Interracial Roleplaying - How do you feel?

[Lustful Bride]

I'm currently working on a fantasy novel where the female is a black woman. I rarely see black female leads in Sci Fi and Fantasy, I want to make this a successful one. The cast will be diverse and skin color won't be an issue.

I wish there ws a name for this where the cast is all diverse and strengthened by their differences..i always just called it 'Team Rainbow" as a reference to R6 since that's the first time I learned of such a thing and its always stuck with me/I love it so much :-)

[Denivar]

I just recently had someone tell me that he didn't want to play alongside my black character because he doesn't like dark girls. He then procceded to ask if I would be willing to play a white or asian character.

Personally, I love playing interracial role plays. I enjoy variety, and I do enjoy black women, a lot. But, I do think everyone has their rights to their own preferences. If someone doesn't want to play against a black (or a white, or Asian, or whatnot) character that's fine.

However, from what you're saying it sounds like this person's particular way of expressing it was a little rude and hurtful. Your avatar and profile make it clear that you are black, and many (if not most) role players prefer playing a character that is the same race as themselves. Saying "I find what you are unattractive. Would you mind playing as something you are not" is pretty rude in my view. So I think you have ever right to be hurt and upset by it, and I'm sorry that that happened to you.

[Nachtmahr]

As far as attractiveness, I believe people tend to lean more physical than cultural when considering attractiveness of individuals who are significantly different than themselves.

I don't think that's strictly true to be honest. I think that culture has a lot to say when choosing partners. I, for one, would struggle to be in a relationship with someone who had completely different interests, a wildly different political opinion, or a different stance on religion. There are plenty of cultural things that can make a person more or less attractive to someone, or at least to me. You might say that there's something of a "Blank Slate" when you run into someone on the street, and that you'd judge the attractiveness of a stranger based on appearance, but appearance can give you some strong cultural indicators.

For example, someone dressed in religious attire can easily be physically attractive, but not attractive to me over all because I may disagree with them on a cultural level, etc. Of course, the opposite is also true: Someone might walk by me, be physically attractive, and then only become even more attractive because they're wearing a "Mass Effect"-hoodie, thus indicating that we have some shared interests.

Of course, that's all different from person to person, I just don't think that there is any general rule when it comes to how one measures the attractiveness of another. Of course different people find different things attractive as well, and someone may well be attracted to something that you or I would find unattractive, etc.

My writing would suck balls if I only wrote white straight males.

Could you get into videogames please? Like, right now?

[Aethereal]

        I write characters of multiple races and species, so safe to say, I don't discriminate based on race. I am currently playing a non-white human character (I guess the closest skin-tone wise he'd be to someone from Northern India or South-African Republic?) against a white pseudo-human, for instance. I have also made two black woman characters specifically for RP in this year alone (granted, both are in sci-fi settings, rather than modern-world).

[Dhi]

If even just 7% of characters on sites like Elliquiy were nonwhite I would feel like the exchange of culture is mutual, but it's not. There are far more nonwhite writers playing white characters than vice versa. I have my own theory for why that is.

In 2016 I want to challenge myself to play nonwhite characters at every possible opportunity. If this costs me some stories here and there, that's fine.

[Florence]

I... don't particularly pay attention to ethnicity in roleplay pairings.

I mean, I'm not trying to be one of those "I don't see race" people, but when it comes down to rp pairings its literally the last thing on mind. I'm white, I've played characters of all different ethnicities. I consider myself a writer, and I figure I wouldn't be much of one if I could only write people who are in the same specific category as me. (Atheist/Daoist white transfeminine American writer is a fairly small subset of the population, I'd imagine.)

I don't often play in a realistic Earth setting though, so for most of my characters, if two characters are human, they're basically the same 'race'. I mean, its hard to be racist towards a black person when there's an alien, a werewolf and a demon all standing next to them.

A character I play off-site is essentially a dark-skinned dog demon in 13th century Japan... I kinda figure her skin tone is the last reason for people to judge her. And its certainly the last thing she judges about other people. All humans are equally worthless in her eyes.

I do have characters of color and write interracial pairings quite frequently. I love it. But the thing is I don't write it as a fetish or as part of a kink. I don't want my characters to be dehumanized or put on a pedestal because they have dark skin or epicanthic folds. My characters are much more than their race and ethnicity. It will have shaped the character of course, but it doesn't define all that they are.

Yeah, this, definitely. I've played characters in interracial pairings before, and its always simply been because the characters were fun to play together. It was never about fetishization or stereotypes.

