>>is the diversity of those characters explored or are they
>>interchangeable?
>
>Your asking alot here buddy, lol. Just be happy we throw in a
>few darkies who aren't beating drums, brutes, or extremely
>primitive. Lets help sci-fi realize that minorities are
>people first before you speak that crazy talk!

LOL!! This is a piece a came across in my wknd research:
http://www.brokenfrontier.com/yes-but-is-it-racist-science-fiction-and-the-significance-of-9/

I'll swipe the first few paragraphs cause that's all you really need:

****BEGIN SWIPE****

I remember once, years ago, my father asked me why there weren’t more black characters in my stories. At the time my answer came down to the classic response, ‘Write what you know’ …

“I dunno, dad. I went to a mixed high school. Half the population was black, but it wasn’t like the rest of the kids. Latino, Asian, East-Indian, White… we all hung out together, but the black kids mostly stuck to themselves. I just haven’t been around black culture enough to feel comfortable writing it.”

cultbarbw2terminusI wasn’t lying when I said that. But I wasn’t being entirely truthful, either. Deep down there’d always been that nagging fear of kicking over a hornet’s nest. And I’m not the only one. Over the years, I’ve known plenty of writers who’ve shied away from creating black characters due to the perceived consequences of getting it wrong. Unless your audience is what Hunter S. Thompson dubbed, “The Stupid Brute” crowd, getting tagged a racist can be the kiss of death for an up-and-coming author.

But that was then. Times have changed. Now I’m in the process of writing a novella that stars a black protagonist. The reasons for this are many. I’m more comfortable in my skills. My circle of friends has grown. And I’ve traveled more and been exposed to a great many things. But most importantly, the story demanded it. It crawled into my head one night and refused to be ignored.

Called OBJECTIVE: Terminus, the novella is the journey of an inner-city teen who goes from being a drug dealer to a refugee, to a soldier in the Second American Civil War. The hero being black is strictly a matter of form following function. The story could not be told any other way, nor should it have to.

****END SWIPE*****

Like this is the most hilarious things I read. I read it and burst out laughing for like an hour afterwards. And this is one of the good guys I'm sure. We're so fucked.

>Don't wanna dive into the "YOU GOTTA WATCH" speech since GOT
>does suffer from alot of the 'cism mentioned in the post...but
>unless you don't do fantasy at all you owe it to yourself to
>give an episode or two chance ...its another example of how
>geek culture's kind of invaded in ways I think would be very
>improbable ten years ago

I don't mind fantasy but it's not my first choice. I appreciate the place that it's having in our social organism is good for geek culture, but ultimately I can't be convinced its good. I mean just in general I don't trust any series that has more than three books. There's no way the author was thinking further than that ahead when they started, and odds are if it can just go on and on like that they are writing more on whim then intent at some point.


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Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."