Alterhumanity in Color: Exploring Racial Identity Outside of Orthohumanity

Sivaan of Candlekeep

This essay was originally written on August 14, 2024 and published on Tumblr on September 9th, 2024. On the same day as its publication, this essay was archived on Sivaan's Vault. The original Tumblr post for Alterhumanity in Color can be found here, which also contains a link to the PDF of the essay.

Introduction

As defined by Save (@coining-stars / @save-stars) on Tumblr, an orthohuman is described as an individual who doesn’t have any identity that goes beyond what is considered traditionally human. Based on its history, the usage of the term predates its formal coining post. Stemming from discussions within the Alt+H Discord server, members Mord and Joey both documented their experiences with using this term to refer to individuals who broadly fall outside of alterhumanity. While it’s expressed that these discussions have existed before the exchanges in the Alt+H Discord server, it still stands that orthohuman serves as an antonym to the term we all know as alterhuman. In terms of how long and open I have been in our community, I admit that I’m still a little wet behind the ears. Even so, that’s never discouraged me from taking a look into the crevices of our community that may lack exposure. So, how does this relate to orthohumanity in any way?

That begins with a construct that most assume only relates to humankind in this world, or to orthohumans in this context. This construct is race. Race in of itself is already a complex subject within the societies we live in, and it is of no surprise to me that some of our peers may disregard it entirely when assessing their experiences with alterhumanity or nonhumanity. While I do respect these choices as I cannot force anyone to apply these experiences to their overall being, there is something that I intend to establish with the following essay: race is not exclusive to human beings.

I am not an orthohuman by any means, but I cannot see myself parting with my race as perceived on Earth. I am Black. I am also draconic and polymorphic. Born and raised in the U.S. South, my blackness does not cancel out my alterhumanity. I am Soulaani throughout it all, and not once have I felt invalidated by these feelings. In context to species, it is one thing to remove oneself from orthohumanity. I have done so myself, as one can tell. However, not every construct created within orthohumanity is solely experienced by orthohumans. My race is something that I cannot deny nor would I ever want to deny within my selfhood. In return, I would never ask another alterhuman or nonhuman to do the same for themselves.

Although the discussion of race is hardly explored within the alterhuman and nonhuman communities respectively, it is of considerable worth to examine this topic on account of how these lived experiences have existed in tandem with our identities for years. I intend to expand upon my being as a Black alterhuman, and to detail my thoughts on why race as a factor of identity is so overlooked in this community.

Race in the Scope of Alterhumanity

In this world, race is a construct that was created by orthohumans to categorize members of humankind based on physical appearance and socio-cultural distinction. In addition to race, spheres of identity such as ethnicity and indigeneity are often paired with race when observing how they are regarded on Earth. Oftentimes, geographical positioning also plays a role in how groups are perceived and treated. Ranging anywhere from displacement from one’s place of origin to immigration within vastly heterogeneous societies, the history of these constructs are as rich in depth as they are heavy in memory to those who are affected by it. Most notably, there’s the near-infinite cases of indigenous communities on Earth being met with the entitlement of those who seek to exploit and destroy the land(s) they call home. I believe it isn’t difficult to see why such circumstances would matter to those who apply within our community. With this considered, I will delve into my own experience pertaining to racial and ethnic identity.

I cannot say “I’m not Black! I’m a dragon!” with the same pride and conviction as “I’m not human! I’m a dragon!”, because it is simply not true to who I am. I understand my relationship with blackness and alterhumanity in the same way that I understand my blackness and how it relates to my other experiences. For example, I am not queer because of my blackness. However, my blackness significantly affects my experiences as a queer person. This can range anywhere from cultural identities (such as my identity as a boi) to navigating through predominantly white spaces in the LGBTQ+ community. This is no different with my alterhumanity.

