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wisdomeagleI will comment on the drabbleset next; first I wanted to reexamine this, since I've been meaning to do since I wrote it. The pieces work in a weird kind of tandem for me. This piece is very internal, because Ducky is very internal, because even in the Diaries-series, Ducky is the most self-reflective character and so much of his arc happens inside his own brain. "Nine Rules" is an external piece, not reflective at all, very physical in ways that I'll talk about more when I discuss that. "Nine Rules" is about characters I don't feel especially resonant, at least not in surface ways; none of them are characters I write very often or feel very confident about writing. "Reflections" on the other hand is about a character I identify with a great deal and always have. "Nine Rules" is not about race; only one of the nine drabbles even mentions race as an explicit issue. This piece is all about race; writing a canonically white character as black and not talking in detail about race would be counterproductive.
With that in mind, line-by-line commentary. This will spoil through CA Diaries book 15.
Title: "Reflections/on my reflection"
Fandom: California Diaries
Featured character: Ducky.
I don't think Ducky's last name would be McCrae in this universe, but I didn't know what it would be or how to convey that. I really did flail over this line of the header, writing "McCrae" and then striking it through and... I mean, maybe he would still be McCrae! Who knows?
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Ann M. Martin owns the copyright and Scholastic owns Ann; Peter Lerangis wrote him, and I just love him way too much.
Notes: A thought experiment in sympathy with International Blog Against Racism Week. And yes, I will write the drabbles eventually. But now it's way past bedtime.
Only, like, one month later! What?
Summary: What if Ducky were black? or Ducky thinks about race.
Wordcount: 706
I really meant to write the drabbles that night, and had even started thinking about the basic beats of some of them, but then this AU attacked me. I was thinking about why I don't write black characters very often (as many of us were that week) and went all, "But they're not like me!" It felt suddenly necessary to think through what it would mean if I did identify strongly with a black character, or if a character I identified with strongly was black. Instantly many of the beats of this piece came to mind, and I felt compelled to write it. So I did.
Reflections
on my reflection
Such a very Ducky-title. I love the way Ducky plays with language and structure in his journal. I love this about the other CA Diaries characters too (Amalia and Maggie, say), but Ducky's very unconscious creativity. I just. *flail* I love him a lot. And this is not especially thoughtful commentary, is it?
You look in the mirror and you see someone who is:
The looking in the mirror and searching for identity thing is a classic Ducky trope.
-on the short side
-black
-male
-wearing jeans and a button-down plaid shirt, and sneakers.
For awhile, "nondescript" was in this description, it being one of Ducky's favorite words for himself. Eventually I removed it. I think one of the ways Ducky is different in this universe is that his physical appearance is and can never be nondescript, in the way that people -- we -- I -- notice blackness in a way I don't notice whiteness.
In the series, Ducky is in a precarious place between visible and invisible minority. There's a lot of emphasis on the way his outward appearance doesn't reflect who he really is because he censors himself, but at the same time, all the Cro-Mags know. Homosexuality as a visible identity is played sort of bizarrely; there's a line in Amalia Book III (CA Diaries 14) where she talks about her experiences with racism and how her friends can't understand that in their souls -- except maybe Ducky, but that's "his mannerisms and how he dresses" or something similar. I was really struck by that line; I guess portraying a gay person who's zomg!oppressed because of his sexuality is not all that daring in a YA series, but I'm still impressed by how textual that is.
Anyhow if Ducky were black, he would not have the option of hiding. There is no closet; there is no self-censorship. There is no coyness or "the way Ducky's gayness is codified in the text." Ducky is black. The mirror says so.
So why bother looking in the mirror in the first place? It's not like you've changed since the last time you looked, not like you've grown any taller or whiter or more interesting. Maybe you could use a haircut, but that's not why Mr. Schafer looked at you like that when you drove Dawn home after school today.
