# #WeNeedDiverseBooks



## Marie Long (Jan 11, 2014)

There's a HUGE movement going on over on Twitter, that's involving, readers, authors, agents, and publishers alike. #WeNeedDiverseBooks is one of the top 5 trends right now. The purpose of this movement is to bring more diversity to books. This is not a race thing, it's a people thing. A GLOBAL thing. The campaign is going on from May 1-3, and I've met so many amazing new authors and even agents, who are heavily involved in this. Even Sarah Megibow voiced her interests in looking for more manuscripts with diversity. Agents from Foreword Lit are part of this, too. Lots of big NYT authors are involved. It's really amazing what this movement is doing. This campaign has even been picked up by CNN, New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly! Here's more info on the campaign: http://weneeddiversebooks.tumblr.com/post/83943947418/we-need-diverse-books-campaign


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

They may be looking for it, but people sure as hell aren't buying it.

I have a novel where the blurb states clearly that the main character is Indonesian. I shopped this book around. I think it's my best novel, but I always got the "This is a good book, but [insert excuse]". When I go to cons, and I can talk to people about it, the book outsells everything else I have. Yet do you think it sells on Amazon? Big NOPE.

We can get agents to push the diversity thing, but it's got to come from the readers up.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

This is a great idea in concept, and I really hope the big publishing houses are able to do something with it other than nod and agree it's something that should be done but do little more than a token effort at it. I've worked in corporate America for a while now and diversity is an important issue that too often turns into a buzzword that results in policies and initiatives but very little in the way of progress or real results.

In the case of publishing, I would imagine that to have more diversity in publications, you'd want more diversity in writers--maybe writers who aren't given a chance because their work isn't marketable, or whose protagonists aren't marketable, etc. I think self-publishing is going to be, if it isn't already, a great option for far more diversity than the big 5 are ever going to be able to manage to release.

So yeah, absolutely push this cause, but also encourage writers of all stripes to pursue self-publishing as well.


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## Marie Long (Jan 11, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> They may be looking for it, but people sure as hell aren't buying it.
> 
> I have a novel where the blurb states clearly that the main character is Indonesian. I shopped this book around. I think it's my best novel, but I always got the "This is a good book, but [insert excuse]". When I go to cons, and I can talk to people about it, the book outsells everything else I have. Yet do you think it sells on Amazon? Big NOPE.
> 
> We can get agents to push the diversity thing, but it's got to come from the readers up.


Have you advertised the book? Blog tours? Giveaways? Maybe the genre is a hard sell on Amazon? I don't think I would automatically rule out the reason being because of the book's diversity. There's definitely a market for it for readers, as I've seen on Twitter. The problem just might be trying to find where all those readers hang out and/or buy their books and market to them there.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Marie Long said:


> Have you advertised the book? Blog tours? Giveaways? Maybe the genre is a hard sell on Amazon? I don't think I would automatically rule out the reason being because of the book's diversity. There's definitely a market for it for readers, as I've seen on Twitter. The problem just might be trying to find where all those readers hang out and/or buy their books and market to them there.


I treat it the same as my other books.


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## FH (Jul 30, 2012)

Its one of those wonderful social movements that people will tweet about and do absolutely nothing with what matters - their wallets.

Look at any mass market paperback rack and pretty much all the spots will be occupied by either James Patterson, Lee Child or other paint by numbers authors churning out the same stuff.

If readers really wanted diversity they only have to do a deep search on Amazon, iBooks, Kobo or B&N and they would fine 1 million books on every subject imaginable.

I read that Lee Child has sold 2 Billion worth of Jack Reacher books. All about one character. If people want diversity then why do they continue to buy every book written about one character (reputably one book every 4 seconds)

I've got nothing against Lee Child, If i had that franchise I too would continue to bank the cheques until they stopped selling, I'm just pointing out that the 1 percent of people who make the most noise about the books don't pay with the wallets of the 99 percent who pay the publishers bills.


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## a_g (Aug 9, 2013)

BookJoker said:


> Its one of those wonderful social movements that people will tweet about and do absolutely nothing with what matters - their wallets.


Looks like you're channeling my inner cynic.


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## Hudson Owen (May 18, 2012)

It is about racial diversity, at least in part:

"But while we individually care about diversity, there is still a disconnect. BEA’s Bookcon recently announced an all-white-male panel of “luminaries of children’s literature,” and when we pointed out the lack of diversity, nothing changed."

It is not about poetry books suddenly becoming commercially hot.


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## I Give Up (Jan 27, 2014)

I would definitely agree that there should be more diversity in children's literature. In second grade, our school got its first ever Asian student *gasp* and all of the kids treated him like he came from a different planet (granted, he did come from Vietnam, which we all thought was a war, not a country). Our teacher, a very savvy lady, read our class a bunch of Asian-American children's books, such as _How My Parents Learned to Eat_, and I think it went a long way towards teaching the class that he was a normal kid, just like us.

We never read AA children's books in our classes. With the exception of that time, all of our storybook characters were white, further enforcing the stereotype that white was the norm. Personally, I was the type of child that was always trying to find the moral in stories, and often took them very seriously. _The Great Kapok Tree_ was what planted the seed of environmentalism in me. _Charlotte's Web_ made me a vegetarian. I sure wish a teach would have read _I Love My Hair! _growing up. Maybe I wouldn't have shaved my head bald in junior high.


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## SawyerPentecost (Jul 11, 2013)

People tend to write what they know, and are fearful for approaching a different race/ethnicity -- someone will inevitably call them unauthentic or racist, simply because they may not pull it off with style and skill. My book has three leads, one of whom is African American. There is also a team of luciadores who were affected by the same Warblade virus as the rest, giving them super powers. In my mind, diverse is more interesting. But it is my choice to make it that way. People didn't like it when their erotica stories started getting slid into the corner because of their content...just wait until your book gets labeled as Un-diverse by some committee. Anyone think it can't happen? I hope you are right.
There will be popcorn. So much popcorn.


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## ToriWritesWords (Mar 26, 2014)

BookJoker said:


> Its one of those wonderful social movements that people will tweet about and do absolutely nothing with what matters - their wallets.


That's not true! Part of the campaign calls for people to put their money where their mouth is on Saturday, May 3rd, and buy diverse books (which include books that feature POC, LBGTQA, and disabled protagonists) as well as request diverse books and books by diverse authors at their local book stores and libraries.

It also calls for people to post photos of signs of why We Need Diverse Books on tumblr and social media. Lots of school teachers are doing this with their students. Agents are currently accepting Diverse book pitches specifically due to this campaign, so that's some real action resulting from it.

It's not going to change the world overnight or anything, but so far it's had a pretty impressive impact and it's only technically beginning today.



Hudson Owen said:


> It is about racial diversity, at least in part:
> "But while we individually care about diversity, there is still a disconnect. BEA's Bookcon recently announced an all-white-male panel of "luminaries of children's literature," and when we pointed out the lack of diversity, nothing changed."
> It is not about poetry books suddenly becoming commercially hot.


It's not about diversity in types of books, no. It's about the diversity of people and how everyone deserves representation. Gay kids deserve to read books where their only story is about coming out. POC kids deserve to see themselves as the hero. Kids with mental illness (depression, anxiety, etc) and disabilities deserve to see themselves hunting ghosts and fighting the Big Bads as much as able-bodied kids do. That's what this is about.

(Oops sorry. I'm new-ish. I have lurked for ages. I'm just very passionate about this campaign and a few acquaintances are involved with creating it.)

Edited because mornings, amiright?