I am not an alterhuman because of my blackness. Instead, my blackness is still a significant part of me that exists in tandem with my alterhumanity. Continuing to embrace my blackness does not invalidate my draconity. If a dragon, regardless if they are bodily an individual of color or not, were to insist otherwise, I would become as irate as I would if a human being insisted that I am not a draconic polymorph. I do not turn away from my blackness because the cultural and social relevancies I have grown up with are far too important. I spent my formative years within a Black household in the U.S. South, living alongside the Great Smokies and listening to the stories of those who came before me. I connected deeply with nonhuman, folkloric figures of my community, such as Br’er Rabbit and Anansi, and expressed profound kinship with them. They were not human beings, yes, but they were one of us— us, as in members of the Black community— all the same. They were also a reflection of us, representing us without having to present as anything else but themselves. In my young mind, they did not need to look like me on the outside to be my people. We were of the same blood, those beings and I, therefore I saw no difference in relation to my own species as time went on.

The intersections of identity can be difficult to navigate through for anyone. I have always been open about the fact that it took me a while to understand myself as a draconic polymorph. However, the factor of race and how that intersects with my understanding of species was the least confusing aspect of my circumstances. My blackness was the first thing that I was made aware of when I came into this world, and it did not leave me when I revisited the possibility of being an alterhuman. For the partially human and humanoid-esque fractures, or my species, that I have amidst my polymorphism, I remain the same race: I am Black. While that is a label of Earthen origin based on how I am physically perceived, it is one that carries across all manners of my identity. Even when I am not a presumably human-adjacent being, my blackness carries over in terms of culture. This is reflected through how I dress, how I naturally talk, how I code-switch amongst others and how I am positioned within my communities. It is not a perspective that I can detach from, let alone claim that I never had.

Furthermore, observing the portrayal of Black-coded nonhuman characters in fiction has instilled a significant amount of confidence in my state of being. The first that came to mind when explaining my experiences to others is Jazz from Hasbro’s Transformers franchise. Although each Jazz varies by continuity, consistent qualities from Jazz typically include his love of music, his love of Earthen culture and how he is portrayed throughout Transformers, usually through the performance of a Black voice actor. From Scatman Crothers in The Transformers (1984) to Phil LaMarr in Transformers: Animated (2007), Jazz has to be one of the foremost consistently Black-coded characters that I have come across in fiction. While he is originally from Cybertron, a place where blackness is not an established sphere of identity, Jazz is so culturally transparent that he still reads as a Black character. I regard his portrayal as something similar to how I felt with Br’er Rabbit and Anansi as a child.

While Jazz is not physically perceived as Black, Jazz aligns with blackness regardless because of the execution of his character. The same could be said for characters with similar executions such as Louis from Disney’s The Princess and the Frog (2009), Wendell and Wild from their titular film Wendell and Wild (2022) and a good, few Gems from Steven Universe (2013)— Garnet, Bismuth, Sardonyx and Sugilite, to be specific. While there is no singular way to be Black, racial coding amongst nonhuman characters showcases how race as a construct can exist outside of humankind. It may have been constructed by human beings, and is most notably applied to human beings, but humans are not the only ones who are a part of the social, cultural and often personal contexts of race.

I am aware that members of our community may feel a disconnect from this perspective, and I have long made my peace with that. Some may feel that centering these attributes, originally born within human society, may still deviate from how they perceive themselves as alterhumans or nonhumans. Others may feel that the concept of race is completely irrelevant in their own case, as it may not hold any influence over their personal experiences and their alterhumanity or nonhumanity by extension. Each of which are perspectives that I understand and respect. It is not my intention to make others feel that they need to suddenly focus on this specific facet of identity, simply because it is important to me as a Black alterhuman.

That said, this is a perspective in our community that is as equally relevant as perspectives that explore gender, sexuality and other constructs through alterhumanity and nonhumanity respectively. I am not the first to touch on this subject, but it is within my hopes that I am not the last. The discussion of racial identity alongside alterhumanity is one that I hardly see touched on. While I respect those who do not speak on it as it is not relevant to their true species, to overlook a topic such as this is a privilege that some cannot afford.

