I feel this way myself. I’ve never known what to classify myself as lol
Lifelong identity crisis 
“You’re not really Asian, you’re only half.”
“Go back to where you came from. We don’t want you here.”
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Same, although I am half Asian, I never tell people because they have the same reaction. “OMG YOU’RE HALF ASAIN? I THOUGHT U WERE JUST WHITE!!” (If you saw me irl you couldn’t tell i’m half. )
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Isn’t ‘POC’ a term for anyone who isn’t completely white?
Because otherwise, a lot of African Americans wouldn’t be classed as that lol 
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Ah, I’m a halfie but I’m fairly dark.
I was pretty much the only Asian in my very white primary school and got bullied a lot for it but I think it’s pretty obvious looking at me that I’m mixed. I get a lot of “What are you??” lol
@thesktales I didn’t even know what that term referred to until seeing it on Instagram. I’m from Australia and I don’t recall anyone ever using it 
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It’s definitely an American thing. We don’t use it here either (UK). We just say mixed race/black/white/etc. I think ‘People of Colour’ sounds prettier & less “get in the box!!” lol
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& @L105 sorry you’ve both had to go through that. Embrace the mix. Things are always more interesting with a little spice.
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I’ve never liked the term ‘poc’.
It sounds as if the world is divided into two people white and non-white–almost as if white was the default and everything else was some sort of exotic other.
Then again, I’m white.
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I do agree with you here. I think that diversity should match the setting of the story. In America, it would be stupid not to include black people in a story because there are a lot of black people in America. That was one of my many problems with Twilight, actually: “What, you’re telling me that there are no black people in Bella’s school in America? I mean, I get that Washington doesn’t have as high of a black population as, say, the South, but really? Or is it that Bella doesn’t talk to the black people in her school? I don’t know which one’s worse”.
Then on the flip side, my best friend would write a story about her home country of Slovakia. It would be somewhat lacking in the skin colour department, since the most that Slovakia seems to have regarding ethnic diversity is a few “Gypsies” (Romani People) who keep themselves pretty separate from the Slovak people, perhaps out of mistrust. She could probably get a few half-Romani-half-Slovak people in her cast, but I don’t think anyone reasonable would hate someone for writing mostly Slavonic people in a Slavonic country with little ethnic diversity. I mean, she’s living with me, so unless that’s a cover for some shady activity, I don’t think she’s racist!
But, saying that, I did speak to her about the fact that she could include other types of diversity in a story like hers. Yes, most of the characters would be white, but you have the Catholic-Protestant-Orthodox-Atheist split in her country (most people are Catholic though). Plus, you have the LGBT community, who can reasonably be represented in every society.
To that, she said: “The problem is that Slovakia is such a religious country that I think gay people would really struggle to come out.”
My reply was: “Well, I don’t think you’d need to represent them as being the most flamboyant, proud-to-be-gay, fun-loving person in the world. I think that’s a product of the freedom of expression that many of us from the LGBT community are beginning to get in the UK and America. I don’t think gay people should be left out of stories simply because they’ve been intimidated into the closet by the religious people in a society.”
Interestingly, I don’t think class would matter too much in her story either. It’s a fascinating country, being post-communist, so even though there were class divides in the past, everyone ended up in the same position during the Soviet Union (her grandmother was a Hungarian aristocrat before Communism, but now it doesn’t matter and doesn’t really show except in the way she speaks).
Long story short, I think it’s all about setting. I would tut and sigh at yet another story set in America that seems to forget that there is a population in the country who aren’t white, but I would be more understanding of a Slovak story that doesn’t include ten different skin tones/ethnicities since that’s not realistic.
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The term “POC” actually makes me giggle a little bit. It makes me imagine white people as some sort of colourless, translucent entity floating above us all: THE ESTABLISHMENT!
I know people will say “But white is technically not a colour”, so I have a few arguments for that:
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White people aren’t exactly white, are they? Not any more than black people are black. I mean, most of my white friends are a sort of nice peachy colour.
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Black is technically not a colour either if we’re going down that road.
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This one makes me laugh, but white people do go different colours. Ever embarrassed someone? Made them mad? Seen them when they’re ill? We’re all POC really.
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I know you didn’t, but you’re not the only person who uses that argument, as it is with that similar argument that every other “diverse” character (in terms other than racial) is white.
And you are right, racial diversity is just scratching the surface of actual diversity, but it’s a little sad when it’s the first thing that is advocated for, and sometimes it’s the last thing that’s given. I understand, to a certain extent, the lack of diversity in terms of sexualities, mental illnesses, and many more, in the past (Specifically talking about the U.S. and Europe). Sexualities other than heterosexual were considered illnesses, and mentally ill people were sent away so that their families didn’t have to deal with them… It’s understandable, again to a certain extent, that they were excluded from every type of media because they didn’t form part of “reality”. But racial diversity is an undeniable reality that people are just starting to represent on media…
I just think it’s important that we, as writers, help create a reality in which there is no “standard”, as we know it today, and in which no one, no matter sexuality, race, ethnicity, gender, etc. ever feels like an “other”. (Or has to look through thousands of pieces of media to see someone who slightly resembles themselves)
(And, BTW, if you are looking for trans men in media, I’ve seen Elliot Fletcher (a trans man) in a couple of roles, and, if I’m not wrong, one of those is as a recurring character in The Fosters, which, again I could be wrong, had already had a trans man. It is almost nothing, I know, but, nevertheless, it is something.)