[HeadmasterFelix]

Okay, first, that's gross and I'm sorry that happened to you (and probably continues to happen to you). It seems some people want to equate skin tone with any other physical characteristic one might have, and say that it's fine to not be attracted to a character on that basis, but that seems like a pretty bunk excuse. No one rejects a character based on their Snape-like nose or tiny Nic Cage eyes. But apparently it's a totally legitimate preference when it's skin color? Seems fishy.

I think racial preference is weird in either direction. In the case of rejection, I think it probably comes from underlying prejudice, which is obviously problematic. The opposite is just as bad, though. Fixation on people of color to the point of fetishism is super creepy. It's also really gross when people try to point out that someone is an exception to the rule, like "Wow, I don't usually go for Asian guys, but you're super hot." Like, really? Is that supposed to be a compliment?

As a white person, I obviously had no problem with representation growing up. Even my specific circumstances, like family structure and socioeconomic status, were represented well enough. I never took much note of it. However, I've been with a black man for several years (married for just over one year), and my perspective on race and representation has shifted dramatically. There are basically no couples who look like us, so for me, seeing interracial couples or families is personally very reaffirming, even if they aren't the same color/gender combination that we are. When people get down on it, either by actively denouncing mixed-race relationships or by saying that they can't be attracted to someone because they're a different race... it sucks. A lot.

[AmberStarfire]

I think factors that play into it are uncertainty - if people aren't really familiar with people of a particular race, they might hesitate to roleplay as a character of that race or opposite a character of that race in a game because their lack of knowledge or experience makes them less certain and they fear getting it wrong.

I'm white and have played Chinese and other Asian characters (I can't say Japanese because it was a fantasy setting but like Japanese). I feel like I can understand a Japanese character somewhat because I've been to Japan and countries in Asia, not that it's necessary. However,  I've only ever spoken with an African American person once or twice in RL (not counting online or Mumble).

I've spoken to people from Africa before, including one of the guys who used to be on my team at work. My neighbours growing up were Australian Aborigines so I feel more knowledgeable there. However, if I don't know people of a certain race well, I wouldn't be sure how to play them well, in a way that won't offend anyone by saying something or doing something that might be taken wrongly. For me there has to be some knowledge or experience of people to bridge the gap, and it seems like it would be so easy to come across wrongly, that I don't try.

[GothicFires]

Personally I could care less about the race of a character as long as it makes sense with the plot. I'm white. Most, but not all, of my characters are white. I'm not going to go look to write for another race for the sake of writing for another race but I don't put restrictions on my partners that the characters they create have to be white. The only requirement is that my muse find the character appealing in some way.

[Dhi]

If even just 7% of characters on sites like Elliquiy were nonwhite I would feel like the exchange of culture is mutual, but it's not.

I had my numbers backward here, I thought I might. 1 in 7 Americans is black, which is not 7%, it's 14%. Asian Americans represent another 6% and Arab Americans 1%. It isn't a distortion of the numbers to say that 1 in every 5 of us here on this largely US-based site put something other than Caucasian on our paperwork.

I think factors that play into it are uncertainty - if people aren't really familiar with people of a particular race, they might hesitate to roleplay as a character of that race or opposite a character of that race in a game because their lack of knowledge or experience makes them less certain and they fear getting it wrong.

Overwhelmingly this is more true for White America. POC are more comfortable exploring our differences, and this is why the 20% POC writing on Elliquiy translates to 5% or 3% or 1% characters of color. We will play white characters, but the opposite is almost never reciprocated.

I think there are two factors that contribute to this one-way street. First is that White America doesn't want to be seen as racist, and isn't sure what the rules of engagement are, so White America is afraid to make the effort. Second is that POC always have to make the effort. The cultures we're born into are usually going to differ from the culture we arrive into as Americans. I was born into "the Asian part of town" where there are "Asian markets" and "Asian things"; to be an American I had to adopt "the normal part of town" where there are "normal markets" and "normal things." I had to make the effort the first time I attended a school outside my neighborhood. What incentive do you as a Caucasian person have to reciprocate?

Striving to not see color is great when it comes to equality. That's commendable. Defaulting to white characters and white experiences is not the same as color blindness, though. The term for it is symbolic annihilation, and it is a bad thing.

[GothicFires]

...What incentive do you as a Caucasian person have to reciprocate?...

