in 2017, is it necessary for every american novel to address

No.

>>9087818
No. But neither should you go out of your way to avoid it. So to realistically not mention it you would have to set your novel in Wyoming or Saskatchewan or something of that nature...

I often wonder if by leaving race out of it, is it a service or disservice to the characterization of the work? I figure not.

Shit thread, man.

>>9087818
It's an everyday aspect of life, you can't avoid it if you're going for realism. That said, a novel that keeps the main characters race ambiguous will appeal to a broader audience. People are narcissistic and like projecting themselves into the plot. That's part of the escape.

>>9087828
/thread

>>9087828
Ouchies.

>>9087829
>>9087825
Except we don't have any major racial strife/problems in the US (besides a few chimpouts)

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>>9087855

>>9087855
Well no but should works involving race be limited to strife between them? I come from a place of multi ethnic harmony and for me to write about my hometown would have to at the very least admit this, at the most celebrate it. 40% of my graduating class was Latino, not Hispanic, not Mexican. 8/10 restaurants here are Mexican, but serve things like California fries with carne asada on top of American French fries. I've picked up as much Spanish never taking a class that kids from flyovers would get in two years of coursework. I cannot write a novel based on my experiences and my cultural context avoiding ethnicity and race.

>>9087818
If you're writing about culture, for whatever reason, it seems like you'd need to include it somehow. Good writers just aren't heavy handed about it. Look at DeLillo, the great culture writer of our time: he frequently talks about different races and heritage but no one would ever say it's gratuitous or shallow. It's just a part of what he sees.

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>>9087825

>Saskatchewan
>American

Also implying there aren't a dickload of Natives in Saskatchewan

I'm writing my first novel and I really wanted to cram everything into it. I quickly realized that I, a white man, had projected my whiteness onto all of the major characters. The only person in the story who's not white is a racist caricature of a chinese restaurant host.

/lit/, do I secretly hate the Chinese?

>>9087898
I didn't say it was American. I was just using it as an example of a relatively homogeneous ethnic population. Really such a place doesn't exist, which even more proves my point that to not include diversity whatsoever is just as jolting as dealing with the subject heavy handedly.

>>9087917
>Remembers great brazillian nation
Does homogenously capuccino coloured count?

>>9087917
>dude you have to represent people of all races because there are a few black guys where I live
Race is not relevant at all.

>>9087903
Remember that stereotypes exist for a reason: they are often accurate.

>>9087924
>Portuguese
>Dutch
>African
>Native
All mixed in varying degrees and social castes based on the amount of not white genes present. This is not homogeneous
>>9087927
>Cuck
Cut me deep there. If you want to live in an ethnically homogeneous environment I advise you to go back to the fatherland and kick the migrants out. America is an amalgamation of ethnicities and race by definition.

>>9087917

>not include diversity whatsoever is just as jolting as dealing with the subject heavy handedly.

What if you're novel is only about white people? I've read hundreds of books that didn't include "diversity"

>>9087931
If you care at all about delivering a work of believable fiction you will have characters from varying backgrounds, I'm not saying everyone needs to be represented or that major characters must be certain races, merely that avoiding the topic altogether is going to be a detriment to your work.

>>9087943
Ha, and you noticed it which is my point.

>>9087954
No, it won't. Not all fiction has to adhere to these political ideals of "representation".

>>9087818
I'd suck his dick. I don't care if it's homo

>>9087818
Yes, so European writers can write books that are actually good in comparison to the american garbage.

>>9087950
American or not doesn't really matter to me. Trying to explain where I come from to someone who doesn't want to understand wasn't what I was going for. I said that if I wanted to convey my place in the world to the rest of the world, which is the essence of storytelling, I would have to mention the existence of more than one ethnicity and culture.

>>9087954

Can you give me an example of a novel or short story that suffered from a lack of ethnic characters?