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I think it has to do with the tendency to “other” what is not the “standard”? So those “others” end up sort of building a community? Like how the LGBTQ+ community was created as a community for anyone who is not cisgender or heterosexual :joy
And, if I’m not wrong, the wording has to do with the fact that white people from the U.S. have been calling black and brown people “colored” for ages.
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(Because I haven’t intruded in enough conversations yet)
I think there are always going to be realistic ways to exclude minorities (or women). “Oh, it’s a small town.”, “It’s a jail.”, “It’s set in a specific war in a specific battalion that has been researched to have had only white straight men”. Those may all be valid reasons (except the last one, I call BS), but why, oh why, are people so hellbent on writing these stories? Aren’t there enough stories about small towns, jails, wars? So you chose a cast that fit the setting, great, now do you mind telling me why did you choose a setting that specifically had only one or two types of people? Couldn’t you have told that very same story in a setting in which it would be realistic for other types of people to exist?
(BTW, this is not a comment on your friend’s possible story, unless she’s thinking about writing a generic love story in which the setting doesn’t affect the story, in which case it can be about your friend’s possible story… But since it doesn’t seem that way, I’m going to say this is more a general comment… Like having Twilight set in a place where there aren’t almost any POC (can’t remember if the werewolves are POC in the books), where it could have been set in literally anywhere else that has clouds and people other than white)
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I dunno. I think sometimes those kinda stories need representation, too. I mean, I’d be really interested to see a story set in Slovakia, for one. I think different settings than the normal American middle-class generic setting also count as diversity to some degree.
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No, of course, I meant stories not set in the same places as we are used to (The U.S., England, Canada, and even France). That’s why I said it wasn’t a comment on your friend’s story.
I do believe, however, that if a setting is completely irrelevant to the story, but is being used as an excuse not to have racial diversity, it has to go. As I said, if the same story can be told somewhere else where diversity is more accepted, I don’t understand why they aren’t telling it there in the first place.
For example, I remember a friend of mine wanted to tell a story set in her country of origin. She loves her country, and her city, and wanted to show how the people in the spheres she moved around were like… But the problem was that those spheres included a lot of internalized racism and homophobia… So she created a country, with a city, and a society all based on what she knew but taking out the things she despised the most, as she was sure they were going to hurt her story and her characters… Now, I’m not saying that it’s the perfect solution or anything, but it’s a workaround that lets her tell the story she wants, in the setting she wants, without having reality there to forbid her from adding characters from different genders, races, sexualities, and religions.
Personally, I think it’s the mark of a good writer to make setting relevant even when you don’t expect it to be. I think people in general need to think long and hard about where they’re setting their stories and the connotations of these choices. For me, I think it’s more offensive to force diversity in a place where it wouldn’t realistically be
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That’s true, but, and I hope I’m not offending anyone, Episode isn’t known for its good writers. I know there are some, but I also know that there are a lot of people who are just learning, and there are a lot of stories where you could simply place the characters in another city, and the story would stay the same, so…
And why do you think it’s offensive to “force diversity in a place where it wouldn’t realistically be”?
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I think it cheapens diversity if you take it out of its real life setting. I think it’s important to identify and comment on the issues that POC and other minorities face and not just reduce a race or an ethnicity into something frilly with a nice bow around it. We go through a lot of problems, being of a minority in certain places in the world and I think it’s empowering to show these problems and have characters rise above them. Otherwise it does make it seem like diversity is a plot device or race is nothing but a skin colour.
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I remember you mentioning that you hate it when people shove diversity into their story to fill some invisible quota.
Especially because, more often than not, when people do that, the characters who are shoved in there “for diversity’s sake” end up being gross stereotypes, cardboard characters with no personality, cheap throwaway appearances, or silent background characters.
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Definitely! It’s really important to remember that diversity isn’t just something we shoehorn in to make a story better. It has real connotations that people often ignore when they make it about quotas. Also, I think that when you choose to represent a minority in a story, you do so taking on the responsibility of representing them authentically and respectfully. We aren’t defined by being a member of a minority group, but for me, it’s important to realise that we can face very specific problems as a result of our background.
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And even when your story doesn’t have specific problems that the current societies do because it may be a futuristic or fantastical world where we’ve moved beyond all of that, it’s important to think about why you’re putting certain types of diversity where you are. Is it just because you need a diverse cast or is it because you think this character is well-rounded and important to the story?
For example, my story is set in a world where religion isn’t a source of conflict, but my Arabic Muslim character, Zaynah, isn’t Muslim for no reason. Her religion is going to affect her world view, some of her cultural practices and even her mannerisms from time to time. I didn’t want to just create a “white girl” with brown skin and a hijab, as someone on a different thread described it.
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