The Curse Jar - Part Two

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Chapter Three: The Curse Jar - Part Two

Calla

Scorpio: Strong and opinionated, other people’s views don’t usually enter into your decisions. For a change, stop and listen; see if things don’t get interesting.

Calla opened the doors to the greenhouse, stepping inside. The heat of the controlled climate hit her hard, even though the hotel had moved from the New England fall to a mountain spring during the night.

She’d spent her morning run checking out all the new flora around her, her inner botanist happy to study the dewy, supple petals after days of brittle, breaking leaves. The differences between the hotel’s constantly changing environments were fascinating, feeding her love for knowledge and novelty.

But there was something comforting about the constancy of the greenhouse, of being able to see the subtleties of growth. To see the same plant grow from a small sapling’s first bud to a full bloom, it was like magic.

Better than. With a little research, a lot of work, and tons of care, you could actually bring about a transformation. Seeds to sprouts. Saplings to trees. It was real. Tangible. Knowable. Controllable.

Calla paused by the orchids. The hardy brassavola. The temperamental chysis laevis. Lovely laelia. She checked the soil’s pH balance — jotting down notes for Mrs. K to add dolomitic lime pellets to one plant or citric acid to another in their next watering — before moving on to the lilies.

“Ah, menacing hell!”

Calla turned at the crash. “Rowan?” She wove through the greenhouse aisles, spying him as he righted an empty, spare pot — that he appeared to be using as some sort of basket.

Not a basket.

Narrowing her gaze, she could see the spilt mess pouring out of the makeshift — she shrugged, searching for the right word — cauldron, she supposed.

“What are you doing here?” She helped him scoop up handfuls of the lemon-scented muck.

She brushed a bit of soggy leaves and seeds off the old, yellowed pages of the book he’d been carrying around like a little boy with a new toy these days. “More woo-woo?” she asked, still skeptical even while she was secretly thrilled by it. Drying her hands on her jeans, she touched the pages and the elaborate calligraphy she couldn’t read. Pushing the heavy book aside a bit, she found another just like it beneath.

Huh.

“This new?” She pulled the book out only to find another smaller, thinner, newer paperback under that. Seeing the English title on the glossy cover, she reached for that one. “Domini Sorrel, the Master Metamorphist.” Flipping to the back cover, she was surprised to see that it was a book about a stage magician from the early 1900s. And, though he’d been rumored to be a practitioner of the black arts, the book claimed to reveal all the famed illusionist’s greatest show secrets.

Quirking an eyebrow at The Elysium’s own magician, she waved the book of illusions at Rowan. “What’s with the hocus-pocus puff piece? I’d think the professionals would scoff at the pretenders.”

Rowan smiled ruefully. “I think, in his time, he was more of a professional than I am.” He shrugged. “And anyway, I think it’s interesting and still a kind of magic — just a different brand.”

“You’ve been busy.” She flipped through the pages, looking at the hand-drawn diagrams showing the smoke and mirrors of every trick. “Where’d you get all these?”

“The library,” he said. “Apparently, there’s a whole section on magic — of all kinds. The boy who lives there helped me find all this.”

“There’s a boy who lives in the library?”

“I guess.” Rowan shrugged. “That’s what Flax told me.”

Not exactly much on reading or the weird, musky scent of old, used books, Calla scowled as she imagined living in such a dreary, lonely place.

She shook her head, dismissing the thought — hey, to everyone their own and all that. “So,” she asked, changing the subject, and nodded toward the potted magic, “what’s all this?”

“It’s a window washing spell I found in this book,” Rowan said, pointing to the open text on the table.

Calla shot him a funny look. “So, what,” she asked, “you thought The Elysium could do with a good scrub down?” She couldn’t understand why he was so excited by a little magical Pine Sol.

“It’s not that kind of a spell,” he said. “For Drurys, windows are in-betweens, places between the worlds. By washing the windows, one is supposed to be able to see into those places. Maybe even cross over into them.”

Calla straightened. Really? “Do you think this might be your way home?”

He tilted his head and shrugged. “I don’t know, but I have to try. And look here,” he said, flipping to the beginning of the book.

Showing what looked to be a title page, she looked at the unfamiliar words, scanning the slightly weathered paper until she found what he saw. “Aster and Clary Drury?” she read. “Drury?” she repeated. “This was written by someone in your family?”

“Ancestors from the sixteenth century, as far as I can tell.” He smiled proudly. “Apparently, I’m not the first Drury to travel between worlds.”

Remembering the mess made by the rip in Suite 315, Calla watched Rowan turn back to the spell. “Are you sure you should be doing this?” she asked. “I mean, what if the spell takes you to a different world than the one you want?”

She shook her head as she remembered how close Rowan had come to being shot in that closet.

“No,” he told her, “no, it wouldn’t be like the rip. This spell is very specific. It says that the caster should be able to see the world in the window before they enter. I’d know if it wasn’t the right world before I ever stepped foot in it.” He looked at the spell. “It’s really a relatively easy process. Practically foolproof.”

Foolproof sounded pretty good to Calla, especially considering Rowan’s tendencies to get himself into a lot of tangles. “Practically?” she asked.

“Well,” he said, pointing to a particular passage, “it says here that you have to soak basil seeds in an even mix of lemon juice and twice-blessed water.” He shrugged. “I’ve never actually blessed anything before — it was something family elders did, not the younger generations. And certainly not me. But, even if I did, I still don’t have another person to bless the water again.”

For a change, stop and listen; see if things don’t get interesting. Her horoscope better be right. Calla shrugged. “I’ll do it,” she offered.

Rowan gave her an incredulous side glance. “I don’t think,” he said warily, “it works that way. I’m pretty sure I need another magician. Maybe even another Drury.”

Calla knew she was still new to the whole magic thing but, being more scientific-minded than superstitious, she was pretty sure water was water, twice-blessed or not. How much of a difference could it make who muttered nonsense over it? “Does it say that in the book?”

“No,” Rowan said, scanning the page. “But the only people ever allowed to even look at these books were trained magicians.”

“Which sort of rules out the both of us, doesn’t it?” she said logically. “I mean, you’re pretty much self-taught, yeah? I mean, you said it yourself, you’re not exactly a professional at this.”

“No,” he hedged, “but it’s in my blood—”

“Does the spell require blood?” Calla was so not doing it if she had to give blood. There were lines. And that was creepy.

