NON POTES TRACTARE VERITATEM.

The truth shall make ye fret: Detritus is HIGH CULTURE, too.

And there's no arseing around this 'but' - when Discworld stopped being a fantasy parody, and started focusing on satirising our own world, Pratchett didn't hit the mark every single time.

When Pratchett missed, speech was about the last thing wrong with his characterisation.

Witches Abroad (1991) is one of my favourite books, because it's an allegory of our tendency to believe in the stories we tell about ourselves and others, and how we often believe that things happen because stories said they should*.

This is told through one of Witches Abroad's many rich plot threads: through several scenes and discourse, we learn how stories physically manifest on the Disc, and how witches hold the power to bend stories to their own ends.

But Pratchett used it sparingly when writing in the voices of persons of colour. Two in particular - Erzulie Gogol, a black voodooist, and Mrs. Pleasant, a cook:

> “Ye see that bit of okra?” said Mrs. Gogol. “Ye see the way the crab legs keep coming up just there?”...

> ..."You never were one to stint the crab meat,” said Mrs. Pleasant.
“See the way the bubbles is so thick by the okuh leaves? See the way it all spirals around that purple onion?"
“I see it! I see it!” said Mrs. Pleasant...

> ...“And you know what that means?”
“Means it’s going to taste real fine!”
“Sure,” said Mrs. Gogol, kindly. “And it means some people’s coming.”

And about Mrs. Pleasant - "the first black person Nanny had ever spoken to." Right on the heels of that sentence is Pratchett's signature footnote (👇):

> "Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green."