i keep seeing posts about cs pacat being a ‘white woman writing a poc’ and
since she is australian and i am australian i thought it can be helpful to understand the way australians construct race
australia
has different race constructs to the USA. VERY different race
constructs. especially different is the way we construct the race of
people from
mediterranean and middle eastern countries
in australia italians (which cs pacat is), lebanese (which i am), greeks
(which people debate if damen is or not?), maltese, turkish (which akielon
sports are modeled on?), syrians, balkans, macedonians, egyptians and anyone
from mediterranean or middle east countries around there, we are all thought of
as being the same racial group. we are ‘wogs’. (look that word up if you dont
know that australian racial construct.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wog
so here we are not poc as such we are wogs which is sort of a third category
that doesnt exist in america??
when i read captive prince to me as an australian it doesnt read as a ‘white woman writing a poc’ but as a wog writing a wog. in australia, damen’s olive skin, dark hair and dark
eyes are signals of that. and everywhere that i have looked for
interviews of cs pacat talking about damen and casting or ethnicity i notice she has
never used the term poc but instead says ‘mediterranean basin descent’ and ‘not
a tanned anglo-european’ which is the australian way of thinking about race, since
wog vs anglo is a main racial divide here
i think since americans only have two categories (white/poc) they try to put
that on to captive prince and they end up sorting the author into one category
(white) and damen into the other (poc). which is true in the american system.
but as a lebanese-australian i would
sort damen, myself and pacat who is italo-australian into the same race catagory of
wog along with egyptians, turkish, maltese etc because that is the way we construct race here. thats not erasing,
lightening or whitewashing damen’s olive skin, its just our different way of
constructing his race while his olive skin colour stays the same.
i know its hard for americans to understand beccause you dont have this
category. and im not saying that damen is not a poc in your system, because in
your system he is a poc. but i hope americans will respect that other countries have
other ways of looking at race too. all race is a construct.
also these arguments about is damen greek and therefore white or is he
turkish and therefore poc are ridiculous since in australia greek, turkish,
maltese, italian, lebanese, egyptian etc we are literally all considered the
same ethnic group
tldr but i think its important to understand the
author’s race context bc the
book is different when you think about it as a wog author writing the
experience of a wog character marooned in a northern-european country
(vere =
france-ish) and feeling sense of racial difference as well as a sense of
cultural isolation, because that is the wog experience living here in
australia for turkish, greek, lebanese, maltese, italian, etc. and thats
just… different to how the book reads if you think of it in the
american way as a white woman writing a poc.
ALSO wog has a different meaning here in australia than it does
in the UK (and dont use the word if you are not a member of the group because
we use it as a friendly term, but it is a racial slur if used by others.)