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## Piper N (Sep 16, 2013)

Viola Rivard said:


> I would definitely agree that there should be more diversity in children's literature. In second grade, our school got its first ever Asian student *gasp* and all of the kids treated him like he came from a different planet (granted, he did come from Vietnam, which we all thought was a war, not a country). Our teacher, a very savvy lady, read our class a bunch of Asian-American children's books, such as _How My Parents Learned to Eat_, and I think it went a long way towards teaching the class that he was a normal kid, just like us.
> 
> We never read AA children's books in our classes. With the exception of that time, all of our storybook characters were white, further enforcing the stereotype that white was the norm. Personally, I was the type of child that was always trying to find the moral in stories, and often took them very seriously. _The Great Kapok Tree_ was what planted the seed of environmentalism in me. _Charlotte's Web_ made me a vegetarian. I sure wish a teach would have read _I Love My Hair! _growing up. Maybe I wouldn't have shaved my head bald in junior high.


Definitely. My youngest son was adopted from Ethiopia and will be starting school next year. I asked the librarian about diversity in their library and all she had to offer was some books on being Ukrainian (the most popular ethic heritage in our area) or Native which is a requirement of the Canadian government. There was nothing about anywhere else in the world. I am personally spending my own money on books for the library that will include children from all over the world. People love to talk a good game about these things but I rarely see it supported with dollars in the real world. I hope to start making my own little ripples of change. Not just racially but also about different families (ie. built through adoption, step families, single parent, etc.), sexual orientation (of children and parents) and about special needs children (this is my professional life crossing into my personal and author life


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Readers are very welcome to be diverse by buying _Seattle in Shorts_ it is mostly about Japanese Americans, but with other minorities dealt with (Native Americans, people with disabilities, and LGBT folk). Obviously I have no problem writing outside the white box, although where I come from White Irish is a separate ethnic identity to White. As a young child my ambition was the move to the United States - I think it was mostly because I thought it was a wonderfully tolerant society, but unfortunately not all of America behaves like Sesame Street, and certainly not in Seattle.


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## RichardWolanski (Jan 20, 2014)

I naturally make my characters diverse. My book Annamation, and I don't mean this as a shameless plug, stars an Asian male and an African-American female.


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## Marie Long (Jan 11, 2014)

You guys should be promoting your books in the Twitter trend! There are readers, school teachers, librarians, agents, and publishers who are looking for books like yours! Not to mention thousands of people will see (and hopefully retweet) it.


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## Aducknamedjoe (Apr 25, 2013)

I much prefer diversity of thought to something as superficial, demeaning, and racist as defining diversity by skin color, sexual orientation, or disability.

Let people write what they want to write and read what they want to read.  Why make books into some PC social justice crusade?


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Marie Long said:


> You guys should be promoting your books in the Twitter trend! There are readers, school teachers, librarians, agents, and publishers who are looking for books like yours! Not to mention thousands of people will see (and hopefully retweet) it.


I did.


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## RichardWolanski (Jan 20, 2014)

Mercia McMahon said:


> I did.


Me too! ;-)



kendoggett said:


> sure I'll get some opposition saying you shouldn't be in it for the money, and at my level of sales, I'm not. But I see no harm in at least making the attempt. So you just have to pick your poison and go with it.


As far as money, I work on two tiers now that I've stopped avoiding romance. I write romance novels for the money honestly, and my sff/fantasy novels for fun and eventually profit. I don't make a lot either, but with romance, I finally got to one sale a day.


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## Chinese Writer (Mar 25, 2014)

My book female protag is Chinese American. I've one critter called it white washed because the grandma didn't "speak with an accent" or fit any stereotype of the old Chinese ladies he knew. But what he doesn't understand is that is that immigrants usually become "mainstream" within a generation or two of living in the US unless they have a support system to promote the culture (which you won't find outside of big cities). 

I'm first generation and I don't have an accent. We live in the suburbs. You think my children are going to speak fluent Chinese when the primary language at home is English? The best I can hope for is to keep some of the cultural holidays. Being Chinese is just who I am, but I don't sit around thinking it all day. I'm not living an Amy Tan story life. I have bills to pay, children to raise, etc. 

So my book reflects my reality. However, there are some cultural things I weave into the story like gift giving at weddings, but only as they pertain to the story. The themes are a reflection of the Chinese sub-culture. But readers aren't going to catch it unless they are paying attention. So diversity is great, but keep in mind that we are more alike than we are different.


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## storyteller (Feb 3, 2014)

I grew up with huge diversity in YA, and that was 60s/70s/80s fiction.  So I basically agree with the notion that this other thing is just about posturing.  Ethnic writers can sell when the story is interesting.  Virginia Hamilton wrote dozens of successful YA novels with diverse protagonists (usually black, but not always).  Her stories were interesting.  Same for Walter Dean Meyers and Laurence Yep.  All pre-90s writers and plenty diverse.  

It's not that there isn't bias in publishing, but there is so much out there despite all that, and people don't like that narrative, so they ignore all the good-sellling diverse work.  As but one adult example, I routinely trip over romances with black women on the covers selling decently (10k range or so on Amazon) while other people claim 'black people on the covers don't sell'.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

We do need more diversity in books and all of entertainment (I'm pointing at you, new white Star Wars movie).

But if part of the campaign has to encourage people to buy diverse books, therein lies a chunk of the problem: demand. If people who want diverse books aren't buying up what's out there already, then there's little incentive for publisher's to create more. From what I can see, they _are_ buying books with characters that aren't white, and they're making them Amazon top sellers. But those books are self-published books New York almost certainly has no interest in.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

While I don't think it's a great idea to throw in a diverse cast if one wasn't originally intended (it will come off contrived), I thank the heavens that I was raised in the city and time that I was raised in. Thankfully diversity is my norm, and I'd like to think my books are all the richer for it. 

I am with those who say that there's plenty of diversity in books nowadays, thanks in no small part to self-publishing. You need only go three layers deep in an Amazon search to find diverse books... if indeed you want to find them. Because it's so easy to tweet/retweet a cause and then do absolutely nothing beyond that. It happens all the time in social media.


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## Christopher Bunn (Oct 26, 2010)

Sounds somewhat similar to social engineering via central planning. Interesting in theory, but lame in practice. I don't think we need diverse books, necessarily; we just need more good stories. At the end of the day, regardless of race or gender, we hold much more in common via being humans and the shared monoliths of courage, honor, revenge, fear, sacrifice, power, etc.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

No, we really do need diverse books because it sucks when people like you are basically invisible in the stories you love.


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## Aducknamedjoe (Apr 25, 2013)

> people like you


Defined how? Skin-deep and superficial characteristics like race and disability? If you let those things define you you're gonna have a hard time in life.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Aducknamedjoe said:


> Defined how? Skin-deep and superficial characteristics like race and disability? If you let those things define you you're gonna have a hard time in life.


I'm wracking my brain real hard on how to properly convey how awful this statement is nicely and It's just not coming.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

Aducknamedjoe said:


> Defined how? Skin-deep and superficial characteristics like race and disability? If you let those things define you you're gonna have a hard time in life.


But disability makes you very different from an able person. Sure, some are not that different but a blind person perceives the world very differently from a deaf person, and someone with autism has very different views again. (dis)Ability makes a HUGE change in how you see the world.
On the other hand, apart from the simple race/gender/sexuality/ableness what about poor and rich, what about not being able to keep on studying because you're just too poor.

And one that is a huge influence on me: What about those that don't live in the US or the UK?
How many books have you read with non US/UK characters? I'm not talking skin colour, I'm talking place where you live. Because in the Netherlands about 80 to 90% of Young Adult books (and also romance) come from the US or the UK. Not just because publishers won't take a risk in publishing work from their own country but also because those books have already proven they sell. You know what the effect of it is? Readers expect an author to come from the US or the UK these days, because that is what gets published. This has been going on for so long that it is seen as weird to read books by authors from your own country.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

shelleyo1 said:


> We do need more diversity in books and all of entertainment (I'm pointing at you, new white Star Wars movie).


