*nom nom nom*
mermay day 28: ethnic
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i feel very squidgy about the prompt, you can listen to me try to cram all the nuance of why into a two minute voice over right here, but the tl;dr is white folks, stop using this word as a catch-all for "non white" it's weird and othering.
in any case, at least the illustration came out good but hhh, so conflicted OTL
I can’t speak for what the person who wrote the challenge was trying to mean by “ethnic”, but I’ve also seen it used as saying “traditional for a cultural background” (be it white or not). It’s supposed to be related to ethnicity (specific cultural origin) rather than race (skin color and general geographical origin). The artist very well could’ve been trying to find one word to describe that, considering that all the prompts seem to be one word, and “traditional” would probably just result in pics of Ariel and other “traditional” pop culture/fairytale depictions of mermaids. I do feel like there’s a better word, though. I have definitely also seen “ethnic” used the way you’re talking about, and I overall agree that it’s stupid to do that - it just comes across as a euphemism to me, which defeats the whole purpose of diversity being normal and not something one should have a hang-up about.
About the art itself, I absolutely love the shrimp mermaid! Wonderful artwork, as before!
Edit: Holy crap. Mermay is legit run by a corporation or something? I’m still not surprised that the PR department screwed up, but I always thought it was just some independent artists who started it all.
pluckyshroom responds:
that's kind of my beef with it being used in the context it was. i know what was meant, but unfortunately, the word on its own has been used euphemistically to simply mean "non white" and it is very othering. on the tiktok, the comments have been agreeing for the most part, though someone did say that they didn't feel any type of way about it as a poc. and to be clear it's not that i think the word doesn't have its place, but used on it's own with no other modifyer, especially as an art prompt, feels a bit gauche.
i certainly don't think it was malicious, but with all the time and money the people behind mermay have, and with all the discussions about racial sensitivity recently (at least in the US) it just...it could have been handled better.
in any case, i don't think there as any right or good answer to the conundrum which is why i left my comment section open for discussion ^^ and while i'm happy with the final piece for what it is, it just left a bad taste in my mouth and made me think about why that is, and i thought that was something worth talking about.
When i get my hands on this
https://c.tenor.com/LTW7qcVYkk8AAAAd/jerma-jerma985.gif
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