YA needs more PoC characters

[Brian G Turner]

Interesting article in the Telegraph about wanting to see more Persons of Colour (POC) in YA fiction:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...ooks-need-to-reflect-our-diverse-society.html

Normally my reaction is to presume that books are published and sold simply on the standard of writing - but the argument is made at the end that booksellers actively shy away from PoC covers, resulting in a much criticised process of white-washing in cover art.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Persons of Colour sounds a bit 1950s (not saying it's wrong, just a bit ye olde).

This reminds me of the Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us covers. Apaprently Naughty Dog (maker of The Last of Us) had to really fight to get Ellie (one of the two major characters, and not the player-character) on the cover along with Joel (the player-character).

Bioshock Infinite reportedly didn't have Elizabeth (think I got the name right) on the cover, despite her being crucial for the story, because it was deemed unhelpful for marketing to have a 'girl' on the cover.

I know those are games rather than books and gender rather than race, but it still seems relevant to this discussion.

 

[Mouse]

I always thought 'POC' meant Pirates of the Caribbean.

But, you don't see many adults novels with POC on the cover either, really.

 

[nightdreamer]

I've struggled with issue on my own, not just with PoC with with LGBTQ people. I have no aversion to having such characters, but when the story is developing in my mind, they just don't tend to come up on their own, and I feel awkward reading something where it looks like one was put in just to be politically correct. Odd, because I have gay and black friends, so it's not like they are foreign to me. I do have one black protagonist, however, because that's what felt right and so that's how the story developed. I really don't know how to approach it overall.

 

[DarthDandelion]

I read an article a while back similar to that one but in regards to adult novels.

That other article (wish I could find the link, but it was a while ago that I read it) also addressed the concern that many bookstores pass over books with PoC on the covers in part because they have designated sections for "Black Fiction" (called different things in different stores, but that was the term the article used). Because of that, white readers tend to bypass that section and less copies of those books are sold, leading sellers to believe books with PoC on the covers don't sell as well.

I normally write characters that are white men because that's what I'm used to reading about. Lately though I've been challenging myself to write characters (and read stories about characters) that break that mold.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

When I wrote Muezzinland, my starting point was that all the characters were human beings, not PoC. The PoC thing, deliberately, was not even on the agenda. Very liberating, and one of my fave novels during the writing.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

My third YA book has two mixed race boys in a relationship and a pretty blond girl that drags them out of trouble.

In the first book they are all minor characters but they grow in the second book.

I've never picked the colour/sexuality of my characters I find they do that on their own. But to be honest as writing is my escape the biggest writing challenge for me would be a white, dumpy, middle-aged English woman with three children. The closest I have is an ex glamour model in my detectives who is about my age and has a child.

 

[Connavar]

When I wrote Muezzinland, my starting point was that all the characters were human beings, not PoC. The PoC thing, deliberately, was not even on the agenda. Very liberating, and one of my fave novels during the writing.

Was there people of color characters in the book then? I think its good to treat every character the same without making too big deal if a character is a so called person of color or not.

Although you cant whitewash a culture, a country too much as it is often in many genres of fiction. Writers being too introvert and thinking the western world isnt so mixed with all kinds of people. Its not 1950s anymore.

 

[Nerds_feather]

There's also a serious debate about exoticizing mixed-race characters in YA.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Hmm... mine is about the neither nor she describes. They are purely biracial because of who their parents are in the first book rather than a conscious decision to make them that way. Being it involves fantasy races it is a little more complicated.

 

[Nerds_feather]

A general comment, not just on race, but on social identity more broadly...

People are people, first and foremost, and there's much more we all have in common than there is that sets us apart. I really HATE when writers ascribe "essential characteristics" or perspectives to individual characters based on those social categories, or treat characters from outside the dominant category like exotic bits of furniture. The first thing any author needs to do is portray ALL characters as individuals with true agency and subjectivity.

But--like it or not--the circumstances of one's upbringing, the social categories adopted and imposed upon individuals, and the position of those social categories in a given society inform how individuals view the world and how others view that individual. Whether it's race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, religion, class or migration status, these social circumstances do sometimes affect they way we interpret things, how we see things and how our actions are interpreted by others.