I think I might be a little more than mildly offended here. I'm white. I was born that way. I had no choice in it. I have no choice about it now. I assure you I did not grow up in a 'White' America. I grew up in the United States of America. My main use of white characters may be because I am white but that is no different that La Dame's characters being black because she is black. I had friends of many races in high school particularly because of band. I didn't limit my kindness to the color of someone's skin. In fact my experience was quite the opposite. There were specific members of the black community that got their kicks off bullying white kids. I was one of their victims for three years. My best friend's sister and I loved to collect Asian jewelry boxes and I even took a year of Korean Taekwondo taught by a Korean grandmaster. One of my favorite books was written by a black Frenchman, Alexandre Dumas. I don't turn off a documentary because it's on a culture that doesn't match my skin tone. I used to belly dance, Middle Eastern culture.

Being a jerk has nothing to do with the color of your skin. Making assumptions about white people because the color of their skin is just as wrong as making assumptions about anyone else based on the color of their skin.

Edited to clarify... I am not calling Dhi a jerk. That sentence was meant to reflect that, yes their are white people who are racist but there are also people of other races who are as well.

[Dhi]

What I'm saying is that Caucasians typically aren't pressured to adopt a second culture. Reading your examples, your incentive seems to have been curiosity- you were not pressured to collect Asian jewelry boxes, you decided it would be neat. That's great, I'm glad you did. My incentive for adopting a second culture was necessity. It did not matter whether I was curious about how White America lived. I could not opt out. It was, from about age 8 on, my second world.

There were specific members of the black community that got their kicks off bullying white kids. I was one of their victims for three years.

At a guess, these bullies were experiencing the same kind of culture clash and that was how they handled it.

I did not mean to accuse you of being insular, although separately, the global view of Americans- all Americans, including me- is that we are an insular people.

[GothicFires]

Everyone feels pressure of some sort. It is the measure of the person in how they handle it.

[Dhi]

Do you feel like an outsider to the culture of White America, as a white American?

[GothicFires]

I lived in Florida for 5 years. Let me tell you, White America didn't exist where I lived. A couple of my belly dance instructors were hispanic. The guy who gave me my tattoos was half Native American and half Cuban. I didn't go anywhere were everyone was 100 percent white. Of course there were activities that were predominately white. I liked state combat and dressing up for Medieval Fairs but wait... that's where I met my hispanic friends. And there is more culture to being Caucasians than the color of our skin. I didn't really catch many people of color attending the Celtic festivals. I have Irish, Scot and German blood that I know of. Had a friend who had a very Italian family. A couple of my friends were tall and Nordic. There are even hispanic people who have blond hair and fair skin.

So which white did you pick to fit in with?

White privilege is having white and Caucasian treated like dirty words. People assume that what you have was given to you and that you didn't have to work hard to get it. I've been physically hit because of the color of my skin. I've feared for my life because the color of my skin. Perhaps not as many times as someone of another race but those moments still happened.

[Skynet]

I hope that my post isn't going to come off as demeaning, and I don't doubt your own experiences that people have hated your heritage.  But the US does indeed have a dominant cultural standard, which can even permeate in isolated places.

In US society, most Western and Eastern Europeans are treated as white, as are several Southern Europeans such as Italians.  Many hispanic people are technically multi-racial, but due to a misunderstanding of Latino identity society groups all of them into one race.  There are many Latinos who self-identify as white, and many who have light skin might be viewed as white by the rest of America even if they themselves don't accept the label.  Regarding Southern Europeans, their tanned features initially had them grouped outside of being whiteness, but US society accepted them into the white paradigm decades ago.

Edit: As for "white America," British laws, culture, language, etc permeated what is now the United States for decades, and even in the days of segregation culture didn't exist in a vacuum.  African-American slaves adopted Christianity from Europeans, immigrants assimilated while retaining elements of their own culture, laws, school textbooks, etc pass down a universal standard.  Even Native American reservations are affected due to the legacy of boarding schools banning many cultural elements in favor of the US/Anglo/pseudo-British ideals.

White Western European culture elements are a dominant force in the US.  This isn't inherently bad in and of itself except when said culture is forced on others, and for the past few centuries voluntary and involuntary adaptions spread it everywhere.

Going back to Dhi's earlier posts, foreign people in American society are encouraged to assimilate.  In some cases this is practical, like understanding the laws of the land for better community cohesiveness, but many times not wanting to pick up on the dominant culture will mark you as an oddity at best, or picked on and bullied at worst.

Apologies if I come off as speaking for you, Dhi, or anyone else.

White privilege is having white and Caucasian treated like dirty words. People assume that what you have was given to you and that you didn't have to work hard to get it.

This can cut both ways.  Minority groups who have been historically disadvantaged in academia who end up getting a college scholarship or jobs can cause people to think that they didn't earn it by merit, but instead by affirmative action quotas.

[Lustful Bride]

I think there are two factors that contribute to this one-way street. First is that White America doesn't want to be seen as racist, and isn't sure what the rules of engagement are, so White America is afraid to make the effort.