You wonder what you look like from the outside, what Dawn sees, or Sunny, or Mr. Schafer. You're so used to knowing what it's like on the inside, I did tell you I was in love with Ducky's internalization, yes? how you manipulate your body through three dimensions Not like Ducky is my self-insert in any way, of course. and how you keep your head high and how you're so careful when you walk that you don't strut because God knows the Cro-Mags love a challenge and you don't flit because you KNOW what would happen if you did,
Ducky's position is so tenuous. It breaks my heart. The Cro-Mags do mock Ducky for "flitting" and he does really does try not to "bounce too much" as a result. But in this universe sheer masculinity wouldn't really solve the problem because he's still black and his masculinity is as much a threat as his effeminacies. Really, I just made Ducky black so he would break my heart okay.
and your stride, like your style, is nondescript preppy, and you know that the black kids think you're an Uncle Tom and that the white girls and Amalia think you're harmless, and maybe you are. You try to be.
And here is where I did use "nondescript," to modify things about Ducky that he chooses to some extent, the way he walks, the way he dresses. I don't know how much sense it makes for Ducky to be more aware of Amalia's ethnicity than he is in canon. But he is very aware of himself as different from the girls (and of the weirdness of his friendship with them) and as he negotiates race on top of everything else, it becomes more fraught.
But Mr. Schafer looked at you and that's not what he saw. He saw something that wasn't in you, but something in your skin, in your sex. You're the older black boy who drove his daughter home from school, and can you really blame him for the frostiness in his tone, the hesitation before his handshake? You felt, suddenly, desperate to impress upon him that you're safe.
I felt guilty about using Mr. Schafer like this, BUT the thing is I don't think he's a horrible evil racist. I mean, Ducky is an older black boy, and Mr. Schafer's reaction is purely instinctual. He has some qualms about Ducky in canon, as well; many of the adults do.
That you're safe. That you've been a good friend for his daughter, that you won't take her to rap concerts, that you won't try to date her, that you won't -- you can't even write it, can't even think it, you would never. You're safe.
This really squicked me the fuck out to write, but it was there. It was what Mr. Schafer thought, even if only for an instant, and he hated himself for it, but he flinched. And Ducky's not stupid, and he knows that rape is in the subtext. And there's no reason why it should be, but it is.
You'd like to think you're safe from racism, that Vista and by extension Palo City are, for all their problems, colorblind and racially harmonious. Yes, you grew up here; yes, you remember second grade, and you've seen what's written in the men's room but maybe those things are just aberrations; maybe it's just Cro-Mags being Cro-Mags and it's not symptomatic of anything, and it certainly doesn't have anything to do with you.
When I wrote this, I had forgotten that Amalia Book III was all about this very issue, and I felt sort of compelled to prove that Palo City wasn't colorblind or racially harmonious, thinking that we would be know these things if one of our protagonists was a racial minority and and was aware of racial issues. But since Amalia Book III does exist, I feel justified in my thoughts.
(My own hometown had a large Asian and east-Asian population, but I knew very few black people until I went to school in Virginia. And I was very unaware of racial issues in my hometown. For the record.)
When Dawn and Sunny and Maggie practically refused to get in the car with you the night of the party, that wasn't because you were black; it was because you were an upperclassman, and male. (Not to mention it was after dark, and Sunny was drunk, and your car is, admittedly, not much to look at, let alone drive in.)
What was fun about this was that in the canonical universe, Dawn and Sunny and Maggie and Amalia do hesitate about getting in Ducky's car exactly because he is male and an upperclassman. But this Ducky can't know that; that universe doesn't exist for this Ducky, and it's one of the moments I love in this, where Ducky can't erase race from his thoughts -- and I bet the girls were also at least aware of Ducky's race during this moment.
And if you believe that, Ducky, maybe you'll believe that when Jason -- sorry, Jay -- uses the n-word, it's because he LIKES you, because he UNDERSTANDS you, because he's JUST ONE OF THE GUYS, and not because he's a raging, racist asshole.
I felt sort of guilty about this too, but it seems in character for Jay, who yes, does sometimes try really hard, but really, really, really doesn't get it.
And if you believe THAT, you probably believe in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny and that your parents will come back from Ghana with plenty of presents and will stay in California for good this time.
Which reminds you of another thing, how upset you get when you tell people your parents are in Ghana and they get this look of understanding on their faces and go, "Oh, do you have family there?" or "So that's where you're from!" and don't really believe you when you explain that actually, you've never been to Africa and actually, your parents' work has nothing to do with where their great-great-grandparents were born. Then you feel guilty for feeling upset, and wonder if you're being defensive, or overly sensitive, if that's the identity you've been searching for: He Who Overthinks and Overreacts.
