Sept 29, 2020
By Dray Breezy
The beautiful thing about diversity is that you don’t have to look too hard to find it. Exclusion is more work. I often read critiques of the lack of diversity in science fiction. These critics are generally speaking of the lack of people of color in science fiction and fantasy works. I can’t help but disagree. While I agree that stories of people of color are often overlooked in science fiction, most stories I have read certainly don’t lack diversity. Ender’s Game, Dune, Lord of the Rings, help us to imagine a future universe, a diverse universe with diverse ideas. These authors use their respective genres to create richly creative worlds full of differing dynamic opinions and ideologies. We the readers have to do the work in accepting that diversity doesn’t just come from diversity of skin tone, but diversity of character.
Imagine the Future
What will humanity look like a millennia from now? Hundreds of millennia? Humans are already mixing at a rapid pace, imagine the effects of that after hundreds of thousands of years. The concept of race will have drastically changed or won’t exist at all. As a black man, I personally hope it doesn’t.
Ultimately race is a method of separation. Academia has already begun to view race as an artificial construct. In many ways, race is still such a defining factor because politicians, media, economies, and imperialism use racism for their own agendas and profit. However what happens to our tribal differences when we face an external threat such as an alien invasion?
Ender’s Game and the Buggers
The novel Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card set his premiere story right after the failed invasion of Buggers. The Buggers are an insectoid alien species that works as a hive mind, did not speak any language we could understand, and had technology vastly superior to ours. The world quickly united against the common threat and decided that training genius children is the best way to defeat the Buggers. Ender becomes the world’s greatest hope. As the series develops, Card delves into the politics of Earth and up until that first invasion of the Buggers, humans were still engaged in the tribal battles of modern times. Race, Gender, Class were all causing ceaseless conflicts. Then came the Buggers. The existential threat of the Buggers caused humanity to realize that our similarities far outweigh our differences. We trick Ender into wiping out the Bugger threat, all except one queen who Ender learns to communicate with. We are also introduced to another alien species, The Piggies. I won’t spoil too much but as the series grows we discover that all these various new species of aliens have motivations that do not inherently contrast with the motivations of humans. When stripped down, these species were fueled by the same desire as us, to protect their species and their families. To live in peace. These species couldn’t have been more different than us in appearance, customs, and cultures but it doesn’t matter. Therefore as readers we connect with these desires although these are aliens from distant planets.
Dune
The Dune series promotes the same concept but even further into the future. However humankind has traveled so far across the universe that we have evolved into different species based on the needs of the planet we inhabit. There are the Bene Gesserit, a powerful all female political organization that uses memory sharing to plot the course of humankind. There are Mentats, the human “thinking machines” that replaced all computers after a failed machine takeover. There are Futars which are sentient human/feline hybrids. There is also the Tleilaxu, a society of genetically altered, highly religious, and highly xenophobic humans. The Tleilaxu perfected cloning so well they figured out how to pass on memories, duplicating immortality. All of these factions were classified as human yet were incredibly diverse in their appearance and motivations. However us readers are personally sympathetic to individuals within these factions, regardless of the diversity, because ultimately they are all human. Their desires are human, flawed, but human. These writers are giving us the clue to harmony ,it’s not even hiding. Embracing diversity puts us on the path to a sustainable future.
Lord of The Ring
There are many things to love about LOTR. Legolas, Arwen and the elves, Gimli and the dwarves, some of you may even like Gollum, whatever the heck he is. These were different races from Man, yet that didn’t stop you from bonding with these characters. Irrespective of their differences, they all worked together to defeat Sauron, the common threat. Could the elves have done it alone? Nope. The wizards? Nope. Man? Nope. It took the combined forces of all these groups, including the hobbits. Everyone worked TOGETHER. Did they have their differences? Of course, Sam and Frodo bickered often as well as Aragorn and Boromir. Those differences didn’t prohibit them from achieving their goals. That is what diversity is about, the embrace of different beliefs and ways of life. One’s man’s strength is another man’s weakness. What made Frodo the perfect candidate to carry the ring? His heart was full of love and practically incorrigible. What made him a poor warrior made him the best hope for saving Middle Earth.
Harry Potter
Harry Potter features elves, giants, ghosts, and witches all working together to defeat a homicidal sociopathic wizard. Did we not understand the motivations of Dobby just because he was a house elf? In these stories, elves had a vastly different culture , so do the hobbits, and all other sorts of magical creatures. If we can read these stories and watch these movies and empathize with characters so vastly different, why can’t we do that with each other? The problem with bigotry is a lack of creativity, the inability to imagine people that are different are human, but we do it everyday with Superman, an alien from Krypton. We humanize those figures so why can’t we humanize each other?
Before we criticize these authors about lack of racial diversity, how about we truly think about a world that has actually moved past race. We mock those that use “I don’t see color”, but in the world of science fiction we can see that vision conceptualized. Being reminded of my blackness is great in certain contexts, but not reflective of the value inherent in any work of literature. I am optimistic that perhaps these writers have seen past our tribal differences. Racial diversity is not the only metric for diversity.