Inclusivity for Dummies, and by "Dummies," I mean all of us...

Here's a funny thing. Imagine you have an old blog account, let's say, oh, from 2008. And that blog account was never fully deactivated, because, well, who has time to pick up each and every crumb of your digital past lives? So let's say you (and by you I mean me) created a blog in 2008 for the sole purpose of complaining about the customers at your day job and the bosses at your night job and the undergrads to whom you taught with varying degrees of success, the 5 paragraph essay. And in your infinite wisdom (and by yours I mean mine), you thought: I won't use my name, I'll use a pseudonym: Mrs. God. I thought it was a combination of silly and otherworldly, which is probably what I hope everything I do is: a fifty fifty split on goofy and ghosty. It's also the name of my music project, so if anyone reading this is inclined to dig deeper (as an internet K hole aficionada, I would) feel free to checkout Mrs. God on soundcloud. The point being, if you're wondering why "Mrs. God" is talking to you through the Annenberg Beach House blog, it's because I can't figure out how to consciously uncouple myself from that old blogger account. And, maybe more significantly, I've decided it isn't that important.

So, hi. It's me, Analisa Raya-Flores, the current Artist in Residence at the Annenberg Beach House. I'm so so excited to be here and make art in this 100 year-old space that, wikipedia assures me, hosted guests like Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, and Clark Gable. While here, I'll be working on a project called: The Legend of Graham Canyon. It's a myth about a woman born in the Old West who leaves her life in the Central Valley, starts dressing and living as a man and leads an adventurous life with a gang of criminals. It's good, trust me, and I definitely know that because it's definitely almost done. This is how manifesting works, right?

In addition to working on my own projects, I have the opportunity to host a few events, one of which just happened this past Tuesday. The event was titled, "Tragic Women of Color," and was intended as an exploration of the stereotypical portrayals of women of color in art, literature, and media. After a reading from our guests (poet Monique Mitchell, writer and cook Saehee Cho, content developer Wendy Cortez),we held a conversation. The audience was mostly friends and friends of friends, which turned out to be a good thing. Why? Because familiarity, in conversations that can so often be tricky, is a good thing.

One question, in particular, has been sticking with me. One of my friends asked (and I'll paraphrase for clarity): "How do I, as a white man, write for characters who are unlike me, and if I write for characters outside of my race, what is the line between representation and exploitation?" I'd like to pause briefly and share some context: this is a white, cis-gendered, hetero guy who asked a panel of POC female identifying folks this question. And while history has been full of cis-het white men getting plenty of polite applause, I think in this case, it's warranted. These are the questions that force us to take the first steps toward better representation in all facets of media. So I thank him for that. And now that I've thanked him, I'm going to take the question to task.

The question stuck with me, and after a few days, it hit me. It's the notion of fear. Why is it so "scary" to write outside of one's own race or ethnicity? It seems that the fear stems from writing exploitatively, inaccurately, or to boil it down: incorrectly. Perhaps white writers are afraid to write non-white characters for fear of getting them "wrong." Of course the problem with thinking there's a wrong way means that you think there's a right, or rather, singular way, to write a non-white character. There are first generation immigrant kids who talk like valley girls and there are others who speak the language of their parents. There are Afro-Cuban comic book nerds and Korean-American rappers. I'm being simplistic for the sake of a point, but the point remains there are just as many ways to be a non-white person as there are ways to be a white person.  It brings us right back to representation, and why it's so important. For the folks who aren't lucky enough to grow up in a diverse environment (and meet all the different types of non-white people) then what they see on television, or in film, or in the media.... well, it matters.

If you're up for it, here's a little writing prompt/thought experiment. The scenario: a person goes to the grocery store, gets cut in line. That's it. First, think of how you (just you!) would be in that person's shoes. Now swap in someone else, and consciously make it someone who is of a different race/ethnicity/sexuality/gender identity. Just go for it. Now compare. When you wrote it for you, what did you take into account? Your backstory, your bad or good day, what your grandmother thought of rude injustices, what your own neuroses told you about making a scene. So when you write the scene for this other person, this person that in some ways is "un-like" you, consider that they too have a backstory, a bad or good day, an authority figure who taught them not to cut in line, and a set of idiosyncrasies that keeps them teetering, moment to moment, on the edge of sanity. It's simple, but it's a start.

Let me be clear, this is a much longer and ongoing conversation, one I'm having internally (between myself and my voice memo app as I commute from the East Side), and externally (with other artists and friends). And it's a conversation I'll probably be having until I die, or my brain gets uploaded into the cloud, and then I'll be having it digitally under the username Mrs. God because I still won't have figured out how to change it.

I'll be at the Beach House most Sundays. Come say, "Hi." And if you'd like to find me digitally, I'm on twitter & instagram @anirayflo
Have a good week, Santa Monica.
-a.r.f.