IBARW: Intro Post

[melayneseahawk]

International Blogging Against Racism Week is 6 August through 12 August, and I've decided I'm going to participate, because I'm always up for forcing my opinions down people's throats, but I rarely discuss race in this journal. I think LJ isn't exactly the best place to try to organize serious discussion (the internets is srs biznis, but not here), but let's give it a try.

I'm going to start with fannish pursuits and then work my way out to the rest of the world, but today I'm going to start with a diversity census of the fic I write, and of 10 fandoms I participate in in some way.

Characters of Diversity, Fanfic, Mine.

Methods and Materials

Fics considered: all posted fanfics at writers_island¹.

Measurements: Using pov character(s) or main character of focus, count stories with one or multi povs, and classify the race, gender, and other attributes of the pov character.

Considerations/Definitions:

Non-white is Black, Hispanic, Asian, Arab, American Indian, Hawaiian, African, Space Aliens played by an actor of one of these classifications, Space Aliens in a situation where their species is comparable to being a person of color (see tomorrow's post for a discussion of Race and Species in Science Fiction), and just about anything not European. Does not include Jews, Gypsies, Irish, Catholics, Welsh, Slavs, Texans, Blue-Eyed People, or other people Just Not Brown Enough.

Old is a character who looks, acts, or is treated as though they are past their prime.

Queer is canonically gay or bi; subtext is irrelevant for the purposes of this census.

Jack is an older male in any fic set after s8. Remus Lupin is a non-white male due to the treatment of lycanthropy in the Harry Potter 'verse (will talk about that later, too). The Wraith ship is a non-white male.

Minor character status is determined by the character's place in the original source; therefore, the Marauders and Lily are minor characters for the purposes of this census.

These categories are not mutually exclusive.

Census

Total Fandoms: 4
Total Stories: 127²
Total Stories of over 500 words: 34

Stories with only 1 POV: 115
Stories with multiple POVs: 12
Stories with only 1 pov, Minor Character: 61
Stories with only 1 pov, Original Character: 0

Stories with White Male POV only: 76
Stories with White Female POV only: 0
Stories with Non-White Male POV only: 36
Stories with Non-White Female POV only: 1

Stories with Old People POV only: 3
Stories with Canon or OC Queer Character POV only: 1³

Stories with Multiple povs, more than one gender: 2
Stories with Multiple povs, including non-white characters: 9

Stories with Mix-Race Relationships, where relationships are distinctly romantic: 47⁴
Stories with Non-White, Old, or Queer Characters in speaking roles: 66⁵

Notes
1. Original fiction not included in this census.
2. Individual chapters of multi-part fic, including An Apple a Day and wellymuck among others, are counted separately for the purposes of this census.
3. This refers to Jealous of Your Cigarette, a Stargate AU that uses the main SG-1 characters but is about a step away from original fic. In this story, six characters are either bisexual or gay, and after some thought I have determined that that is canon for this 'verse and therefore this story.
4. Based on aforementioned definitions, Remus/Sirius is mixed-race. This also includes occasional mentions of Daniel/Sha're.
5. Again, this category includes Remus and Jealous of Your Cigarette, as well as Teal'c, Hammond, post-s8 Jack, Teyla, and others.

Fandom Census, with ten fandoms I participate in in some way.

Main Cast is based on who is billed in the credits after the tag, throughout the course of the show, based on all episodes that have currently aired. For Harry Potter, it's a slightly arbitrary list based on the major players in the majority of the books.

Non-white, old, etc. follow the guidelines above.

Fandom	Main Cast	White Males	Non-White Males	White Females	Non-White Females	Old People	Queers
Stargate SG-1	9	6	1	2	0	3	0
Stargate Atlantis	7	3	2	1	1	0	0
Harry Potter	12	8	1	3	0	1	0
Firefly/Serenity	9	4	1	3	1	1	1
Eureka	9	4	1	2	2	0	0
Star Trek TNG	9	3	3	3	0	1	0
Enterprise	7	3	2	0	2	0	0
Jake 2.0	5	1	1	2	1	0	0
(New) Dr. Who	5	3	0	1	1	0	1
Torchwood	5	3	0	1	1	0	2

And, to be a little more fair, based on recurring minor characters:

Fandom	White Males	Non-White Males	White Females	Non-White Females	Old People	Queers
Stargate SG-1	y	y	y	y	y	n
Stargate Atlantis	y	y	y	y	y	n
Harry Potter	y	y	y	y	y	n
Firefly/Serenity	y	y	y	y	y	y
Eureka	y	y	y	y	n	y
Star Trek TNG	y	y	y	y	n	n
Enterprise	y	y	y	y	n	n
Jake 2.0	y	y	y	y	n	n
(New) Dr. Who	y	y	y	y	n	y
Torchwood	y	n	n	y	n	n

If anything, this really highlights what I'm going to talk about: race and species in science fiction; why species is comparable to race in some fandoms but not in others. That'll keep me busy for a bit, and then it's off to discuss race in RL.

Comments

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Recurring old characters in TNG: Spock, Dr Soong, Sarek. And that's just right off the bat.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Also, d'oh. Picard. Man's bald for crying out loud.

[melayneseahawk.livejournal.com]

For these purposes, "old" is someone who's past his/her prime. Picard does just fine, and out in the field, so I don't count him as old.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Picard is definitely "past his prime." He's in remarkably good shape, and he's serving as CO, but he's definitely not as young as he used to be.

If you're counting Book as Firefly's "old person", then you should count Picard.

[melayneseahawk.livejournal.com]

Eh, alright, if you say so. :P

[melayneseahawk.livejournal.com]

*headdesk* Yeah, should have thought of that.

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is so cool! You make me want to do the same Census Project with my stuff -- mind if I use some of your rubrics, with proper credit and all that, naturally?

Also, the race/species thing has been a big deal for me lately, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you say about it!

[melayneseahawk.livejournal.com]

Sure, go for it, but don't worry about credit; this is adapted from an old meme.