The segue could use some work, but the Ghana-thing was really important for me to include, even though it's mostly just a gag... I mean... it was one of the things that occurred to me first, how Ducky's parents in Ghana took on a whole different layer of meaning if they were black, only of course it didn't really. They're still professors, and they would be interested in Ghana even if they were white, but this is something that no one can know, and in this universe it is imbued with racial meaning? Or something. And Ducky overthinks things. Which, once again, is not at all indicative that he is my self-insert or anything.
You think about the clothes you wear, the manner you adopt, the manic joking, the all-nighters, the shoulder to cry on, everything that you use to project the personality you wish you had, and you wonder if maybe all that work is, in fact, POINTLESS, if the first thing everyone sees will always be the color of your skin.
I kept writing after this, but then I kept erasing it, because this is really the punchline and the crux and there's nothing beyond that. I think that if Ducky is black, that is the first level of identity, even for himself, just because it is so physically apparent. And this ending makes me all squirmy and sad for him, especially because it sort of disillusioned me...
Ducky's canonical story is so sad for me, because it's about how he doesn't really fit in and he feels he has no identity and doesn't know who he is or how to be in the world. But I have hope, because I know that one day he will realize that he's gay, and then everything will fall into place and he'll know who he is. But writing this, where Ducky did have the option of that kind of minority identity politics, I realized that coming out would not really solve all of Ducky's problems, after all, that he's still an individual person and still has lots of conflicting emotions and friendships and needs to figure out who he is not just what he is.
And the realization that there's no automatic happy ending for him makes me very sad.
With that in mind, line-by-line commentary. This will spoil through CA Diaries book 15.
Title: "Reflections/on my reflection"
Fandom: California Diaries
Featured character: Ducky.
I don't think Ducky's last name would be McCrae in this universe, but I didn't know what it would be or how to convey that. I really did flail over this line of the header, writing "McCrae" and then striking it through and... I mean, maybe he would still be McCrae! Who knows?
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Ann M. Martin owns the copyright and Scholastic owns Ann; Peter Lerangis wrote him, and I just love him way too much.
Notes: A thought experiment in sympathy with International Blog Against Racism Week. And yes, I will write the drabbles eventually. But now it's way past bedtime.
Only, like, one month later! What?
Summary: What if Ducky were black? or Ducky thinks about race.
Wordcount: 706
I really meant to write the drabbles that night, and had even started thinking about the basic beats of some of them, but then this AU attacked me. I was thinking about why I don't write black characters very often (as many of us were that week) and went all, "But they're not like me!" It felt suddenly necessary to think through what it would mean if I did identify strongly with a black character, or if a character I identified with strongly was black. Instantly many of the beats of this piece came to mind, and I felt compelled to write it. So I did.
on my reflection
Such a very Ducky-title. I love the way Ducky plays with language and structure in his journal. I love this about the other CA Diaries characters too (Amalia and Maggie, say), but Ducky's very unconscious creativity. I just. *flail* I love him a lot. And this is not especially thoughtful commentary, is it?
You look in the mirror and you see someone who is:
The looking in the mirror and searching for identity thing is a classic Ducky trope.
-on the short side
-black
-male
-wearing jeans and a button-down plaid shirt, and sneakers.
For awhile, "nondescript" was in this description, it being one of Ducky's favorite words for himself. Eventually I removed it. I think one of the ways Ducky is different in this universe is that his physical appearance is and can never be nondescript, in the way that people -- we -- I -- notice blackness in a way I don't notice whiteness.
In the series, Ducky is in a precarious place between visible and invisible minority. There's a lot of emphasis on the way his outward appearance doesn't reflect who he really is because he censors himself, but at the same time, all the Cro-Mags know. Homosexuality as a visible identity is played sort of bizarrely; there's a line in Amalia Book III (CA Diaries 14) where she talks about her experiences with racism and how her friends can't understand that in their souls -- except maybe Ducky, but that's "his mannerisms and how he dresses" or something similar. I was really struck by that line; I guess portraying a gay person who's zomg!oppressed because of his sexuality is not all that daring in a YA series, but I'm still impressed by how textual that is.
Anyhow if Ducky were black, he would not have the option of hiding. There is no closet; there is no self-censorship. There is no coyness or "the way Ducky's gayness is codified in the text." Ducky is black. The mirror says so.