“No, but—”

“So how’s the spell going to know who blessed what?” she reasoned, grabbing the book from him to study the spell. “Just walk me through whatever I’ve got to do; I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know,” Rowan said, shuffling his feet a bit.

“Oh come on,” she said. “You want to go home, right?”

He nodded.

“So let me try. You said it yourself, the spell is practically foolproof.” She shrugged. “How bad could it be?”

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The Curse Jar - Part One

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Chapter Three: The Curse Jar - Part One

Lemon Tree: (Citrus Limon) Once treasured and cared for by kings, this tree — from its leaves to its fruit — is used today in culinary practices, fermentation, relaxation aromatherapy, natural battery production, antibacterial uses, and sanitary deodorization.

In mystical practices, the lemon symbolizes protection, often blocking negativity and deflecting it back to its sender. And, because it has a sharp, clean scent and a long history as a natural cleanser, it is used in purification and banishing spells to separate a person from ties to their past

Rowan

Admittedly, it probably wasn’t wise — particularly for someone with Rowan’s luck — to be juggling the open book in his arms while walking, but he just couldn’t put the book down.

Unlike the other texts in the eight-book series, From Birth to Death, A Magician’s Walk was less a book of spells — though there were a few scattered about the pages — and more a history of his people. And his family, as two of the book’s authors or contributors were direct kin. There was an entire chapter devoted to his family’s history, sometime in the eighth century when the Viking invaders began to claim the land and the Drury elder, for the good of his clan, began the curse.

And there were several footnotes in other chapters about many of the great and most renowned Drury magicians. Like Roselle Drury, who put out a great, consuming forest fire that almost destroyed her whole community. Or Castor, who summoned the most powerful summer storm ever seen during the great famine in the third century.

Rowan turned the page to start on the next chapter when its title stopped him.

The Burning Times.

Rowan stared at the black ink print of a crowd of town officials feeding fires and stringing rope into nooses and lifting large, heavy, human-sized stones. And the screaming, agonized men, women, and children burning, choking, and being crushed alive at their hands.

In a world where the term witch hunt too often referred to corrupt politicians and spoilt celebrities, Rowan and his family never worried overmuch about persecution. Sure, the town talked about curses and witches, but always with a bit of a nudge and a wink. But, in the same way he’d grown up with stories about the Drury elder — and, he supposed, in the same way other children grew up with fairytales and ghost stories — he and his cousins had spooked each other with tales of those infamous years where Britain had burned her own — and, in truth, many others’ — people.

He shuddered, remembering the books in the Drury library — large, heavy tomes — filled with the names of generations of Drurys killed simply for being who, being what, they were born to be.

Rowan frowned when he read the caption that went with the gruesome picture.

King James and his kind were not the first to try to root us out and destroy us, but they were the first to take such pleasure in the deed.

Turning the page, he dropped the book. “Love of God!”

“Rowan?”

He jumped when a hand touched his shoulder. Whirling around, he found himself facing Lenten. Rowan shook his head, trying to steady himself. As he watched the man bend down to pick up the fallen book, his first stammering thought was to wonder why the man was holding Olive’s small doll in his hand.

Shaking the errant, incongruous thoughts from his head, he took the book from the man. “Thank you.”

Lenten, though recently cleaned up and once again straight-backed, studied Rowan with sadness still shading his blue eyes.

Finally, the man coughed. “Are you,” he said, the words sounding stilted and awkward as if he was uncomfortable talking after such a long silence, “okay?”

Rowan nodded. “Yeah.” He shrugged. “Yeah, just,” he assured, “startled.”

Lenten nodded, not quite convinced but unwilling — or uninterested — in pushing the issue. He turned.

Rowan stopped him, placing his own hand on the manager’s now crisp, blue suit, the soft curls of Olive’s doll tickling his hand as he touched the arm that held it. Lenten stiffened but didn’t turn, content to wait expectantly.

“Are you okay?” the boy asked, before he realized that he had no idea what to do if Lenten answered no.

As if knowing that, the man took a deep breath before answering. He hugged tighter to the doll he carried in the crook of his arm. After a moment, he simply patted the boy’s hand and nodded. “Thank you.”

Rowan watched the man leave, wishing there was something he could do for him. He sighed. There were so many things that he wished for.

Flipping the pages of the book back to The Burning Times, Rowan looked down at the image of a man — painted young and handsome if it wasn’t for his eyes that had been gouged out and his throat that had been slashed open. Rowan read the caption belonging to the painting.

Beware, ye born of the Drury tree, Hunters oft enucleate captured magicians, as eyes, hearts, and larynxes are believed to root the soul to the body. By killing the root, the Hunters trap the spirit within the flesh, not just destroying the Drury but also the magical seeds that are passed on and sown into the next generation.

Rowan closed his eyes, remembering his grandfather’s body and the gaping wounds that had mutilated his face. A tear fell down his cheek before being furiously wiped away. 

He read further down the page. According to the book, in the same way that magic followed those with Drury blood, so did the Hunters. They weren’t an army or even a specific people — though they often affiliated themselves with the like-minded of their time. They were just those in the periphery of the populace who decided to turn the Hands of Fate themselves and change what had always been, what was meant to be, and what would be.

Seasons, years, decades could pass peacefully, but eventually — inevitably — the Hunters would rise up, decimating their lines and forcing the remaining families into exile and hiding.

“ ‘For as long as there have been Drurys,’ ” Rowan read aloud, “ ‘there have been Hunters, those from many clans and many lands who seek the destruction of that which they covet most.’ ”

He stared at the righteous smiles drawn on the faces of the townsfolk torturing his ancestors and wondered how people could do such things. He understood jealousy. Understood envy — how could he not, with his luck? But to kill — to maim and torture — because of it? He shook his head uncomprehendingly. What kind of people did that?

He shut the book, wishing he could shut away the words. The Hunters were relentless. They were ruthless. And they had returned. And, while exiled in The Elysium, there was nothing Rowan could do about it.

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My Beauty is Not Unspeakable - Part Two: Searching For Solutions

So yesterday, I talked about my thoughts on the need for us to develop more and better language for race in our fiction.

But, to be fair, “I literally don’t know any other way to describe dark skin that’s neutral or positive as opposed to problematic.” Personally, I think part of what is impeding this progress is often the very same people asking for it. Too often, we ask for it as if it’s a simple request. But it’s not.