Skin That Cannot Shed

Privilege is a difficult subject. When observing privilege within our society, it is understood as an innate point of access that is allowed to those whose own standing is favored by the ruling class(es). It’s possible to have some manner of privilege while also being someone of a disadvantaged background. While I am marginalized for my race, I also recognize that I hold some socio-economical privileges of my own based on the access to higher education I’ve had within my place of residence. This is not a given for a lot of people, let alone members of my own community. I preface this section with this example, and the overall discussion of privilege, to better establish where I am coming from.

It’s not lost on me why some folks may separate themselves from race as a construct as they may feel it is too close to the human experience. Although that personal decision is not so much a problem to me on the matter of species, it is of my belief that the ability to do so is an act of privilege. This is not a privilege of any direct benefit within greater society; however, it is a privilege on account of social perception. Like a snake shedding its skin, some folks are able to slip out of this perception of themselves by deeming their race as another human trait that doesn’t need to be associated with their being. Separating oneself from race may come easier to those who are visibly white, given that the existence of racial marginalization and oppression is not present within their personal experience. That is, of course, unless they are white and a part of specific ethnic groups as well, such as individuals who may be both white and latine, white and indigenous, etc. Even so, those who are visibly people of color do not have this kind of leeway in my honest opinion. Many of us live within conditions in which we must be mindful of how we may be viewed, and at worst targeted, because of our race.

As I have mentioned before, I am Soulaani and come from the Southeastern United States. My first experience with antiblack racism happened when I was in the first grade, in which an older white student had made it a habit to harass me on our way to the carpool lane of our school. Said harassment consisted of making monkey noises at me and even calling me racial epithets of that caliber. His “reasoning” for this was because I had committed the unforgivable crime of playing with his sister on the playground, and he took it as me encroaching on the girl’s space. At first, I figured his harassment had been out of a big brother’s sense of protectiveness, but I realized in time that the reasons behind his behavior were a lot nastier than I initially assumed. Looking back, I am not surprised by this behavior whatsoever as we attended a predominantly white school. I was one of three Black children in the first grade, and to add insult to injury, this had occurred in Eastern Tennessee, a region quite known for its history of abuses against my community. This is but one instance from my years of living as a Black person in the infamous Bible Belt of America. On top of the cultural and social significance that blackness holds within my identity, my lived experiences of racial discrimination is another major factor into why I do not separate myself from this construct.

This skin cannot be shed. I reference the concept of privilege, or lack thereof in my case, because I want my peers to understand that not every perspective on species and its relation to how we are perceived outside of our community is universal. It is not possible for this to be an innate advantage within the societies around us, at least not in the way that white privilege is for example. Yet, it is a matter of privilege on a personal and communal level when the threat of racial discrimination is not applicable to oneself and the mindset one carries. If said institutions of oppression are not experienced by oneself, nor are they something that one must stay conscious of out of their own safety, then it is worth recognizing as a mindset that not many can afford to have. I understand that the concept of privilege has come to be a point of contention for some, often assuming that the mere mention of it implies that another group doesn’t have circumstances of their own that make them disadvantaged. In the same sense that one can have societal disadvantages in one way and have privileges in another, a visibly white alterhuman or nonhuman can still feel wrongfully perceived by orthohumans while having the privilege of not needing to take their perceived race into account when engaging with orthohumans and the societies they’ve built.

It goes without saying that not every alterhuman or nonhuman of color will have similar experiences as I did, let alone in the same context or environment. My perspective does not exist as an open-and-shut case on the subject, either. After all, I do not speak for all alterhumans and nonhumans of color. I can only speak for myself and my observations as a Black alterhuman. Regardless, it is well within my interest that this conversation is continued beyond my writings and insights.

Unapologetically Black and Alterhuman

Occasionally, I find myself in spaces that expect me to choose between one facet of my experience and another. I am expected to see all facets of my being as separate from one another, lacking any relevance to each experience and further alienating the nuances of identity. One such example is the insinuation that my race and my queerness have nothing to do with each other, that my experiences as a black, queer person is interchangeable with that of a white, queer person. I am familiar with the perspective that insists our mere existence of being collectively queer is what bonds us as a community, but the flaw with this perspective is that it acts as if acknowledging our differences makes us any less of a community. Moreover, ignoring the intersections of identity that may exist for one’s peers does little to support them within the community you share together. I have always found these notions of “This or That” to be exceptionally ignorant.

