Racefail in NaNoWriMo forums

[asterroc]

Working on my primary NaNoWriMo story since I finished the short story. I realized my brain was dry and I wasn't coming up with good names for my characters, so I turned to online name generators. All the names sounded too bland, so I picked Irish from the dropdown menu. Then I realized I'd only been picking white names, so I found me a nice Hispanic name. Then I wanted something else for my last character and decided I wanted part of the name Asian, and part Islamic, mostly for variety. I could retcon that this hodge-podge fits her do-anything character, or that it demonstrates the genetic mixing that takes place in a fixed population, but really I just wanted something new. I posted to the NaNoWriMo forums b/c I was having a hard time finding an Islamic name generator online, and the Asian names I found were either androgynous (to American me) or else were stupid anglicisms like "Beautiful Tree" or "Strong Wind". I got a bunch of helpul replies too, and then I got this one.

The thing is the name should fit the character and their heritage, so if you're not going to have a particular reason to make them of a particular ethnicity, but just want a name for the sake of having a "non-White" name and not really reflecting the culture that comes with the name, then I think you're better off sticking to Caucasian names. [source]

Her (?) point was I feel two-fold: (1) names should have meaning, (2) white is the default. I could argue the first for hours, but the latter really ticked me off. I replied.

But why should Caucasian names be the default? I'm not Caucasian, does that mean I should make all the names of all my characters be the same race as me? Of course not, that'd be a ridiculous thing to do unless I was writing for an audience that I knew was composed primarily of people of my race and I wanted to exclude people NOT of my race. It is similarly ridiculous to have every single name be Caucasian unless I'm writing for an audience of only Caucasians and I want to exclude non-Caucasians.

Who knows if she'll read it, or if it'll get through, but at least I think I made my point for anyone further who reads it.

Edit: She may have also been making a third point that using a non-white name but giving the character all white personality characteristics would be insensitive. *shrug*

Comments

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

The argument sounds similar to always using "said" for dialogue, which I completely disagree with. Of course, there's no implication of racism in that logic though...

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

I'd also like to say that I think you should just write the story and go back and fix the names to match better when you're done :)

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I needed some name. I could just keep writing "Person #4". The town has a placeholder name and I don't mind changing the people's names later, but I wanted SOME name.

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I understand that "Daisuke" is easier to flow from the fingers than "Person #4." The necessary shifting to the number row makes it tougher, imho. I just meant that the deliberation on the ethnicities of the names could wait. But maybe you are saying that you wanted to avoid unintentionally being anglo-normative even in placeholder names?

[sirroxton.livejournal.com]

I have to imagine that as you write, the characters become increasingly real and start, you know, telling you things about themselves. I have a hard time envisioning a writing process where I could feel comfortable swapping out names. Although I suppose you could leave the dirty work to a heartless editor. ;-)

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Even if I do not intend to make the non-white characters stereotypical of race X, the names still might influence my writing of the characters somewhat.

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

Gah.

This is something I've struggled with. Of course, there's a major problem with the whole notion of 'Caucasian Names'. The sportswriter Bill Simmons has a (probably questionable) joke about the "Reggie Cleveland All-Stars", athletes whose names suggest they're a different race than they are.

The important thing isn't to have names that reflect different races. It's to have characters who reflect the diversity of the world you're writing in. Figuring out what race a character is is just one step in the complicated process of figuring out who they are.

But yes, definitely the assumption that Caucasian is default is a problem worth wrestling with. I've tried to make an effort to mark my white characters as white to avoid falling into the trap, but I am certain that I have not been 100% effective at avoiding race problems.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

It's set on a generation ship at least a few hundred years after the ship set out - long enough that the people on the ship have forgotten their origins, lost their original technology, and redeveloped/rediscovered a lot of the original technology. As a result, the group that I am dealing with is pretty homogeneous culturally/racially, with the original people's names mixed all over the place (or perhaps even drifted to a set of naming conventions not currently present on Earth). (Hence I have reconned why Nasira Shen would have a strangely mixed name but act the same as everyone else, and Ignacio as well.) But this has just brought up to me that when they run into another isolated group, that that group would not necessarily have the same culture/race/names as my primary group.