Erm...diversity is more than skin color. Some quick research showed that the new cast is more diverse than the picture might show. I don't know if Abrams and Disney were too concerned about their actors's ethnicity when they cast them, though.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Aducknamedjoe said:


> I much prefer diversity of thought to something as superficial, demeaning, and racist as defining diversity by skin color, sexual orientation, or disability.
> 
> Let people write what they want to write and read what they want to read. Why make books into some PC social justice crusade?


It's easy to dismiss other peoples' wish to be represented in media as "superficial" when your demographic is generally represented as the default.

Personally, I try to reflect realistic diversity in my books, but I also support authors who write diverse fiction - whether recommending them to other authors and readers, or just putting them on my auto buy list. It's not just being PC. There are so many different types of people in the world that, frankly, it's terrible writing to avoid the stories of those who aren't white/cis/hetero/abled/etc.


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## Aducknamedjoe (Apr 25, 2013)

> frankly, it's terrible writing to avoid the stories of those who aren't white/cis/hetero/abled/etc.


I agree; my current WIP has a hispanic MC, my next one has a black MC, and my current series has a Sikh in a major supporting role, but they are in there and the way they are because it makes sense based on the story, not to check off "diversity" boxes and feel good about how "inclusive" I am. If I wrote a story about Vikings and tried to shoehorn in a [insert PC "diversity" term here] character (looking at you 13th Warrior) it would come across as trying-too-hard and do a disservice to the story just to advance a political agenda.


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## Marie Long (Jan 11, 2014)

Kia Zi Shiru said:


> And one that is a huge influence on me: What about those that don't live in the US or the UK?
> How many books have you read with non US/UK characters? I'm not talking skin colour, I'm talking place where you live. Because in the Netherlands about 80 to 90% of Young Adult books (and also romance) come from the US or the UK. Not just because publishers won't take a risk in publishing work from their own country but also because those books have already proven they sell. You know what the effect of it is? Readers expect an author to come from the US or the UK these days, because that is what gets published. This has been going on for so long that it is seen as weird to read books by authors from your own country.


A Beautiful Struggle features an Australian heroine (and the book takes place in Australia)


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

I'm all for writing diverse characters. My SF "epic" has all sorts of people in it, not because it's "PC", but because they are the folks telling me their stories.



Aducknamedjoe said:


> Defined how? Skin-deep and superficial characteristics like race and disability? If you let those things define you you're gonna have a hard time in life.


The problem is, society defines those things about people. There is the norm, and those who deviate from the norm. By writing books, making movies and TV shows and other forms of art that show the human race in all its varied glory, we begin to make everyone the norm, not just WASPs.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

So... why don't they go write the books themselves?


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## Kay Bratt (Dec 28, 2011)

Thanks for the tip, OP! I posted it on my platforms as I have a lot of readers who will be very interested in participating. 

In my books, most of my characters are Chinese and it did take a while to get traction. But over the years, I've been able to build a fantastic readership. I sprinkle lots of history though my books and judging by what many reviewers are saying, they are learning things they never dreamed of about the Chinese culture, just by immersing themselves in my stories.


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## RichardWolanski (Jan 20, 2014)

Daniel Dennis said:


> So... why don't they go write the books themselves?


Many already are. Bringing awareness to the issue doesn't mean that no one is actively doing anything about it.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Aducknamedjoe said:


> Defined how? Skin-deep and superficial characteristics like race and disability? If you let those things define you you're gonna have a hard time in life.


Disability is not superficial and suggesting otherwise is offensive.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

ToriWritesWords said:


> That's not true! Part of the campaign calls for people to put their money where their mouth is on Saturday, May 3rd, and buy diverse books


One of the issues I've noticed for years upon years with any so-called movement is they always take action for a day. What happens the day after? In my experience, they fade back into obscurity because there's no follow-through. They go to bed feeling better about themselves that night and never give it a second thought.



Christopher Bunn said:


> I don't think we need diverse books, necessarily; we just need more good stories. At the end of the day, regardless of race or gender, we hold much more in common via being humans and the shared monoliths of courage, honor, revenge, fear, sacrifice, power, etc.


Amen to that. Just because the protag is white doesn't mean the book is any good. Just look at Dan Brown's Inferno. That book was pretty damn awful.



RichardWolanski said:


> Many already are. Bringing awareness to the issue doesn't mean that no one is actively doing anything about it.


I suppose. I think the thing that initially rubbed me the wrong way is the way society throws around the word "need." I need food and water. I'd like good fiction. But I don't need it.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Daniel Dennis said:


> I suppose. I think the thing that initially rubbed me the wrong way is the way society throws around the word "need." I need food and water. I'd like good fiction. But I don't need it.


We need this as a part of an over-arching push to help our cultures and societies evolve beyond racism, bigotry, and elitism.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

In 30 years, the majority of American citizens will be multiracial. I wonder if people will think it's superficial when they can't find anything to read with totally white people in them.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Daniel Dennis said:


> I suppose. I think the thing that initially rubbed me the wrong way is the way society throws around the word "need." I need food and water. I'd like good fiction. But I don't need it.


We need to improve our character when it comes to people of different backgrounds and races. Some of us are struggling mightily against it though and it urks me so.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Vaalingrade said:


> In 30 years, the majority of American citizens will be multiracial. I wonder if people will think it's superficial when they can't find anything to read with totally white people in them.


I suspect there will be lots of whites writing those books.

If the demographics of the aggregate population derfine the demographics of fiction characters, then we should already have lots of characters reflecting those demographics.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Vaalingrade said:


> We need to improve our character when it comes to people of different backgrounds and races. Some of us are struggling mightily against it though and it urks me so.


I don't disagree. But I also don't see things like race as a defining characteristic. A physically-describing characteristic, sure.

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Most of mine are set in New Zealand, and three of my stories (soon to be four) have Maori main characters, and they've done really well.

I think readers are pretty open to reading about a cool new (to them) culture. But it's also, from what I've been able to figure out, one of the big reasons I couldn't get published traditionally. Another way that Indie publishing has (despite assertions to the contrary) increased choice for readers.


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## RichardWolanski (Jan 20, 2014)

Daniel Dennis said:


> I don't disagree. But I also don't see things like race as a defining characteristic. A physically-describing characteristic, sure.
> 
> Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


Don't mean to gang on you Dennis,

As far as "defining characteristic," it may not be to you, but don't assume that it isn't for someone of another race/orientation/ability. Race is still very tetchy; I mean look at the whole Donald Sterling fiasco. Some people are completely defined by their race without a second thought. This subject is something I'm very passionate about.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Disability is not superficial and suggesting otherwise is offensive.


There's so much wrong with the statement you're referring to, it's hard to choose where to begin. Without even addressing the ableism there--race is hardly superficial, especially when others judge you for it. The only people who seem to think race doesn't matter and that everybody should just be happy the way things are are people who benefit from white privilege every day and don't even realize it.

"Oh, why do we need more blacks and Hispanics and Indians and Asians in stories? Why put someone as the protag who's in a wheelchair? That's just contrived."

Of course white, able-bodied people (and I'm lucky to be in that group) think it's contrived, because they're fine with protags that represent _them_, because they're _everywhere_. If you're a black girl, how many heroic figures in literature are black women for you to relate to? It's easy to say that a white hero is someone a black girl should relate to, and she can, and she should, but shouldn't there be black heroes, too? There's incredible power in seeing someone who looks like you doing great and interesting and exciting things. You can look to that and hold onto it, when your teachers are treating you differently and you're being discouraged from courses of study you want and you're frowned on by much of the white male _and_ female population.

