Worldbuilding and Writing 202: Bigotry
Hiya all! It is I, your favourite alien Limax, Vivian! And Lady Verbosa, the magnificent and grand, Anne Winchell! As for the topic, here is the obligatory disclaimer:
Disclaimer: This topic is one that has existed within societies since time immemorial and is likely to continue to exist indefinitely. The discussions within this blogpost are in no way endorsing, condoning, or trivialising bigotry and its effect on people and groups of people. This post exists only to help create believable bigotry within your world and in your writing. Anne and I strongly oppose and condemn all sorts of bigotry toward anyone and believe in the equal value of all people and consider it intolerable to be bigoted. Bigotry will as always be removed from comments if ever found.
(Vivian:) There, all clear? Bigotry is bad! But it is part of life, and many want to write about it for various reasons. I sprinkle it in for verisimilitude. A thing to pay attention to is that neither Anne nor I are experts in psychology or anything related. We have read things here and there and thought about it. If there are bits you think can be improved, leave a comment!
What is bigotry?
(Vivian:) For the working of this blog and worldbuilding, we will be using the following definition, but we are in no way claiming it is accurate or correct in sociological or other usages.
Bigotry is a hatred toward a group of beings who share a specific trait that is the target of the hatred.
Often “irrational” is thrown in, but I chose to exclude it due to it being a relative term. What one claims to be rational or irrational, another can say differently. The main focus is a hatred for a group based on a trait, generally from birth, and that is everything when you remove all empty fluff.
(Anne:) I would also exclude “irrational” from the definition, but that’s because there’s so much rationalisation going on in the minds of bigots. Most people can’t accept that they’re hateful people, so they make up reasons and excuses to rationalise their ugly hatred to themselves. It’s definitely irrational, but to add that to the definition ignores this aspect of it.
Why does it exist?
(Vivian:) There are many evolutionary reasons why bigotry is believed to exist. I’ll go over some of the ideas but I want to reiterate this: there being evolutionary reasons for bigotry existing does not make bigotry in any way shape or form morally correct nor excuses the bigot’s bigotry. It remains immoral.
In-group vs out-group
(Vivian:) Back in the day before civilization itself, life was tough, hard, and very deadly. Anything that moved could be something that could kill you and your family. This included other humans. If you both do not understand each other enough to talk, then things can escalate fast, and soon you are dead because the other one got scared. So visual cues of “being in the in-group” became important to remain safe.
(Anne:) Visual cues are very important, including skin colour, which is very prevalent in the United States, and also things like fashion, which can indicate all sorts of things about a person that can be discriminated against. Language is often another clear cue as to whether someone does or doesn’t belong.
Mirror neurons overfiring
(Vivian:) This is one I heard recently, and I find it so fascinating as a way to explain bigotry. Most humans have mirror neurons that activate when others do things to give you the sense of what they are experiencing. You know the feeling: you see someone stub their toe real hard, and everyone cringes and goes “ooowwww.” You can feel the pain the other one experienced! An idea is that when it comes to, for example, queer-related stuff, mirror neurons are firing at the thoughts of someone doing activities, including sex. But here, it comes in conflict with personal orientation. The neurons have fired to put the person in the same position as, for example, a gay couple, but the person themselves is not gay, so there is a conflict in their head that takes the form of disgust (or many other options).
This can develop into pure bigotry if the person doesn’t learn to deal with these feelings, and some might use it as a justification (more on this later) for the hatred. I find this one interesting just because a system that is meant to invoke empathy becomes a system that turns into hatred.
(Anne:) I do want to point out that this overfiring does sometimes create the hoped for effect of increasing empathy, so it does work sometimes!
A brief history of bigotry
(Vivian:) As stated before, bigotry has been around since time immemorial, but it has taken many forms throughout history. In Rome, well, initially you had it toward “non-Romans,” we then had of course them being really mad at a supposed certain Jew if the stories are to be believed. We do know, however, that for a long time, they really really REALLY hated the followers of Jesus. Eventually the tables turned, and it was Christians in charge.
