memorizingthedigitsofpi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
memorizingthedigitsofpi) wrote2022-09-01 12:04 pm
memorizingthedigitsofpi) wrote2022-09-01 12:04 pm
on "writing diverse characters"
So I watch a lot of booktok and this week, a lot of discussion has happened around a white author who wrote an interracial (I believe?) book in which at least one of the characters used a slur. I haven't seen the author's own video, just the reactions to it, and I haven't read the book but it's made me think about the idea of "writing diversely" and "reading diversely" and how a lot of it is just performative when it's done by white people.
White readers who "read diversely" talk so much about the fact that the characters in the book are non-white, but they rarely talk about why that matters or how they connected to them. They just reference the fact that they exist and then rate the book however they do. So many of them also seem to be reading this books as if they're eating their vegetables or something. They want to do something that the community has deemed "good" and they want to get credit for being "good" as a result.
The same seems so true of white authors a lot of the time. They know that readers want diverse characters and so they put "diverse" characters in their books. But the problems arise when the author doesn't actually know any people of colour in their daily life. An acquaintance isn't a good basis for a character. Watching TV and movies won't give you true insights. That's how these authors keep writing in stereotypes. It's because they're basing their characters on a surface-level understanding of who a person actually is.
Ben Aaronovitch is a white author based in England, and he writes characters of Nigerian background. He does a great job of it (according to Nigerian creators I follow) because he is friends with Nigerians and is surrounded in Nigerian culture. If I tried to write the same thing, it would turn out horribly because I know a handful of Nigerians, but only well enough to chit chat about work and the weather etc.
"Write what you know" is a trite saying, but I kind of think it applies here. So does "write what you love." If you're including Black or Indigenous or other POC characters because you have a true appreciation and understanding of the real human beings in those communities, your characterization is going to be a lot deeper and more nuanced than it will be if you're writing BIPOC characters in order to sell books or score points on twitter.
All that said, I'm very out of my lane on this one. I'm white and I've never attempted to write Original Fiction. I don't post on booktok or booktube, and I'm only tangentially interested in the romance genre. This is just something that I've been trying to work my way through this week as I watch these creators whose opinions I value.
White readers who "read diversely" talk so much about the fact that the characters in the book are non-white, but they rarely talk about why that matters or how they connected to them. They just reference the fact that they exist and then rate the book however they do. So many of them also seem to be reading this books as if they're eating their vegetables or something. They want to do something that the community has deemed "good" and they want to get credit for being "good" as a result.
The same seems so true of white authors a lot of the time. They know that readers want diverse characters and so they put "diverse" characters in their books. But the problems arise when the author doesn't actually know any people of colour in their daily life. An acquaintance isn't a good basis for a character. Watching TV and movies won't give you true insights. That's how these authors keep writing in stereotypes. It's because they're basing their characters on a surface-level understanding of who a person actually is.
Ben Aaronovitch is a white author based in England, and he writes characters of Nigerian background. He does a great job of it (according to Nigerian creators I follow) because he is friends with Nigerians and is surrounded in Nigerian culture. If I tried to write the same thing, it would turn out horribly because I know a handful of Nigerians, but only well enough to chit chat about work and the weather etc.
"Write what you know" is a trite saying, but I kind of think it applies here. So does "write what you love." If you're including Black or Indigenous or other POC characters because you have a true appreciation and understanding of the real human beings in those communities, your characterization is going to be a lot deeper and more nuanced than it will be if you're writing BIPOC characters in order to sell books or score points on twitter.
All that said, I'm very out of my lane on this one. I'm white and I've never attempted to write Original Fiction. I don't post on booktok or booktube, and I'm only tangentially interested in the romance genre. This is just something that I've been trying to work my way through this week as I watch these creators whose opinions I value.
no subject
Asking for a decent amount of research going into writing characters outside of your own race is an absolutely fair thing to expect! And "diversity" is so much more than just an offhand mention of a character having darker skin (and hoo boy, especially if the author descends into food descriptions). Way too many authors (and readers, as you said) use it as an opportunity to check off a ticky box on the "and I'm a Good Reader/Writer and a Good Person and have eaten my veggies" checklist.
BUT... there's also the very real trend of "diverse" media being absolutely torn apart by overzealous purity policing and demands for perfection. (Something true with non-white authors as well as white ones.) There's a lot of genuinely bad-faith criticism that absolutely proliferates on tiktok (and twitter and youtube and...)
Write what you know (and GET to know the things you don't, if you want to write about them) is fair... but because so may people treat nuance as poison, that usually just turns into "white people can only ever write about white people because they'll never *really* know what it's like to be non-white"... which is true on a base level, just like a straight person will never know what it's like to be queer, or a cis man will never know what it's like to be a woman... but saying that a characteristic like gender/race/sexuality makes you SO FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT that you can't EVER relate or write about or include someone who isn't JUST LIKE YOU is... also not great.
Basically... extremes of "diversity is just a checklist!" and "you can only write someone who shares all the same demographics you do" are both super awful. I wish more authors would put forward the effort to portray diverse characters well, and I wish more people were willing to distinguish between "well-meaning but imperfect" and "oh no, this is a super garbage attempt" in their criticism.
no subject
no subject
I just hate how everything has to be to one extreme or another! Demands for perfection (and for the same thing to be perfect to every single person) are unhelpful, but so is *just not trying*. Ugh!