#understanding race

[paulrfrank]

7 things black people want their well-meaning white friends to know.

This animated short perfectly illustrates what it's like to be a black friend to white people.

[ageofdragon]

to the other anon: i'm latinx and if you looked at me you'd think i'm 100% white. skin and hair color aren't everything, especially in latin america/countries coded as latin america.

Exactly, this.

Though Antiva is coded as a mix between Spain and Italy, but the sentiment remains the same.

[ageofdragon]

Hi, I read your post about non-white characters in Dragon Age games and i think you make a lot of excellent points. I'm just wondering though what makes Zevran a PoC? I've seen this said before but he has blond hair, is it not possible he's just tan?

First, PoCs can have blond hair naturally. That’s not the best argument of him not being PoC.

There are several things that work together to say Zevran is a PoC rather than just tanned though. 

First he comes from Antiva and darker skinned people can come from Antiva, not just Rivain. Zevran has a skin color only a bit lighter than Josephine. 

Secondly, Zevran never loses his skin color, even after several years in other, less sunny countries. In DA2, he is still dark skinned.

Lastly Zevran has PoC features, he has coded features that do not and would not work on some with a white complexion. As well as uses language and terms that code him of a non-white culture.

Zevran is 100% coded as a Hispanic PoC.

Everyone I listed in that post is 100% PoC, every one and again just because they have lighter skin colors does not make that not so. Even with lighter hair colors like Zevran or Fenris, race goes deeper than skin and you can see it in features and in the cultures surrounding the characters (and what from those cultures they use).

Seriously though, I highly recommend looking at other (real-life) PoCs. PoCs can have even blond and red hair naturally, hair color is not isolated by race, it simply varies by dominance in race.

[teachingneatanthropology]

The historical development of the concept of "race" within the United States.  This video is a part of the American Anthropological Association's RACE Project that deals with understanding human genetic variation and how these differences play out in our perception of "race."   

[anthrodocs-blog]

"Looking through the eyes of history, science and lived experience, the RACE Project explains differences among people and reveals the reality – and unreality – of race.  The story of race is complex and may challenge how we think about race and human variation, about the differences and similarities among people."

-From the "About the Project"

[togetherforjacksoncountykids]

Short film directed by teen Kiri Davis

"[Racism] is not about how you look, it is about how people assign meaning to how you look." -Robin D.G. Kelley, Historian

Race is the least important aspect in determining character, yet it is often the most significant factor in how we are perceived.

What are your thoughts?