Assumptions

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I have a post about the USAID funding/what it actually did right from the beginning percolating, which in turn might give some clue of what’s to come in the other agencies, but I need time and a clear mind to do it, and today isn’t it.

Mostly because I woke up late, and it’s already been a very strange day, so–

Instead let’s talk about assumptions and PTSD. In this case reading PTSD.

This morning, while sitting and waiting for something, I decided to browse Jane Austen fanfic on my kindle (Look, it’s calming, okay?) and ended up downloading something that is based on Persuasion, one of my favorites and rarely used for fanfic.

Anyway, I opened it and started reading the foreword, then returned it.

Why?

Well, because at one point the author says “I know it’s pure fantasy that a nobleman would marry a bi-racial woman from the colonies.”

At which point I knew what would follow. These, being literary fanfic are normally written by either women my age or college girls. The college girls tend to signal in all the “correct” ways.

I will never forget the one where Lizzy (It was a price and prejudice fan fic) was the one who protected and took care of this wonderful black couple who–

Or the one I actually read where Lizzy and Jane lose everything and are living with the underclass in a slum and I swear it took me several chapters to realize the author thought that everyone in the underclass was black. In England. in the 18th century. I have no words, but could those of you with young kids make sure they understand the world is not America and that even in America the belief that the poor are all black or that black people are — obviously — poor is…. what’s that word? Oh, yeah, racist, regardless of what their idiot teachers told them?

So I reacted. Was my reaction accurate?

I don’t know. I like to give books the benefit of the doubt. As someone who often gets stuck with gay characters (and is upping it to a bio-engineered hermaphrodite world) I’d like to think people will trust me not to go all weirdly fetishy and sexual on them (This book, I’m assured is “Weirdly wholesome” LOL) you’d think I’d give someone more grace on something that reads iffy.

I later was telling Dan that I’m not sure that 15 years ago this would have been enough reason to automatically wall the book, but the last sixteen years have beaten us over the head with racial everything and virtual signaling over racial everything, and I just couldn’t tolerate it.

Later I was talking to Dan about this acquired PTSD and realized there were other reasons for my reaction, reasons I didn’t even think about consciously, and which probably mean I will not reconsider, on a day when I feel more up to face the nonsense.

There is, for instance, historical ignorance.

Look, yeah, they viewed race as super important. What they didn’t do was view race the way we did it.

Depending on what people looked like, the fact that someone was half-another-race might be a non event, or no more consequential than if they were, say, half Portuguese or half French. And money could cover a multitude of sins.

Most of the time if a girl was, say, half Indian it would barely warrant a mention. Half Carib might, depending on her features and the size of her dowry. And yes, the notoriously profligate noblemen would absolutely marry them.

Now, yes, they were a rarity. (Not as much as they would be, say, in the middle ages, but rare. And would be talking about. And if they did anything even mildly notable, their enemies would call them bad racial names, but that’s par for the course.

Part of it is that there weren’t enough people of a different race in Europe to warrant a prejudice. It would be more likely that they would be prejudiced against an Irish or Scottish bride.

The fact that the author is imposing today’s racial ideas (starting with the term bi-racial) on the story tells me that I probably wouldn’t enjoy that.

I’m sick and tired of this. Sick that we can’t teach kids the current obsessions are fleeting and the current social distortions very much on the way of passing already, and that fiction is supposed to center on more substantial bits of the human condition.

I wish I didn’t have to examine assumptions. I wish the last few years hadn’t given me PTSD.

And while at it I’ll wish for a million dollars, which is as likely.

And now let me see if I can write a coherent post for tomorrow.

89 thoughts on “Assumptions”

        1. OK; didn’t think of the “compose externally” option. I’ll try it;
          neither private window nor “paste, then type in the box” worked for me,
          and neither did both together. Using Brave browser was also a “Nope”.

          The interesting thing is that, if this reply via email works like the
          previous one in the “Aw. Mr President” post, it will get posted.
          Damfino how that works, unless it sees an email reply as pasted text.

          Just a note… At 4:43 PM yesterday I made a comment with no problem; by
          8:00 PM it was hosed.

          And of course, WPDE. With prejudice.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. OK, that does seem to work. I suspect the word-wrap problem is due to the email formatting; let’s see if this, composed in Notepad, works better.
            And thanks for the tip!

            Liked by 1 person

  3. Having trouble posting. Firefox private mode works. Otherwise one character, once.

    To summarize your review:

    Bi = Bye

    (Grin)

    I get it. “Gah, not again ” becomes reflex.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. If the heroine isn’t modern, and yet the author is using a modern term for the heroine’s genetic heritage, then clearly the author isn’t actually interested in Jane Austen, the Regency, or anything like history.

