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So I see we're having the "can white people write POC POVs conversation again" and one of the frequent arguments I see is "But I'm writing second world fantasy so I don't have to worry about this" and...
...fun news, friend, you get to do EVEN MORE WORK!
...fun news, friend, you get to do EVEN MORE WORK!
Unless your world is a carbon copy of our world (and, more so, the particular culture that you are a part of), race will most likely be defined and function differently than it does here and now, or here and historically.
It's 101 level knowledge that race is not solely biological, but cultural in definition. So you've worked out that people in your world look different from one another--neat, but that's just phase one in how that FUNCTIONS in your world.
Race isn't just a genotypic or phenotypic expression of hereditary traits. It's a cultural understanding of self and other, of intersections with place, belief, values, family...the list goes on.
So you have to ENGAGE with that stuff in your work. I'm not saying you have to write racism, bigotry, or systemic oppression into your work. The amazing thing about fantasy is that we CAN create the worlds we'd love to see.
But not including it doesn't mean ignoring it. I think of a lot of worldbuilding like dominoes--set up the dominoes so that when you tip them over, they fall in the sequence you want. It's real hard, for instance, to have a domineering empire and NOT have racism in some form.
White people don't get a free pass to write whatever just because it's a secondary world. (I mean, no one does, but it seems like it's white people asking for the pass?) Think deeply about the impacts of systemic institutions and the interplay of race in the worlds you build.
