an open letter
Canonically, Roger is “swarthy” (dark-skinned, or of a dark complexion). The same word is used to describe Simon, a generally accepted PoC in the book. I do not want to debate whether or not it’s true that Roger is a person of color because it is written directly in the book. (“When Roger opened his eyes and saw him, a darker shadow crept beneath the swarthiness of his skin; but Jack noticed nothing” (Golding 62).) What I will discuss, however, is the “headcanoning” of him as white.
"It’s just my opinion! It’s just a headcanon!”
No, it is not “just a headcanon”. This is damaging. For a long time, it’s been widely accepted among the fandom that Roger is a white character. In a lot of LOTF fanart, Roger is white. Most Roger roleplayers portray him as white, and a lot of fanfiction describes him explicitly as pale and white. So much so that, personally, I actually forgot that Roger was canonically a PoC after being involved with the fandom for two or so years. This is not a headcanon. Until now, it has been commonplace in the fandom to ignore the actual book and portray Roger as white. This is “fanon”. This is erasure.
“But I could headcanon a white character as a PoC and that would be fine!”
“Headcanoning” a PoC character as white is not actually headcanoning, but PoC erasure. For example, imagine if someone headcanoned a canonically queer character as straight. Not only is it, frankly, boring, but it erases the little representation that these grossly underrepresented minorities already get. Now imagine that an entire fandom made it commonly accepted for this canonically queer character to be portrayed as straight. This is erasure. Applying this to Roger, this is whitewashing.
Headcanoning canonically white characters as PoC allows for representation, even if it’s only at a personal level. This is not the same.
“It just doesn’t fit my version of Roger.”
The color of someone’s skin is not a facet to their personality. PoC’s do not have fundamentally different personalities, spirits, or attitudes than white people. Saying that being a PoC does not “fit” Roger’s personality is saying that you belief PoCs cannot behave a certain way.“‘Swarthy’ doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a PoC!”
In the definition cited above, “olive skinned” is a synonym of swarthy. Here are examples of people with an olive skin tone.
I am in no way calling any of you racists. I understand that, frankly, Roger’s appearance isn’t described in great detail and it’s a sentence that can be easily overlooked by accident. This is learned behavior which has been widely accepted for a long time. Honestly, my own personal picture of Roger was white for a while simply because all of the art, fanfictions, and roleplayers that I saw of Roger portrayed him in this way- because the art, fanfiction and roleplayers that inspired those artists portrayed him in that way, too. It’s a cycle and it has to be unlearned, and that’s okay. Lashing out when your white headcanon is questioned isn’t the way to go about this. Really consider why people (particularly, people of color like myself!) might be upset by this. Try to see this from any perspective but your own. Objectively, try to analyze why you or others hold so fast to the idea of Roger as white.
Finally, in no way would I ever excuse the bullying/harassment of roleplayers or anyone. But this is something that should be questioned, discussed and carefully considered. Canonically, this book is full of white people. Surely one character can be accepted as a person of color in the name of representation and avoiding PoC erasure.
It’s time to start unlearning problematic stuff like this.
Regards,
Ginger