A quick Google search or stroll around Tumblr will tell you that writing or creating characters of color is a damned near impossible task. There are so many rules and regulations, so many lines to be toed and landmines to avoid.

Look simply at how we describe race in literature. How we talk about the mere existence of characters of color in the medium of words. Or, more to the point, how we’re told we can’t.

The Objectification Argument

As a person of color who writes stories featuring characters of color, I’ve been criticized because I use descriptions like “chocolate” or “caramel” or “almond-shaped” and those terms are assumed to always be problematic. According to the argument, characters of color—and people of color, in general—are too often described using objects, which feels dehumanizing or fetishizing. Especially, considering that most of those objects are tradeable goods, like coffee or almonds or chocolate, which equate people of color to sellable goods. Made worse since many of those goods, like chocolate and coffee, “drove the slave trade. They still drive the slave trade. So comparing your Black character to these foodstuffs? You can see why it’s cause for offense.”

They see “referring to darker skin tones as specifically chocolate was about aggression and appropriation and has links to colonialism. Think about it, what is the best way to show dominance? By eating someone - like in the animal kingdom. It’s a disgusting practice.” It makes it seem creepily like we’re ingestible, literally looking good enough to eat. “See how often these comparisons are connected to some sensual desire? As if people of Color are food to consume?”

To be fair, I get the argument. I understand the logic and intent behind it; I do. And I respect individual taste and think, on an individual-level, it should be taken into account. People have the right to be offended by what they find offensive. If individuals, like the blog-posters I reference, are offended by those kinds of descriptions and don’t want to have those terms used in reference to themselves, that’s fair and they should be allowed that right. If one person doesn’t want a term to be applied to them, they can tell people that and make that known. And I honestly do believe that people ought to not use those terms for them. Like I said, I don't speak for every person of color. But neither does anyone else. On an individual-level, paying such close attention as to not offend is nice and very much appreciated, but I think the difference between being a nice, polite person and being overly PC is thinking that one person’s rule—whatever it is—is universal. Because making terms blanketly off-limits or automatically labeled offensive in general because of that can be in and of itself offensive.

After all, my—and a lot of people’s—question inevitably back, when I hear this argument, is then, if there are certain terms that we can’t or shouldn’t use, what terms should be used instead.

To which there really isn’t an answer.

Or rather there tends to be a lot of answers, but none of which seem like viable solutions. More like barely fleshed out brainstorming that does precisely what these proposed solutions rail against—or sometimes worse—just in different words.

How We See The Unseen

What I find most odd about this whole debate are the mixed messages we get. Finally—FINALLY—the world is starting to realize that there’s a gaping hole in the market for things like lingerie and makeup for women of color, all with helpful, useful names using understandable visual clues to describe how we look like honey, mocha, cocoa, toffee, and espresso to match our previously ignored tones. These are often products by people of color for people of color using terms that we’re told shouldn’t be used for people of color.

Except, as we've already talked about, how do you talk about a product—or a story, for that matter—with people of color in mind without being able to talk about color?

But, well, it’s just makeup, right? It’s not exactly an industry one equates with the fight for equality or identity or social justice, right? The names are just some marketing ploy to sell more product. It’s not as if they’re some powerful force for change or anything.

Except makeup and the beauty industry, like literature and media in general, affect how we see ourselves and how others see us. For better or worse, they have a huge influence over our concept of identity and self. “When you watch Michelle Phan or Zoella applying cosmetics on camera (…) you are watching someone become themselves (…) And, even though that process involves a lot of talk about product and color and shape, there’s also this other, largely unspoken, talk about the self—its elusiveness—and how this stuff might be able to help you track it down.”

Growing up a theatre and dance kid, I remember being younger and having to buy three or four different foundations and powders—often from different brands with drastically different hues to rather dramatically disastrous dermatological results—that only matched me after a mad and expensive, Frankenstein-esque mix of products meant for “dark,” “medium,” and “light” skin, none of which on their own looked much like me. After all, how diverse and precise can you really get when you’re limited to only three options?

Last night, I looked through my makeup case and noticed that my foundation and powder and bronzer all have names like “cappuccino” or “almond glow” or “caramel.” At some point between my childhood and now, a wide range of colors cropped up on the cosmetics shelves. Suddenly, they had shades made specifically for people with my skin tone, because someone in the industry realized that “dark,” “medium,” and “light” just couldn’t cover everyone. Marketing ploy or not, it makes sense and creates an “I see you” kind of identity. It shouldn’t be—it’s just makeup, after all—but that’s a big deal to women of color to have companies and brands remember that people like you exist and are relevant enough to cater to. That we’re significant enough for them to see.

It’s a concern most white girls never have to think about. Looking at some makeup sites now, white girls have always had products to match them with names like “nude” and “natural.” Most of the products have many, mixed-up iterations of each: “creamy natural,” “nude beige,” “natural nude.”

What the hell do any of those even mean?!

It may be problematic but at least when I read “caramel-colored skin” I know what that looks like. “Natural nude,” what color is that?

Except we know what color it’s supposed to be: skin. After all, with names like Sephora's “Flesh,” how could it mean anything but that? “When the image of the perfect woman is coded from childhood as Snow White, the fairest and most sunburned in all the land, the idea becomes that all the rest of us are just donning costumes to imitate true beauty.” Historically, “makeup maintained an association with purity. It was only the clean or pure wearer who, through the application of cosmetics, could obtain true beauty. Which was largely associated with the idea of ‘natural beauty,’ that you might imagine comes packaged with all sorts of troubling ideas about race. Some of which we’re still working through today, given the West’s fair-skin centric global domination of the beauty industry.” Those names—those labels and descriptions—seem to imply that skin has one true color: white. And everything else is just a variation, a deviation, from that. As if white skin is real skin and ours is…something else.

I don’t know, but I would think that, of the two types of description, this seems more offensive to people of color than any word or object anyone could ever use for our skin. At least, I know which, between the two, makes me feel more dehumanized.

Would object-based descriptions feels so objectifying and offensive on their own if they weren’t juxtaposed with this? After all, if white skin is described as flesh and everyone else’s skin is described as objects—food, minerals, plants, animals—yeah, it’s hard not to feel like the world sees you as less than human.

So where does that leave us?