The questions are: HOW, WHEN and TO WHAT DEGREE. And they are, essentially, questions of BALANCE.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Was there people of color characters in the book then? I think its good to treat every character the same without making too big deal if a character is a so called person of color or not.

In Muezzinland everyone is African except for the Irish guy.

 

[Ursa major]

A general comment, not just on race, but on social identity more broadly...

People are people, first and foremost, and there's much more we all have in common than there is that sets us apart. I really HATE when writers ascribe "essential characteristics" or perspectives to individual characters based on those social categories, or treat characters from outside the dominant category like exotic bits of furniture. The first thing any author needs to do is portray ALL characters as individuals with true agency and subjectivity

But--like it or not--the circumstances of one's upbringing, the social categories adopted and imposed upon individuals, and the position of those social categories in a given society inform how individuals view the world and how others view that individual. Whether it's race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, religion, class or migration status, these social circumstances do sometimes affect they way we interpret things, how we see things and how our actions are interpreted by others.

I think this is all very good, and I completely agree with it, but it can also be a source of 'unintentional' problems (i.e. those not caused by the unmediated prejudices of the writer, or their view of the reading public). Truly putting oneself in the shoes of one's characters (and not only the PoVs and important ones, but the minor ones as well) is difficult, particularly when the story requires information about a particular 'social group'** which is hard to obtain.

Yes, people are people, but as you say, all sorts of things influence how a person thinks and acts, and it's these differences that catch the readers' attention. (I think this is natural, and not specific to how we look at other humans.) Which means that those differences we do add call attention to themselves, and so need to be 'more right'*** than the more run-of the-mill stuff. And, of course, without proper research and attention to detail, any errors (from stuff that's simply wrong to the dependence on stereotypes) will leap out from the page to those in the know, and be added to the stereotypes for those who are as ignorant as the writer****.

All of which brings me to say that, in addition to prejudice, another reason that various 'social groups' are underrepresented could be the fear, in the writer's mind, that they'll get it wrong, and so they'd rather leave out characters from those 'social groups' to be on the safe side (and to save them much effort).


** - If that's the proper term.

*** - More right than one's perfect capturing of the mundane.

**** - I also wonder if poorly fleshed-out characters from various 'social groups' are sometimes seen as tokens, whether they are or not, because, in effect if not intention, they are. The solution here may be not to pick some random minor character to be of a 'different' 'social group', for whatever reason, but to have such persons as major characters (as in Stephen Palmer's Muezzinland). If nothing else, that should justify putting the appropriate degree of research into these characters' motivations and character, which should at least help avoid the problems mentioned above.

 

[Connavar]

A general comment, not just on race, but on social identity more broadly...

People are people, first and foremost, and there's much more we all have in common than there is that sets us apart. I really HATE when writers ascribe "essential characteristics" or perspectives to individual characters based on those social categories, or treat characters from outside the dominant category like exotic bits of furniture. The first thing any author needs to do is portray ALL characters as individuals with true agency and subjectivity.

But--like it or not--the circumstances of one's upbringing, the social categories adopted and imposed upon individuals, and the position of those social categories in a given society inform how individuals view the world and how others view that individual. Whether it's race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, religion, class or migration status, these social circumstances do sometimes affect they way we interpret things, how we see things and how our actions are interpreted by others.

The questions are: HOW, WHEN and TO WHAT DEGREE. And they are, essentially, questions of BALANCE.

That is what i hate seeing and it happens too often in fantasy when the blacks,brown,yellow people become exotic and often become supernatural beings.

I was interviewed last freday by a Swedish sociology student for her essay paper about if immigrants feel connected to the Swedish society, feel like Swedish. She asked my questions at times like people werent people no matter their country,culture,ethnicity. I see my ethnic Swedish friends as people i enjoy being with and i didnt think they are white people first. I dont feel different from them because we have grown up in the same culture,tradition.

