How Can I Write About Dehumanization, Body Horror and Transformation Without Dehumanizing My Characters?
Hello!! This blog has been instrumental in developing my writing, thank you all for your hard work!
In my writing, I'm very interested in exploring transhumanism and the general concept of “not feeling human” and the becoming, or the feeling of becoming, more, less, or not fully human in my writing. I’m also interested in mutation and transformation related body horror, as well as medical horror. My motivations for these are primarily borne out of my experiences as a trans, autistic, mentally ill mixed race person (white/Latine/Native American.) I've never felt fully understood, fully a part of anything, or even fully human, and I tend to write characters with similar experiences.
But I am white passing, and as a holder of white privilege, I'm cautious as to how I represent BIPOC in these kinds of works. I highly dislike writing stories with only white people or having POC be on the sidelines of the white main character’s struggles. But how does one walk the line between a raw, unsanitized depiction of a brown or black person struggling with their mental health and sense of self, and dehumanization and tragedy exploitation?
I don’t want to ignore how race affects that, especially when writing about my own experiences with forced assimilation as a native person. But because of the nature of me, a white native, writing about a visibly native person going through even partially race-related trauma, I want to be as mindful as I can be. I want people to see themselves in these characters, not gawk at their suffering, or worse, alienate the BIPOC viewers I was trying to speak to in the first place.
Grain of salt for all of this because these are not the kinds of stories I find catharsis in, despite sharing many of the same identities (and feelings of alienation/dehumanization) as you. However, some of my friends find extreme catharsis in these kinds of stories, so don’t let the opinion of those who would get triggered by this dissuade you from writing it at all—there will always be different kinds of trauma stories that resonate with different people, and that doesn’t make them bad.
That being said, I am currently going through the journey of unpacking a very similar narrative to this on a personal level with a very similar identity cocktail, so I’ll give it my best shot.
The Pain of White Supremacy
Let’s talk about the identity sacrifice that comes with white supremacy.
White supremacy is an extremely lucrative promise: give up huge swaths of your cultures and traditions, gain leisure that’s supported by a racialized underclass and live like a king. There’s no need to work in fields, do the ugly parts of childrearing, participate in endless work to make clothing. You just sit, and enjoy life, and order people around, while other people around you work.
It’s as boring, hollow, and soul-sucking as it sounds. But many, many, many people make this trade off, because being the underclass supporting this leisure sucks so much and they want a piece of that leisure pie, because leisure is denied to that underclass and the underclass (read: mostly Black people) force ways to take it at risk of their lives.
A strong aspect to this leisure is you lose most of the aspects of identity, period—humans are busy creatures, and we enjoy exploring hobbies, work, and doing things. Crafting things that reflect yourself, expressing your fashion sense, decorating your space in a way that shows you enjoy things, learning your own tastes via cooking, among others. All of this leads to developing the unshakable sense of pride that comes from expressing yourself regardless of what others think.
Having something that is your own identity that you don’t care how the world treats it is a necessary part of existing, and honestly I’ve found my favourite white people have actual tastes in fashion. Not “trying to look palpable” tastes. “I want to wear as many sparkles and colour as possible” tastes. Dressing fancy to make doing the dishes fun. Because they’re not pinning their entire identities on being good little white people, but are willing to develop a sense of self in a way that lets them weather the identity threat that can come with pointing out “hey, that hurt me.”
(sidebar: in my opinion so many white people, especially progressive white people, focus on “being good” as their primary identity marker, and this is one of the reasons they go nuclear as soon as you point out they did a racism. You threatened the main sense of identity they had, and they react accordingly via the backfire effect. It takes effort to combat this, both with doing things for yourself, and knowing that’s what you’re doing. Weird little hobbies are a fantastic way to start building resilience, instead of putting all your eggs in the “being good” basket. Also learn to take out the trash for your community. Dress up nice and make it fun, but care for the community)
White supremacy demands a very narrow ideal—bland, boring “uniforms” that are why every lifestyle influencer looks the same. Tradwives are a very specific look, as is “old money”. To be subversive in any way is to be crushed, threatened with being an underclass member who will lose everything “earned”. (but, by skin tone, white people have to be loudly in the way of white supremacy to get violence directed towards them*, and even then, it’s usually safer. Not always safer! White people have been killed for being against white supremacy, historically and in the modern day. But usually they’re given a chance to betray the underclassmen before that point, when BIPOC aren’t given those chances. White people are also far more likely to be made martyrs when killed for being against white supremacy, when Black people and other POC aren’t)
And then you get an identity cocktail like the ones you and I share. And we are never, ever going to get full humanity under white supremacy, but everyone compares us to the ideals of white supremacy, and here we realize we will never get the promise that our ancestors traded their culture for.
Now what? We’re stuck. (I don’t have an answer for this, by the way, other than attempting to go through delayed adolescence and try to reject all the culty white supremacist stuff. This is a highly individual path)
I know you feel this, somewhere, and that’s what comes out in your writing. Those feelings of disdain from white supremacy are very real, and they suck. I just needed to explain the factors more plainly so the writing advice makes more sense.
Factors for Audience Resonance
I think something you’ll want to explore before you go set these stories loose on the public—don’t avoid writing them, you can have personal projects that are as politically incorrect as you want, and obviously this is cathartic for you—is how this “lack of humanity from not meeting ideals” is a white racial trait that comes directly from white supremacy and is a cost of white privilege.