It's important to be represented. If you think it isn't, you're probably white and over-represented now, and you're wrong.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

shelleyo1 said:


> There's so much wrong with the statement you're referring to, it's hard to choose where to begin. Without even addressing the ableism there--race is hardly superficial, especially when others judge you for it. The only people who seem to think race doesn't matter and that everybody should just be happy the way things are are people who benefit from white privilege every day and don't even realize it.
> 
> "Oh, why do we need more blacks and Hispanics and Indians and Asians in stories? Why put someone as the protag who's in a wheelchair? That's just contrived."
> 
> ...


That's a really good post.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

> In second grade, our school got its first ever Asian student *gasp* and all of the kids treated him like he came from a different planet


Wow, really?

Where my kids went to high school, my eldest daughter and one of her friends stuck out like the proverbial thumb in school assemblies. My daughter has light blond hair and her friend has red hair. The school is in a white collar suburb and is something like 95% non-white. All my kids have a wonderful array of diverse friends, which includes disabled ones because the school had facilities for disabled kids.

I hate it how two friends of mine who are writing change their thoroughly Arabic-sounding names to something western-sounding because they feel they'd be discriminated against with those names.

Just like all space-based science fiction by default has white anglo and male characters and any females are b*tches that might as well be male. People have suggested that I write my space-based and hard Science Fiction under a male pseudonym. That's SO not going to happen, but I am probably selling less as a result.


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## RichardWolanski (Jan 20, 2014)

shelleyo1 said:


> There's so much wrong with the statement you're referring to, it's hard to choose where to begin. Without even addressing the ableism there--race is hardly superficial, especially when others judge you for it. The only people who seem to think race doesn't matter and that everybody should just be happy the way things are are people who benefit from white privilege every day and don't even realize it.
> 
> "Oh, why do we need more blacks and Hispanics and Indians and Asians in stories? Why put someone as the protag who's in a wheelchair? That's just contrived."
> 
> ...


Preach! ;-)


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

shelleyo1 said:


> There's so much wrong with the statement you're referring to, it's hard to choose where to begin. Without even addressing the ableism there--race is hardly superficial, especially when others judge you for it. The only people who seem to think race doesn't matter and that everybody should just be happy the way things are are people who benefit from white privilege every day and don't even realize it.
> <snip>
> It's important to be represented. If you think it isn't, you're probably white and over-represented now, and you're wrong.


My mom is disabled. She has two types of severe arthritis, plus is missing a leg. In First (Wrong) Impressions, Jane Bennet (yes, THAT Jane Bennet) is missing her leg from a freak accident. Some people commented on how random it was. That was on purpose. People sometimes lose limbs in random and freakish events.

I have received a lot of emails, website contacts, and social media all talking about Jane Bennet. Many of them are parents of disabled children and were so happy to see a character in a book who lived her life while disabled. Her story wasn't about Jane's missing leg, but instead about Jane. (I also had a lot of comments asking how I could possibly know all of the tiny things i.e. itchy skin under the rubber liner. That's because of Mom).

It's important that people like my Mom are represented in books, especially for younger people.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

RichardWolanski said:


> Don't mean to gang on you Dennis,
> 
> As far as "defining characteristic," it may not be to you, but don't assume that it isn't for someone of another race/orientation/ability. Race is still very tetchy; I mean look at the whole Donald Sterling fiasco. Some people are completely defined by their race without a second thought. This subject is something I'm very passionate about.


My name isn't Dennis. And don't assume because I said "I don't see..." that I extrapolate that to everyone. I'm not stupid. I know plenty of people who can't see beyond the color of one's skin. Be passionate. Just know there many of us out there who aren't passionate one way or the other and are not racists. Leave us out of your passion. We aren't your problem.

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> My mom is disabled. She has two types of severe arthritis, plus is missing a leg. In First (Wrong) Impressions, Jane Bennet (yes, THAT Jane Bennet) is missing her leg from a freak accident. Some people commented on how random it was. That was on purpose. People sometimes lose limbs in random and freakish events.
> 
> I have received a lot of emails, website contacts, and social media all talking about Jane Bennet. Many of them are parents of disabled children and were so happy to see a character in a book who lived her life while disabled. Her story wasn't about Jane's missing leg, but instead about Jane. (I also had a lot of comments asking how I could possibly know all of the tiny things i.e. itchy skin under the rubber liner. That's because of Mom).
> 
> It's important that people like my Mom are represented in books, especially for younger people.


I completely agree. My then-husband lost his leg in a motorcycle accident a decade ago. I'm a bit ashamed that I didn't give the difficulty of life in a wheelchair, the problems with prosthetics, and just the things that are suddenly closed off to you when you're disabled much thought until then. Life lesson--I think about things like that all the time now.

Kids need to see themselves in books, especially in stories that aren't _about_ being black or disabled or gay or whatever. The characters need to be like them doing the things the characters in other stories do. The importance of this can't be stressed enough.


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## RichardWolanski (Jan 20, 2014)

My apologies Daniel, 

In my previous post, I never said you "extrapolate that to everyone." Didn't call you stupid... Not sure how you made that assumption. Also, never said people who think like you are a problem. *shrug*  No one is asking you to pick up a pom-pom and cheer for a team! I'm pointing out that race isn't invisible and it has tangible impacts on people's lives. And, could someone clarify at which point I labeled any group a racist?


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

shelleyo1 said:


> Of course white, able-bodied people (and I'm lucky to be in that group) think it's contrived, because they're fine with protags that represent _them_, because they're _everywhere_. If you're a black girl, how many heroic figures in literature are black women for you to relate to? It's easy to say that a white hero is someone a black girl should relate to, and she can, and she should, but shouldn't there be black heroes, too? There's incredible power in seeing someone who looks like you doing great and interesting and exciting things. You can look to that and hold onto it, when your teachers are treating you differently and you're being discouraged from courses of study you want and you're frowned on by much of the white male _and_ female population.


Well said.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson actually gave a great (impromptu) little speech about people being discouraged from acting outside of cultural expectations by teachers and whatnot here: http://www.themarysue.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-race-gender-science/ The video in the post should start at about 1:01:30, but skip ahead if it doesn't, because that's where it gets good.


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

I read an article a couple of days ago (wish I could remember where - could have been Bitch Media) where someone of Asian descent was finding white people writing people of colour to be difficult when they get aspects about the culture wrong. 

And that is the biggest obstacle for me. I'd hate to get the culture wrong. And I can understand people being annoyed with this stuff.
In my YA series, the two protags are Aboriginal (male) and Latino (female), but they each have one parent who is Anglo-Saxon, and they each live with one family member and are not part of a large family or culture. The boy identifies strongly with his Aboriginal heritage and the beliefs of his people are integral to the entire story line of the four books (the story line would fall apart without these beliefs). But I didn't feel as though I could write a character who was wholly living within a culture not my own without getting some important aspects wrong, and I didn't want to go there. I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't - just that I didn't feel confident to do so.


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## RichardWolanski (Jan 20, 2014)

ゴジラ said:


> Well said.
> 
> Neil DeGrasse Tyson actually gave a great (impromptu) little speech about people being discouraged from acting outside of cultural expectations by teachers and whatnot here: http://www.themarysue.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-race-gender-science/ The video in the post should start at about 1:01:30, but skip ahead if it doesn't, because that's where it gets good.


I've seen that video, and it is good.