    That’s what kills me. You can get away with a lot of modern-like elements in historical fiction, but you have to figure out how it would work in that historical period. Which means that you probably want to look up actual historical examples of X or Y, or of something close to X and Y.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Using modern terms in the foreword is one thing. The test is whether the author uses BadWord historical terms in the fiction itself (“half-caste” “half-breed” “mulatto” etc.)

      More generally, yeah, the killer is when authors are so confident in their ignorance of history (or of certain other elements, e.g. horses, or firearms) that they feel no need to look things up.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Oh, yeah. The ‘horses are just like cars’ writers. Characters ride horses all day, park them in the stable and ignore them.

        They had ‘grooms’ and ‘stableboys’ and ‘muckers’ back then for a reason, dumbasses!

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        1. What? You want some rich Brit to actually brush his horse, pick its hooves, and put grain the trough? Not to mention water the poor beast and maybe put a horse blanket on it?

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          1. But of course the Rich Brit would have servants to handle such things.

            But some idiot authors forget to include the servants who’d handle such matters in their stories. [Crazy Grin]

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            1. OTOH, while Jane Austen’s works include many, many references to servants if you look for them, you do have to look, because it’s like there’s a parallel world.

              Liked by 1 person

            2. Of coarse. European servants were invisible, except butlers when answering doors, announcing meals, etc., were invisible. Don’t you know that? I mean, really! (double your crazy grin).

              Liked by 2 people

              1. Of course, the servants become visible when they need to be questioned when there’s a murder being investigated. [Triple Crazy Grin]

                Liked by 2 people

                1. (Seeing if WP is less hosed this morning. Mayyybeee.)

                  OTOH, in various (usually British) mysteries, Our Detective has a loyal and frequently indispensable servant. The example that comes to mind right now is Lord Peter Wimsey’s Bunter, but Hercule Poirot had one (whose name I can’t recall). The latter was far less obtrusive.

                  Then you get Nero Wolfe’s Archie Goodwin, who does all the work…

                  And now to see if the reply button is working. Pale Moon, std mode.

                  Liked by 1 person

    2. Using modern terms in the foreword is one thing. The test is whether the author uses BadWord historical terms in the fiction itself (“half-caste” “half-breed” “mulatto” etc.)

      More generally, yeah, the killer is when authors are so confident in their ignorance of history (or of certain other elements, e.g. horses, or firearms) that they feel no need to look things up.

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      1. It takes a lot of practice to recognize what you don’t know. And people slip up all the time. Strong suits before cheap paper enabled playing cards which led to bridge; perpetual ovens (ovens where you apply heat all the time) before well into the modern era; a lack of servants.

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        1. I will never stop bringing up the time an editor decided to change my phrase “A promise, then,” to “It’s a deal.”

          In the mouth of a nobleman of a quasi-medieval fantasy.

          Mind you, I changed it BACK…

          Liked by 2 people

        2. I will never stop bringing up the time an editor decided to change my phrase “A promise, then,” to “It’s a deal.”

          In the mouth of a nobleman of a quasi-medieval fantasy.

          Mind you, I changed it BACK…

          Liked by 1 person

  6. I get the reading PTSD, yes. Bi-racial, in that setting? I’d have walled it myself – that’s not how people talked, much less thought!

    (I tend to Nope right out of anything depicting dementia, myself. So many writers I’ve run across seem to think it’s “six months of getting foggy and then a gentle passing that deeds property to the main characters”. I could cheerfully maim them all.)

    Liked by 3 people

        1. Mom wasn’t violent. She was closer to catatonic toward the end. Except for the night I was with her in the hospital during her last illness, when she would call my name every few seconds, over and over and over again.

          Liked by 1 person

  7. Also, I’m pretty sure that most fortune-hunters, and a lot of good families in reduced circumstances, would be happy to marry their son to alien girls with two heads, if they were RICH alien girls with two heads. And if they were some kind of alien nobility or gentry, with not a whiff of vulgar trade, they’d marry them twice as fast.

    Liked by 2 people

  8. And it ate my first attempt at a reply.

    Mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, high yellow, etc., would have been the terms used. Lighter skin and wealth could buy whiteness, and the types of makeup used would help. There would always be those who wouldn’t receive them, but that happened for other perceived “races” at the time as well, forex Italians, Slavs, Germans, etc.

    Liked by 1 person

      2. Not used, unless an unusual call to use them happened, but I believe that the basic ‘mulatto’ would be known by some in England (who in the fiction could then explain the meaning to other characters). Maybe not the more exotic quadroon, octoroon etc.