Skipping a lot of history for Europe–if you are from other parts of the world and have history to input, comment! Anyway, for ages a lot of bigotry was toward the Jews as they were easy to pick on due to their sparse population and little to coordinate them. Eventually, we get to colonisation and the slave trade to the Americas. Of course, there was bigotry there as well, but a lot of it was only based on “not-Christian”, not any concept of “race.” The ill treatment of non-Christians was a hot potato even early on as it came in conflict with religion. These are still ad hoc reasons just to hate, as I will get into later.
But why let something as trivial as what the religion says stop some good old bigotry and economic gains at the expense of morality they had yet to realise? The modern concepts of Races in humans didn’t really come about until Charles Darwin’s famous books on evolution. No, Charles was not a racist, nor was he a perfect man either. He was more progressive in his views of people than many for his era but still not good by our standards. Anyway, bigots had a whole tool kit of excuses for their bigotry and feeling superior at the cost of others! Which resulted in the Holocaust, and a lot of the world went “Holy fucking shit,” and then we are here today, and you’ve still barely learned a thing.
Justifications for bigotry
(Vivian:) Lies, damn lies, and this statement! There is for obvious reasons never a justification to be a bigot. But bigots will still make up reasons, “justifications,” for their bigotry. These are more excuses than anything but we will discuss them here and how this works in bigotry. Even if the bigots are unaware of these.
The important thing to understand when it comes to bigotry is that bigots are never reasoned INTO bigotry. That is because there are no reasons to be hateful toward an entire group. Groups are made up of individuals and one individual cannot be held accountable for what others have done, and a state and its people are also distinct. So understand that one should not give actual reasons for bigotry and portray it as legit as that validates actual bigotry.
(Anne:) Do note that for the people in your world, they may buy into these false reasons and give them as if they’re true. You as the creator need to push back against them to show that the character’s perceptions of the world are wrong. Sure, you might say that one group has always been evil since they killed the dragons hundreds of years ago, but in the story itself you want to show that this is false and just a rationalisation of their hate.
(Vivian:) Exactly what I am trying to hammer in. In your world and story, you are of course entirely within your rights, and should, give the bigots reasons they believe are justifications, while portraying them as just their views and not factual. So what are possible things that can be used for so-called justifications? Well, a non-exhaustive list might be:
“They need to be civilised”
“They are more criminal”
“They killed X”
“They started X”
“They control X”
“They are going to Y our children” (This one is very popular)
“They act like Z”
(Anne:) “They look like Z”
(Vivian:) In all honesty, you can make up the most insane reason, and they will lap it up if it fits their bigotry. The wonders of these mental gymnastics is that even if presented with counter-examples, it can be explained away somehow! Which is actually a great way to add depth to the bigotry of a character. Anne will go into how to write this as an arc for a character to overcome. Another thing to consider is that a lot of these “justifications” can even become self-fulfilling, where the stated reason is only true because the group in question is forced into situations that make them reality and has no real relation to the group itself but the bigotry toward them.
Types of bigotry
(Vivian:) As I said in the previous section, there really is only one kind because hate is hate. But we are going to be generous and divide them up based on what they hate. Not their stated reason, but what is the thing they hate.
Ethnophobia: A specific ethnicity
Racism: A specific “Race,” as per society’s construction of it
Xenophobia: The other, anything not one's own
Misogyny/Misandry: A person's sex
Genderphobia: Other non-standard genders (Anne: there are lots of specific types within this broad category)
Sexophobia: Someone of a different sex
Religiophobia: Someone's religious beliefs
Xenism/Alienphobia: (Made up) A person’s species
Magiphobia: (Made up) A person's ability to do magic
Amagiphobia: (Made up) A person’s inability to do magic
(Anne:) Normaphobia (Made up) Anyone too similar to the “norm”
These are only a few ones and some of these are extremely broad. In a book and a world, you can pick literally anything, not just inborn traits like here, to be something that is hated and expanded upon.
Character bigotry vs author bigotry
(Anne:) There’s a big difference between having a character who’s a bigot and being a bigot yourself, and there are so many writers who are terrified of writing bigoted characters for fear of being perceived that way. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen, bigotry is part of life whether we like it or not. Ideally, people can be normal human beings and not hate others, but it still happens, and it can be a great addition. So how do you prevent your audience from thinking you’re the bigot?
