So, I may be posting these a little late, but it 's not for lack of thought. In fact, it's for an overabundance of thought, where I'm trying to narrow down what exactly I want to say. This is a big topic, and definitely one of controversy. Public figures like Sandra Oh, George Takei, Whoopi Goldberg, and others talk about this topic all the time, and there's even a nationwide campaign, #weneeddiversebooks, that strive for this.
In a word: representation.
It's no secret that most book markets are almost disgustingly white: the YA industry features about 98% non-POC (person of color) protagonists. And those that do are either delegated to the 'black voices' section or set in some strange genre few browse, like 'world cultures' or the like. This is why the Legend series is so important, it's both a protagonist that isn't white and isn't a racial stereotype. Not to mention the fact that it's very, very successful, especially for a woman writing young adult fiction (I'll post on that later).
It's really well-highlighted by the group Dear White People, who started as a satirical tumblr page that now have a movie deal. Watch the trailer, and see that they ask real questions no one wants to answer: Why are the black faces in the movies either ghetto queens, gangsters, rappers, slaves, or Uncle Toms? Where are the black faces that reflect who they are, the young professionals, the overachievers, the surfers, the tops-of-their classes? The answer: they're just not really there.
The topic of today's post is representation because it's an important part of a world. Not only is it important that it's there (because no real country is entirely comprised by one race, sexuality, or gender), but it's important that these things don't define characters. I can't tell you how many books I've read where there's one gay chracter and their sole duty is to be gay. Be the butt of gay jokes, and be ridiculously oversexed. Or a black character who's a ghetto king or queen. What about the random smart, quiet Asians?
It's 2014, people, why are we still reducing each other to these stereotypes? The United States especially has had a hard time with racial differences in the past (hello, 1960s Civil Rights movements) and even still, there isn't equality. But as a writer, it's important to include other races, other sexualities, other genders in the world. We can't all be Wonder Woman and come from an island full of only white women. Even though race isn't even a real thing (we're literally all humans just with different skin tones based on how much sunlight we're exposed to and various traits that are built to help us best survive in our native environments), the literary industry is pretty hostile to non-white, non-heterosexual people.
I'm not saying that you need to have a gay Indian protagonist with a transsexual, lesbian Chinese best friend. And if you do, that's great. But imagine having an entire medium of books devoted to talking about people who don't look like you, don't value what you value, and take people like you and twist them into these images that just do not reflect you. The phenotype we consider white is, in fact, a minority in the world. And even though not every country may be predominantly one certain look or another (Italy is 92% white while the United States hovers around 72%) that doesn't mean that certain types of people don't exist. In your world as a writer and your true world as a reader, people of all kinds thrive here. It's about time that our media, and books especially, reflect that.
Because apparently it's too impossible with magical fantasies to include anyone not white,
Brie
In a word: representation.
It's no secret that most book markets are almost disgustingly white: the YA industry features about 98% non-POC (person of color) protagonists. And those that do are either delegated to the 'black voices' section or set in some strange genre few browse, like 'world cultures' or the like. This is why the Legend series is so important, it's both a protagonist that isn't white and isn't a racial stereotype. Not to mention the fact that it's very, very successful, especially for a woman writing young adult fiction (I'll post on that later).
It's really well-highlighted by the group Dear White People, who started as a satirical tumblr page that now have a movie deal. Watch the trailer, and see that they ask real questions no one wants to answer: Why are the black faces in the movies either ghetto queens, gangsters, rappers, slaves, or Uncle Toms? Where are the black faces that reflect who they are, the young professionals, the overachievers, the surfers, the tops-of-their classes? The answer: they're just not really there.
The topic of today's post is representation because it's an important part of a world. Not only is it important that it's there (because no real country is entirely comprised by one race, sexuality, or gender), but it's important that these things don't define characters. I can't tell you how many books I've read where there's one gay chracter and their sole duty is to be gay. Be the butt of gay jokes, and be ridiculously oversexed. Or a black character who's a ghetto king or queen. What about the random smart, quiet Asians?
It's 2014, people, why are we still reducing each other to these stereotypes? The United States especially has had a hard time with racial differences in the past (hello, 1960s Civil Rights movements) and even still, there isn't equality. But as a writer, it's important to include other races, other sexualities, other genders in the world. We can't all be Wonder Woman and come from an island full of only white women. Even though race isn't even a real thing (we're literally all humans just with different skin tones based on how much sunlight we're exposed to and various traits that are built to help us best survive in our native environments), the literary industry is pretty hostile to non-white, non-heterosexual people.
I'm not saying that you need to have a gay Indian protagonist with a transsexual, lesbian Chinese best friend. And if you do, that's great. But imagine having an entire medium of books devoted to talking about people who don't look like you, don't value what you value, and take people like you and twist them into these images that just do not reflect you. The phenotype we consider white is, in fact, a minority in the world. And even though not every country may be predominantly one certain look or another (Italy is 92% white while the United States hovers around 72%) that doesn't mean that certain types of people don't exist. In your world as a writer and your true world as a reader, people of all kinds thrive here. It's about time that our media, and books especially, reflect that.
Because apparently it's too impossible with magical fantasies to include anyone not white,
Brie
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