Should we warn about (presumably unintended) parallels with racist tropes?

Question

Somebody asked a question asking about a fictional humanoid race. To my eyes, the premise of this fictional race has strong parallels with a real-world early 20th century racist stereotype of African-American men kidnapping and raping white women, and a story written about this race could be interpreted by some readers as a racist metaphor.

My assumption in this case is that the OP had no idea, did not intend to write a story that people would see a racist stereotype in, and the parallels simply hadn't occurred to them. Assuming good faith, I wrote an answer explaining how this fictional race could be interpreted, and then offered some ideas for how to either avoid or subvert that stereotype in a story about that fictional race. The important points of my answer were "To some readers, [your race] will come across as a racist metaphor for [real race of people]" and "I'm going to assume this is absolutely not how you want your work to be interpreted".

A moderator deleted that part of my answer explaining what the problem was, leaving just my proposals for how to solve it, devoid of the context of what needed to be solved or why. I asked the moderator what was wrong with my answer that they had edited, and their response was:

It's plainly racist in itself, not based on what the OP is asking and not needed at all to support the rest of your answer.

At best, calling my answer "plainly racist in itself" means the moderator cannot have understood the answer they were editing; and it smacks of the old canard, "you're the real racist because you mentioned racism", but I'd like to be charitable if I can. In my opinion, what I wrote is certainly not racist (here's a link to the edit history if you want to judge for yourself), was clearly based on what the OP asked, and was needed to support the rest of my answer.

I think the moderator got this totally wrong: if I am building a world to write stories in, I would want my world to not accidentally contain things which could be interpreted as harmful stereotypes. Avoiding racist metaphors as possible interpretations of one's writing is a genuine world-building problem so it is clearly on-topic, and - do I really have to say this? - it is not racist to consciously recognise parallels with racist tropes in order to avoid or subvert them.

Answer 1

Yes, you can! ...

If you feel that topic is touchy for some reason that the asker might not know, you can give this piece of feedback. It is often a useful insight to the asker's world, something which might have unforeseen consequences down the line.

...But not this way...

Answers are meant to... Answer the question ;p. Warning about something is more thought of as side-notes (or in some cases frame challenges). And side-notes, while interesting, should be kept short as comments or as very short side-notes instead of taking half an answer. Why is it? It's simply because writing a paragraph on this side-note will probably side-track the question towards a discussion, on top of preventing getting an actual answer to the question.

So to ensure the site's readability and your answer's full help, give a comment on the question or as a one-sentence side-note to your answer.

... Speaking of side-notes

Well, it's not actually a side-note but more a deeper thought. Reading your answer made me think about how the symbols which carved the atrocities made during the WW-II by the German antisemite government at the time are forbidden in games (among others medias) in this same country now. Those symbols and gestures are a reminiscence of the acts some had -or... Hard to say... were willing- to make, which hurt their very cultural soul.

I understand why they do that (and hope many others would do too). But taking another point of view, talking about this past is the way to not forget and not make the same mistake again. This is what some stories made efforts into, keeping respects to the ones who suffered from this¹.

But why do I talk about this? Well, your non-squeezed-down answer tells about how you somehow wish that the asker's world isn't about racism :

I'm going to assume this is absolutely not how you want your work to be interpreted

Kaya3 original answer

But like my hint at WWII forbidden symbolism, is it necessarily bad that Ichthys King's world include a metaphor of racism and its history? Hmm wait... Let me better write it : What, personally makes you think their intents could only lead to depict some apology of discrimination? I emphasize on "personally" because we're striking right on feelings, here. The feelings that the question gave you, relative to yourself.

Fictious species and more generally world elements are often used to serve as a way to transmit a message. First example in mind... Oh yes, the Star Trek series is quite known for that, like the Outcast episode which talks about the discrimination of people's gender orientation. The part that makes them "morally acceptable" is not really on the world itself (the species in this episode is quite... Uh.), but the way it is presented to us made from the intents behind. Adding world parts is like choosing your ingredients, and then it's all about how you cook your story to give the taste and shape you wish.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't have pointed out this, my first paragraph still stands. After all, we don't know if the asker knew about that risky bind, nor their intents about the story they're setting up. It can be very beneficial. My point is just that it might be interesting to take a step back, and think first about how much a washed-out-for-the-web question can display the intents of its author(s), before wondering what such intents could be.

And if the question is bothering you too much, it is maybe just the perfect time you've got to quit and pass to the next question. Indeed, you shouldn't feel responsible for everyone's actions you see.

---

¹ : Logic note here : Telling that some stories keep respects don't necessarily mean all stories keep respect. Sadly }i{.

Answer 2

Introduction:

I read the question and I read kaya3's answer, in its original format and in its post-redaction version. Tortilena thinks I initially reacted too emotionally, and I concur, so am reviewing the whole matter again and am carefully rewriting my response.

Data & Commentary:

I've just reread the Meta question, all the answers and all the commentary. I've just reread the original Main query, all the answers and all the commentary.