A.A said:


> And that is the biggest obstacle for me. I'd hate to get the culture wrong.


I understand that.


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## Rin (Apr 25, 2011)

I'm bi, and the majority of my main cast is queer.

I've also got a few neuroatypical characters in there...because I want some representation that doesn't treat mental illness like either the plague or some magical superpower. -_-


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

It's hard to articulate this. I have a genuine issue with stories that just seem to have brown skinned characters for the sake of having one or two non-white characters. It's like watching a teen movie from the 90s or 00s when they had a random brown skinned dude who had no lines and was just there to act as a member of the crew. It doesn't really mean anything if they don't really add anything to the story.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Moist_Tissue said:


> It's hard to articulate this. I have a genuine issue with stories that just seem to have brown skinned characters for the sake of having one or two non-white characters. It's like watching a teen movie from the 90s or 00s when they had a random brown skinned dude who had no lines and was just there to act as a member of the crew. It doesn't really mean anything if they don't really add anything to the story.


Token black characters don't do anyone any favors. And that's not really diversity, just an attempt to look diverse without really managing it. Sleepy Hollow, the series, is an excellent example of a show that's starting to do diversity right. The two main characters are a white man and a black woman, and I'd argue that she's the main character and he's slightly second to her. She's important--everything hinges on her at least as much as him, and moreso if you look at her history. Her sister is an important character. The police commander is black (Orlando Jones), and he's vital to the storyline. John Cho plays a character who has important storylines. The police commander's family, a black wife and daughter (who is in a wheelchair and is a great, smart character who has been in danger, been brave and been frightened like any kid would) are important to key events.

They're not token characters to fill a quota, and important non-whites actually outnumber whites, even in the walk-on stock roles. It's fabulous in that regard. It stepped wrong a bit when a Native American character was needed and the one guy they all knew happened to be a shaman, but even then they actually hired a Native American to play him, rather than a white guy with an "ethnic look."

I'm also happy that The Blacklist, a great show headlined by James Spader, is diverse without all the bad guys being non-whites (a problem Marvel had/has with its series). Yes, the main male and female are white, what a shocker, but there are main characters who are black, Indian and Middle Eastern. Dembe, an important character but not a main one, is actually Nigerian rather than an American who's black.

Shows like this are finally starting to raise the bar.


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## Rin (Apr 25, 2011)

shelleyo1 said:


> Sleepy Hollow, the series, is an excellent example of a show that's starting to do diversity right. The two main characters are a white man and a black woman, and I'd argue that she's the main character and he's slightly second to her.


Oh, it's totally Abbie's show.  Ichabod is just there to get things off tall shelves.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Rin said:


> Oh, it's totally Abbie's show.  Ichabod is just there to get things off tall shelves.


And to look adoringly at her and speak with his lovely accent.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

If there is a large demand for a given product, and a small supply of that product, we normally see the price bid up.

If there is a price ceiling, like with Amazon, then we see very high unit sales.

If we don't see that with a product, it is reasonable to question if the demand and supply are really out of balance. This would indicate there really isn't a large demand, or there isn't a small supply.

This is normal behavior for any product. There is nothing special about books.

So, are books with the recommended diversity of characters flying off the shelves? I don't know.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> If there is a large demand for a given product, and a small supply of that product, we normally see the price bid up.
> 
> If there is a price ceiling, like with Amazon, then we see very high unit sales.
> 
> ...


You're forgetting something here.

How do people know to ASK for a certain item when they don't know they can ask for it?
If people keep being told "sorry we have no books about X and Y." how would they then know if suddenly there were books about X and Y if they aren't told?

A lot of the problem is that publishers put very little marketing behind diverse books, so many people don't know they exist or even how to find them.
For example, there are many non-fiction books about autism. So if you look on Amazon for autism those will be on top, there are even fictionalised information books for kids about autism. Those are all books about autism.
An easy conclusion would be that there are no fiction books with autistic kids playing the main role and stop looking. While actually, those do exist. They are simply not as visible.

This event is to bring attention to those books, those almost hidden books.
You can't ask for something if you don't know it exists or how to describe it.


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## Marie Long (Jan 11, 2014)

Kia Zi Shiru said:


> You're forgetting something here.
> 
> How do people know to ASK for a certain item when they don't know they can ask for it?
> If people keep being told "sorry we have no books about X and Y." how would they then know if suddenly there were books about X and Y if they aren't told?
> ...


Yes, like this book coming out May 9th. The cover is done by Julie Dillon, a really popular artist who has been a huge inspiration for me and my art. I'm really interested in checking out the stories in this book, and only just learned about it yesterday via the #WeNeedDiverseBooks trend on Twitter. It was apparently a kickstarter campaign that received well over its intended goal: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1537879721/long-hidden-speculative-fiction-from-the-margins-o


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> How do people know to ASK for a certain item when they don't know they can ask for it?


Well, first because they want it, and second because there is a sales person behind the counter who answers questions.

I see no reason to accept the notion that millions of intelligent Americans who want a book with a given characteristic don't know they can ask for it. They might not know a specific title, but they sure wouid know the class of books they want. They are not asking for a certain item, they are asking about a general class of items.

We see a lot here about the power of word-of-mouth advertising. I suspect it works for books of all characteristics.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Well, first because they want it, and second because there is a sales person behind the counter who answers questions.
> 
> I see no reason to accept the notion that millions of intelligent Americans who want a book with a given characteristic don't know they can ask for it. They might not know a specific title, but they sure wouid know the class of books they want. They are not asking for a certain item, they are asking about a general class of items.
> 
> We see a lot here about the power of word-of-mouth advertising. I suspect it works for books of all characteristics.


That's easy for you and me to think, because we're white. Be the young black girl raised on white Disney princesses and see how well you understand your ability to ask for something you've never seen.

(And yes, I know there's one now. Who was a frog for much of the film.)

Even in animated fantasy films with dragons and elves and other things that never existed, black characters aren't included because it's not historically accurate for that time period. Dragons which never existed anywhere, but no one of a different color. For _accuracy_.

You underestimate the power of this kind of thing when you assume that people would just ask for it if they wanted it.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

shelleyo1 said:


> Dragons which never existed anywhere, but no one of a different color. For _accuracy_.


To be _accurate_dragons were a late medieval import from China. I learnt that when studying the history of the Welsh flag.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> That's easy for you and me to think, because we're white. Be the young black girl raised on white Disney princesses and see how well you understand your ability to ask for something you've never seen.


Its easy for anyone to think. The young black girl has an imagination, and she is certainly not limited to asking only about what she already knows. She sure doesn't need me to think for her.



> You underestimate the power of this kind of thing when you assume that people would just ask for it if they wanted it.


Underestimate the power of Disney? No. I recognize that girl as an intelligent human being who can ask the same kinds of questions I and zillions of others have asked for thousands of years. The rest of us can ask questions about stuff we have never experienced. So can she. If we could only ask questions when we already knew the answers we wouldn't even have books.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Terrence, I recommend you research casual racism and casual sexism. You'll see a completely different life experience than the one you've had, and maybe might see how your life experience has created a rose-coloured view.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Terrence, I recommend you research casual racism and casual sexism. You'll see a completely different life experience than the one you've had, and maybe might see how your life experience has created a rose-coloured view.


No. I maintain my faith in the intelligence and imagination of that girl. She doesn't need me to think, dream, and imagine for her.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

*roll eyes*


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

For everyone who thinks that race is a superficial, unimportant, irrelevant thing: Why not make your characters a race other than white? If it really doesn't matter, it shouldn't make any difference to you at all.

Write a non-white character. It doesn't matter, right? Write all non-white characters. Race is irrelevant, right?