A key element to this is where exactly the bigotry occurs, and how it’s treated narratively. First, where it occurs. If it’s in dialogue, that’s a good start. If you have a close third person point of view, and it shows up in the exposition, that’s probably going to be okay to start. If you have first person, a distant third, or are in omniscient, you start to run into problems because then it’s the narrator who is bigoted, not the characters. Since the most frequent narrator in these stories is the author (or, in the case of first person, the audience can falsely assume it’s the author), it’s easy to see how you can be blamed.
But an even more important thing to consider is how the bigotry is treated. Is it portrayed as a good thing or a bad thing? Are characters rewarded or punished for it? Or is it entirely neutral? Now, this doesn't necessarily mean within the story. You can have other bigots praise a bigot. You might even do a depressing book where bigotry wins. But that has nothing to do with your portrayal. Say you have a story where a pure-hearted person gets corrupted and becomes a bigot. If you write in such a way that the audience perceives this to be an improvement, it can safely be assumed that you feel that way, otherwise why portray it as good? But if, as you hopefully will do, you portray it negatively–even if the other characters reward it, even if the character gets some sort of “reward” at the end–then you should be on safe footing. Now, some people are always going to be offended, and authors get unfairly accused of things sometimes. That doesn’t mean these stories aren’t worth telling. If that story of the bigots winning is a warning tale of what happens, then it’s a good example of combating bigotry even while using it.
One example I recently reread is Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” published in 1948. If you haven’t read it, go do so! It’s amazing, and I’m about to give minor spoilers so go read it, it’s short. In the story, a town full of bigots has a ceremony. One person is targeted, and while the town ends happy with the outcome, it’s a clear and obvious warning against groupthink and how hatred blinds us to the humanity of others. No one would think that Jackson agrees with the story. And if you write your story well, no one will think you agree with it, either!
Avoiding bigoted exposition
(Anne:) I’ll skip over dialogue, since it’s rarely an issue. You might run into problems if you use slurs, especially real world slurs, and especially certain real world slurs, but Vivian and I have a whole other post about that! Generally, though, audiences understand that characters can speak in bigoted ways, and as long as you’re not excessive to the point where you’re bashing someone or some group without the possibility of undercutting it with exposition, you’re probably fine there. We’ll look at exposition, then.
Close third person point of view
(Anne:) As I said, this depends on point of view. Close third person point of view is considered the standard point of view in current writing, though there are many exceptions based on genre. I go into specifics in my post on Point of View, but basically, you’re using he/she/they pronouns, and you’re situated in the mind of the character. Since it’s common, people are used to it, and that means they understand that the things being said in the exposition belong to the character, not the author. However! One thing I would advise is that if you have something bigoted, just give some additional detail to make sure the audience knows. You can add “she thought” after a very direct transcription of thought (or “he reflected,” “they considered,” etc.). You could say “It seemed to her that” followed by the comment, or “in his view,” or “according to them,” etc. Those are just a few ways you can really emphasise that it’s them, not you, because if you include bigotry in more “neutral” areas of exposition, it can get a little borderline.
(Vivian:) One excellent point on where filter words and phrases are good to use to distance yourself, the writer, from the character.
Distant and omniscient third person point of view
(Anne:) Once you get into distant third person or omniscient third person, the vast majority of the exposition is supposed to be “neutral.” That means that if there’s any slant there, any preference one way or another, it’s the author putting it in, not any of the characters. So if there are bigoted comments, they’re attributed to the narrator, aka you, the creator. Now, if you call them out as I mentioned above with those clear signals that it’s the character and not the narrator, you can usually include it. Just watch everything else, and make sure if you’re doing speculative fiction that you don’t slip into bigotry against some of your races or species just because you don’t recognize it as such! If you’re portraying some group in a negative way, take a step back and consider if that’s warranted. Is it that this particular elf or group of elves just butchered an entire village, or are you trying to say that all elves are bloodthirsty monsters? Basically, is there a reason, or is it just a generalisation that excuses widespread hatred for an entire group? As Vivian would say, people aren’t a monolith, and anytime you start having “warrior races/species” or some such, you start getting in trouble.