>>9087975
>I said that if I wanted to convey my place in the world to the rest of the world, which is the essence of storytelling
But it's not. The essence of storytelling is seeing the world clearly and not just your place in it.

>>9087963
It's not a political ideal. It's an observational ideal. You're talking about race and ethnicity right now. Clearly you observe and think on the subject. How could you leave it out of your work? I'm not saying everything must be given the same amount of attention, merely that to avoid it, especially in this day and age, seems to me to be a monumental censorship of reality.

>>9087985
Are you saying that I need to include everything that happens in reality in a work?

Sounds like a perversion and misunderstanding of realism to me. I also think about the act of shitting, but I'm not inclined to devote much attention to it in writing.

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>>9087961

It's not some huge revelation, It's like noticing that the sky is blue. When I read Osamu Dazai or Mishima I don't think to myself, "gee whiz, all the characters are Japs!!" It's completely inconsequential.

I assume that most of the novels written in Nigeria feature sub-saharan African characters and that most of the novels written in China feature Chinamen, etc, etc.

RACE IS A RED HERRING AND A OBFUSCATION TOOL TO KEEP YOU AWAY FROM ASKING THE REAL QUESTIONS AND TO DIVIDE THE AMERICAN NATION SO THE ELITE CAN PROFIT FROM THE CONFLICT.

>>9087991
Well with every decision you make in a novel you are expanding or limiting your scope. So while the scope of most stories doesn't need to mention taking a dump, some do (trainspotting for example). Not every story needs to include race but then the scope of your story would have to be fairly limited both in setting and cast. A family home for instance.

>>9088012
Why is it relevant at all? What is there to say but "this character is race X"?

Most of the time "including race" means whining about oppression

>>9088004
https://20committee.com/2015/03/02/yugoslavias-warning-to-america/

>>9088019
It's meaningless, race is irrelevant unless you're a delusional sjw that catters for that audience.

>>9087829
>everyday aspect

Less than 1% of the people I meet are non white.

>>9087999
So you picked one aspect of my argument. Those works are all representing place much more homogeneous than the united States. OP asked if it was necessary I answered no, I just clarified that it ought not be avoided either. Sense multiculturalism isn't an aspect of those places the issue isn't being avoided at all and the works would suffer from awkward inputs of different races I imagine. Or not because today not many people are shook by ethnicities hoping on a plane and flying somewhere outside their homelands.

>>9088019
>>9088027
I would say race isn't as much an issue as the culture and how it makes up the culture of where your story is set. Having a story set in New Orleans with no Creole people in it would be noticeable, maybe purposely so, but nonetheless noticeable.

>>9088050
Sure but you can't make a novel in which the mains focus is race itself, it's a shallow thing to write about.

>>9088056
Not him, but I'm pretty sure that what he's saying is that ignoring other races in a multiracial setting is silly if you're going for realism.
>it's a shallow thing to write about
Aside from Toni Morrison, there aren't many decent writers that focus on race, so you might have a point there. I don't think that writing about it is inherently shallow, though.

>>9088056
No argument there. The real interesting thing is to portray life as accurately as you can and see what the public makes of it. This is why I try have characters based on people I actually know because in real life people carry idiocyncracies that can be more interesting when you include diversity. For instance I have a Mexican friend that voted for Donald Trump and would also ironically shout WHITE POWER across the quad in high school. It's simply not as funny if I don't mention he's also Mexican.

>>9088074
It's not even that funny if you do mention it

in 2017, is it necessary for every american shitpost to address race, even if it's cursorily?

>>9088074
Your friend just makes my point stronger, there are anxieties, ideologies and feelings that race can't limit or define.

>a bunch of white boys dont think race is important
big surprise

>>9088036

I'll ask you again, can you give me an example of an American novel or short story that suffers from a lack of diversity? Just give me a concrete example about what you're talking about in published fiction, I don't really care about your own personal writing.

