Ethnic and cultural diversity in OCs discussion

Thanks everyone! Also, let me know if I were to write something incorrectly in the lists!

Hey guys! I would love some opinions on a character, I am not the most educated in other cultures and just wanna make sure hes both realistic and not offensive!

Some context, this character is my first ever RP OC I made when I was actually 13, and, now almost 25, I still love him dearly and want to keep him alive.

What I have for him is that hes half Asian; I dont know what ethnicity exactly because I dont know what would fit him. ;w; He ran away from home at 19, leaving his family and surname behind, so he named himself and does not have an Asian name.

He has black hair, though now it is greying from stress, and narrowed eyes, which I believe are normal of most Asian countries? But his mother was not of Asian blood, and so he also has crystal blue eyes and a much sharper jawline and face shape, not round.

Since I made him in my baby teenage weebhood days, I am trying to flesh him out to where he makes sense and is realistic without scraping him completely. Are the blue eyes possible? And any suggestions on what ethnicity exactly he could be? Is he offensive in any way so far? I'd really appreciate any help !

Sockmonkey thank you for your reply! I will keep that in mind as I continue to develop him. I think I will go with Japanese for the time being, and change it down the road if I find something that fits better :-)

StrayTheJackalope popping in here! I've got an Asian mom and also somewhat ran away and changed my name at 19. Unless he has personal ties to his mother's culture or family line, there's no need for his changed name to be decidedly "Asian". He could name himself Johnny Smith and nobody would really have the right to complain; When it comes to things like this, it is more to do with how a person is raised, rather than their ethnicity ("Ethnicity" usually pertains to culture). He decided to run away, and he decided to change his name - how he sees his parents' culture is up to him (or, as the writer, you). It's kind of like picking a screen name with less likelihood of xXx3m0_b0ixXx being chosen; culture can play a role in it, but it's more about finding something that feels like it fits.

All of my siblings are mixed kids and have varying facial structures. Both my parents are filipino, but both of my stepparents are white. From what I've noticed, this goes one of two ways - The kid is born dark and grows to be lighter-skinned, or is born whiter and grows to be darker-skinned. Facial structure just depends on which parent they take more after, so as long as you character has a parent with similar features, you're all good. 

Sockmonkey is also correct; blue eye color genes are recessive, so there would have to be a mix where your character has two blue eye genes. If he had a mix of brown and blue genes, brown would take over. That being said, having blue or green eyes isn't unheard of in Asian countries, it's just unlikely. Blue is the second-most common eye color, so I think it wouldn't be too far off from reality for your character to have blue eyes.

Long stuff, but I hope this helps!

FreeFallingUp13 oh thank you for the insight! I really appreciate it, and everything you said makes sense to me!

I am still figuring out his parents look exactly but I will keep in mind what you said about the eyes and the skin colour. :-) I do want to keep his name Koru, just as it was something I made up and wasn't really tied to any sort of culture (unless I am unaware) but you opened my eyes to realizing he might not have just changed his surname but his first name as well. I think I will be taking that into consideration for his history! 

not sure if this would be the thread for this but I need some advice and I don't have anyone Actually Native to ask hhh

so basically I have this character who is named Wendigo. she's not an actual wendigo, it's just a name and she's a feline oc with a few funky traits, and also I didn't name her myself, the person I got her from did, and since she was a character I loved for agesss before I actually got hold of her I didn't really have the heart to change her name when I got her. so I just kept her as Wendigo and didn't think anything of it. howeverrr from my limited knowledge of native culture I know that wendigos are generally Not Something To Be Fucked With and I'm very nervous of accidentally stepping on any toes as someone who is white as a sheet and admittedly pretty uninformed. I just want to know if I'm doing anything particularly wrong by keeping her name like this? as much as I am attached to it I also don't really want to have a character that's unintentionally offensive or appropriative of a culture I don't really know a lot about but have a lot of respect for and am 100% down with changing her name if she's crossing a line. I just wondered like..... what I should do in the opinion of someone who knows more abt wendigos and native culture than I do fhdjjs should I change it? do more research to make sure her character is done respectfully even if she's not actually a wendigo? give her some kind of links to native culture so she has a reason for that name? pls ping me with responses as I'm notoriously bad at not checking back to threads. 

