Writing Wednesday: The obligation to write non-white characters

 “In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.” 

-Toni Morrison

This is a touchy subject, but one that has been brought up a lot throughout my writing classes, and even in conversations with friends. I was reminded of this subject, once again, after reading the article: Young Adult Books Too Often Present a World Without People of Color from Bitch Magazine the other day. I agree completely that we too often have to read books about white characters without any mention of people of color, and that if there are characters of color they are read as white rather than as the ethnicity the author intended. Anyone else remember the racist posts on Twitter about The Hunger Games film? Oh, how I wish those were some terrible joke.

Is the problem with the writer? Or is the problem with what is published? Or is the problem the readers? I find the problem to be all three.

What is a white author's obligation to write non-white characters? Having spoken to several professors about it, the obligation seem to come simply from being a writer. You don't only write about your boring life. You write about other experiences, other worlds, other timelines. Why not write about someone who doesn't look like you? The moment this idea really hit home for me was when a professor asked, "You don't worry about a man telling you don't understand the experience of the male you are writing, do you?"

As a writer, I find the problem to be choosing the right words.There is no way to please everyone, but in matters of race and ethnicity I feel as though there is no winning with anyone. Either I blatantly describe my character as Hispanic and someone tells that I know nothing about the experience of a Hispanic person, so I'm a bad writer. Or, I subtly have my character speak Spanish or have a Hispanic name and someone still reads the character as white, so I'm a bad writer. This problem usually causes me to stick with names I deem to be "American" and let people imagine them as anything. But we live in a culture that has raised us to read all characters as white unless told otherwise. We need to rectify that problem.

In the end, no one has an "obligation" to write characters into their novels that aren't white. But do you really know no one of another ethnicity? Are you too scared to write about "them"? My biggest question to the people who publish books that are only about white people is WHY? There are plenty of writers in the world who are better writers with better ideas who aren't afraid. Go find some better writers and publish them. The world will thank you for it.

Recommended reading:
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison