Just A Thought: Why Sudfell is Black

(When's the last time I wrote one of these?)

    When someone creates a story, they are really putting themselves on display. No character or universe is born of nothing, instead its a display of the author, how they view people and how they view the world. That's a line of thought that I personally take to heart, for better or for worse. I understand that my the worlds I create say something about me and therefore, want to amplify that message.

    So, the reason behind Sudfell being black isn't as simply as "I'm black so I want a main faction to be so as well". (Although that's obviously a portion of it). 
   
     Instead, the main reason is a tad more complex, and is an issue I've dealt with basically as long as I can remember. Consider this; the term African American. To me, that has to be one of the funkiest "politically correct" terms I've heard of. But when the question of race comes up, for many people, that's the term they use to refer to me. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of it, and I prefer to the term black (or mocha, which I have heard a few times, that's fun as well). The reasoning for this is that I don't think I'm African really in anyway, and I certainly view myself as a "Canadian" first. More importantly, you don't refer to a Caucasian as a "European American". 

    I find the term African American disengaging and the weight it carries to be unfairly placed. My family has been here, in Canada, for 200 years, how does that make me different, or more foreign, than a Caucasian family that has been here an equal period of time? The same goes for someone who may be Chinese Canadian or any other ethnicity that isn't immediately Caucasian. (Not to speak for all of the many ethnicities across North America, it's just a comment on an observation).

    A large problem with this is that Africa has a lot of cultures and ethnicities (you've never heard Asian Canadian used, have you?) and the second problem is that I associate with none of them. Going back to my earlier statement, I associate first (and only) with Canadian culture.  As far as the complex question of ethnicity, like family that has been in North America for any period of time, the bloodline has gotten pretty mixed over the years. I look black, my parents look black, and we all feel pretty black, so that term works fine. 

    Fundamentally, it's unfair to both me and a man from Cote d'Ivoire to be bundled together. We associate with different nationalities and have unique and different cultures. I feel that North America, with its indigenous inhabitants, tragically, occupying such a majority of its population, it has created a unique place where this problem can exist, this disconnect between ethnicity and culture. More importantly, I think it weakens our collective "Canadianess" or "Americaness" when we use words to describe ourselves that associate with foreign nationalities. 

    So on to the fictional Sudfellians, I made them black so I could create a faction that disassociated black from African Cultures. That being said, the Daomeans from the same universe represent a more traditional "Bantu" or Sub-Saharan African culture.  In fact, one of my goals with the entire Unus Solum universe was to help display that disconnect. Arcean's despite looking Arab don't have an Arab culture at all, while the Scarrans do. The Hoffnung are ethnically European but don't have a European culture while the Karelians do, etc.  

    Anyway, lets hope this wasn't too divisive. 
    
    Your thoughts?