OP asks a question about the mating habits of what is essentially an agendered but male-like, mitotically reproducing being that must make use of the female of another species as a receptacle for its baby zygote in order to reproduce.

The initial response under consideration makes assumptions about the motives and activities of the fictional race that have no basis in the query itself:

You are proposing (1) a biologically distinct race of humanoids which (2) does not coexist peacefully with humans, (3) can reproduce sexually with humans but the offspring are their own race and not human, and (4) are sexual predators who prey upon human females.

They then make an unfounded assumption about how some people will react to this fictional species:

To some readers, kleptons will come across as a racist metaphor for Black people.

They then moderate the indirect accusation, while still placing the onus of the accusation and also how other people will react onto the OP:

I am sure this was not your intention at all, but part of writing means being aware of how your readers may interpret your work.

They then delve into human history a bit, which is not relevant to the question at all:

Historically, white supremacists have depicted Black people as (1) a biologically distinct race who (2) cannot or should not coexist with white people, (3) can reproduce sexually with white people but the offspring are considered to be black and not considered to be white, and (4) well, hopefully you get the point.

They then moderate the indirect accusation again:

I'm going to assume this is absolutely not how you want your work to be interpreted

Yet continue to press the indirect accusation by rationalising the unfounded assumption that unnamed other people will react in a certain way. And more than that, inflates the indirect accusation by bringing in a variety of socially fringe elements and making yet another baseless assumption about how people will react:

but the point I'm making is that what you're describing could reasonably be interpreted this way. Racists could read your work and think you are on their side; Black people could read your work and be reminded of harmful depictions of themselves. To avoid this, I think the rest of your world needs to be carefully built and your story carefully written.

Assessment:

First, I should note that as of this revision, the question itself has gained +9/-1 votes and that all the answers apart from one have gained anywhere from +3 to +21 votes. Kaya3's answer has gained +3/-3.

I'd interpret this as a modestly well received query and a variety of reasonable answers with no indication in comments or voting patterns that anyone other than Kaya3 believes there is any inherent racism in the fictional race described.

I'd argue that this is an individual / personal opinion about the question's matter; and also that it does represent a valid concern in general though not in specific.

Having scrutinised the original question again, I still can not find any hint of racism or any other -ism in the text of the question. Nor can I find any "parallel" with the historical notes provided. I still maintain that this is essentially the Amazon Question: a single sex / gender population that needs to reproduce, how can they do this without needlessly antagonising their reproductive receptacles.

Far from the claim & accusation of racism, the species in question categorically negates accusations #2 and #4: they explicitly wish to coexist peacefully with humans, and they are, by nature, not sexually predatory in any way.

A sexual predator is a person with a deviant sexual urge.

On the matter of the historical notes: it is not "white supremacists" who determined that Africans are a biologically distinct race. Ordinary scientists & natural philosophers came up with these and other similarly bizarre propositions about different ethnicities of humans. The ideas that blacks shouldn't mix with whites or that their offspring are considered "black" rather than "white" are unscientific conclusions. None of these historical notes correspond to anything specified in the question.

Conclusions:

There are several issues going on here that we should consider.

Banner Question: To answer your banner question, Should we warn about (presumably unintended) parallels with racist tropes? I think the answer is clearly and obviously YES! We should warn an OP when a question contains racist content. And in fact, WB.SE practice has been to do just this. Not just racism per se, but with any kind of obviously discriminatory or defamatory content.

Underlying Issue: The issue being addressed here is not one of what should be done, but rather how we should approach it. I'd argue that we already have a reasonable process for addressing issues of this kind:

1. Ask for clarity -- if you think the question has questionable contents, just write a comment asking the OP for clarity! "I think X, Y and Z could be interpreted as racism / anti-religion / discrimination; can you please clarify?"
2. Flag the question -- either flag it for closure and give a reason, or flag it for moderator review
3. Start a meta discussion -- If the OP doesn't respond or if you really still think there is a problem, bring it here so the query and claims can be evaluated.
4. The usual reactions -- downvote and give a succinct rationale -- "I'm downvoting because I think your question is racist and you haven't addressed this concern."

Moderator Intervention: It's my opinion that while I believe your intention was noble enough, as you explain in your apologia above, I think you didn't execute very well. A moderator is kind of limited in what actions they can take when a query or a response is flagged for attention. A mod can choose to ignore the flag, they can modify the post or they can delete the post.

The choice to modify a flagged post is, in my opinion, almost always the best choice. In this case, a prudential judgement was made to preserve the part of your response that does actually try to answer the question, while also respecting the concerns of whoever flagged your answer. He redacted that part of your answer that, in his moderatorial judgement, does not actually address the question, but rather addresses a particular concern of yours.

Answer 3

I agree that the question has a hint of white supremacy, but I (want to) believe that it's accidental. Sometimes the racial prejudice we have is subconscious and ingrained from childhood (just watch some old Bugs Bunny cartoons). We do harm because we are not immediately aware of it. We can do better of we are made aware of what we are doing.

