Writing.Com General Discussion

Since my theory has been touched on in your response, I'd like to talk about it a little more.

Now the black engineer at the table probably does have some racial stuff that happens in his life. But if as somebody else stated he acts a certain way around white people, that certain way may include, leaving that at home because he's among engineers who are treating him as an equal, not as a barrier to his side-plot about race.

From what I can gather in some scientific circles, this may no longer be the case (especially if the Scientist's March on Washington ends up including protests regarding discrimination in various branches of it). Since a good chunk of research funding comes from the government (including for engineering), scientists have gone more political in recent years. I do not discard the possibility of race entering the picture for that reason. I suspect that more people will opt to not leave those behaviors at home. On top of that, there are corporations who have employee resource groups based on race. I work for a company with an African descent group as well as a group for Asian employees. (If you really care to know, I work for Medtronic, which is very scientific.)

Not everyone of those characters are in the story to parade a race or gender issue. In fact doing so exacerbates the token-guy problem in that their only purpose in the story then is to wave a flag about race issues.

What if it's not the whites that are pushing for this approach? In my observations of blacks and reading up on black culture, there's been a substantial shift in the last 50 years. The notion of black identity has become sharper and a bit more separate from "acting white" (a theme one notices when looking at how Ebony magazine got started back in the 40s). On top of that, there is a bit of commercial segregation going on where various racial entities have TV channels and other media outlets pumping out stories marketed to them. This marketing inadvertently took the pressure off the major networks from to take chances on incorporating minority characters/actors in their shows for a little while. Only recently has this changed (partly because ABC has shown that having stories about minority characters/families can be profitable).


I understand why you feel the way you do, and a lot of the points you bring up actually remind me of why I hate discussing race with more liberal minded people on social media (including people I've been friends with for years). On the other hand, I think it's worth highlighting what happens when you base your opinions on one example, even if you grow up in a diverse area.







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