Well, I can offer up some of my personal experiences, I guess. Just ping/PM me if you'd like to know about anything I've stated below!

I'm a native-born black Canadian with a St. Lucian background. I'm also atheist, and don't mind discussing my beliefs.

This is honestly a refreshing, interesting thread! It's awesome to see so many people from different backgrounds and ethnic groups.   

If anyone would like any advice from a Canadian who's a mixture of a few different backgrounds, I'll be more than happy to lend a helping hand! I'm situated in Ontario and my knowledge tends to revolve around the province, but I can also offer info on general Canadian stuff. I have quite a bit of knowledge in regards to Italian-Canadians - my mother's side - and have tons of info on traditions, culture, etc! Also, as a law student, I can offer insight into the Canadian justice system [courts, criminal code, police services] if your character happens to be involved within it. I'm getting long-winded at this point, but I have access to tidbits on the Indigenous Peoples of Canada as well, and if I can't answer your question I can ask family for you! :D

Added both!

@shalriy I am in no way familiar with the culture, but it seems kinda weird for a name? Like calling your OC "Vampire" or "Chupacabra", not sure they would like to be called like a monstrous entity if they had the choice, whether it's tied to their own background or not. I suggest researching the subject in any case, if nobody can add anything else!

EDIT (3y later ^^;): actually no, don't call your OCs that. https://www.tumblr.com/icecannibal/667580765665640448/do-not-tag-this-as-long-post?source=share

Ok, another question or rather request for suggestions:

So, in my story there are not racial and ethnic groups as there are in our reality and racism works in a different ways (aka, strong birb subspecies against quick weird subspecies, plus religions that prefers one over the other), but the people have ancestries that tie into our ones (ex. people with ancestors from Sweden for example) although they have no concrete meaning other than having people who """look [insert nationality]""" because their family didn't mix enough with people of different ancestries. The population also (artificially) tried to redistribute making people stay in a certain zone according to how much melanin they have in their body, so there are places were dark skin is more common than light skin and vice versa, but it didn't last long because you don't keep people in one place and so every place is quite mixed in phenotypes as a result.

This being said, this is the main cast in my story, as in the characters that are seen more often all the time, don't get cut away from the action at any point and don't play a role later in the story - and apart from Bellis, that has Mexican ancestors, they're all some kind of white. I do have other characters with ancestors from South-Eastern Asia who look like it and have a very important role, but they're not around enough to be mains in the story, and no (fully) black character does anything extremely important for the plot yet. While this can be defended by Thermian argument (the reference State the story starts from is the one with the least people of color because it's the smallest, coldest and not too much better compared to its ally, black majority State unless you really dislike the economy and customary views), this is actually because the characters come from a time in which I wasn't really careful with these things, and in fact most of my not white people have been created more recently to bring some needed diversity, but only in what follows the canon arc.

I want to fix this by making one of them gain some more melanin, but I'm a little afraid of doing it wrong? As in, I don't want to change eye color and darken the hair too much because that's how I'm used to see them (especially the eyes), and while this is not only justified by Thermian argument (genetics work in a very unpredictable matter and mutations are very frequent) but also possible in humans, I feel like it would defy the purpose of the change? As in, I know people generally relate more to characters who look like them, so would it get in the way if this character was darker-skinned but had light eyes and not black curly hair (especially considering I already have secondary or background black characters with straight brown, blond or red hair)? The character I'm currently considering for this is one I love and so I hope it would be clear I'm not just doing it to "bait" people of color, but because I think this has to be fixed and skin colors are irrelevant in my setting, but I'm worried about this particular because I don't want to alienate anyone while doing so.

If it's a region where most people are white, then by all means your characters are fine to be white. You can add racial diversity if it makes you comfortable, but it seems in the context of the area you're writing about, you would have to work in reasoning for their race. For the one character you have the Mexican ancestors, which is good. What reasons would the other characters have to look their respective "race"?