        As for two headed, there’s the example of Chang and Eng Bunker, who married two white sisters and who owned a plantation in antebellum North Carolina, complete with slaves.

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      3. Not used, unless an unusual call to use them happened, but I believe that the basic ‘mulatto’ would be known by some in England (who in the fiction could then explain the meaning to other characters). Maybe not the more exotic quadroon, octoroon etc.

        As for two headed, there’s the example of Chang and Eng Bunker, who married two white sisters and who owned a plantation in antebellum North Carolina, complete with slaves.

        Like

  9. And it ate my first attempt at a reply.

    Mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, high yellow, etc., would have been the terms used. Lighter skin and wealth could buy whiteness, and the types of makeup used would help. There would always be those who wouldn’t receive them, but that happened for other perceived “races” at the time as well, forex Italians, Slavs, Germans, etc.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. I’m getting that way about commercials. No, not every couple in America is mixed race.

    I enjoyed a number of Super Bowl commercials and even found the, “He Gets Us,” commercial bearable (by their standards it was positively evangelical).

    However, the NFL slot about flag football was just about as racist as it could get: plucky group of young women, mostly women who tan, vs arrogant white male jocks and their white Mean Girl Cheerleaders. The WMJ want to keep the Plucky Girls Who Tan from -wait for it – playing flag football. But they are Just As Good as the male players and triumph.

    The whole thing being to lobby for high school varsity girls’ flag football. I kid you not. The TV is on the wall, and it’s too big to wall anyway, but…

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Teenage black girls are generally more interested in basketball or track. But they are also interested in keeping their nails unbroken and their hair not messed up (since both require hours of commitment).

      So that’s kind of a hard sell. If there was some kind of magical “wicking wrap helmet” that protected hair, and big protective football gloves, maybe that would work.

      But yeah, that would make it difficult to grab the flags.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. As I think about it the girls were more Hispanic than black, wearing sports outfits that had better be confined to the gym and with artistically disheveled hair.

        Liked by 1 person

    3. Some of our client schools are like that (photography), but I also live in one of the historically most integrated regions of the nation. And, incidentally, far more integrated than Hollywood and its environs.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. I mean that I live in an area with a very high level of multi-racial kids (from prior generations of integration), but that it may be the only region in the country actually like that, and it does vary by school a lot.

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  11. One idiot is a discussion about Chinese in England (roughly Elizabeth I’s time) “assumed” that the Chinese would be the poorest-of-the-poor and could never “inter-breed” with the English.

    Never mind that those Chinese would have to be imported in England as craftsmen and thus could make good money (for craftsmen).

    The children of English craftsmen would likely have little problems with marrying the children of the imported Chinese craftsmen.

    In his world view “of course” they would be the “lowest-of-the-low” and be unable to interbreed with the English. [Very Big Nasty Grin]

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Apparently Michael Shen Fu-Tsung, a Catholic convert and Jesuit priest, visited King James II in England, and his portrait was painted there by Godfrey Kneller. (Very flatteringly. He must have been an impressive guy.)

      Loum Kiqua traveled all the way to Lisbon, survived the great earthquake, and ended up getting help from some English people who brought him to England in 1736. He was introduced to the king and the royal family, as well as most of the nobility. Then the East India Company gave him a free passage home to Canton.

      Mr. Chitqua or Tan Che Qua, a Chinese sculptor, visited England in the late 1700’s, and sold statues for 10-15 guineas a piece. He was rich, not the “lowest of the low.” He was painted along with the Academicians of the Royal Academy in their official portrait (in the back left hand corner, wearing a Chinese hat — I never noticed him before, and I’ve seen this painting in books!), as well as having his own portrait painted by John Hamilton Mortimer.

      He also went home with a ship going to India, but unluckily fell overboard. The crew was spooked by his clothes and didn’t want to let him back on (too much like a woman or priest’s? or because of another superstition?), so one of the officers took him back to port in a small boat. The townspeople thought he was getting kidnapped by the officer, so they started beating him up in defense of the Chinese man (whom they had liked when he was getting ready to go on the ship). Finally things were ironed out, and Mr. Chitqua went home on another ship, wearing English clothing for the sake of the crew’s nerves.

      Wang Y Tong came to London as a supercargo on a British East India Company ship. His recruiter (who wanted him to help with studying Chinese medicinal plants) died, but the guy’s father took care of him, in accordance with his dead son’s wishes. He ended up discussing Chinese porcelain with Wedgewood and acupuncture with English doctors. He also got hired on as a duke’s page, and he was painted by Reynolds and Dance. He went back to Canton in 1785, after spending about ten years in England.

