Pegboard
asked
Simon Rumney:
How were you able to get the right "feel" of the prejudice between the races in Our Eternal Curse: Another Tribe? It is still felt in parts of America, just not to the degree in your book.
Simon Rumney
Pegboard, this is a tricky question which has its answer in a lifetime of pondering the illogical nature of racism.
I should say my Mother and Father were both racists which means I was raised 'racist'. Having said that, I have always found racism odd. As I grew older I kind of worked out how evolution may have programmed humans to be tribal. It made sense at a time when we needed to protect our waterhole, village, children from another group of aggressive humans. After all, it was the difference between life and death.
Obviously, the need to be tribal has become redundant in our modern societies yet the 'basic instinct' lingers. I am always amazed, stunned really, when an apparently 'intelligent' person says something racist.
Now, to answer your question. I wrote a female, Native American, character who is intelligent, and integral, and rational, and dignified. In short, I wrote a woman I could fall in love with. As I moved her along her journey a strong bond grew between Julii and I (all writers will understand the power of that bond).
Then, I let her fall in love with a Confederate Captain who had been wounded at the Battle of Shiloh and sent her on a journey into the heart of the Confederate South during the Civil War.
By the time Julii made it to Atlanta I was as protective as any lover or parent could be. As you can imagine, subjecting her to the irrational suffering of being hated for nothing more than her appearance broke my heart. I wanted to explain to the white people how cruel they were being at exactly the same time as writing their cruel behavior.
Because justifying racism is so hard to do when confronting it head on I now believe that every school child should be encouraged to participate in this kind of exercise. Try to rationalize hatred while imagine their mother is black, or a Muslim, even white and any of the thousands of different people it's possible to be.
I hope that answers your question.
I should say my Mother and Father were both racists which means I was raised 'racist'. Having said that, I have always found racism odd. As I grew older I kind of worked out how evolution may have programmed humans to be tribal. It made sense at a time when we needed to protect our waterhole, village, children from another group of aggressive humans. After all, it was the difference between life and death.
Obviously, the need to be tribal has become redundant in our modern societies yet the 'basic instinct' lingers. I am always amazed, stunned really, when an apparently 'intelligent' person says something racist.
Now, to answer your question. I wrote a female, Native American, character who is intelligent, and integral, and rational, and dignified. In short, I wrote a woman I could fall in love with. As I moved her along her journey a strong bond grew between Julii and I (all writers will understand the power of that bond).
Then, I let her fall in love with a Confederate Captain who had been wounded at the Battle of Shiloh and sent her on a journey into the heart of the Confederate South during the Civil War.
By the time Julii made it to Atlanta I was as protective as any lover or parent could be. As you can imagine, subjecting her to the irrational suffering of being hated for nothing more than her appearance broke my heart. I wanted to explain to the white people how cruel they were being at exactly the same time as writing their cruel behavior.
Because justifying racism is so hard to do when confronting it head on I now believe that every school child should be encouraged to participate in this kind of exercise. Try to rationalize hatred while imagine their mother is black, or a Muslim, even white and any of the thousands of different people it's possible to be.
I hope that answers your question.
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