Fiction adult or YA shouldnt make too difference between us where there isnt any. People are people is a good clichè for a reason.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I wonder, Connavar, if there is more tolerance among racial/ethnic/cultural/religious groups in Sweden than there is in, say, the UK or the US. (And even so, you do occasionally give us insights based on your religion.)

In the US, these things do make a difference to the way that people are treated and the way they treat others, so if a writer sets their story in the US in the present day, there are going to be things they should know. It is good to treat all characters as human beings first, but they also need to be individuals, and individuals are influenced by their individual circumstances. I used to live in a neighborhood that was about 90% Black and the other 10% was mostly Hispanic, and the way that we were treated, as practically the only white family in sight, gave me an idea of what it must be like to be a person of color in this country. But not enough of an idea that I would feel comfortable trying to write about their experience, because I always knew I could cross the Bay and be surrounded by people the same color I was, and surely that made a difference. The thing we shouldn't do is what Mattel does with Barbie and Ken dolls, and just paint our characters brown.

If you set your story in another world or in the future, then you can structure your society however you want to, and being a person of color might not make a difference. For instance, the way that Le Guin did in the Earthsea books, where the color of a person's skin basically came into the story as a way of describing how somebody looked and mentioning where they happened to be born, and that was it. (Unfortunately, when they made the books into a TV movie, almost everyone turned white.) Or if, like Stephen, you write a story where everyone is African (except the Irish guy) then you have to do research into African cultures. Which Stephen did -- or at least he did it well enough to fool me (but that wouldn't be hard, considering my own ignorance there).

 

[DarthDandelion]

I was recently at an event (a workshop on eliminating racism) where notion that people should be colorblind can actually have a negative impact on minority groups. The speaker for the workshop pointed out this idea is often mostly promoted by whites and often as a way to "prove" that they aren't racist (because they don't see color) but because of this often leaves out the issues that minorities face because of their status as belonging to a minority group.

Unfortunately racial tensions seem to be prevalent wherever you go in the world. This was an issue I did a lot of research because of a school program I'm involved in that required me to specifically research minority rights on the international level.

One of the things I love about fantasy though is that it allows writers to explore this problem and the perspectives of characters they aren't used to writing about. I mean, if we can manage to write about unicorns having never been unicorns, I think we could do enough research to write about being of a different skin color or sexual orientation than what we actually are And exploring our own world through fantasy worlds is just fun (and could also be eye-opening for us and for our readers).

I do agree that "token characters" need to be avoided though. Writing an in-depth character with an actual history and personality should be the focus and finding ways to incorporate aspects of their race or ethnicity to enhance the story, rather than distract from it, is equally important.

 

[Connavar]

I wonder, Connavar, if there is more tolerance among racial/ethnic/cultural/religious groups in Sweden than there is in, say, the UK or the US. (And even so, you do occasionally give us insights based on your religion.)

In the US, these things do make a difference to the way that people are treated and the way they treat others, so if a writer sets their story in the US in the present day, there are going to be things they should know. It is good to treat all characters as human beings first, but they also need to be individuals, and individuals are influenced by their individual circumstances. I used to live in a neighborhood that was about 90% Black and the other 10% was mostly Hispanic, and the way that we were treated, as practically the only white family in sight, gave me an idea of what it must be like to be a person of color in this country. But not enough of an idea that I would feel comfortable trying to write about their experience, because I always knew I could cross the Bay and be surrounded by people the same color I was, and surely that made a difference. The thing we shouldn't do is what Mattel does with Barbie and Ken dolls, and just paint our characters brown.

If you set your story in another world or in the future, then you can structure your society however you want to, and being a person of color might not make a difference. For instance, the way that Le Guin did in the Earthsea books, where the color of a person's skin basically came into the story as a way of describing how somebody looked and mentioning where they happened to be born, and that was it. (Unfortunately, when they made the books into a TV movie, almost everyone turned white.) Or if, like Stephen, you write a story where everyone is African (except the Irish guy) then you have to do research into African cultures. Which Stephen did -- or at least he did it well enough to fool me (but that wouldn't be hard, considering my own ignorance there).

