: Re: Should I add racism in my book's world or have my world have no racism? I've been writing a children's novel inspired by action cartoons, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, paganism/Wicca, mythology

@Kimberly114

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Whether you should or not boils down to what is true for your setting.

If you've built a world where there are multiple ethnic groups (and you definitely should do that, it would be unrealistic to have a homogenous world), would these groups have cleavages along ethnic lines?
Or other social lines, like religion, gender, nationality, politics, etc.

That is, literally, the only answer that makes sense here. The same way that certain factors foster warfare, certain factors encourage different kinds of bias and strife.

Usually those factors are economic.
Do you have two capitalist countries, side by side, where one has been bombed into dust, and the other has plenty of decent paying jobs?
Guess how immigration will flow.

And because we've already established that these countries practice wage labor, private property and market exchange mechanisms, these folks have been de-facto tossed into a competitive situation.
And unless there's a reason why they would exert social pressure on the wage-payers, rather than the competition, you have a recipe for prejudice. If that prejudice has enough social power behind it, e.g. the prejudiced group has enough numbers, enough money, enough political power, now you have bonafide racism.

Social dynamics are a part of worldbuilding.
It's like asking if you should have a desert somewhere. If you have your coasts, mountains, etc mapped out, that determines where the deserts are.
If you want to a world without deserts, you'll probably need to redraw your coasts and deserts.

Sadly, most societies will have some kind of ethnic strife. Even if its uncommon, and even if it doesn't rise to the level of an oppressive social structure (like racism) the chances of prejudice being totally absent are slim.

Look to how your world works and ask what the logical outcome would be. If you don't like the answer, it means you need to re-calibrate some of the aspects of your world.

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