The thing about being in this space of the fringes of whiteness—still white-ish, still passing, but with potential to be idealized white if you just behaved “correctly”, dehumanized to alienation if we don’t—is it’s not a dance all groups have to or can navigate. The farther you stray from Eurocentric beauty standards (pale, Western European features), the less potential you have to be viewed as white under this system no matter what you give up. As a result, they are more likely to create culture and identity that is reflective of themselves and their communities as a reprieve from white supremacy. Again, not all, some do actively try to align themselves with white supremacy because of what’s going on in their lives, but broadly speaking.
This leads to a much different flavour of trauma than a white passing individual, who is often navigating this subconscious “but, I could, if only—” and who has often been raised to give up as much of our identity as possible to be palpable to white supremacist ideals, or the child of someone who was raised that way who’s kinda adrift in white “communities”. It’s a much more active choice, to be far away from whiteness and still choose to be an active ally of white supremacy; it’s a much stronger rejection of community and bonds.
The forces pressing down are the same. We are all living in a white supremacist system. But the promises are much, much different depending on potential to be accepted as white. If you or I stay quiet, stay bland, mask, white people have a potential for accepting us. The same cannot be said for a Black person. (jealousy of groups with unique identity is often why white people are such culture vultures; white supremacy has a distinct lack of identity, but humans like having an identity)
Meanwhile, Black or other “distant from whiteness” people are, often at best, just given the promises of being spared, and “one of the good ones”, and they believe these promises to parrot white supremacist talking points. They’re almost never spared, it’s temporary at best, but deals with white devils often look very good.
Black people and other “unacceptable” groups have different dances when faced with being dehumanized by a white supremacist system. There will be overlap—I’m not going to pretend Black people reading this won’t resonate with your experience—but the end result of compliance will be much different. We can take the culture off, we can mask, and sure it’s a cost and it’s utterly dehumanizing but it’s an option. An option we have to reject to be good allies, because white supremacy is a delusion.
All this to say, there are character factors you can research to see why people would try to make these deals with devils, or how they would navigate recovery from being chewed up and spit out by these systems. This would allow you to examine broader factors that make the writing much richer, because you’ll become more aware of experiences outside of your own and infuse that in your work.
I know this probably feels like it doesn’t answer your question, but what I’m getting at is: if you want other BIPOC to resonate with your experience, you have to recognize what aspects of your experience are racialized, and how different identity factors create different conversations with white supremacy. You also need to research what might make people make “non-progressive” choices, or how they might be preyed upon, or all of these things.
By exploring those intersections and acknowledging your feelings come explicitly from your white passing trauma, and generational trade-offs ancestors made to try and get that leisure at the cost of their humanity, you give yourself space to fill in the gaps—how would Black experiences under such a dehumanizing system differ, where the threats and promises are much different? How do these same themes change when groups are trying to buy into whiteness with more notably non-European features, or when they reject it and learn to retreat into their own communities to build networks? What would make them neutral, what would make them targets?
You are writing stories about how it feels to experience white supremacy as someone who is white but will never be the ideal white person by nature, therefore losing status among white people. By understanding and respecting that, you in turn create a scenario where you can ask more questions about how others might experience these things, which can open yourself up for more representation and help you unpack white supremacy to be a better ally to those who never had the option to gain status under the system the way we do. The trade-offs to be white are not worth it, even though we might have to concede to them to survive sometimes.
I hope this helps you both heal from white supremacy and write better stories.
* this segment was written before the murder of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, when there hadn’t been a high-profile murder of a white ally in a very long time. ICE is an extension of colonial violence that seeks to destroy anyone against them, when white supremacy had, all of last year, been more about maintaining the illusion they were protecting other white people, or protecting “good” marginalized group members, from “the other” or “the bad ones.” It was never about that, but the PR was fantastic. White women in particular are told that they’re the most cherished, but they’re still not seen as full beings and often are disposed of as soon as they challenge the status quo—but that hasn’t been on display in a long, long while. Helpful, soft-spoken men are also seen as lesser, with white supremacy only wanting men to hold a specific type of violent power.
Over the centuries racism and white supremacy had circled the wagons around the concept of white people, offering promises of acceptance to white passing people, offering promises of acceptance to anyone who kowtowed to whiteness even if they didn’t look white, trying to increase its numbers. They hit a critical mass of numbers in 2024, and are now doing what I’ve been saying they’d do for many, many years once white supremacists and colonizers hit that critical mass: consume everything standing in their path, even if that’s other white people
And, like most overt white supremacists, they’re cowards seeking to dominate others to feel something.
If you want to support Minneapolis right now, click here.
If you want to stop white supremacy, build community and let these bastards know they are small, pitiful, soulless people who are not welcome here.
Get your weird little hobbies, develop tastes that are uniquely yours, and start doing unglamourous things for your community with outfits that make you feel good and comfort food after to celebrate. The system collapses as soon as people stop trying to get this blood-tained promise—which includes playing hero in huge spectacles. You will never be good enough to be safe, so stop chasing dishonest harmony and start building who you are with the people around you.
(a lot of this post has been influenced by me reading the book White Women Get Ready by Amanda Gross, and Conspirituality by Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, and Julian Walker)
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