Sweden takes in third most immigrants in western world so it has become more multicultural, tolerant. The American situation you describe with a neighborhood with mostly blacks or Latino etc doesn't happen as often. You shouldn't be able to see ethnic maps of big US cities like I have seen. Islamphobia is more the issue here post 9/11. By the way I'm not religious , I'm born in Muslim country but Im not a believer anymore.

Of course you need to study the culture you are writing about but it's more complex than that for some. What I'm mean you shouldn't start with skin color, you should treat skin color superficially like Le Guin did.


I also understand about everyone writing from their experience but for millions of readers like me it means the books we are talking about will be written without any POC involvement. I live in the same part of the world as the western authors I read. It's like should I read only African or black authors and I shouldn't care about all my fav authors who wrote from experience far from me? Lord Dunsany is my fav fantasy author and he is a rich white guy from another world, time.

I applaud Stephen idea for that book but I would like it better if being black or some other minority was just another character in a story more often in other books. The only time I'm reminded of my skin color is when others make a big deal of it negatively like in the 90s when this country was more racist. Color blind maybe is not realistic but that's the ideal I want from fiction. It should be only how you look like Le Guin used in Earthsea.

 

[Connavar]

I was recently at an event (a workshop on eliminating racism) where notion that people should be colorblind can actually have a negative impact on minority groups. The speaker for the workshop pointed out this idea is often mostly promoted by whites and often as a way to "prove" that they aren't racist (because they don't see color) but because of this often leaves out the issues that minorities face because of their status as belonging to a minority group.

Unfortunately racial tensions seem to be prevalent wherever you go in the world. This was an issue I did a lot of research because of a school program I'm involved in that required me to specifically research minority rights on the international level.

One of the things I love about fantasy though is that it allows writers to explore this problem and the perspectives of characters they aren't used to writing about. I mean, if we can manage to write about unicorns having never been unicorns, I think we could do enough research to write about being of a different skin color or sexual orientation than what we actually are And exploring our own world through fantasy worlds is just fun (and could also be eye-opening for us and for our readers).

I do agree that "token characters" need to be avoided though. Writing an in-depth character with an actual history and personality should be the focus and finding ways to incorporate aspects

That's not true at all in my experience and of course we can't be colorblind always but often I see my self as just another person and go months without thinking I'm a part of minority, that I'm black until some well meaning non-minority person ask me how it is to be that minority like I see my whole world from that POV. You can't treat people equally if you always remind them why they stick out.

When I think about who I am I think culturally, nationally. Being black is not culturally, it's just genetics that I can see only in the mirror.

This is difficult topic and I think it's unfair to expect YA to be more balanced than adult fiction.

 

[Nerds_feather]

I think there's a difference between believing in colorblindness as an ideal and thinking that our societies actually are colorblind. I've lived in a lot of countries (including Sweden, the US and UK), and don't think ANY of them are colorblind...though Sweden is much closer to that than the US or UK are. Race, and other forms of social categorization, really do structure opportunities and interactions to a degree we'd rather they didn't. As a result, white people saying "I don't see color" tends to piss off a lot of POC living in racialized, white-dominated societies, who respond: "oh really? You do? Because I don't have that luxury." I've observed a number of interactions that have played out along these lines.

That said, Connavar is right: there's nothing particularly "real" about race. It's just another socially constructed way of sorting people into boxes that has a number of (mostly unfortunate) consequences associated with it.

 

[Ursa major]

That said, Connavar is right: there's nothing particularly "real" about race. It's just another socially constructed way of sorting people into boxes that has a number of (mostly unfortunate) consequences associated with it.

Again, I agree with this.

And, sadly, given we humans seem addicted to categorising things, and each other, even a truly colour-blind (or gender-blind) world populated by humans** will have plenty of 'us and them' divisions. As writers, we simply have to decide which of these are most important to the society/societies we are describing. (And as we're mostly writing in third person close, or first person, we can't even pretend that these divisions are hidden from public view, because we have access to our PoV character(s) opinions and observations.)



** - And probably not just humans. It's hard to imagine an intelligent species whose intelligence doesn't include pattern recognition and categorisation, so it would be a strange intelligent alien species that wasn't subject to some 'us and them' thinking.