Is This Offensive?

[artsylilbastard]

Okay so I am writing a novel and I have twin characters who have brown skin and have blue eyes. One of my friends was reading over what I have so far and she told me that is was offensive. The reason these characters have blue eyes is because it is the future and a group of bad people are running a human trafficking ring and are genetically changing people so they look abnormal and rare so they sell for higher prices. I really don't want to offend anyone so can someone let me know if this will.

[MegaRay]

From what you typed, I don't see why it is offensive. Just tag it as NSFW or have a warning at the start of the novel.

[joannekwan]

Did your friend explain what she found offensive?

The only thing that may be offensive is that the characters are brown-skinned and are being sold as commodities. And given the west's history of slavery and exploiting indigenous groups, yeah tread carefully. Eye color isn't the biggest issue that stood out to me, tho it can be a point of note.

[cloudhound14]

Not at all in fact that's actually kind of cool. That's the point of a story. If to kill a mockingbird wasn't offensive it wouldn't be as good as it is.

[MeltingCORE]

...dark skinned poc can have blue eyes lol. I agree with Joanne, they might be saying it's offensive due to the story content. But I mean... it's your story, if it's written with tact, I mean... it's a sci-fi story lol. If they're trying to say poc can't have blue eyes uuuuuuh

[artsylilbastard]

These specific characters are decendants of victims and it is not just dark skinned people, there were albinos, hispanics, white people etc

[joannekwan]

I think it should be okay then: If you show a range of people being trafficked and doing the trafficking so that you aren't setting up people who look a certain way to be the bad guys or to be items.

[artsylilbastard]

I also included a set of albinos who were originally white with black hair but their genes were changed so they are white skined white hair and red eyes

[artsylilbastard]

I'm not trying to. In this story their are faeries so this group wanted to make faerie-like people and sell them as faeries/half-faeries

[artsylilbastard]

Okay Thank you for the tip!

[joannekwan]

Oh I'm sure! It's just sometimes when people create things, oversights happen and some readers might misinterpret your intentions. So to create responsibly, one has to keep several things in mind when handling things like race/colorism and so forth.

[Awesomeness_Studios]

This sounds find to me. As long as your story isn't glorifying the human traffickers, you should be good to go based on just this.

[artsylilbastard]

It does not. It pegs them as bad

[domisotto]

what your friend might be getting at is the stereotype that only black people who mimic white’s features, such as light-coloured eyes or hair are attractive. If you do not place emphasis on how this characters are incredibly beautiful, or if you are a POC author, you may be in the clear regarding this stereotype.

[joannekwan]

I was thinking that too but I was like wait—they have brown skin and are being trafficked which would be the bigger thing to point out lol.

[domisotto]

True, the role in the story is also unfortunate choice, particularly if they are the only ones suffering the trafficking or are being saved by a white character.

[foxnflames]

As an additional pro tip, avoid referring to people as “albinos”. They’re are not their own race, say someone with albinism.

[artsylilbastard]

Yeah I only mention it in passing and I am going to make emphasis on it later when talking about the traffickers. But never do I say it makes them beautiful.

[artsylilbastard]

Yeah I never refer to them as albino, I just describe them in a way that makes it obvious they are albino

[DiegoPalacios]

Something i would like to add, is that if the human traffic ring alters people genetically, they would appeal to as many tastes as possible with a big enough demand. So, in the storytelling aspect, it makes sense if the slaves have different appearances.....