In regards to alterhumanity, my thoughts on the matter remain. I gain nothing in detaching myself from my blackness, nor do I gain anything by acting as if my blackness and my alterhumanity are entirely separate entities. My blackness is what makes me me, just as my alterhumanity makes me me. I have known one side of myself for longer than the other, but that does not cancel out the connections I have between them. They are intertwined, forever embedded in my selfhood. I am unapologetically Black and Alterhuman. Most of the species that I belong to are nonhuman in some manner, whether based in sapience or animality. A few of them are partially human, human-like or simply human in origin, but they are equally a part of my alterhumanity. I am still Black across all fronts. I would never deny that part of myself, for I would be left incomplete if so.

Outside of myself, we must consider the position of all alterhumans when discussing race. I’m aware of the misconception that alterhumanity is synonymous to nonhumanity. Many members tend to overlook the fact that there are alterhumans who are fully human, partially human or human-presenting in terms of species. Of them, plenty are people of color. It shouldn’t be expected from alterhumans of that experience, especially human alterhumans, to relinquish their ties to race simply because some nonhumans can. While the concept of race is largely associated with orthohumanity in our community, racial identity can still be experienced by alterhumans and nonhumans alike.

I’ll expand upon this further by referring to a fracture of mine that is human-esque in appearance but a completely different species of being, nonetheless. The fracture in question is that of a Sunfire Elf. I am canon-divergent from The Dragon Prince (2018), so do keep that in mind as I use my species as an example. Sunfire Elves are elves, first and foremost. We are more connected to draconic beings instead of faerie folk and their courts, unlike much of elvenkind. Even so, we are still elven people. What is notable about our kind is that we are predominantly Black. While blackness, as it is known on Earth, isn’t utilized as a sphere of identity within the context of my canon, it is very much evident that me and my people are Black regardless of those specifics. From shared cultural styles such as dreadlocks to many of our members having accents that are reminiscent of Afro-French accents on Earth, our blackness exists completely outside of orthohumanity. While some cases may not be as clear as Sunfire Elves and how we are depicted, this is an experience that many of our peers may have. From faeries of color to vampires of color, there is no shortage of individuals in our community who are people of color without being orthohumans.

When it is all said and done, I don’t expect every alterhuman or nonhuman of color to share the same sentiments as me when it comes to race, ethnicity, indigeneity, etc. and how those experiences relate to one’s being outside of orthohumanity. If anything, I expect more understanding towards these perspectives within our community. Sharing positivity and ensuring validity are appreciated, but holding these discussions are just as, if not more so, important to have. It’s long been within my interest to hear from other alterhumans and nonhumans of color on these intersections of their identity. Those who do not have these experiences are also welcome to engage with this subject, as long as said engagement is done in a respectful manner. After all, allyship goes a long way. Listening and learning are dedicated causes out of respect for one's peers. Both are as pivotal as vocalizing one’s support. If that much can be understood, then I am confident that more doors can be opened for this discussion.

Conclusion

As I finalize my thoughts, I can’t help but think of the beauty and diversity of personal identity. Selfhood is like a mosaic. When closely observing it, one can see each fragment and how they’re distinct from one another. Yet, stepping back and taking in everything allows one to see the harmony of one’s identity. In my own case, I am Black, I am Alterhuman and I love every bit of myself. I complete myself as a Black dragon, a Black polymorph, and so on and so forth for my other species. There is no greater pride that I have than standing firmly in this life by wearing both my race and my species on my sleeve. While I understand why race may not be something that others feel are relative to their experiences as alterhumans or nonhumans, it is only fair that these same individuals understand how significant this is to the experiences of their peers. Our folk have been around long enough to see the ways in which identity can be nuanced, and I implore our community to explore nuances of this caliber as much as others.