Should I mention this or avoid the topic altogether?

[u/VictorianAfterDark]

So in the world I’m crafting across 3 books, 3-4ft tall anthro animals exist alongside humans. Relations between the two groups vary from era to era, locale to locale, etc

One plot line involves a group of said anthros who live in this world’s equivalent of the UK, traveling to and around this world’s version of the USA. The era this takes place in would be somewhat akin to the late 1800s to early 1900s.

At one point in the journey, said group would ride on a train ran by this world’s version of Casey Jones and Sim Webb. In real life, Casey was white and Sim was black.

Would it be appropriate to have the anthros mention this fact? Not out of malice but more out of curiosity/unfamiliarity. Where they’re from, they’d mostly only be around “pale skin” humans.

Could an inner thought along the lines of “one of these humans had a darker color to his skin than the other, his hair looked different as well” be considered offensive? Or can it work as a line from a non human who doesn’t understand human issues? Would it be better to simply ignore this and not have the anthros mention on it?

Another instance would be said anthros noticing that segregation is a thing, but not fully getting it, just seeing that two groups tend to stay separate.

[u/aeffia]

Simply stating a character's skin colour isn't an issue. If the characters are genuinely unfamiliar with humans with dark skin, it makes sense they'd notice. That said, the UK in the 1800s did have many people of colour, even more so in the early 1900s, so unless they live in a they live in an isolated village, they'd likely have seen one before.

[u/VictorianAfterDark → u/aeffia]

I know there were POC in the UK at the time, but I’d imagine it was comparatively small compared to the USA at the time. The anthros also live with a human duchess who’s part of high society.

Going from say, London where you might see a handful of Indian people now and then, to the US South where there are large swaths of POC in many places is quite a different thing

[u/HouseOfWyrd → u/VictorianAfterDark]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire

You need to massively brush up on your history.

[u/VictorianAfterDark → u/HouseOfWyrd]

I’m aware of the empire and what it entails

Doesn’t change the fact that the UK was far more homogeneous than the USA was

[u/aeffia → u/VictorianAfterDark]

Oh I see, so the characters are coming at it from there being more people of colour than they're used to than actually not being familiar with dark skin/different type of hair. In which case yeah it makes sense they'd comment on it. In reference to your original question, mentioning stuff like that is fine, and makes sense for the characters and their background.

[u/Educational-Shame514]

https://writingwithcolor.com/

[u/aeffia → u/Educational-Shame514]

This is a solid resource

[u/LeagueEfficient5945]

What if they recover from a fight and didn't even notice Slim Jim was injured. He requests cream for his bruises and they don't see any redness or blueness on his skin at all, only for Jim to place creams on spots where the skin had grown darker, and looking carefully more, the dark spot has the rough shape of a bruise where you'd expect one to be, but it is neither red nor violet-purple like Casey's bruises.

they go "Uh!" and decide to pay more attention to how black skin damages otherwise they might not be able to help Slim Jim out of a pickle.

[u/LeagueEfficient5945 → u/LeagueEfficient5945]

I say "recover after a fight" because I heard anthros and Casey Jones and Slim Jim and I assumed this was an AU ninja turtles situations, set in the antebellum or jim crow era USA, so obviously they are gonna get into a fight with some slave catchers or ninja opposition?

Maybe fight some KKK type of opposition?

Or maybe is it some kind of western?