*slowly raises hand* I will admit to this.... :-[
I play what I know and try to avoid offending anyone, because I love you all *hugs everyone on the site*. I think only once or twice ive played a Hispanic character.

EDIT: Added the below after seeing it.

This can cut both ways.  Minority groups who have been historically disadvantaged in academia who end up getting a college scholarship or jobs can cause people to think that they didn't earn it by merit, but instead by affirmative action quotas.

I actually have a Puerto Rican friend (I hang out with Puerto Ricans a lot...huh..*shrug*) who said he hated the idea of getting a scholarship just because he was Hispanic, that it was like a hand out instead of an acknowledgement of effort and almost like someone in a high tower who had never seen him was going "Oh you poor poor Puerto rican boy, heres a scholarship because your life is hard". 

I am personally on the fence about it. Since I know there are people out there being helped by such things but then again there are always going to be those who just use it to get a free ride instead of working at all...that's life I suppose :/

[GothicFires]

I want to apologize to Le Dame. I have just realized that I have helped derail this thread from it's origional topic. I appreciate and respect the opinions and feeling of others in what no doubt will be an issue that will still take generations to resolve. I ask that we return to the original topic or perhaps have moderates divide the thread if others wish to continue the second discussion.

[FarFetched]

I want to apologize to Le Dame. I have just realized that I have helped derail this thread from it's origional topic. I appreciate and respect the opinions and feeling of others in what no doubt will be an issue that will still take generations to resolve. I ask that we return to the original topic or perhaps have moderates divide the thread if others wish to continue the second discussion.

Lets get back on topic, then! Hmm, I feel like playing a bit of the devil's advocate on this one. *Puts on Debate Hat*

Defaulting to white characters and white experiences is not the same as color blindness, though. The term for it is symbolic annihilation, and it is a bad thing.

I thought I might bring up this bit in specific. In the media, I agree that Symbolic Annihilation is definitely a bad thing as it promotes the invisibility of minorities to the general public, but on E I don't know if that rule holds.

It is true that RP on Elliquiy, being publicly available (to registered users), is therefore a form of Social Media. However, almost all of the written RP here is for sharing with others on a personal level. With the exception of areas on the site such as the Red-Light District, most RP is done in small groups, or simply one-on-one, and by writers who might not be the most experienced at telling stories or acting characters. Since this site uses the English language as a default, most people here will have at least some experience with an English culture of one form or another, which tends to be a 'Caucasian' one. Even if they live in a non-English speaking country, the fact that they can speak English means that they likely have a close family member that hails from an English speaking country, or have taken a class to learn English, in which case they were probably introduced to some elements of existing English cultures as a part of the curriculum.

This is a bit important, because it means that all members of this form are extremely likely to have some knowledge on a 'Caucasian' culture. It would only follow that the most popular character ethnicity on this forum would be, similarly, Caucasian. White-majority cultures are, on average, the most well-understood by the users on Elliquiy, making them the easiest to both characterize and be understood by a user's RP partners. Speaking from experience, it's not easy doing the legwork to find out about a foreign culture only for the sake of an RP, and even then there are feelings of uncertainty in getting that foreign culture 'right'. That's why, I believe, there's such a strong slant towards white characters, it's simply the easiest to write.

And that's a good thing. Not everyone here starts out as a 'good' writer, and becoming a better writer doesn't necessarily have to include racial awareness in its nature. However, becoming comfortable enough to RP those races may require trial and error for some. I don't see anything wrong with that.

[theLeslie]

One of the things I love most about this fleshless world, is the skin of another does not matter.  It is an unknown, a mystery not to be solved but to be ignored.  While there are times when fun and philosophy can be had by bringing melanin content into focus, over all the only time it ever matters is when someone chooses to make it matter.  Here we are free to be literally ignorant of the other's color.  Even our subconscious inclinations towards one hue over another cease, and we can act with others as if we were all little more than human.  The fleshless world is a beautiful place, so long as we don't allow our insecurities, suspicions, prejudices, and social programming to affect us.

It is a place for exploration, a place where we can learn from a safe place about our own habits and desires.  It is a place where we can live within the virtual skin of anyone we choose, and attempt to gain a broader, more empathetic connection with all aspects of our species.  I have played characters of every color and many nationalities, because doing so forces me to bring my mind into a new sort of focus, a focus that I had not experienced in my day to day life walking about in the same flesh I was born with.  The experience I have is not genuine, I can never truly understand what it is like to be someone other than myself, but it brings me closer than simple imagination on its own allows. 

