Advice/Help Is it okay to roleplay as characters that aren't a part of your race/ethnic group?

[Edric Blight]

This shouldn’t even be a question

 

[Jannah]

This shouldn’t even be a question

Yes, sort of sad that it is tbh.

 

[Commander Rabbit]

People are still asking this question?

Don't think too hard about it and enjoy the writing process, just don't be a massive asshole about how you portray a group of people.

I remember when everyone and their mother on fanfiction.net wanted to write stories about people in Japan due to the anime scene. Granted, a lot of those stories were rife with stereotypes. We learn from somewhere, even if what we did before was cringe or offensive. Some of us learn by doing the cringe and then learning from that mistake.

Most of my writing hasn't seen the light of day, buried within the recesses of my hard drive.

 

[Cyanide2000]

So for some context, I was on Twitter the other day and I saw a post basically saying: "White people shouldn't roleplay as bipoc characters because they'll misrepresent and misportray them"

I've always roleplayed with many different ocs, a lot of them being bipoc. Although usually set in different universes and such. At least not in our own world setting. And the times I have its always been dystopian, like a post-apocalyptic plot, or using our world's geography as a blueprint but making it fantasy. Though since it's usually set in a made-up fantasy world, does it still kind of apply the same? Of course I wouldn't roleplay as a bipoc character trying to depict the bipoc experience.

I don't want to misrepresent or misportray anyone, especially minority groups because I know how harmful that can be. I do lots of research on the characters I create to make sure there wouldn't be anything I would be doing wrong or misrepresenting. I'm not sure if the post was about non-poc writing about poc's experience or not. And I wasn't able to ask if that was what they were talking about.

Tl;dr Is it okay for me (I'm white) to have bipoc characters? Is this like an unspoken thing that I just didn't know until now? Does this mean I should delete all of my non-white oc's?

Also I did ask this on another site but they recommended a roleplay forum to ask it on instead.

Edit: A big thanks to everyone who's responded with their thoughts and feedback!

Yes. It is also ok to write them. If I had to write a book full of white men that would be a little odd or a British arctic exploration novel. Human experience transcends race and creed - the timeless concepts are common to us all. I would posit that it would be an exercise in positive understanding of different cultures and races - attempting to authentically write from their POV may lead you to a level of understanding that avoiding the topic due to theoretical insensitivity would not.

If I write a brutal, violent man who does not listen to others, was hurt early in life, and sees everything as a potential conflict, you can only come to the idea that I may be representing or misrepresenting an experience of a certain group after the fact - that man could be white, black, orange, or purple. I generally don't consider the intersectional reality of purple people unless they are choking (sorry Mitch).

We are engaging in the creative endeavour of writing. Thinking. To think, you need to risk being offensive. In this context, we minimize and moderate that and don't allow harassment and the other common rules decent humans live by, but stifling our creativity in the name of sensitivity is antithetical to the spirit of the entire pursuit we are engaging in.

 

[cdi]

People are still asking this question?

Sadly, yes, and it gets annoying when you actually do know what what you're talking about and they don't.

Fr'ex: Years ago an ST who wanted Basque characters for a game set in Spain called bullshit when I informed him that my surname is Basque

EDIT: it got really funny when he tried to discredit me when I said that everyone who has my surname is tracebly related to me.

 

[cyberzkull]

im srry but this is a silly ass question.

no. if ur not a 50'4" eldritch horror of the bussysaurus race you cannot play them. you have to be incredibly accustomed with there culture and/or have grown up around it. and as a pacific islander, any pacific islander character that doesnt wear a grass skirt and a coconut bra (regardless of gender) is a disgrace in my eyes and is downright offensive to me and my banana picking ancestors. flabbergasted. downright disappointed. disgraced.

 

[Perpetual Zen]

Super late but I think as long as you do your research and know your not culturally saying or doing anything that might propel bigotry. Which, your not. I think it is completely acceptable and it's really backwards when people think they can't understand each other because of skin color. That's scary