I think the right course of action here is to leave a comment, even if it is too big, to the OP; Maybe they do have an idea for some fictional people they could use for a novel, and being aware of the problem could lead them to redesign those fictional people away from racial stereotypes. Failing that, a flag would be appropriate so that the mod team can contact them. An answer is more permanent than a comment on a question or a flag, but it calls less attention.

As for the way this was handled: mod team, please review that again carefully. I have seen warnings for offenses much smaller than the one in the question.

Answer 4

There were two problems with your answer:

1. the comment about the (supposed) racist intent of the OP did not belong nor support the answer at all
2. while the OP had written those lines, they had not assigned them to a specific declination of human beings (Mind that those are the cornerstone of any racist stereotype in (recent) history). You did specifically attribute them to a group, going beyond the OP's statement.

Considering both those aspects, I have deemed better for your post to expunge that part without taking down the whole answer.

Answer 5

Broaden your horizons

The question, while indeed rather less than well-thought, is not racist in any way. Or at least, not in the way you think.

Except possibly in your village, or in your province.

If you had to illuminate the parallels between the question and some unsavory racist beliefs prevalent in your village, or in your province, all you had to do was add a short statement saying --

Please take note that in the village of Podunk, East Mississippistan, and indeed in the entire province of East Mississippistan, we used to assign said behaviors to black people, whom we used to keep as slaves; as a consequence, nowadays we have in East Mississippistan a layer of insufficiently well-educated watchpersons who, with their narrow world-view, may make lots of noise about this putative racist implication.

The world is larger than East Mississippistan. Most people in the world have no idea of the bizarre racist and pretend-antiracist tropes of East Mississippistan. The world cannot cater to all the bizarre misapprehensions of each and every province, because there are so many different provinces with different bizarre taboos and misapprehensions; too many to avoid them all and still be allowed to tell a story.

Now, you see, I am a Romanian. Romania is a country in south-eastern Europe, or maybe in central-and-eastern Europe, in any case, a country on the western shore of the Black Sea, mostly north of the Danube. And, lo and behold --

In central and eastern Europe the behavior in question is not associated with black people. We have no negative stereotypes associated with black people, because we have no black people. The behavior in question is historically associated with the Cossacks and the Tartars.

Now, you see, the Cossacks are (or were, because there are no Cossacks left) actually white people, just like us. The Tartars, eh, they came from central Asia, but by the time they got around to abduct our women and rise the children as Tartars their central Asianness had mostly washed out. Their descendants are still around, and go under several different names; some do even still call themselves Tartars.

So you see, in the eastern half of Europe, the behavior in the question is reminiscent of the Tartars.

In western Europe, mostly in the southern parts, the behavior in the question is associated with the Moors.

In other parts of Europe, it is associated with the Norsemen who called themselves Danes and whom we call Vikings.

I am pretty sure than in very many parts of the world there are stories about the horrible barbarians who lived beyond the border and who stormed in from time to time to pillage and to abduct women.

TL;DR

It was a bad assumption that in the minds of all readers the behavior in the question is associated with black people. In fact, such an association is very highly specific to a subset of readers from your specific village, or province. On the other side, very many readers would have in their culture a reference to such a behavior, assigned to some historical or legendary barbarians; this is not a defect, but rather a plus, because it would serve to establish the plausibility of the behavior.

Answer 6

I'm fond of a line from Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey–Maturin series of books:

You've come to the wrong shop for anarchy, brother

Here's the problem: social commentary has been the driving force behind social change since the dawn of time. The moment you ask people to stop writing about racism, discrimination, and/or marginalization, you rob the world of its single most effective solution to social problems. Personally, I think it's more offensive to invite people to be careful of what they ask here than what anyone may actually ask.

Can you imagine telling Alex Haley that the ideas he was working on that would eventually become Roots were "too sensitive" or too "racially charged?" How about Archie Bunker on the old sitcom "All in the Family"? Today his character (and the show) are so off-color and politically incorrect it would make people riot — and yet shows and books like them were part of the effort toward necessary and productive social change.

The fact that you have the sensibility to ask whether we need to warn people of potentially racial issues only exists because people dared to write about racial issues — some sarcastically, some realistically, some carefully, some boldly... all necessary.

We do not want to rob the future of its ability to address continuing social issues just because writers have been successful over the last two centuries to affect change. So, what limits should there be? @Elemtilas once mentioned that there shouldn't be any limits (correct me if I'm misquoting you, @Elemtilas!), but the Stack Exchange Overlords have put one limit on us: no gratuitous violence (especially in the form of torture). Thus, from our perspective, any issue... any issue... can be dealt with on this site so long as it's done professionally and, when necessary, clinically.

Conclusion

No. We're the wrong shop for that kind of anarchy.

• When and how to challenge the back story?