We could let ourselves be seen, if only in the worst context. Daringly describe ourselves in all our “I see you” beauty and risk it being seen as cliché and offensive and trashy. I understand why that would make readers and publishers and, yes, writers uncomfortable. I understand that stories like these come with a context that can be easily misinterpreted and that must always be cautiously handled and explicitly explained with disclaimers. Race is inevitably encoded with centuries of history that make it so diversity can never just be enjoyed.

But, for those exact same reasons, I think saying you can’t or shouldn’t use those terms doesn’t solve the problem either. Or rather it solves it rather problematically. Again, I just don’t think its proponents have thought the theory all the way through. We need and deserve to be able to use understandable visual cues to describe ourselves. We need more language, not less, to allow us to be seen.

Because, clichéd and trashy as those descriptions seem, I’d still rather they exist than not. Because they serve the same function that descriptions of white characters do. To give the reader a detailed picture of what those characters look like. In the same way, in my stories, I tell the reader that Peter’s eyes are hazel or Max’s hair is red, I tell them that Kat’s eyes are lotus-shaped and Hayato’s skin is golden. Because they are.

And, as for it being clichéd or overused, I’m sure if we looked in the vast history of English literature, hazel eyes and red hair—as well as emerald or sky blue eyes or ivory or cream-colored skin—I would guess, appear far more often than lotus-shaped eyes and golden skin. Only, we never notice because hazel eyes, unlike lotus-shaped ones, are normalized in western culture. We take them for granted as a given. As normal. It’s just a color to us. In the same way, Kat’s eyes should just be a shape.

I should be able to say that my character has “almond-shaped eyes” with the same ease and acceptance as I would say that my character has “blue eyes.” I should be able to say that my love interest finds the color of my black character’s skin attractive with the same nonchalance that I would if he admired my redheaded character for her hair. They’re just adjectives, meant to give a reader a more detailed image of what my character looks like. If one is unacceptable then the other should be as well because neither one, in and of themselves, says anything politically charged. Neither one is more normal or more deviant than the other. On their own, without value judgement or cultural baggage attached, they’re just shapes and color.

But I suppose that's the problem, isn't it? How do we detach all that baggage? We can't exactly ignore the centuries of fetishization and discrimination against people—particularly women—of color. We've been devaluing beauty of color for so long; that's how we got here in the first place! Are there people who dismiss and denigrate people based on their features or skin color? Are there people who don’t so much appreciate as fetishize the color of skin? Absolutely. Believe me, as a woman of color, I know—I know—they exist. But their dismissal or fetishization shouldn’t be used to erase others’ appreciation. There is a difference between describing or even appreciating the realities of how a person looks and fetishizing or dehumanizing a person based on their looks. And we owe it to each other to make and acknowledge the difference. The two exist. Simultaneously in the same world. To the same people. I promise you, I have experienced both in my lifetime. Why do we too often seem content to rail against one while ignoring the other?

By doing so, it makes it seem like our love must always come packaged with bad intentions or ulterior motives. That the only way to visually appreciate us is to do so unhealthily. That, by seeing us as beautiful and attractive and desirable, that is an admission of guilt. A stain of prejudice. The sign of a racist. We “can be, and often are, hyper-sexualized — and in seeing (us) as overly sexual, and only sexual, (we participate) in that stereotype. But while (we) can be sexual things, (minority women) are not allowed to be glamorous or lovable.” We can only be lusted over, dissected into stereotypical parts like big asses, sassily swaying hips, or submissively bowed heads, but never truly loved.

Is that the world we want to live in? Is that a world, if given the choice and opportunity as writers, we want to create?

Often, having to address race in such an overt way, after dealing with the weight and heft of it, it makes touching the topic feel tainted. It makes every mention of the way we look feel more meaningful now. Like the specifics of us are suddenly too significant. It makes our beauty no longer feel very beautiful. How could it be, if it has to be justified and rationalized—if it is only allowed to exist—in very specific and limited contexts? Because treating that kind of love as if it’s not something that needs justification seems to always demand some kind of defense from someone.

And, after talking to a partner once, I suppose the wider world is more like that than I’d like to believe. Because, while he’d often tell me that he thought me beautiful, he did confess to me that he never felt like he could admit that attraction to anyone else. Not without it being scoldingly misinterpreted as a fetish or objectification. I hadn’t realized that my race actually did made my beauty unspeakable in polite company. That it was something that needed very specific contextual spaces to be acknowledged, to exist. That only in private moments, away from the prying gaze and judgment of the rest of the world, did it feel appropriate. Otherwise, it was best, was safer, left unsaid. I didn't know that. I didn't know I was only allowed to be beautiful sometimes. In some ways. I’d always thought that so long as he loved me for who I was as well as what I looked like—the way most people do—the world would be at least forgiving if not understanding. I thought a love like that was what defined it as more than a fetish.

I want to believe that. And defiantly choose to.

I like to tell stories in which, like in the world I live in, people of color exist. If I’m going to create worlds, I want worlds where, like in the world I live in, diversity in all its complexity is something real. I want people who look like me, who look like my friends, to all be seen and be given voices. I want to show diverse people living together. Loving together. The way they do in the world I live in. The world we all live in, whether we know it or not. Whether we like it or not. The existence and normalization of stories like that are important to me, as someone who grew up not really having a whole lot of that.

And that is my problem with these arguments and theories. They focus so much on how not to describe us, how not to portray us, how not to look at us, and precious little on how we’re supposed to exist at all.

The Plainspeak Argument

Never compare us to objects; it’s objectifying.

Okay.

Fine.

Then what do we use?

The Plainspeak Argument suggests using “words that actually ‘mean’ their color”, like gold or ochre or fawn, instead of “these same ole descriptions that go out of their way to say something other than brown.”

Except color and shape are visual mediums built on comparison. “Communication theory suggests not knowing the word for a thing makes that thing invisible to the larger culture. It’s called linguistic relativity. If you can’t describe it; it doesn’t exist.” We can only know what green a green is by comparing it to something else. How do we know if a green is green like a pine tree or green like a celery stalk unless we're told?

Even with those helpful colors that mean their color, their meanings only mean something because they refer to the objects that share their name. The color gold exists because it is the color of the object gold. The object always and already preceded the abstract concept of the color.