First person point of view
(Anne:) Finally, first person is the trickiest. You’re in your character’s head using I/me/my as your pronouns. Every word is supposed to come from your character. However, audiences being audiences, people might also assume that the first person narrator is an extension of you, the author. I would be the most careful here by far. There are ways you can handle this, of course. One is by showing other characters in relationship to this character. If your narrator is a bigot, are they looked up to as a model of good behaviour? Are they a good warrior but a shit person? Or do people view them as the bigot that they are? If they are looked up to in some way, try to have at least one character view them differently, and make it clear that this character is more in line with your views. You can show them to be noble or honest or virtuous, or have the narrator look up to them, or, if this does have a tragic ending where the bigots win, you can have them die a glorious death where their pure views weren’t corrupted. Generally, though, I recommend staying away from stories where bigotry wins in a first person story because it feels like you’re trying to convince the audience to go along with that, and it might also convince some of your audience that this is okay.
(Vivian:) Pyrrhic victories might be the exception.
Engaging bigoted characters
(Anne:) No, this isn’t about how to engage a bigoted character in combat. Though you might want to! It’s important to realise that bigoted characters can be interesting, engaging characters! (Vivian: As in, you wish to see where the story goes even if you morally disagree). A character doesn’t have to be morally pure or good in order to be an appropriate choice for your main character. As Vivian says, what really matters in a story isn’t moral agreement, but the audience’s level of engagement. Does the audience care about this character? Does it matter to the audience what happens to them? That’s the important part!
Now, you’ll get some in your audience who claim that if you have a main character who’s bigoted, you the author must be as well, but if you’re following the guidelines above, you can feel fairly confident that those people would find fault in anything, and it's not you. It’s important to have engaging characters like this, because there are engaging people in real life like this. If everyone thinks of bigots as these evil people who have nothing in common with us, who are clearly the “good guys,” then we’ll be unable to recognize the stealthy bigots in our communities and societies, and even worse, we’ll be unable to recognize it in ourselves. And yes, everyone has some part of them, unconscious or not, that discriminates against others unless we work hard to overcome it. (Vivian: Except me, I just look down on all sapient life as I belong to the best one! And that is factual! Joking, of course). So not only do these characters not show your own bigotry, they often serve a valuable purpose in the real world.
Okay, so it’s fine to have them, and you’re going to watch out for excessive slurs in dialogue and whether it’s you or the character saying things in your exposition. How on earth do you actually make people care about them?
Balancing characteristics
(Anne:) You don’t want main characters that are flat, and that includes bigots. Now, you might think that bigots are just unintelligent people who can’t do anything other than hate, but they might surprise you! Did you know that many can do basic life tasks such as driving and having a job and going to church? That they can be loving parents and friends to those who aren’t in whatever group they hate? Or even that they may have friends within that hated group? You know, the “good ones.”
(Vivian:) There is usually some ad hoc reason why this friend is not actually a true member of the group, at least according to this character. “Pffrr, they’re not Jewish, it’s only one eighth and one cannot bother that far back.”
(Anne:) Point is, bigots are actual people, not cartoonish monsters, so give your characters something to balance out the bigotry so that your audience feels slightly less squeamish about being in their head or rooting for them.
Now, some level of discomfort is fine! It’s often the point. But there has to be at least one thing the audience can cling to. I mean, even Hitler could paint (debatable–I mean, he could, it wasn’t exactly good though).
(Vivian:) For a better example with Hitler, he was a strong supporter of animal rights and took great personal offence at mistreatment of animals. He was a vegetarian for a reason. Also he was good at painting buildings; people not so much.
(Anne:) There’s two faint veneers of humanity. Not that your characters should be Hitler, of course! That level of evil is hard to get behind even if the point of the story is to make people uneasy and help them realise how horrible these beliefs are. But no matter what level you’re going for, have at least something to round them out.
Bottom line: make your characters realistic.
Bigotry as an arc
(Anne:) The other thing that you can do that most audiences really like is to make a central part of the story be a character’s transition from bigot into an understanding, empathic person, where they realise how hatred has blinded them and seek to make amends and do better. This can appeal to several different audiences: those who are tolerant, those who are in bad situations, and bigots themselves.
People who already understand that bigotry is bad see this arc as a redemption arc, and it allows them to root for someone they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do so for. It also helps them see that person as a real person, which, as I said above, is very beneficial. For people who are in a bad situation where their families may be full of bigots or, worse, they’re the victims of bigotry, it can give hope that those people can change. Depending on the story, it might even offer suggestions for how to help bigots change.
