Decolonizing my own work...

When I drew a cat character back in high school, this was around the time I began to formulate characters for my Tabber the Red series. One of the more important female characters, a male student called her 'thunder thighs'. A male character 'looked gay'*.When working on characters for my scifi dog comic, one athletic-looking female character 'looked like a lesbian', as if one's body type determined one's orientation! 

I have gotten a lot of flack, criticism, and insults towards my OCs (original characters) since I could put pencil/pen to paper. And when people attack my characters, I feel as if they're attacking me. One particular hurtful comment was when a close friend and fellow artist told me to kill off my main female character because she wasn't 'good enough for the main male character', who happened to be a gangster! 

Now you probably noticed a pattern here. Most of the harshest critiques are towards my female or femme looking characters. We already know why this is and I can discuss it another time, but, the point of this post is to understand how important it is to me as an artist to show diversity even within my speculative fictional worlds. That's why even my anthro cat characters will have locs and braids. That's why I make sure that this October artist month, when I show my Tabber the Red fantasy-sword&sorcery characters who happened to be tattooed, scarred, or wearing mendhi and/or henna, I put a footnote that all those body markings have nothing to do with war or becoming a warrior and everything to do with cultural/ethnic/tribal/national identity. 

Since I pull inspiration from real-life beliefs and practices, the same respect I will accord to others, I will do so for my fictional people. To me, culture and ethnic identity is important and not to be appropriated as gimmick or 'trendy'. I'm doing my research. I'm speaking to others. I will learn, so that when my characters express themselves, the identity will be as seamless as the 'air they breathe'.

There will be more 'decolonizing' for my OCs and in my writings. Just you wait and see.

*That character that was called gay? It seems that even if that person meant it as an insult, I realized while writing the character that he is indeed QUILTBAG and I'm writing in his sexual identity and orientation into the story. So, I guess that long ago person did me a favor by 'outing' my cat character! 

My Writing In A Nutshell

I've been writing my own stories since Pre-K, and get frustrated because I didn't know enough words. With parents showing me how to use a dictionary and encyclopedias, I wrote for fun. Then by 4th Grade all the way to high school, I wrote and drew stories to escape bullying and harassment. 

Now I use my stories to do what bards, griots, and other cultural storytellers do, tell the stories that will help others to not feel alone. To let them know that problems aren't unique but are familiar and shared. And therefore, there is comfort in the idea one isn't in a box and cloistered. 

I have been inclusive with my characters from the get-go. Especially now in hindsight of being this age. In this age. When I remember showing my character sheets, the comments were cruel enough, uncalled for, that for a long while, I doubted my abilities and capabilities.  

"Why is his skin so dark?" (We forget there are darker-toned people in this world?)

"Why does she look gay?" (Don't know how someone can 'look their sexual orientation' but the characters that were pointed out as 'gay' ended up being future LGBTQA+ in their stories)

"This girl has thunder thighs." (Aren't there many body types?)

"Why does this character have a foreign name?" (We all have names from countless cultures/ethnicities/and belief systems)

"Why do you make your characters SO OLD?" (They were in their mid-20s to early-30s. People also spoke out with my actual elderly characters. Why do characters have to be super-young? Won't there be other kinds of adults in one's world?)

I continue along this trajectory in my writing. I don't understand the limitations people impose on characters. It's an imaginary world. This reality has limits. Shouldn't the skies and imagination of the creator be the story's limit? Diversity and inclusivity are simply the tools to stretch the already imposing limits placed on a work of art. On a creative project. Not only must art reflect one's world, it must push further the boundaries of one's world. 

Why can't there be various ethnic groups in space or meeting aliens? Why can't a fat woman be the next wife to an emperor after the last wife passed away in childbirth? Why can't elderly people be leads in a scifi epic? Why does the lead have to be a certain shade? And why can't there be multiple characters who are LGBT+? Who is to tell me that the Patwah I grew up with can't be in the same scifi with aliens living among us? And why should I erase the reality that give my imaginary worlds' gravitas? Heft and weight? 

The disheartening comments reveal more about the persons than about my talents and ability to tell a story.