The same applies for shapes. We can only know what a box looks like if we already have a concept of what shape a box is. In the same way, it’s often helpful to describe the shape of eyes using already known shapes, like almonds and lotuses, because we understand what those shapes are. If an object is the only the shape or color of itself, how can you, in a medium that paints and sculpts solely in words, describe that shape or color to a person who cannot see it? If we have skin that is the exact and unique color of our skin and features that put into mind the thought of our features, I suppose that is incredibly and obviously accurate but, in a world made of words without an outside visual reference to linguistically relate to, it makes us really inaccessible. In print form, it leaves us undefined, unsettled and strange. It will have solved the issue of us being compared to almonds and lattes by making us oddly sound like an unknowable something lurking in some Lovecraftian story.

Okay, so, say, we stick to modified but still more nondescript terms, like brown and beige. Currently, yes, many readers still read terms like “dark beige” skin as white skin with a tan but, if we continue to use it to mean skin of color, it’ll eventually become a non-offensive, plainspeak, ethnic signifier. We just need to give it and our readers time to acclimate and adjust.

Never mind that, in our nondescript, non-offensive efforts to avoid clichés, we would have just created a new, rather othering cliché that doesn’t so much describe us as people of color—doesn’t describe or even attempt to capture the beauty and individuality of us—but rather exist solely to distinguish and differentiate us as not white.

Usually, I’m a fan of plainspeak. But beauty feels less beautiful when confined to plainspeak. While certainly useful, it’s also thoroughly non-emotive. As one of my friends remarked, “dark beige; that’s the color of my living room, not a person.” It simplistically and non-specifically tells us something fairly vague but doesn’t show us anything. It’s flat and lifeless. And, if that was the aim, why not use very useful, very exacting Pantone codes? Then your character can be the precise shade of “Pantone 45-C” or the exact color of “Pantone 75-6 C”. Because who wouldn’t want to be described in such precise and breathtaking prose? Even the creator of the Humanae project that I’m referencing understands that kind of description, while visually stunning, is lyrically…unhelpful. Listen to her talk about race in her TedTalk in terms of “dark chocolate tone” and “porcelain skin” and “vanilla and strawberry yoghurt like tone.”

We need more and better ways to be seen. We need to be visible. Not just in opposition to the accepted norm—not just as “not white”—but as uniquely and independently ourselves. We cannot afford to limit our language and expression just because it might feel problematic to some people. That feels more like a step backward than anything else. That claim, that some people’s offense justifies making their comfort level the norm, hurts us by allowing our continued erasure, while we wait for some perfectly unproblematic solution that very well may never come.

The Natural Argument

So, okay, then maybe the problem isn’t that we use objects to describe people of color, but rather the types of objects typically used to do so. I mean, sure, all right, specificity and context make a difference. So just not food or tradable goods then, because after all people of color aren’t sellable and consumable goods and Lord knows we have a horrific history of too often being seen as such.

Okay, that’s fair.

But what brown items are we left with? The bark of trees. Except lumber is a tradable good. Stones and gems? Definitely, tradable goods. Mud? Clay? Still tradable goods and good thing they are, because I really don’t want people to look at my skin and think of the color of mud. Well, many social justice activists seem to be okay with “Natural Plant-life” or “Spices”. Which seems strange since, I’m sure the botanical and culinary industries will be surprised to know they don’t deal in tradable goods and I think several stores owe me refunds because I’m pretty sure I’ve paid money to obtain these items.

Not to mention, there are tons of natural plants, like fruits and vegetables, and spices, like cinnamon and clove, that I’ve ingested as or in food, so why are food items sometimes non-offensively acceptable and other times not?

Maybe it’s because I write smutty, sex-centric erotica, but I don’t find the food analogies all that offensive. Not on their own. I mean, sure, if you overthink it or authorially overwork it, there is certainly a “the better to eat you with, my dear” creepiness to it but, as a writer who also loves speculative fiction, I know that, if you think too hard about anything, you can find a creeptastic spin on it.

And, in a genre like erotica, that depends on sensuality—on the playful embrace of your senses, sight, sound, smell, texture, and taste—it seems strange, arbitrary, and off-putting to shy away from these descriptions just because there exists people out there who read, willingly or not, cannibalism into sex.

And, again, I get it. There is something inherently visceral and carnal about the way writers—particularly erotica and romance writers—describe characters. Because there’s often something inherently visceral and carnal about the way we as people experience attraction and love. We obsess and wax poetic about the size, shape, color, texture, and taste of thighs, breasts, hips, shoulders, asses, vulvas, and cocks. We touch and taste and savor and swallow. We eat out and go down. We tongue and suck and lick and bite. Call me crazy—or racist or offensive—but food analogies exist and make sense because of this. If you want to eliminate writers using these types of descriptions, you’re going to need to eliminate this “feast of love” part of human sexuality.

But, okay, so if food and inanimate, tradable goods are creepy and dehumanizing, what about animals? Fur and hide and scales comes in a wide variety of browns. But then couldn't the argument be made that to compare us to animals makes us seem animalistic? And, even if “fawn” has somehow become an acceptable description of skin, this isn’t really helping people see us as more human now, is it?

The Heritage Argument

Well, perhaps we can only describe ourselves in comparison to each other, to other humans who look like us. So, while white people can have eyes as blue and deep as the ocean or skin as rich and smooth as silk, we can only have the skin of Barack Obama or the eyes of Lucy Liu. And, if you don’t have an easily recognizable celebrity who looks like you, perhaps the world isn’t yet ready to see you.

Or perhaps we are just ethnicities and nothing else. All Asians are just Asian. All black people are black. All Hispanic people, Hispanic. It certainly makes describing people easier, since, within our designated race, it would be assumed that we then all look the same. That we are some big collective without individuality or distinction. A practice that has not been historically the best.

Besides, what exactly defines each designation? What does, say, “Asian” look like anyway? Who decides that? Ming-Na Wen, Ariana Miyamoto, and I are all Asian, but none of us look the same.

Perhaps more specificity is needed then. Maybe we could say characters of color have “Korean skin” or “South African hair?” Would “ethnically typical shaped eyes for a South Pacific Asian” and “skin of a shade that is not of European descent” feel more accurate and socially acceptable? It ought to feel less offensive, right? I mean, you’re simply stating the ethnic heritage of where those features came from. Except that just feels so othering. Especially since you would never hear someone say “French-Canadian eyes” or “Scottish skin.“

Besides, as an Asian-American, a daughter of an immigrant, and a citizen who has rarely left the states, I would feel uncomfortable and it just frankly feels odd and illogical to be defined by a region of the world that I’ve never been to or seen or experienced outside of a magazine or textbook.