But if you're telling me that race is a superficial and irrelevant characteristic and you're only writing white people, I have to wonder why that is. It's almost like that irrelevant, unimportant characteristic actually plays a role in your decision making.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Courtney Milan said:


> For everyone who thinks that race is a superficial, unimportant, irrelevant thing: Why not make your characters a race other than white? If it really doesn't matter, it shouldn't make any difference to you at all.
> 
> Write a non-white character. It doesn't matter, right? Write all non-white characters. Race is irrelevant, right?
> 
> But if you're telling me that race is a superficial and irrelevant characteristic and you're only writing white people, I have to wonder why that is. It's almost like that irrelevant, unimportant characteristic actually plays a role in your decision making.


^^ *clap*


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

Sorry if I haven't read the entire thread.

I've been on this board for over three years, and still feel practically invisible here, partly perhaps because I don't write in any of the popular categories.

My fiction and nonfiction books buck every current trend; and I am a citizen of the world, was born and grew up in India--and much of my writing is flavored by my history, heritage, and my particular viewpoint and experience. If this new "movement" opens readers' eyes to my books, I would be delighted.

As for race: I have, as an Indian writing in New York, struggled with the "ethnic pigeonholing" still practiced in the Western publishing world--which dominates the rest of the world. I write about this in my books "Impressing the Whites" and "The Killing of an Author."

Added: To the OP: Thanks for having the courage to bring up this subject at all, and thanks to all who are brave enough to post in favor of diversity.


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

Kia Zi Shiru said:


> How many books have you read with non US/UK characters? I'm not talking skin colour, I'm talking place where you live. Because in the Netherlands about 80 to 90% of Young Adult books (and also romance) come from the US or the UK. Not just because publishers won't take a risk in publishing work from their own country but also because those books have already proven they sell. You know what the effect of it is? Readers expect an author to come from the US or the UK these days, because that is what gets published. This has been going on for so long that it is seen as weird to read books by authors from your own country.


Very interesting. I had the same experience with Indian publishers when I first talked to them about my first novel. "Publish it in the West first, and then you will get published here," they said.

Even though things have changed a lot since then, you still find "Chicken Soup" and Robert Ludlum overwhelming the bookstore window space, and the Indian authors (all but the famous) hidden at the bottom of some shelf in the back. Interesting to hear that a Dutch author faces a somewhat similar problem, though to a lesser degree.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I love writing characters who are what I am  not.

Writing about a single, somewhat disabled, Indonesian muslim woman was a challenge that frequently brought me into (hypothetical/mental) conflict with the cultural misappropriation stream of thought. As in: I have no right to write about a culture that's not mine, because I can't possibly do it right. I think this line of thought has a lot to answer for in terms of lack of diverse characters.

In the end I thought: what the hey. The story is set in space, more than 200 years in the future, so none of the cultural details will be what they are today anyway.

But there is that stream of thought, and some people can get very vicious about it.

I happen to think that by writing about characters who are what you are not, you learn to at least glimpse at life through a different lens.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> No. I maintain my faith in the intelligence and imagination of that girl. She doesn't need me to think, dream, and imagine for her.


No, but she needs you to recognize you that you benefit from white privilege every day and she does not, and stop assuming that everyone has the same experience, opportunities and outlets that you do.

With all due respect, you have no idea what you're talking about.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

"Why can't other races just learn to appreciate the simply beauty of whiteness so I can keep ignoring their icky different-being?"


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

shelleyo1 said:


> No, but she needs you to recognize you that you benefit from white privilege every day and she does not, and stop assuming that everyone has the same experience, opportunities and outlets that you do.
> 
> With all due respect, you have no idea what you're talking about.


No. She doesn't need that from me since I have said nothing about everyone having the same experience, opportunities, and outlets.

My contention is that market behavior is an excellent indicator of an unmet demand. Do we see books with the recommended mix of characters being bid up in price? Do we see huge sales for those that do have the recommended mix? If neither of these conditions prevails, then we have little reason to think there is a real consumer demand that is not being met. Thats how it works with zillions of products. Books are not special.

I reject the notion that certain demographic groups are deficient in their ability to think, dream, and imagine. There is no evidence for it, and no reason to presume it.

If one cannot ask about what one does not already know, that should apply to everyone. All of human history shows this is not the case.

I stand with the girl and her ability to think, dream, and imagine.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> I reject the notion that certain demographic groups are deficient in their ability to think, dream, and imagine. There is no evidence for it, and no reason to presume it.


No one did. You're arguing against something that was never expressed here and completely missing the point.


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Its easy for anyone to think. The young black girl has an imagination, and she is certainly not limited to asking only about what she already knows. She sure doesn't need me to think for her.
> 
> Underestimate the power of Disney? No. I recognize that girl as an intelligent human being who can ask the same kinds of questions I and zillions of others have asked for thousands of years. The rest of us can ask questions about stuff we have never experienced. So can she. If we could only ask questions when we already knew the answers we wouldn't even have books.


So only minority children can use their imagination? 
That's high praise and an interesting take on this issue.
So by this logic, White children can't use their imagination?
In this scenario, are they deficit in some way that the Black girl isn't?
Your argument does all White children a great disservice. 

Ethnicity/ disability/ diversity aren't irrelevant or superficial. 
I also don't think that the people claiming they are, have that opinion out of malice either.
Their thinking comes out of ignorance (not intended as a slight), 
it comes from being in their own sphere and only seeing things from their point of view.

I want more diverse books, especially for children.
There needs to be books where there are characters of ALL ethnicities, abilities, and religious backgrounds.
It shouldn't be a BIG deal either. It SHOULD be *COMMON SENSE*, because we live in a diverse world.


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## Hudson Owen (May 18, 2012)

We have had programmatic diversity since the 1980s, in which, generally speaking, non-white interests have been promoted over white interests, female interests have been promoted over male interests, and, in the theater, gays have promoted themselves over straights.  In other words, the outsider is now on the inside, the have-nots have become the haves.  At the leading edge of the culture, we have come full circle.

While I was a working actor in New York City, I discovered the vast reach of black entertainment in the city.  Where the faces up on stage calling the shots were black, this white actor did not get the part.  Only once did diversity work in my favor, when a white production company did not want a black actor to play a homeless man (you know, a stereotype) I got the part and a good payday.

In the film Gravity, the white astronaut becomes the enabler of the female star--quite different from the older standard where the wife stands by her man.  I liked the movie and Sandra Bullock's performance.  I'm using it as an illustration of how much times have changed.

So, it is neither new nor brave for white liberals to add characters of color to their stories.  It has become trickier for more conservative authors to thread their way through this new landscape and tell their stories without being slapped by charges of nativeism or racism.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Hudson Owen said:


> We have had programmatic diversity since the 1980s, in which, generally speaking, non-white interests have been promoted over white interests, female interests have been promoted over male interests, and, in the theater, gays have promoted themselves over straights. In other words, the outsider is now on the inside, the have-nots have become the haves. At the leading edge of the culture, we have come full circle.


When's the last time you got pulled over, frisked or stopped outside a store after making an expensive purchase because you're white?

Once that happens, maybe your argument will make some kind of sense.


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

Hudson Owen said:


> We have had programmatic diversity since the 1980s, in which, generally speaking, non-white interests have been promoted over white interests, female interests have been promoted over male interests, and, in the theater, gays have promoted themselves over straights.


During the 80's, black interest weren't promoted over white interest.
There was suddenly a black presence, where once there wasn't.
But I guarantee you no "white" media was pushed aside.

Gays aren't promoted over straights either.
If that were true there wouldn't be so many actors still terrified of 'coming out'.



