When creating a story, how many black characters can I create without them calling the story woke?
When creating a story, how many black characters can I create without them calling the story woke?
Being targeted by Nazis doesn't mean you did anything wrong. And thus, there's nothing you can avoid doing, that will protect you from Nazis.
This is true, but labelling everyone you don't like or don't agree with a "Nazi" (or "Communist/Socialist" if you're politically right) is not very intelligent. [Interesting fact, Nazis were actually socialists. The term Nazi is a shortened version of the german term for National Socialist, which is part of their full name: National Socialist Workers Party of Germany.]
Being targetted by everyone probably does mean you did something wrong. That's why actual, real Nazis ARE targetted by everyone.
Nazis were actually socialists
No more than the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is democratic.
They were as much socialist as North Korea is a Democratic People's Republic.
The Nazis frequently fought against actual socialists and communists during the Weimar Republic period and put them in work and death camps once those got going. They cracked down on workers unions too.
Interesting fact, Nazis were actually socialists. The term Nazi is a shortened version of the german term for National Socialist, which is part of their full name: National Socialist Workers Party of Germany
I found one of the suckers that would vote for the Nazi party because they put
{{Popular political ideology here}}in their name.
No more than 3/5ths of the characters or it's unconstitutional.
Without being in-your-face woke: as many as are appropriate to the context.
Without "them" calling the story woke: none.
I assume this is a joke?
Are you suggesting this question might be stupid
As many as you want. A story feels "woke" when the character's skin color is important to their creation, or if their inclusion in the story feels forced. Nobody complains about Mr. T being in the A Team or Samuel L Jackson playing Mace Windu in Star Wars, because those characters do not feel like their inclusion was forced. Their race didn't really matter to their character or story, and their dialogue and acting was equally as good as everyone else's. Basically, those characters didn't feel like they were there to check a box, they felt like they were always supposed to be there from the beginning, black skin or not.
Sometimes, its contextual. For example, a story taking place in medieval Europe could potentially have a black person in it, but any more than one or two would probably feel forced. When thinking about medieval Europe, black people did exist but they were not a common sight. A person who is interested in that kind of story would expect the vast majority of the story's characters to be white Europeans, and there might be one or two characters that aren't.
Another point to keep in mind is that a fantasy world doesn't need to follow the rules of current society. In your story, slavery could be legal, or the age of consent could be 403 years old. It doesn't matter because is a made up world, a fantasy. Fantasy doesn't always mean ideal or perfect, and I would argue that the best fantasy settings are the ones that you wouldn't want to live in on a daily basis. An imperfect world, where people suffer from.various things, give a good backdrop to explore various types of stories that are relatable enough to a person without being too real. A fantasy story's general purpose is simply to provide people with a temporary escape from reality, so if they start seeing things which remind them of reality such as social political talking point, they may be less inclined to feel like they can escape, and thus will have a negative view of the world you created.
You create as many as is appropriate for the story. If you are picking the race of characters for any reason other than the story itself, you are sacrificing the quality of the story.
There are some practical concerns if your story is turning into a film. If you are filming in China you are probably going to have a lot of Chinese, if you are filming in Kenya, you are probably going to have a lot of Kenyans, if you are filming in Germany, you are probably going to have a lot of Germans, etc, etc.
To give a serious answer: As many as the story requires. The same thing goes for any ethnicity. If neither the story nor the character nor any of their dialog require it, not describing a character by their ethnicity is a valid (albeit somewhat harder) choice. This way, anyone can read and imagine the story with what they are familiar with. Now don't get me wrong, you can absolutely assign every character a full set ranging from emotions and values to physical attributes and ethnicity - but you don't necessarily have to state that "Jade" has dark/light skin. Simply describe the character on a different level. This is complicated, but beautiful if done with cultural identity: Someone from a community of turkish guest workers may have a very pragmatic and hands-on approach at their job but be somewhat hands-off in the household, until they have guests (Chosen from an arbitrary pov, this is not grounded in experience). If you wish to determine what ethnicity a character has, first ask yourself: is it important/does it influence them? If no, try to leave it out maybe? If yes or you absolutely want to know it, rolling dice is a valid option: Check the distribution in the chosen community and simply roll. From what I know many authors base characters, settings and scenes on some kind of real-life example, so naturally one might base the ethnicity on the same example.
As long as you have at least one straight white male character that isn't treated like a joke by other characters you should be fine 👍
4...one for the slave, one for the informant, one for the pal, and fuck off....!!!!!!