So how would you describe a person who looked like me? What words am I allowed to exist within? Would I have the skin of a people I have little connection to beyond my genetics? Or the eyes of an island I did a cursory report on in fifth grade? And, having said that, what color does that make my skin and what shape are my eyes, when through a description like that, even I have a very detached, National Geographic-inspired relationship with my own body now? And is it any wonder that we don’t see more characters of color when we have to ask these questions?

An Impossible Balancing Act

And that’s just with the way we look. We also can’t be too ethnically stereotypical personality-wise, but don’t make us too white either. Also be careful where you place us; don’t relegate us to colored-only places and plots, but don’t make us the token piece of color in places and situations that are stereotypically white. Always acknowledge that racism exists—go in-depth on socially conscious subjects like objectification, racial profiling, and cultural appropriation—but don’t make all our stories afternoon-special-esque stories about race.

Where and how are we supposed to exist in that then? And should we even exist in a medium that clearly has a clearer picture of a world without us? Because if we can only be defined in the negative, by what we’re not allowed to be and only what we are in highly selective, not always true, impossibly Goldilockian not-too-hot-not-too-cold kinds of ways, our negation seems to make more sense than our inclusion. And perfectly explains why we are so very rarely seen, because why would anyone bother to include us when there seems no right way to do so?

Which, since most of the people touting this philosophy are trying to get more diversity in literature, defeats the purpose of proper and respectful representation. Because I—and many other authors—hear these objections, that as I said often feel logical and reasonable if a bit murkier on practicalities, and feel like it’s so much easier to just write white people then. Because in a world full of white people no one ever has to talk about race ever. It’s really the only way to solve the problem they present.

It’s just also a solution I don’t want. But, in a medium and a world that too often doesn’t know what to do with us, is it any wonder why it feels easier and more right to just do away with us?

So What Do We Do?

Honestly?

I don’t know.

That's why this is titled "Searching for Solutions" and not just "Solutions."

But I think, whatever we do, the first step is going to be letting go of the idea of some perfect answer. Some unthought of invention of language that will solve this issue.

I think we need to admit to ourselves that it’s not going to be that easy.

We will offend someone.

We will mess up.

But we need to try.

We need to do something.

If it were up to me, I'd want to normalize the description of skin and features. For people of color and for white people as well. In the same way that white people are often described as being “milky white” or “creamy” or having “emerald eyes” or a million other descriptions, that never get questioned because we hear them so often, we need to de-stigmatize descriptions of people of color. Because, as long as these characters are “presented as different, unusual, weird, and deviant, there are going to be (people) who single that deviance out”, who see us as different and other in ways more problematic than words.

Right now, we don’t hear descriptions of people of color often, since we appear so infrequently in print stories, so when we are featured, they sound weird. It feels odd and off-putting to hear these things because, normally, we never do. Personally, I think most of the time it’s an issue of frequency, not fetish. I wonder if, the more we hear descriptions of ourselves, the more we use it, the more context over it we control, the more normal it will become.

If anything, I think we should get more creative and precise with how we describe everyone, white people too. It may sound weird to compare white skin to the color of pancakes and strawberry yoghurt, but again is it because it’s actually weird or just that we’re not used to hearing it? And, if that is more accurate than “ivory” or “creamy,” why shouldn’t we embrace that? Especially, since, when we fail to be more specific about white people, we perpetuate the idea of white skin as the default color of flesh.

Of all the arguments against terms like “chocolate eyes” or “coffee-colored skin,” the fact that that trend “tends to strike me as corny and tired just from a writer’s craft pov” is the one I find most compelling. I’m almost always more of a fan of and than or so, sure, I’m all for having more, rather than less, ways to describe ourselves. Instead of having characters with “blond hair,” maybe characters have rich strands the color of baked nadalin. Maybe characters have skin the shade of saison ale. Or eyes the tones of shifting silt.

Creativity is born of bravery, not fear. Of looking at our world, closely and intensely, not shying away from the uncomfortable bits. Personally, I firmly believe that, if we encourage people to pay closer attention to how we describe our characters, the context we portray them in, the spaces and roles and depths we give them, rather than just policing—arbitrarily yes-ing and no-ing—the usage of certain words, we might not only see more characters of color in our fiction, but better characters of color.

As women, we already have such troubling relationships with our bodies and I think that’s even more complicated for women of color and other minority women, because we know in a way I don’t think many white girls can that we will never—no matter what we do—be able to fit what we’ve been taught is acceptable or beautiful. And, to have opportunities to see ourselves as beautiful—to see other people see us as beautiful, to see the many, many, many ways we can be beautiful—is powerful. And something that I wish I’d had when I was younger.

It’s a legacy I want to be a part of passing on. I want to bring inclusion and diversity and body positivity into erotica. Into our fictional landscape as a whole. I want to use every word at my disposal to describe that beauty, to explore all that it is and all that it can be. For women and for men and for anyone of any gender. For people of color and for white people. For those of us that work hard to fit society’s standards of beauty and those of us who defiantly flip those standards off.

As writers, we paint worlds with words. We use those words to breathe life into mere letters. There is magic in that. And, like any spellcaster worth their salt, we should be both careful and brave with our words.

I want to give everyone, whatever body they embody, the opportunity to feel beautiful. As they are. As they want to be.

Because, even if it’s not possible, don’t you want it to be? Isn’t that an idea, whatever stumbles or missteps in front of us, that’s worth exploring?

 

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My Beauty is Not Unspeakable - Part One: The Problem

 

“Lil’ Kim, like millions of dark-skinned women, has been socialized to believe she is ugly and unworthy because she is not white or light. And like many, she has taken on the racism that surrounds her, and subscribed to what we’re all told is the ‘ideal’ image of beauty: the fairest skin, the blondest hair. (...) Perhaps the saddest thing about Kim’s transformation is that it reflects a look that is very much celebrated and applauded — just not on her.”
Zeba Blay

So Lil Kim recently posted pictures to her Instagram that many found “unsettling not just because of how unlike her former self she looks, but because of how light she seems to have bleached her formerly cocoa-brown skin.” And, boy, does the beauty industry—and the general concept of beauty as a whole—have a complicated relationship with race.