Hudson Owen said:


> While I was a working actor in New York City, I discovered the vast reach of black entertainment in the city. Where the faces up on stage calling the shots were black, this white actor did not get the part. Only once did diversity work in my favor, when a white production company did not want a black actor to play a homeless man (you know, a stereotype) I got the part and a good payday.
> 
> In the film Gravity, the white astronaut becomes the enabler of the female star--quite different from the older standard where the wife stands by her man. I liked the movie and Sandra Bullock's performance. I'm using it as an illustration of how much times have changed.


Why was it so distressing for you to see social advancement for Blacks
And find it so odd that a woman is the strong one that you take notice of it



Hudson Owen said:


> So, it is neither new nor brave for white liberals to add characters of color to their stories. It has become trickier for more conservative authors to thread their way through this new landscape and tell their stories without being slapped by charges of nativeism or racism.


Since when does Conservative=White only 
Why are people who include diverse characters, suddenly "White liberals"? 

No...Just no to your entire post.


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## KBoards Admin (Nov 27, 2007)

Folks, my hope is that we can keep this thread open. But if it becomes a series of liberal-vs-conservative and conservative-vs-liberal posts, we will close it as we do with threads that become politically charged.


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## Hudson Owen (May 18, 2012)

I'm not talking politics and I am not arguing with anyone.  I made a few statements based on personal experience and observation, and that's it from me.


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## LanelleH (Jul 4, 2013)

When I saw this trending on Twitter I got so excited, it's awesome to know that there's a lot of people who feel like I do.  We just want different kinds of people represented in books/media, and not just the stereotypes constantly thrown in our faces.  It sucks whenever I see comments like I can't write from (race, gender, sexuality, etc) perspective because I've never been one.  

I wish more people would write out of their comfort zones.  

I'm a 22 year-old black female yet one of my most popular books on Wattpad is a first person story with an 18-year-old gay male lead.  Unless it's necessary to have only one type of person in your story I'd try to branch out and add some diversity.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

I was always impressed with the diversity in Jonathan Kellerman's and the fact that they were just normal characters. In _Butcher's Theatre_ he had an Orthodox Jewish detective as a main character of this Jerusalem-based novel, but broke the mould by having one of his side-kicks be Chinese. Then in his Alex Delaware series the co-star detective is a gay white man, Milo Sturgis. There is never anything made about their minority status. They are simply there without any political points being made - well as the Delaware series wore on their were inferences that Sturgis' anti-authoritarian tendencies were a result of his belief that he would never be promoted.


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## Marie Long (Jan 11, 2014)

I wish people didn't think this movement is just about race. There is so much more to diversity than just race.


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

I saw this today on twitter and retweeted it. I think it's very true.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

shelleyo1 said:


> No one did. You're arguing against something that was never expressed here and completely missing the point.


No. An earlier poster told us people can't ask for the kind of books they want. That would indicate a deficiency in thinking, dreaming, and imagining.



> So only minority children can use their imagination?
> That's high praise and an interesting take on this issue.
> So by this logic, White children can't use their imagination?
> In this scenario, are they deficit in some way that the Black girl isn't?
> Your argument does all White children a great disservice.


God Bless dreaming, for it is not a zero sum game.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

My concern reading through all these posts is it's starting to look like fingers are being pointed at others who don't write about "diversity" for one reason or another as "bad."

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

Daniel Dennis said:


> My concern reading through all these posts is it's starting to look like fingers are being pointed at others who don't write about "diversity" for one reason or another as "bad."


I think it depends on what your "one reason" is. There are some things I can't write, and that will definitely have an impact on the kind of books that I choose to write. I imagine the same is true for other people. For instance, I can't write about violence, so I'm unlikely to pen the next Game of Thrones. I don't have anything against people who do write that kind of thing--it's just not a good fit for me. I wouldn't enjoy it and I wouldn't do it well. Also for instance: I write historical fiction, but I don't think I could write about slaves or slavery. That's the violence thing in play--I could not, would not, be able to do justice to the time period because I cannot write violence. It doesn't mean I can't write about black people, of course--I can and will. But there are some things that just aren't within my capabilities. And if someone said something like that to me, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

But there are some reasons people give for not writing people of color that, frankly, we should give the side-eye to.

Imagine someone said, "I don't want to write a book with black people in it, because I hate black people." My problem with that person is not, "Oh, he's not writing about black people." It's, "He hates black people." The fact that this person isn't writing diverse books is secondary to the fact that his reason for not writing diverse books is because he is an actual, avowed racist.

Often, of course, the racism expressed is more subtle than "I hate black people." For instance, when the filmmakers behind Noah explained why they had an all-white cast (when as a historical matter, the actual people in Noah's time were unlikely to be Caucasian), they said this:



> From the beginning, we were concerned about casting, the issue of race. What we realized is that this story is functioning at the level of myth, and as a mythical story, the race of the individuals doesn't matter. They're supposed to be stand-ins for all people.... You either try to put everything in there, which just calls attention to it, or you just say, "Let's make that not a factor, because we're trying to deal with everyman."


Now, what the heck is that supposed to mean? They say that if you put non-white people in the movie, it calls attention to race. The implication is if you use an all-white cast, it doesn't call attention to race. Which means, in the filmmaker's eyes, they see white as a non-race--that is, it's the default that you start with. Choosing a white default, and defending a white default, is in itself a form of racism.

Then they say that white people can be stand-ins for everyone. The implication is that an all Middle Eastern cast--which would have been accurate--would not be the same. In other words, they're saying that people do not empathize with non-white people.

That is a really gross sentiment. When someone flat-out says that a white person can be a stand in for everyman, but a black person cannot, we _should_ call that person out.

On this thread, I don't see people getting attacked for not writing diverse characters. I see people looking askance at _specific reasons_.

If someone says something like "race is unimportant, so I'm only going to write white people," yes, I question that. Because it has no internal logic and it doesn't hold up. It's not that we think that people have to write diversity in all things, no deviation allowed. It's that we think your stated reasons are indicative of something problematic in your mindset.

You're allowed to not write diversity. You're allowed to do so for whatever reasons you choose. But if a lot of people are listening to your stated reasons and saying, "Eww, that's gross and offensive," consider the possibility that your reasons for not writing diverse characters are gross and offensive.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

Marie Long said:


> I wish people didn't think this movement is just about race. There is so much more to diversity than just race.


Yeah, this annoys me too. There is so much more about diversity than race.

On the blog post I wrote about it a few days ago I mainly focused on the other topics of diversity like ability, country (of origin or living), gender or sexuality. Because especially ability and country seem to be ignored a lot.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Skimmed your post. Read the first and last paragraphs. I'm short on time and promise to read it when I can. I think I agree with you. I'll know more later.

But I wanted to pop in and throw in that in my series, the story is being told in present tense from the perspective of a male character in the first two books in a world where there really aren't many mirrors around. I've never described him in great detail because he isn't vain and wouldn't do that. I wrote it in such a way that anyone could relate to him. The love interest is a pale red-head so she's a white girl. In the third book there's a second character sharing the POV role, a female (not the love interest). She's been handled in a similar fashion in book two. But because the reader gets to see through her eyes I'm now in a place where I may have to describe my main character.

After reading through a lot this I got to thinking about my old online RPG days (I'm a recovering gamer) where every character I (a white guy) created was a black guy (except one). I've been considering modeling my MC after one of those characters. Not because I think the diversity is necessary or because of this conversation here but because I often model characters' physical appearances and personalities after things I'm familiar with.