Yes, people of color tend to enjoy characters that look like them, I can  say that more than anything. But that doesn't mean that somebody should  go against their own lore just to please that one avenue. That's there  the term "token" character comes from; a "token" character is the  concept that a character is made more "diverse" (LGBT, a different race)  just to make the cast more "diverse" and make more money that way. I  personally don't believe in it, but there are some people who take  random inserts of "diversity" as an insult.

Also, do know that race is a social construct. What's considered "black" in America from somebody's looks, is "Zulu" in South Africa (At least, around the time of the apartheid, which I've read about - idk anybody in SA now). The two countries' white population have entirely different reasons for being racist against people of darker skin color (in A, racist bigots think black people are criminals and thugs. In Apartheid SA, people think that Zulu people should be segregated away). Some media from Japan (and I believe Thailand) shows that there is some idolization of people who have whiter skin, or western features like blonde hair and blue eyes (in Japanese media). There's just different interpretations of what racial features are bad/good, because of WHY they're thought of of bad/good. 

In this case of your story, I personally think you should ignore real-life racial diversity, and focus on the diversity in terms of your story's world. Would the tradespeople travel through the hometowns of your characters often? Would any of them settle down due to the nice area? Or is there a difference in culture between the two states that means that such a settler would be more unlikely than not? It is your world, and you can decide that regardless of other peoples' wishes. Your world will have it's own racial connotations, you just gotta work with those if you want a more diverse cast for your own wishes.

This character I have in mind for the change would have a reason to be because it's the one who was born in a State with slight "black" majority, so not really a token since it has already been estabilished he's adopted, and while the in-universe racism is already addressed a lot in the story (the protagonist herself has to illegally run away from a system that is becoming increasingly alike Apartheid, and she was a very privileged person even), the problem still is the out of fiction reasons for which the cast was almost all white in the first place - which was, I didn't give a flying frying pan about this kind of diversity up until not too long ago, and I never really even thought about having characters who are not European at the times those characters where not tied to the current setting. I'm a firm believer that in-world lore justifies out-of-world lacks only up to a certain degree unless great explanations are given, and especially considering I have another main character who is from the "black" majority State who is pale like a snowy day only because I was too lazy to redesign him, it would only be fair to have a person of color from a place with many people of color if there's no particular reason for him not to be. Problem is still, it feels kinda weird to change him while keeping him with bright eyes when I already have, quite a few people with dark skin and bright eyes and lighter than black hair and not dark-skinned people with dark eyes and black hair. I might change some secondary character but I don't know if that would really help, since they would still be secondary.

Edit: I'm going ahead and change him 'cause I like him more like that, I'll figure out the others later.

Ok, time for a new topic.

What are your favorite and least favorite fantasy or semi-fantasy universes that deal with different races or species in a way that could be intended as a metaphor for human situations?

For example: DND campaigns can go anywhere, but most OCs I see here have generally positive elements to them (ex. people from different people being ok with each other, friends and love interests); while I'm always a little puzzled when dangerous folk creatures are being put together with humans in some shows, ex. vampires and humans: they might live in peace and so on, but vampires by base are supposed to drink human blood and therefore any hate they receive from humans is nasty, but justified since they could possible lose control and do that, and so comparing them to racial minorities makes it seem like discrimination has a reson to exist because they were supposed to be dangerous (of course different kinds of vampires exist and I've seen lovely variations here, but most of the time they're not having campaigns that look suspiciously like existing equal rights movements).

Any similar takes, examples or thoghts?

Hello! Sorry, this has nothing to do with the prompt that was just posted, but if anyone needs insight into growing up Jewish in modern America (more specifically Reform Judaism) then I may be able to reflect my own experience with Judaism onto you. To be clear, my experience focuses on a rather casual Jewish upbringing, one where I did go to Hebrew school grades 1-7, do celebrate all major Jewish holidays every year, am not strictly kosher, and had a bat mitzvah when I was 13. I don't know how helpful that'd be for some people, but I'm willing to try my best to inform you all I can!

Also, I have Jewish ancestors and have done a solid amount of research on German-Jewish immigration during the 1900s (specifically in New York: what life in those circumstances was like), so if someone's doing a story taking place at some point in American history, I can shed some of that knowledge onto you.