>>9088020
Good article

>>9088074
>writing from your own experience
Protip: authors who are obsessed with "authenticity" are always shit

>>9088036
>>9088095

You can't do it, can you? Oh well, get fucked you stupid sjw.

>>9087818
Its not necessary or required to say or write anything. I had this slavish attitude, it destroys culture.

>>9088088
That's true! But you can't come upon that truth without examining people who prove your point. Furthermore your story is less interesting without complex characters who hold within themselves conflicts that run contrary to shallow assumptions or portrayals. He proves your point that race is meaningless (well not totally devoid of meaning) to your political or philosophic ideals, not that it is meaningless in developing interesting or realistic characters.

>>9088128
Pull an example out of your ass right now! Fuck off dude, you do not need to have a diversity for diversities sake read my original post
>>9087825
Sooo unless you are arguing that ethnicity should be avoided fuck right off. You're missing the whole context of the conversation.

>>9087818
What the current cultural gate-keepers can't seem to understand is that their obsession with race and social justice is the new normal morality, so its just as stultifying, boring and oppressive as anything which becomes a cultural control. So of course creative people, who are more likely to rebel and hate morality and culture imposed on them, are not going to give a shit about making sure "race is addressed".

>>9088134
I guess I didn't think about he being a novel character, it makes sense from that standpoint.

>>9088145
>creative people, who are more likely to rebel and hate morality and culture imposed on them, are not going to give a shit about making sure "race is addressed".
Yeah if they're white. I know this will come as a shock to you but there are a shit load of creative black people who make art that deals with race

>>9087827
It depends, always depends.

>>9088154
Yes, and the vast majority of it is uninspired, boring trash. A piece of art is good because of qualities not relating to how moralistic it is. No one besides religious nuts read religious tomes about morality and praise them, likewise no one reads racial whining obsession besides people who have the same obsession. Of course, like the church, they have all their journals and institutions ready to make it seem like each new stultifying, dry, obsessive piece of shit is amazing and cutting edge.

>>9087818

Nope.

>>9088104
Authors who lose sight of reality tend to make books that fall flat. Art is in creating a lie that resounds with the ring of truth.

>>9088154
>implying rapping is art

>>9088154
>Yeah if they're white. I know this will come as a shock to you but there are a shit load of creative black people who make art that deals with race
There are a shitload of them, but they're not creative.

>>9088148
Right, which is the context of ops question about in a novel. And I may say that I answered>>9087825

>>9088185
Their main purpose is to keep shitty journals and political english professors afloat.

>>9088164
The vast majority of any art is uninspired drivel based on ripping others works or obvious truths. Your statement doesn't prove that genuine art that draws on some racial influence doesn't exist. All good art draws from various places to create or express a unique point of view and race can or cannot be a part of it. Art and race are not mutually exclusive nor are they mandatory bedfellows.

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>>9088183
Tpab

>>9088194
I never said it doesn't exist, I said the new cultural norm of social justice and race obsession is just as tiring and oppressive to artistic expression as the previous Christian morality, so people who are creative are going to rebel against it because they often don't like being told what to think or feel. So, to OP's question if race is necessary for any American novel, I say obviously not.

Also, saying only white people don't care about this silly obsession is racist in and of itself, as many minority artists don't seem to give a shit either.

>>9088207
>the new cultural norm of social justice and race obsession is just as tiring and oppressive to artistic expression as the previous Christian morality,
That's you as a white boy projecting. There are plenty of people who think it's a liberating change of pace. Just because YOU find it boring and oppressive doesn't mean everyone else does too

>>9088207
>>9088237
I would say both of you have good points. On the one hand there is never a good reason to force an artist to change the nature of his work simply to fit current tastes. On the other as an artist you must accept that there are a variety of tastes in the public and that there is some valuable work in all of them. However, the value of the work is not inherit in the taste or hue of the work but in the works ability to point out truths that exist.

