested Midna from Twilight Princess, and the artist posted a lovely sketch of the character. Almost immediately, someone sent an anonymous message to say that the artist had whitewashed the character by making her skin tone too light.
This is ridiculous, because the character has bright aqua blue skin. She belongs to a fantasy race of magical “twilight” people who all have pale aqua blue skin that literally glows in the dark. This fantasy race is not coded as a real-world race like the Gerudo or the Sheikah. In fact, they’re barely coded as human. A few artists have humanized Midna as a Muslim woman, and this is very cool but completely outside the scope of the game or its official manga adaptation.
Saying that the artist made Midna’s glow-in-the-dark blue skin “too light” is, in other words, some serious nonsense.
Meanwhile, a TA for one of the survey classes in the East Asian Studies department at my university wanted to talk via Zoom this weekend because one of the students in her section accused her of being racist. Apparently, the class is too much about China and not enough about China’s ethnic minorities. The title of the class is “Introduction to Chinese Civilization,” and the grad student herself is Chinese (by which I mean she’s an international student from China).
The syllabus is set up so that, after an initial five weeks on the creation of the Han Chinese cultural canon during the BC and early AD eras, each additional week addresses the introduction of an element of cultural diversity as the class moves forward through history. Essentially, the undergrad who made the accusation of racism hadn’t been doing the readings or even looked at the syllabus, either of which would have made it clear that the class takes a strongly diversity-oriented approach to the study of China.
The undergrad is a white American man, by the way, and it’s interesting that he addressed his accusation of racism at a young female grad student, not the older male professor who wrote the syllabus and delivers the lectures. Again, this is some serious nonsense.
Critical race theory is extremely nuanced, and it’s by no means monolithic. Just about the only generalization you can make concerning this vast and diverse body of scholarship is that it’s intended to make the world a kinder (or at least less cruel) place. Critical race theory is not a blunt club that you can use to smack people down if they rise too high, and it’s certainly not a tool that should be used to silence minority voices or erase minority representation.
This is to say that I think I’m done engaging with the “critical race” conversation as it currently exists. In this house we practice critical love and appreciation.
This is ridiculous, because the character has bright aqua blue skin. She belongs to a fantasy race of magical “twilight” people who all have pale aqua blue skin that literally glows in the dark. This fantasy race is not coded as a real-world race like the Gerudo or the Sheikah. In fact, they’re barely coded as human. A few artists have humanized Midna as a Muslim woman, and this is very cool but completely outside the scope of the game or its official manga adaptation.
Saying that the artist made Midna’s glow-in-the-dark blue skin “too light” is, in other words, some serious nonsense.
Meanwhile, a TA for one of the survey classes in the East Asian Studies department at my university wanted to talk via Zoom this weekend because one of the students in her section accused her of being racist. Apparently, the class is too much about China and not enough about China’s ethnic minorities. The title of the class is “Introduction to Chinese Civilization,” and the grad student herself is Chinese (by which I mean she’s an international student from China).
The syllabus is set up so that, after an initial five weeks on the creation of the Han Chinese cultural canon during the BC and early AD eras, each additional week addresses the introduction of an element of cultural diversity as the class moves forward through history. Essentially, the undergrad who made the accusation of racism hadn’t been doing the readings or even looked at the syllabus, either of which would have made it clear that the class takes a strongly diversity-oriented approach to the study of China.
The undergrad is a white American man, by the way, and it’s interesting that he addressed his accusation of racism at a young female grad student, not the older male professor who wrote the syllabus and delivers the lectures. Again, this is some serious nonsense.
Critical race theory is extremely nuanced, and it’s by no means monolithic. Just about the only generalization you can make concerning this vast and diverse body of scholarship is that it’s intended to make the world a kinder (or at least less cruel) place. Critical race theory is not a blunt club that you can use to smack people down if they rise too high, and it’s certainly not a tool that should be used to silence minority voices or erase minority representation.
This is to say that I think I’m done engaging with the “critical race” conversation as it currently exists. In this house we practice critical love and appreciation.