When you have walked a mile in the skin of another, it is much more difficult to see them as anything but a reflection of the self viewed through a mirror of tinted glass.

[Galactic Druid]

My policy on characters has always been to let my partner decide their character's attributes for themselves, and I'll do the same. Since I'm a big sci-fi and fantasy dork, a large chunk of my characters haven't even been fully human, let alone a single ethnicity. I look more for what's in the plot hook when I pick out an RP, as many good stories could be told with any race or gender as the main character.

For me, the most important thing is whether I think I will write well with a partner. Are we looking for the same kind of story? Are their Ons and Offs something that I think I could write? There's certainly physical traits I find more attractive  (long hair, as an example), but as a whole, any pairing would work well.

[Sethala]

I'm somewhat of two minds on this issue...

In a general roleplay, I don't care what ethnicity or race others play as.  It's their characters, not mine, so I really shouldn't judge, and I don't think oters should as well.  Sure, if you're playing a game in a very detailed setting, there may have to be some sort of excuse for why a single black person is in a city of almost exclusively Caucasian people, especially if the world is one where travel between different cultures is difficult (particularly medieval-era adventures), but even that should be easy enough to figure something out.  So I really can't respect someone rejecting someone just because of their character's skin color for a roleplay.

On the other hand...

Elliquiy is more than just a normal roleplay site; specifically, it's an adult and often erotic roleplay site.  And I feel that with this idea of eroticism involved, it's more understandable to be somewhat picky when it comes to certain details of your partner's character.  Some people just don't find certain races attractive, and I think they should be completely within their right to step out of a roleplay if the characters they would be interacting with aren't attractive to them.  Would I ever ask someone to change their character for an RP?  Potentially, though I would make sure to be as polite as possible about it, and even then it would be rare (and probably only if it was either a player in a highly erotic game I was running, or my partner in a one-on-one erotic game). 

[Humble Scribe]

This is a real minefield in RP but I'm glad to see someone raise it.
Disclaimer - I'm a white, middle class male. I don't suffer much discrimination (certainly not negative discrimination). I have been discriminated against because of my skin colour (in Japan and China) and it's a weird and unsettling feeling, and I can only imagine how it must be to have to deal with it day after day in a place where you are an obvious minority. Personally I find women of all backgrounds and cultures attractive. I've had girlfriends who were Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Tanzanian, and have played characters of East and South Asian, Afro-Carribbean and Middle Eastern backgrounds and tried to do so sympathetically. I'm a pretty liberal kind of guy and couldn't for the life of me imagine writing a post like the one the OP got. That's just plain rude.

But.
So help me, I get a charge out of stereotypical "interracial" black male/white female imagery. On an intellectual level I know it's about peddling dubious and long-ingrained negative stereotypes, of black men as more 'animalistic' - physically powerful and sexually potent, and less 'cultured' or 'refined' (and indeed of white women as submissive, receptive etc). I know intellectually that it is, in fact, purely and simply racist and generally bullshit, and probably a holdover of attitudes from a much earlier era. And yet it excites me. I find this hard to deal with, and if I were to play such an RP, I'd do it off list, with a consenting adult in private, because I wouldn't want someone who was genuinely of that background to read a middle class white guy pretending to be a black stereotype, because I don't want to offend people. I am much more sensitive to this than I would be of, for example, offending Catholics because I played a slutty nun. I'm aware that people of other ethnicities, including my own, are frequently fetishised to a greater or lesser extent. But it doesn't stop either the sexual charge I get from the idea, or the discomfort I feel about admitting to it.

[Dice]

From my point of view, story always comes first. If you can write a good story, you can plan, you can communicate and you mesh well with me, I do not give a fuck what you playing as. If you want to play a Negro or an African so be it. One of the girls I am playing at the moment is black. She is also fast becoming pivotal to the game.

What matters more, the skin colour of your escape into another world or your own stupidity? Personally I do not care what colour my escape pod is as long as its a fun journey.

[Anteros]

I have no issue with interracial pairings, in play or in real life.

Perhaps because of my personal background (my own family is a rainbow of colors and cultures), I've always found it rather odd that people would give much importance to the skin color of a relationship's participants. It took me a while to discover that some people found others with a phenotype different than their own repulsive.

It is seldom just a matter of preference either. A mere preference for people sharing their skin color would make one choose someone of their own ethnicity over someone different, but it shouldn't make one outright dismiss someone different in the absence of more appealing competition.
Someone refusing to RP with a character of another skin color is showing overt dislike and rejection. The fact that this prejudice would extend even to someone's fantasies is kind of mindboggling to me.