Talk:Racism in fiction

Examples of racism in fiction

@UDScott, shouldn't the quotes in this page be about the topic instead of examples of the topic, as you explained here? There is also this comment by Ningauble, wouldn't the same rationale apply here and in other pages related to racism? Immutatus (talk) 21:21, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I would agree - this page should have quotes about racism in fiction. Any quotes that provide examples of it should likely be in a 'In fiction' section on the Racism page. ~ UDScott (talk) 16:50, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

When I mentioned Ningauble's comment, I was mainly referring to this: "Examples of absurd statements generally have no place here. It invites subjective editorial opinion about what makes sense and what doesn't."

The same rationale could be applied to quotes on pages about racism. Characterizing quotes as examples of racism, whether in fiction or in general, is a matter of subjective opinion, which is why I think it should be avoided. One way around this would be to have secondary sources establishing that the quotes are indeed examples of racism. For the time being, I suggest to move these quotes to their respective authors' pages and to merge Racism in fiction with Racism. --Immutatus (talk) 21:10, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

There is no corresponding Wikipedia article or category for this subject unlike violence in media; both topics have a very large number of notable academic writings to quote from and both are presented in a wide range of fashions in fiction. As someone who created some very poorly defined categories on Wikipedia pertaining to this subject, I would advise not including fictional examples unless you want a talk page filled with questions about whether the definition of race used in the fantasy genre is acceptable to use, or whether having a society composed entirely of clones of the same person is inherently bigoted. Is race really a scientific concept, scientific organizations such as the American Anthropological Association say it is not...
"Preserving outdated terms for the sake of questionable continuity is a disservice to the nation... The concept of race has become thoroughly, and perniciously, woven into the cultural and political fabric... It has become an essential element of both individual identity and government policy. Because so much harm has been based on 'racial' distinctions over the years, correctives for such harm must also acknowledge the impact of 'racial' consciousness among the U.S. populace, regardless of the fact that 'race' has no scientific justification in human biology. Eventually, however, these classifications must be transcended and replaced."
...but it could still be included as a societal construct, religious component or literary theme. This could easily work as a page, but definitely not as a category. CensoredScribe (talk) 17:38, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

As far as having specific examples of X theme goes, yeah avoid those; doing that I was able to create the page for Terrorism in the United States using forty references instead of two hundred. I added a bunch of specific examples of statistically glaring racial inequalities in various forms to the page for Racism in the United States, but that's because the alternative was adding those quotes multiple times to the pages for every X group officially recognized by the Y government that has a Wikiquote page, even though those quotes aren't specifically about any one group, but rather all of them. Also it makes it easier to look up than X group's inequality in Y subject in the Z country. The only argument against doing this I can think of is, does the definition at the top of the page really explain all the complex and simple forms racism can take? It's like defining evil. CensoredScribe (talk) 21:26, 17 June 2023 (UTC)