One possible way to help might simply be asking them to read or watch the story, since the final group it appeals to is the bigots themselves. They’ll see themselves in the beginning character, and then see how the character’s evolution towards empathy is rewarded in the book and narrative. It might be a stretch, but it’s not impossible that your story might help some people see reason about people being people.
To have a good (engaging) redemption arc, you don’t want everything to happen all at once, but it’s definitely okay to have significant breakthroughs. In real life arcs where someone has gone from bigotry to empathy, there are usually a few key moments they can point to in addition to just the slow accumulation of evidence as they actually start listening to people from outside their own bigoted group.
One famous white supremacist who followed this arc, Derek Black, writes about his experiences and credits it to going to college and a Jewish person he met there who slowly made him realise their equal humanity, which he really got for the first time when he accepted a dinner invitation with them. So you have that key moment in addition to the slow exposure. You want to balance those things to make your character’s arc realistic.
(Vivian:) One example I love is from Harry Turtledove's World War series of aliens invading in WW2. There is an old school WW1 veteran in the US who is racist and homophobic at first as he joins the military to defend the USA. But through interactions with Black people and a lesbian nurse, he starts changing his views and even speech mannerisms as he realises what the slurs do to them and how human they are. In the end, he is not entirely transformed, but you could see the changes and be certain at the end that they would continue.
(Anne:) That journey is important. Your characters don’t have to end totally reformed. And of course, if you’re trying to warn about bigotry or just want a depressing story where bigotry wins, the audience is much, much more amenable to it (and less likely to accuse you of bigotry) if you include this character arc. The audience sees the character trying to escape, making progress, and the exposition all rewards this progress, but they inevitably get sucked back under, and the exposition shows this as a negative result. Again, just to repeat, the way the narrator treats bigotry is viewed by many as an extension of how the author feels, so you need to make sure that it’s portrayed negatively and any movement away from it is positive, even if the story ends in disaster.
Summa Summarum
(Vivian:) So what have we learned today? Well, besides whether Lady Verbosa can keep word count down 😜 (Anne: Looking at the final word count, I think I actually win this battle!) Bigotry is an ever present thing, and for a realistic world, it is always going to exist one way or another. No matter how progressive you make the world, it is going to have some assholes who just want to hate. Better to hate than to take responsibility.
Who becomes the target of said hatred can range from entirely arbitrary to simply those too weak to oppose the bigotry. And even when they have the power to oppose, they can still become the target. This targeting is not rational, it has no justification, it is pure hatred. You should not make it in-world or story-wise that bigotry seems justified. It might be easier to have them “Hate all the orcs because of ancient war” but this is not how bigotry works. You are only making real bigotry in its meaningless seem more justified and that there must be a reason for it, but no, there isn’t. You can have your ancient war, they might be on different sides in it, but make it so this excuse is that, an excuse, and not an objective fact of your world. You got anything, my friend?
(Anne:) From the writing perspective, don’t be afraid to tackle this topic. If no one talks about bigotry, then no one is challenging it, and that, in my opinion, is a problem. It’s fine to have bigotry and bigoted characters, but make sure the exposition clearly spells out which beliefs belong to the characters and which belong to you. If you have bigoted characters, round them out and consider giving them a redemption arc. It’s up to you how you want to develop your characters and what you’re trying to do and say with your story, but it’s absolutely something that needs to be discussed in all forms of media in a reasonable way that doesn’t further harm to the targeted groups.
(Vivian:) And with that, we’ll wrap this up! A word of caution though: if you are dealing with actual bigotry that is around you, make certain to talk with people affected so they can help guide you! Good luck!
Do you have any topics you struggle with or that you would like to suggest for a future blogpost? We’re open to suggestions!
Copyright ©️ 2024 Vivian Sayan and Anne Winchell. Original ideas belong to the respective authors. Generic concepts such as bigotry, its history, types, and justifications, as well as ways to use bigotry in your stories successfully, are copyrighted under Creative Commons with attribution, and any derivatives must also be Creative Commons. However, all language and exact phrasing is individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage and questions if uncertain what falls under Creative Commons. We’re almost always happy to give permission. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
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