So why bother looking in the mirror in the first place? It's not like you've changed since the last time you looked, not like you've grown any taller or whiter or more interesting. Maybe you could use a haircut, but that's not why Mr. Schafer looked at you like that when you drove Dawn home after school today.
You wonder what you look like from the outside, what Dawn sees, or Sunny, or Mr. Schafer. You're so used to knowing what it's like on the inside, I did tell you I was in love with Ducky's internalization, yes? how you manipulate your body through three dimensions Not like Ducky is my self-insert in any way, of course. and how you keep your head high and how you're so careful when you walk that you don't strut because God knows the Cro-Mags love a challenge and you don't flit because you KNOW what would happen if you did,
Ducky's position is so tenuous. It breaks my heart. The Cro-Mags do mock Ducky for "flitting" and he does really does try not to "bounce too much" as a result. But in this universe sheer masculinity wouldn't really solve the problem because he's still black and his masculinity is as much a threat as his effeminacies. Really, I just made Ducky black so he would break my heart okay.
and your stride, like your style, is nondescript preppy, and you know that the black kids think you're an Uncle Tom and that the white girls and Amalia think you're harmless, and maybe you are. You try to be.
And here is where I did use "nondescript," to modify things about Ducky that he chooses to some extent, the way he walks, the way he dresses. I don't know how much sense it makes for Ducky to be more aware of Amalia's ethnicity than he is in canon. But he is very aware of himself as different from the girls (and of the weirdness of his friendship with them) and as he negotiates race on top of everything else, it becomes more fraught.
But Mr. Schafer looked at you and that's not what he saw. He saw something that wasn't in you, but something in your skin, in your sex. You're the older black boy who drove his daughter home from school, and can you really blame him for the frostiness in his tone, the hesitation before his handshake? You felt, suddenly, desperate to impress upon him that you're safe.
I felt guilty about using Mr. Schafer like this, BUT the thing is I don't think he's a horrible evil racist. I mean, Ducky is an older black boy, and Mr. Schafer's reaction is purely instinctual. He has some qualms about Ducky in canon, as well; many of the adults do.
That you're safe. That you've been a good friend for his daughter, that you won't take her to rap concerts, that you won't try to date her, that you won't -- you can't even write it, can't even think it, you would never. You're safe.
This really squicked me the fuck out to write, but it was there. It was what Mr. Schafer thought, even if only for an instant, and he hated himself for it, but he flinched. And Ducky's not stupid, and he knows that rape is in the subtext. And there's no reason why it should be, but it is.
You'd like to think you're safe from racism, that Vista and by extension Palo City are, for all their problems, colorblind and racially harmonious. Yes, you grew up here; yes, you remember second grade, and you've seen what's written in the men's room but maybe those things are just aberrations; maybe it's just Cro-Mags being Cro-Mags and it's not symptomatic of anything, and it certainly doesn't have anything to do with you.
When I wrote this, I had forgotten that Amalia Book III was all about this very issue, and I felt sort of compelled to prove that Palo City wasn't colorblind or racially harmonious, thinking that we would be know these things if one of our protagonists was a racial minority and and was aware of racial issues. But since Amalia Book III does exist, I feel justified in my thoughts.
(My own hometown had a large Asian and east-Asian population, but I knew very few black people until I went to school in Virginia. And I was very unaware of racial issues in my hometown. For the record.)
When Dawn and Sunny and Maggie practically refused to get in the car with you the night of the party, that wasn't because you were black; it was because you were an upperclassman, and male. (Not to mention it was after dark, and Sunny was drunk, and your car is, admittedly, not much to look at, let alone drive in.)
What was fun about this was that in the canonical universe, Dawn and Sunny and Maggie and Amalia do hesitate about getting in Ducky's car exactly because he is male and an upperclassman. But this Ducky can't know that; that universe doesn't exist for this Ducky, and it's one of the moments I love in this, where Ducky can't erase race from his thoughts -- and I bet the girls were also at least aware of Ducky's race during this moment.
And if you believe that, Ducky, maybe you'll believe that when Jason -- sorry, Jay -- uses the n-word, it's because he LIKES you, because he UNDERSTANDS you, because he's JUST ONE OF THE GUYS, and not because he's a raging, racist asshole.
