That work experience also gives you the tools to recognize when somebody is throwing around signals of frustration, so you recognize it elsewhere, as in readers of fiction. I for one really *like* seeing characters who have privilege who are shown trying to use it to accomplish something worthwhile with it, to advocate for other people. Characters with a sense of responsibility about their own capacities, powers, or social status. The trick there is to avoid making it come off as if they're playing Lady Bountiful, or as if they're clueless prats. I suspect this generous impulse, poorly articulated, may be where distortions have crept in until some of those stories or movies turned into the trope where White Hero Rescues Poor Native Peoples, or Knows Native Skills Better, and so on.
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Date: 12 Jun 2011 04:45 am (UTC)I for one really *like* seeing characters who have privilege who are shown trying to use it to accomplish something worthwhile with it, to advocate for other people. Characters with a sense of responsibility about their own capacities, powers, or social status.
The trick there is to avoid making it come off as if they're playing Lady Bountiful, or as if they're clueless prats. I suspect this generous impulse, poorly articulated, may be where distortions have crept in until some of those stories or movies turned into the trope where White Hero Rescues Poor Native Peoples, or Knows Native Skills Better, and so on.