I’m writing a story and one of the characters is Indigenous American. I went to the native american subreddit to ask for information on the specific tribes I was basing her on. I was met negatively, and from my perspective very harshly. I’m not native, and I’m not very knowledgeable on specific cultures. I do genuinely love and support Indigenous people’s, their culture, their movements, everything. I went to the subreddit in good faith so that I didn’t write anything offensive. I’ve always heard from the writing and art community that writing/drawing only white characters, as a white person, was ignorant and racist. So I’ve always tried my best to diversify my characters and do it accurately. And now it feels like I’m a bad person for even trying to do the right thing. Or like because I’m not a poc, I shouldn’t be allowed to write poc. And at the same time I also feel like a bad person for even wanting to be right, because then wouldn’t that make me one of those people who uses white woman tears to make people feel bad for her? I didn’t know it was bad to ask about the culture, or to ask for advice on writing an indigenous character. The whole interaction has just hurt and put me off from even wanting to finish writing in the first place. I honestly just want to know what I did wrong and if I was truly being offensive.
I didn’t put too much detail into the interactions but if asked I can give details, i had screenshots but the subreddit wont let me attach them. Please do not be racist in the comments, these interactions have not made me think less of the community.