White Hero or Helper or Savior

A couple things as I sit at the dining room table this morning with my coffee and notebooks.  A candle burning as the first chilly minutes of dawn tick away on the piano clock.  I’m ready to write.

And then my mind wanders to a fear about my story (ies).

A few days ago Green Book won the Best Picture Oscar.  I didn’t watch the Oscars.  I didn’t see Green Book.  I wanted to.  I am fascinated by history and the lead actor intrigues me.  Is he the lead actor?  I don’t know.  I think he won, too.  But maybe he was rendered  supporting.  So there is that and then there is the controversy of the truth of the history.  Not to mention the whole white savior motif.

I agree with those arguments when I hear them.  Even when I like the stories.  I really do like the movie Glory.  I also like but can’t summon the specific examples of stories where the female is rescued by the man.  I guess that is basically every other movie… and that has annoyed me since I was a teenager.  Because the reality has always been for me that I have to ‘rescue’ and take care of myself.  And I can.

To indulge a bit more of self… the flip side of being ‘saved’ is the desire to help.  That is one of my primary motivations in my day to day.  I want to be helpful.   I’m sure – I know – sometimes that desire is coupled with an urgency to just get things done so there can be an abrasiveness that conceals compassion I know is in my heart.  And I suppose in some of those circumstances, the impatience for efficiency over the willingness to hear all perspectives makes that desire to help a selfish motivation to do what I think is best.  And maybe it isn’t as helpful because of the collateral unhappiness brought with the solution.  Basically, I’m saying that not all my good intentions are felt as goodness.

I get that, but I still get annoyed when other people don’t realize how nice and well meaning I am.  Indeed, I sometimes decide that just means they aren’t well meaning or lack intelligence about the matter.  Because… obviously… I know I’m a good person.

Really though.  I know I can’t please everyone or make everyone see what I see.  I can attempt to choose actions with respect to others and how it may do them good or harm.  I do think trying is still mostly better than doing nothing.

And something on this theme is what informs part of this storytelling.  I want to use time travel as an opportunity to help show a part of history that doesn’t get as much light – to make heroes of the people who have to be rescued by white men in so many other narratives – women and people of color.

I am a white woman.  So it goes without saying that I feel most comfortable writing through a character who is a white woman.  I have never crossed into the realm of the Sidhe or stepped foot in another part of history.  Obviously, what I write is still a fantasy.  I want my heroine to be strong… and like me… helpful… in different places in history she visits.  I want those places to look like the world in which I live – well not the white washed rural town in which I now dwell – but as it was once.  When there were Native Americans.  And, yes, households with slaves.  Or better yet, their freed children and their children.  But like my town is now, there is aggression against that diversity.  An aggression I don’t and don’t want to tolerate.  So I want her to do what she can to speak up and act against it.

I’ve already determined she is a flawed hero.  Maybe even a little self-satisfied in some efforts to ‘help’ that are ultimately met with a mirror of sorts placed in front of her as her heart breaks.  Yes, this is vague.  Yes, I have to finish writing the damn thing so you can (and hopefully will) read it to get what I’m talking about.

We can call her an ally.  Not a savior.  But I recognize that one criticism of white savior narratives is that it gives the limelight of the story to the white person. As I’ve said, that is my main character.  Because in that respect I write what I know.  I have a manuscript – unseen and collecting ‘dust’ on my computer – where I had more diverse narratives, but I am so terrified by the fact I never lived that reality, how could I have the audacity to write it?  Can I?  Without prejudice?

I don’t appreciate the censure of PC.  It really does go too far most of the time and actually does more harm by shutting down conversation without maintaining the opportunity for understanding.  I also know that as a writer you can’t please everyone.  Once I put the finished thing out there, readers will inevitably find flaws with all sorts of things.  I’m writing about history.  Everyone reads it like they know it from living there and will be certain to tell me when they think I’m wrong.  Even if my characters lived with the fairies.

So I can’t censure myself from writing.  By writing, maybe I will find an answer of better perspective.  Not THE answer.  Something that shifts the identity from white savior to something… more conversational, more aware, humbler, and ultimately, more helpful.