I felt sort of guilty about this too, but it seems in character for Jay, who yes, does sometimes try really hard, but really, really, really doesn't get it.
And if you believe THAT, you probably believe in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny and that your parents will come back from Ghana with plenty of presents and will stay in California for good this time.
Which reminds you of another thing, how upset you get when you tell people your parents are in Ghana and they get this look of understanding on their faces and go, "Oh, do you have family there?" or "So that's where you're from!" and don't really believe you when you explain that actually, you've never been to Africa and actually, your parents' work has nothing to do with where their great-great-grandparents were born. Then you feel guilty for feeling upset, and wonder if you're being defensive, or overly sensitive, if that's the identity you've been searching for: He Who Overthinks and Overreacts.
The segue could use some work, but the Ghana-thing was really important for me to include, even though it's mostly just a gag... I mean... it was one of the things that occurred to me first, how Ducky's parents in Ghana took on a whole different layer of meaning if they were black, only of course it didn't really. They're still professors, and they would be interested in Ghana even if they were white, but this is something that no one can know, and in this universe it is imbued with racial meaning? Or something. And Ducky overthinks things. Which, once again, is not at all indicative that he is my self-insert or anything.
You think about the clothes you wear, the manner you adopt, the manic joking, the all-nighters, the shoulder to cry on, everything that you use to project the personality you wish you had, and you wonder if maybe all that work is, in fact, POINTLESS, if the first thing everyone sees will always be the color of your skin.
I kept writing after this, but then I kept erasing it, because this is really the punchline and the crux and there's nothing beyond that. I think that if Ducky is black, that is the first level of identity, even for himself, just because it is so physically apparent. And this ending makes me all squirmy and sad for him, especially because it sort of disillusioned me...
Ducky's canonical story is so sad for me, because it's about how he doesn't really fit in and he feels he has no identity and doesn't know who he is or how to be in the world. But I have hope, because I know that one day he will realize that he's gay, and then everything will fall into place and he'll know who he is. But writing this, where Ducky did have the option of that kind of minority identity politics, I realized that coming out would not really solve all of Ducky's problems, after all, that he's still an individual person and still has lots of conflicting emotions and friendships and needs to figure out who he is not just what he is.
And the realization that there's no automatic happy ending for him makes me very sad.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-24 06:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-24 07:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-24 07:15 pm (UTC)...that you won't -- you can't even write it, can't even think it, you would never. You're safe.
I'm curious about this part, because is it true? It's obvious I think that he wouldn't rape her, but maybe he is attracted to her? It seems like if there was no attraction, this would be more of an angry, defiant thing, but I get the sense from this that maybe he is attracted to her, a little, which makes the whole thing more complex. Like he can't even let himself think it because he fears that would make him what he is seen as.
The "nondescript" thing is also very interesting, and it makes me think about how I tend (we all tend, I think) to think of textual characters as white unless proven otherwise. White is default...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-24 07:31 pm (UTC)are the Cro-mags the high school bullies?
Yes. This is what Ducky calls them in canon. They are high school boys Ducky's age (15-16), who are... sort of jocks, hypermasculine, and pick on Ducky a lot.
I'm curious about this part, because is it true? It's obvious I think that he wouldn't rape her, but maybe he is attracted to her? It seems like if there was no attraction, this would be more of an angry, defiant thing, but I get the sense from this that maybe he is attracted to her, a little, which makes the whole thing more complex. Like he can't even let himself think it because he fears that would make him what he is seen as.
That's such an interesting point! And I never would have thought of it on my own, because my Ducky is very gay. But you're right; I think Ducky in this 'verse is sort of hyperaware of his own sexuality as dangerous, and if he did have feelings -- or even just attraction! -- for one of the (younger, white, vulnerable) girls, it would be very scary because he really doesn't want to be that kind of person, and I don't think he has a lot of models of healthy relationships.
(I suppose an alternate interpretation of Ducky's lack of sexual feelings//severe discomfort about sexuality in the books is that he's not gay, but just terrified of his heterosexuality because of how horribly sexist he finds the Cro-Mags' attitudes towards girls.)
and it makes me think about how I tend (we all tend, I think) to think of textual characters as white unless proven otherwise. White is default...
Yup. (Although my friend