I'd like to make it very clear that I disapprove of derogatory names being applied to anybody, for any reason.
In my manuscript, which is a historical fantasy set in the 1930s, I have a group of kids who've banded together in high school. A new kid, who's black, enrolls, and they interrupt some intimidation going on. The kids are Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Californio (who will be seen as Mexican).
Anyway, the antagonist calls them all the common racial slurs for that era, and I have my protagonist make fun of him.
The point was, I wanted to show that racial name-calling is not only wrong (because those who engage in it anyway don't care), but that it makes you look stupid, too.
If it will help, I'll post a few paragraphs from the novel.
I don't want to be offensive, but I would like to make the point. And it's unreasonable that an Irish kid wouldn't be called a mick, as an example. It was respectable to marginalize non-WASPs at that time (as everyone here probably knows very well).
It's the only place in the novel where I actually use the terms (the rest of it is described in oblique terms in the narration).
Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.
In my manuscript, which is a historical fantasy set in the 1930s, I have a group of kids who've banded together in high school. A new kid, who's black, enrolls, and they interrupt some intimidation going on. The kids are Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Californio (who will be seen as Mexican).
Anyway, the antagonist calls them all the common racial slurs for that era, and I have my protagonist make fun of him.
The point was, I wanted to show that racial name-calling is not only wrong (because those who engage in it anyway don't care), but that it makes you look stupid, too.
If it will help, I'll post a few paragraphs from the novel.
I don't want to be offensive, but I would like to make the point. And it's unreasonable that an Irish kid wouldn't be called a mick, as an example. It was respectable to marginalize non-WASPs at that time (as everyone here probably knows very well).
It's the only place in the novel where I actually use the terms (the rest of it is described in oblique terms in the narration).
Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.