>>9088237
You're right, boring and oppressive people don't find it boring and oppressive, they find it satisfies their psychopathic fetishes they have gained because of the lack of anything more intelligent or worthwhile to fill their souls.

Also, you're being obviously racist, not that I care, but I should think its some hypocrisy.

>>9088237
If the only thing you can think about is your shitty race your art will suck because it's driven by pure resentment. So thankfully in a few years this crap will end, and we'll have a new golden age of straight white male literature, as it always has been and looking over the greats of literature these are the people who produce great art. Enjoy the few years of "diversity" though because it's the only thing you'll get.

>>9088154
Why did you immediately bring whites vs blacks into it? The post was about public morality vs. creativity. Your obsession with fuelling race war is v tedious.

>>9087818
His art and face are both shit.

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>>9087903
I mean they're killing us in trade

>>9088145

This.

I think that's why so many young men have turned to reactionary conservatism, it's natural for human males to be rebellious. The consensus has been a particularly sanctimonious brand of """liberalism"""" for some time now, so it's no wonder that there's an alt-right that stands for the exact opposite of everything politically correct.

>>9087818
No. Even liberals don't think this. Read The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.

It's good, liberals love it, very little diversity. Fuck, even Lena Dunham likes Philip Roth enough to portray herself as teaching him in her show. If liberals were as uptight as /pol/ et al. seems to think they are, Lena Dunham should fucking hate him. From an article about him:

"So yes, I think we can say that Roth is anti-feminist (just as he's anti-politically correct, and anti-moral conservative)"

But she doesn't hate him. She reads him, understands him, thinks he's a great writer, disagrees with some of the stuff he says and gets on with her day. There are millions of feminists on the far more reasonable side of Lena Dunham who can actually debate your points, but you don't find them. The modern political landscape is just two sides throwing shit over the fence at each other with no agreement to try and work towards a consensus. One side brands the other as authoritarian groupthinkers, and the other side brands the first as meme-spouting frog-nazis. Nobody actually argues anymore.

>>9087818
It should be, it would be expose the author.

Either the author is free of dogma and the journey into race will force a new perspective to place next to the author's individualism

or

the author does no research into race and writes what is accepted, with good intentions/wanting those words to be true or because the author doesn't want to be blacklisted for being politically incorrect (i.e. accept that which all the author's senses registered throughout life, all history books, diaries of explorers pre-Marxism (especially pre-WWII), even ancient mythology, or just by comparing Rhodesia before and after its African guests gained power... you've probably heard of it, they renamed it to Zimbabwe. Compare French (i.e. White) Haiti (daily reminder that this nation was founded by the French) before the purchase of African servants and Haiti after the freeing and subsequently complete genocide of the French founders by said freed servants, or French (White) Haiti during its founding and the Haiti after receiving help by the US the first time, then the second time, and then the third time, and reading 'Where Black Rules White: A Journey Across and About Hayti by Hesketh Prichard.') screamed out at the reader but that has, due to the spread of Communism (both egalitarianism and the silencing term coined by Trotsky: "Racism" which grew from "hating a race for the sole reason of being that race", into "noticing racial differences" and accepting both biology, evolutionary biology, and evolution instead of becoming a religious proponent of creationism as soon as human beings--the animals at the top of the food chain--are mentioned, originated from Communism) been forced to go unnoticed due to people being taught by professors who were either taught to be racially unaware (and become Marxists or at the very least, cultural Marxists) or are racially aware (and more often than not, of Jewish decent) but program the White students into racial blindness yet simultaneously teaching them to hate their European race and feel guilt for all the supposed evils of our race, while propping up and praising non-White students to look into their roots (roots which seem to without fail all share, regardless of race, the exact same political ideology as their professor, shocking, does that mean everyone's a Jew since the only group of racial mixes which share the same blood as the founder of Marxism are Jews?), etc.)

or

the author avoids race like the plague where it would fit because the author is either too afraid to search for what their gut tells them may be an unpleasant bubble-popping reality check (similar to a religious group having stated that their religion is the one true original no-copy-pasties religion even though it came to be just 2-3 thousand years ago by collecting older myths and stories, renaming and adapting figures, fuck you Abrahamics) or is an r-select bastard child lacking complete self-awareness.