And, I agree with Blay’s article, I think the story here is less about Lil Kim and more about a society and system that made her feel like she had to transform herself in order to be considered beautiful. I mean, how could she not feel that way, when companies like Dove do things like the “normal to dark skin” self-tanner screw-up where, intentionally or—more often—reflexively not, our culture portrays white skin as the norm and skin of color as a less desirable other.

And I agree that is a problem. A big one. I just also think we’re looking at this problem wrong. We’re too often too quick to claim overt and malicious racism and demand boycotts and public shaming. And, mind you, these just my personal thoughts. Lord knows, I am not qualified or claiming to speak for all people of color in any way, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here and I really don’t think that that’s the solution. 

I think we ought to examine why people like Lil Kim and, if I’m being honest, me when I was younger—and certain days at my current age—think that being white is the path to beauty. And take a good look at the system and powers in place, like Dove’s marketing, that shape that belief. I think we need to take a moment and address the issues of how we look at and how we talk about beauty of color.

The Problem

Personally, particularly as a woman of color who writes erotic romances featuring characters of color—especially as a WOC who is currently in an interracial relationship and often writes erotic romances featuring interracial relationships—I find the way we talk, or rather too often don’t talk, about race and beauty in this country disheartening and disappointing.

We’re at a strange point in time, in literature, where more and more readers, writers, and publishers are demanding more diversity in their media but, in many ways, we still lack the language and means to deliver. We’re trying to deal with diversity in a still very white-centric medium through a hypersensitive, easily triggered, politically tumultuous lens. Which too often ends with us drawing arbitrary and contradictory lines in the sand while we chase an elusive and quite possibly impossible standard of perfection that seeks to please everyone and offend no one.

A lofty goal, to be sure. 

It’s just one that I’m not sure is possible or even something we ought to aspire to.

And, to be fair, a lot of these well-intentioned, if deeply problematic theories point out the perfectly legitimate problem that, as it stands, we’re not good at describing characters of color, but offer no practical solutions beyond “Let’s commit to using the fast-changing breadth and width and depth of the English language to describe a diversity of characters with integrity and imagination.” Again, truly admirable sentiments, but not exactly helpful.

Since pleasure and offense are such personal things. What pleases one person, often offends another. What seems innocuous to me may insult someone else. What they see as a perfectly politically correct solution may feel like an awful disservice to me. 

Don’t get me wrong. I believe in political correctness but, while I do think it gets the direction our culture needs to shift in right a lot of the time, it often gets it wrong too. There are times when, by attempting to not offend by being so politically correct, their efforts and arguments feel incredibly offensive in and of themselves, when thought all the way through to their inevitable conclusion.

So let’s break some of the arguments down:

What The Colorblind Argument Doesn’t See

The Colorblind Argument thinks that we should avoid being too specific about description of skin and features to sidestep the controversy altogether. After all, skin is skin and color shouldn’t matter, right? That’s the equality movement in a nutshell. So, just to be safe, why not simply take out ethnically specific mentions of color and distinguishing features entirely and stick to more generic terms, like “soft” and “smooth” skin or “bright” or “wide” eyes, which could apply to anyone? Then any reader of any race could insert themselves into any story with ease, right?

Except, while in theory that’s nice, that’s not how the real world works. Because colorblindness in print doesn’t actually promote equality; it just erases any race that isn’t white. 

Especially since we would never think to do that with white people. We would never think “blond hair” or “gray eyes” were even remotely problematic or in need of censoring or toning down. Yet “almond-shaped eyes” or “cinnamon skin” makes a lot of people uncomfortable. They’re terms we’re often told to shy away from or consider rephrasing. Which inevitably means that, if we are not allowed to know characters of color visually in print, a character of color can only be physically known in a tangible sense, such as “soft” or “smooth,” while a white character can have “soft hair the color of sunshine” or “pale skin smooth as cream.” We, as people of color, would then exist only within the lack of color we are described. How does that make sense?

By just straight-up deleting all descriptions, race now exists in stories as almost an intellectual exercise rather than the visual and physical reality many of us live. You’ve not only thoroughly bypassed the very real and very impactful politics of it, but also any claim to language that could appreciate it. “It’s simply counterintuitive to argue that problems related to race can be fixed by ignoring race altogether. In practice, colorblind casting isn’t a form of acceptance or progress: It can just as easily be erasure wrapped up as benevolence.” The path to equality isn’t ignoring or blindly painting over our differences, but by understanding and embracing that which makes us the same and that which makes us unique.

If I can’t describe a character’s ethnicity through skin color or features, if I can only say they have skin and features, the effort to make race not matter just erased my character’s race entirely. And, without those same ethnic differences that feel cliché and offensive to some, my character simply becomes the default race in western culture: white.

That’s how dominant culture works. Unless otherwise specified, the dominant culture is automatically the default assumption.

Even when authors try for racial ambiguity, “I know intentions are (often) good when writers purposely create racially-ambiguous characters, but it’s hard to undue a lifetime of defaulting ambiguous to White, for those who have been submerged in mainstream, White-dominated media all around the world. That’s just fact.” Even toning race down to say things like “dark beige skin” or “tanned olive skin” is problematic because, people can and often do interpret that as being white with a tan. Making our race ambiguous literally makes us invisible.

It is not enough to just not talk about or play down race. To just let the audience assume what it will. Let their imaginations fill in the blanks. Because, realistically, typically Western audiences just aren’t very good at mentally inserting diversity when given the option. That’s why people get so upset when actors of color are cast as characters in movies based on books, even when those characters were specifically stated to be, if not often specifically described as, characters of color in those books. Not to mention, also, like in the Last Airbender film, or, of course, the current Ghost in the Shell and Dr. Strange controversies, times when movie casts get white-washed to make the movie more sellable at the expense of the ethnic experience inherent in the story. Even when we find ways to diversify our traditionally, and out-datedly white-dominated stories, there are still too many people who, for too many reasons, have way too many problems with it. Who would prefer tradition over diversity. You know, those good ole days, where, for no real good reason beyond good old fashioned racism, everyone important was white.

