A wild west without Indians.
World building is fun, but world building often exposes more about the author's perspective and life experience than they might intend. Never was this made more clear to me, in the most awkward way possible than when I was in a small NYC writer's group where we would meet to discuss our ideas for plots and worlds. On the first meeting we gave short general introductions to our worlds. One world made me a little nervous. This guy had plans for a "wild west" setting, but in a USA with an alternate history. It was "cyberpunk" and there were all kinds of semi-mystical retro-future technologies, like trains that could travel on rows of ceramic discs, but with steam power. He was really in to the alternate tech, and the alternate flora and fauna of this "wild west." All the animals were bigger and more dangerous. The plants could sometimes eat people. It had a lot of neat little details. I decided not to be "all political" and ask about what the US was like in this version of the 1830s. I decided not to ask about escaped slaves, or Native American nations, or the rights of women-- maybe this could just be a fun little western. As the meetings progressed, my questions grew. There were outlaws and stagecoach robberies, there were swaggering sherifs and brothel girls. Everyone was white. I could tell that if I simply asked "why is everyone white" this guy would probably just shut down or get defensive. On the third meeting he explained more about the various monsters of his wild west. He said something like "Up until the technology was invented to use electricity to repel monsters no one could live out west it was basically unpopulated." I couldn't stand it anymore. "So, during the whole period of pre-Columbian history none of the native nations expanded into those regions?" He basically said "exactly!" then went on with some pride an excitement about how this "fixed" the problem of westerns basically being racist. He could tell this kind of story that he seemed to love about "how the west was won" but without the uncomfortable part about it being won from anyone. He didn't seem to see that he'd effectively replaced the western native people's nations with... literal monsters. Monsters that are objectively evil and who have to be driven away or eliminated in the name of progress. This guy wasn't what I'd call overtly racist. Really, I think he wanted to be anything but that. But, his main motivation was telling the kind of westerns he grew up loving, the westerns he stilled loved. The tales of Cowboys and Indians*-- and he had just enough awareness to find the idea of a story about some white men killing off native people abhorrent. So, he erased them from the story. I started pointing out how different the west would have been if no one had ever lived there. How the landscapes might be different having not been put to use by any people for thousands of years, the huge body of words and cultural artifacts that wouldn't exist -- that really, "cowboys" probably wouldn't exist in any recognizable form. But, I think I just confused him more. And around that time my job became rather busy and I didn't make the group meetings for a bit... then decided to just not come anymore. But I think about that world he built often, the world where, in order to avoid the appearance of bigotry he erased the people who might be its victim. I'm certain the worlds that I create say as much about me. I wonder about those things they could be saying that might be so deeply embedded into my world view-- that I can't even see them.