      Liked by 2 people

  12. My favorite historical blooper came in a published book set during the reign of Elizabeth: “I have paid monks to copy manuscripts for me!”

    No, maybe it’s the Regency MS that assumed the London townhouses of the rich were each of them surrounded by massive parks.

    No, it’s got to be the medieval MS in which the heroine, being in a motte-and-bailey castle, falls into the motte.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Those are quality bloopers.

      To be fair, some of the houses on the edges of London did have big parks around them. But I think by Regency times, you had to go out to Richmond or other places, to be far enough out. And those were not townhouses, but big old mansions with grounds.

      Further in, the Bishop of Southwark once had big parklands around his palace, and they went bye-bye at some point. And Ranelagh House in Chelsea got bought, and its grounds were turned into Ranelagh Gardens. Once the city encroached around a big house, either it got turned into something else (like a big charity facility) or it just got demolished and sold for the land value. They didn’t keep the big gardens or grounds, as I understand it.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. There were two large parks near Mayfair (Hyde Park and Green Park). The residential squares generally had a small park in the center. But townhouses did not have their own garden, much less what would amount to a park.

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    2. And the splash sounded more like a Thud.

      FYI, WP (DE) is “improving” things again. TXRed’s site is iffy, and variable as to what’s not working.

      Liked by 2 people

    3. And the splash sounded more like a Thud.

      FYI, WP (DE) is “improving” things again. TXRed’s site is iffy, and variable as to what’s not working.

      Like

  13. I never wish for a million dollars. I resolved long ago that when I was in a mood for fantasy I would imagine having a fortune the size of the U.S. national debt. Of course these days it’s getting harder to have big enough wishes to keep up.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Just saw a headline:

    As agencies face cuts or elimination, college students fear dream jobs could vanish

    So, for today’s college students, their ‘dream jobs’ are to be government bureaucrats? Hogs swilling at the public trough? WTF has happened to this country?

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Back in the stone ages, the U of Redacted job interview signup sheets were by alphabetical order. My first signup was supposed to be for Fairchild Semi (Lord help me), but the page was full and I went to the next. Turns out I was the first to sign up for an interview with the FCC. That one lasted a few seconds.

      An agency job was not my dream (nor many others. I was the first on that page.) And Fairchild would have been a dream, but in the Nightmare on Elm Street variety. Knew a classmate who had his job offer rescinded when he was in transit from Redacted to California. OTOH, at the company* I worked at, $ROOMMATE got laid off about 10 weeks in, along with a bunch of others. Me, I was shifted from one position to another–not fun, especially with B-the-SOB as department manager, but it served until the economy improved and I could beat feet.

      ((*)) Motto: We’re not as bad as Fairchild. Right now…

      Posting from firefox. Normal browser mode.

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  15. On a more detailed perusal of my early 19th century atlas of London, *some* of the big townhouses had what we would call a back yard.

    Calling that a park would be like calling a suburban back yard a park.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. They seem to have made some sort of ‘improvement’ to WPDE such that typing in the text window doesn’t work.

      I find that if I select and drag some text from somewhere else, such as an editor window or a comment outside the text window, it ‘primes’ the window and allows me to type text normally.

      Just another thrilling day dealing with WPDE. Groan.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Forget it Jake, WordPress is “improving” things. (It’s barfing on Pale Moon right now, but it’s willing to work on Firefox. Now. Here. It didn’t elsewhere. Holding my mouth right…)

      And we’ll see if the double posts still occur.

      WPDE!

      Liked by 1 person

  22. /Is this downstream of the failure of universities/colleges to teach literature or a plain history? Dickens certainly did not document the black population in England as so prevalent to be notable and of consequences, other than to note the poverty. Have none of these authors read Oliver Twist?

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I’d say it’s downstream of the entire U.S. education system failing to teach anything outside of their political hobby-horses. Students are taught to recite the slogans of the day without thinking. Tomorrow, they will recite different slogans.

      Liked by 1 person

  23. Alexandre Dumas, author of my favorite all-time book, was “bi-racial.” Which I didn’t know until I got to college and one of the professors was talking about it. I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now. I just found the stories entertaining.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Well, Dumas’ black paternal ancestor who almost became a Marshal, was basically D’Artagnan’s backstory.

      Similarly, Chekhov’s black ancestry was important to his backstory (and his attractiveness to the ladies, probably).

      But Chekhov and Dumas (pere et fils) were all successful without any patronizing “chances” or “help” given because of their skin or backstory, other than being basically gentry with decent education.

      Also, it’s fun to read them, and we can’t have _that_ in the land of Wokism.

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    2. And that was because his grandfather lived in Saint-Domingue, and bothered to bring back his son, though not his daughters or the children’s mother.

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