Except, those days are long gone—welcome to today’s world—and, as I said, an all-white world doesn’t exist; we can no longer realistically pretend that it does. To present such a world is to depict, despite the intended genre, a fantasy-based dystopia in which the shocking lack of us needs to be addressed. Were we wiped out by disease? By war? If we are never characters of significance, if we never speak or act in ways that move the plot and by extension the world, why is that? Have we been silenced? Have we been pushed to the furthest margins of society? What happened in the story’s history to make our exclusion make sense?

And, if there isn’t one, if there was no mass genocide, no biological catastrophe, no sociological upheaval—if that’s just the story you have to tell—I have to wonder why that is. I have to wonder why, of all the worlds you could create, that was the one you chose. I would hope, at some point in the writing process, you would take a moment to wonder that too.

Because this colorblind practice unfairly and illogically erases us from the landscape. Instead of embracing the beauty of diversity, it makes it something to hush up. People of color have enough trouble being seen in this country—much less being seen in a positive light. And that type of archaic storytelling reiterates and reinforces “that white is normal. But white isn’t normal. And the more role models and representation otherwise, the better humans do.” No one race is “normal;” normal is the existence and recognition of all races. And we need to acknowledge that. The more diverse our media is, the more representative of the diverse reality we already live in, the better we all are for it.

For being such a melting pot and for having made such strides toward accepting and celebrating diversity in our real lives, we are not good at it when it comes to our fiction. We need to be explicit about it. After all, “if you the author have a specific race in mind for a character, what is honestly the harm in noting what they are?” We should treat race as if it’s, at the very least, conversational. Normal. Something we all, one way or another, live with. Because, white or not, that is our reality. That is the world as we know it. And it’s been that way long enough for us all to realize and accept it and, I promise you, it will not change anytime soon.

Ideally, we’d get to a place where we can celebrate it, in ourselves and in each other. After all, “Audiences empathize with people who aren’t like them all the time. (…) Because we empathize with fully realized characters in good stories even if they’re living lives that are different from our own, even if they don’t act like we act. In fact, that’s one reason why we seek out works of fiction, to experience life from other points of view that we could never live ourselves.” 

As a writer who uses them, I’ve been told that terms like “coffee-colored skin” or “lotus-shaped eyes” are discomforting or even racist; I think it’s racist to willfully refuse to see—to act blind to—parts of who we are. For making completely benign things, like the mere presence of skin or features, racist just because you deem them so. Just because they make you uncomfortable.

Please, understand, I’m not saying that we should use or be okay with racist language or imagery, but intent ought to matter. Context should factor in. Because to go in the complete opposite direction and say all mention of color is always and already racist is just another form of racism. It makes zero sense to avoid talking about color when it comes to characters of color. Because in order to talk about the color of someone’s skin, one must inevitably and unavoidably talk about color. To find it automatically offensive makes any description of a very important part of who we are off-limits. Not just to those who would use it against us, but to us as well.

To say that there’s something wrong with acknowledging a person has color in their skin tone, whether that’s porcelain, coffee, or chocolate, feels a lot like saying that there’s something wrong with having color in your skin. To not allow us to describe the color of our own skin, you make not only the words unspeakable, you in turn make our existence unspeakable.

Because good things, things a person can and should be proud of, are never unspeakable. Never censorable or limited. Unspeakable things are always and already shameful.

I don’t think the way I look—I don’t think I as a person, the mere existence of me—should ever be treated as shameful. I think you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who thinks that of themselves.

We, as a culture are so PC-ly afraid to talk about people of color in a physical sense. Even outside of fiction or the written word. For example, I had asked people to describe what I look like once, while discussing among friends the current social taboo of using these kinds of terms, and got answers like “diminutive but sparky” and “slyly intelligent.”

Both of which I like to think are accurate—thank you. But that only gives insight into who I am as a person and very little about what I look like. After all, a white person—or a black person or a Hispanic person or any person of any race—could be those things as well.

I am more than what I look like—no one will argue this louder than me—but I am still what I look like. Like it or not—accept it or not—I take up a physical presence. I exist in concrete, tangible terms. To say that it’s not appropriate to comment on my looks is to tacitly say that there’s something wrong with how I look.

White characters are allowed full dimension and depth, unfettered existence in worlds built by words all the time. While authors are continually asked to pull back and strategically tiptoe around the descriptions of characters of color for fear it might offend someone. This practice places limits that, by trying not to be offensive, are offensive, by saying that descriptions for white characters are limitless but descriptions for characters of color—no matter how benign—need censorship because they are always and already problematic for someone.

No matter what we want or wish, race and appearance matters. They affect how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how others see us. “Race informs everything we do. Not because it exists—race is a construct; there is only one human race, homo sapiens—but because we are social and visual beings.” Race and appearance inform our experiences and worlds. It’s dishonest to erase or be blind to that information. We all see it. We are all affected by it, in some way or another. As an Asian person, I know that, “Whether you like it or not, being Asian has a big impact on who you are as a person and it will continue to have an impact on you in the future. (…) And I think it’s because it’s one of the first things that people notice when they see you.”

And that’s okay.

I am Asian. I am not white. What’s so wrong with people noticing that? So long as that acknowledgment doesn’t come attached to value judgments or cultural assumptions, I promise, I don’t mind. It’s part of who I am. A part I can’t hide and, at this point in my life, one I wouldn’t if I could.

In fact, I’m far more offended when white people tell me that they often “forget” that I’m Asian. That I’m not white. What does that even mean? Look at me. Are they blind? No one looks me in my coffee-colored, amber-toned face and just forgets that I’m not white.

What they mean is that I don’t act like a cultural stereotype. That, to them, despite my looks, I “act white.” What they want is to be applauded for their colorblindness.

But I’m not going to applaud that. Their effort to not offend me—to compliment me on my lack of Asian-ness, to erase the otherness we’ve been taught is polite to blind ourselves to—offends me.

Because, I promise, I wasn’t trying to trick anyone by somehow defying racial tropes. It doesn’t and should never make me less Asian because of it. I’m okay with—I would far prefer—you acknowledging my Asian-ness. “Yes, this isn’t a disguise; it’s pretty obvious, right? But my point is that people will always identify you as Asian.” And, if you’re Asian—and if you believe there’s nothing wrong with being Asian—why shouldn’t they? Why would we see that recognition as rudeness?

So What Do We Do Now?

If we can and should recognize race in stories, the question becomes how, right? Which is a harder question than I wish it were.

A SEARCH FOR SOLUTIONS HERE

 

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