I only write with all white characters, personally.

>>9087883
Sounds fucking awful.

>>9087855
>What is American history post-Immigration and Nationality Act of 1870 to present
If you didn't notice it now, just you wait until that 58% White majority falls below 50%. I hope you're armed, read about Haiti and Rhodesia before and after granting them rights, the only difference between Haiti, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and the US was the blacks being numerous enough to not just outvote them (in Rhodesia's case), but also genocide them (in Haiti's case: complete genocide; in Rhodesia-now-Zimbabwe's case: mass genocide but with survivors, if you've heard about the genocide of White farmers, Rhodesia-now-Zimbabwe is one of the places where this is still going on).

>>9090053
im sure those young men will be sorely missed

>>9088145
but creative people are almost all lefties. people on the right tend to go into sensible fields like finance. creative people tend to be people who don't put money first, and those people tend not to be conservatives.

>>9090053
thats why in 2033, when the young men come of age, we can finally end the nigger plague forever 8)

>>9090273
>creative
>adhering to the heavily left-wing biased cultural collectivism of popular culture and the media
i think you mean pseudo-creative, buddy

>>9090295
people who constitute the modern right don't have a creative bone in their body. People who are 100% behind unfettered capitalism don't go into statistically badly paying professions. Creativity has always been the realm of the kind of people we now consider "the left". Make a list of good right-wing writers. You've got Pound, Dostoyevsky at a stretch and a few writers who are great but not earth-shattering (Waugh), but it's a pretty anaemic looking list.

>>9090333
J.L.Borges and Pound are earth-shattering.

>>9090333
Smith
Machiavelli
Plutarch
Jefferson
Blavatsky
Hamson
Herrnstein

>>9090366
Also
Voltaire
Schopenhaeur
H.G Wells
Kierkegaard

>>9090371
not even to forget Lovecraft and all of his contemporaries, except the nigger lady

There's a reason why whites make up 99.9% of history's greatest authors

>>9090340
>>9090366
>>9090371
>>9090380

thats your list of all writers? You've had to stoop to lovecraft already? Jeez I knew it was bad but sheesh

>>9090408
Name a left-wing writer better than Borges

>race
>a complex issue
>even being a relevant issue
White supremacists and niggers larping doesn't make something important anon.

I'm currently writing about the nightmares of a 15th century loli.

Maybe we could put the epigraph "Fuck Drumpf, fuck white people." in every book published from now on.

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>>9090408

>>9090411
Tolstoy

>>9090438
Not even close

>>9090411
Gogol
Goethe

>>9090445
Not close enough

>>9090446
Borges may have hated Marxism but how do you think he would receive the idea of artistic value being dictated by unfettered capitalism? Which side of the political spectrum do you believe he stood there? That art should aspire to an ideal above money? If so, then putting him on the same side as modern right-wing movements is incredibly reductive and lazy.

>>9090454
The same can be said about left-wing movements. Of course the intellectual academia is left-winged in average, but does that make it be on the same side as dummy left-wingers? nah

>>9090454
>make it be
make it be, make it be
make it be, make it be
singin' words of wisdom, make it be

in all seriousness you can be left wing without being "dummy left wing" and I think we might have to agree to disagree on this one.

>>9087818
I thank God every day I'm not American.

>>9090174
>thinks the white majority will ever go under.
Haven't you heard? Mexicans are white now!

>>9090150
>degenerate white trash
The people we all look down on

>>9088020
Heavily politcally slanted, many of the arguments are backed by ideology. Main point is valid but all the fetters twist it to falsehood.