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## moirakatson (Jan 11, 2014)

I think we're missing the ways in which fiction (and, I suppose, non-fiction) featuring a diverse cast is an incredibly affirmative experience for a reader. I believe that children can dream up stories in which they are the hero, and I believe that I can empathize with Paul Atreides, Cimorene, and Lauren Olamina, because a talented writer _can_ bring you into a character's mind. That's a beautiful thing! And the beauty of it is that _it gives us a window into someone else's story_. For me, that's what stories are, a tangle of what-if and it-could-happen, showing me a world that could be and characters that could be, and boiling things down to the essential humanity in all of us. There is a meeting point between us all, and that doesn't mean that diversity is unimportant - on the contrary, it means that diversity is incredibly important. Because I have never had people side-eye me in my job, or ask me if I could read, and because if someone writes beautifully about this experience (as many have), I understand more about the world and the challenges that its inhabitants face. I learn that actions that make little sense to me might make a lot more sense if the world treated me differently: if people spat on me or beat me up for holding hands with my partner, for instance.

But there's something more to this, and for me it's a genuine anguish for children who grow up without a single book showing a hero that represents them. Of course children can dream, but I think some people are simply unaware of how strong a factor it is to see very few stories in which they are represented. It is incredibly powerful to see a hero who looks like you, who shares a world outlook that has been shaped by differences from a norm. One of the people posting last night on twitter was an Asian man who held up a sign saying, "#WeNeedDiverseBooks because at 4 years old, my daughter told me she hated her eyes and her hair." That broke my heart. When heroes look like you, and act like you, it is truly invisible to you that other people are having a different experience - it never even occurs to you to think about it. It doesn't occur to you to think, "what if the only heroes I had ever seen in stories were vegetarian/red-haired/pagan? What if they all only ate spaghetti, and my favorite food, chicken pot pie, was only ever eaten by the villains? What if no one saw the world like I did because I'm one of very few people born with green ears, and everyone I've ever met looks at me oddly?"

And the thing is, it's been invisible to so many people for so long, that genuinely wonderful books are either not published, or published and marginalized. It's not that there isn't demand for those stories, it's not that there isn't a supply of those stories, it's that a great deal of forces are at work to make those stories less available in the market at large.

We need diverse books because every child should grow up believing that they can be the hero.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Courtney Milan said:


> I think it depends on what your "one reason" is. There are some things I can't write, and that will definitely have an impact on the kind of books that I choose to write. I imagine the same is true for other people. For instance, I can't write about violence, so I'm unlikely to pen the next Game of Thrones. I don't have anything against people who do write that kind of thing--it's just not a good fit for me. I wouldn't enjoy it and I wouldn't do it well. Also for instance: I write historical fiction, but I don't think I could write about slaves or slavery. That's the violence thing in play--I could not, would not, be able to do justice to the time period because I cannot write violence. It doesn't mean I can't write about black people, of course--I can and will. But there are some things that just aren't within my capabilities. And if someone said something like that to me, I wouldn't have a problem with it.
> 
> But there are some reasons people give for not writing people of color that, frankly, we should give the side-eye to.
> 
> ...


Totally agree. But I also don't think a person is required to justify reasoning. My concern is when people are asked why, regardless of reason or logic it turns into a witch hunt

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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

It's not a witch hunt when someone is running around in the open turning people into newts like, for example, saying race is unimportant or that there's no reason why minority kids should get to read about people like themselves, or otherwise chest-thumping for 'white-as-default'.

I can't see how anyone can honestly claim that race isn't still a HUGE issue when just the past year has been chock full or powerful people, influential people or people with really big platforms have either openly or been caught saying awful crap about minorities.

Race might mean a lot for _you_ but off the top of my head I've learned how...

- The owner of a Championship Basketball team doesn't want me at his games.
- The Hugos nominated a dude who wants to kick me out of my country.
- An over-night celebrity and a reality show star both love talking about a 'better' time when I would be in chain and sold like an animal.

And right now it's feeling a whole lot like a lot of my fellow writers really want to pretend I and people like me don't exist so they can keep writing nothin' but white folk.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

For everyone saying they can't write non-white folks, or are afraid to write non-white folks, please please please read this writing book:


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Vaalingrade said:


> It's not a witch hunt when someone is running around in the open turning people into newts like, for example, saying race is unimportant or that there's no reason why minority kids should get to read about people like themselves, or otherwise chest-thumping for 'white-as-default'.
> 
> I can't see how anyone can honestly claim that race isn't still a HUGE issue when just the past year has been chock full or powerful people, influential people or people with really big platforms have either openly or been caught saying awful crap about minorities.
> 
> ...


I can't speak for your fellow writers, only myself. And you're right about the examples you cited. I'd just ask that you keep in mind there are plenty of other sports team owners who aren't like that and the guy has been flogged by society as a result.

I get it (as much as I can). I grew up in a house where the parents said hey were racists but I wasn't allowed to date blacks. That was eye-opening. Later, I managed a large number of kids at a job and often dealt with the same sort if stupidity and fired people time to time because "I'm not doing what he says because he's black" or "because she's gay" or "because we go to school together and don't like each other." I had a zero tolerance policy.

As far as kids being able to read about people like them, I agree. They should. There are a lot of kids who grow up seeing aspects about themselves (race, gender, disability, etc.) as something that defines them. If it's truly a growing market I have faith authors will begin delivering. I just don't want to see us eating our own start every time someone asks a question about race and doesn't like the answer.

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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> On this thread, I don't see people getting attacked for not writing diverse characters. I see people looking askance at specific reasons.


What are the specific reasons from this specific thread? Not imagined, not movies.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Thing is, some of our own need to be eaten if they're going to go around saying ignorant things, then scrabbling desperately to maintain that ignorance and declare it okay.

It's fine if your book just happens to have nothing but white people. It's not okay when your reason for it is that white is the default and minorities just have to deal with it.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

In the context of this thread I think that we should note that Daniel is a prisoner in a white van


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Marie Long said:


> You guys should be promoting your books in the Twitter trend! There are readers, school teachers, librarians, agents, and publishers who are looking for books like yours! Not to mention thousands of people will see (and hopefully retweet) it.


I don't tweet.


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## FH (Jul 30, 2012)

Mercia McMahon said:


> In the context of this thread I think that we should note that Daniel is a prisoner in a white van


That's positive discrimination by the CIA. They usually use black vans but they are now running a equal opportunities rendition and torture program.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

shelleyo1 said:


> Kids need to see themselves in books, especially in stories that aren't _about_ being black or disabled or gay or whatever. The characters need to be like them doing the things the characters in other stories do. The importance of this can't be stressed enough.


My books are basically Historical Fantasy with gay MCs.
Yeah, try to sell them to non-gay Fantasy lovers&#8230;


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

I'd rather see the floggings come after someone admits to not writing a minority because they don't like minorities. Not writing minorities because you don't want to get it wrong or because you just didn't imagine any characters as minorities is different. I think it's important to keep this distinction in mind.

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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

It's not just about not liking minorities, it's about not caring about them.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Vaalingrade said:


> It's not just about not liking minorities, it's about not caring about them.


And maybe it's just writing to market. You know, study your genre and follow the tropes. Write what readers like to read.
Which would shift the problem and the blame to&#8230; who again?


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

Daniel Dennis said:


> I'd rather see the floggings come after someone admits to not writing a minority because they don't like minorities. Not writing minorities because you don't want to get it wrong or because you just didn't imagine any characters as minorities is different. I think it's important to keep this distinction in mind.


Daniel, please don't take this the wrong way--but in a thread about how we need more diverse authors and books, can you please consider whether it's appropriate to make the thread about you and how threatened you feel? It's like someone is saying, "Three children were eaten by alligators!" and instead of saying, "Oh my God, that's awful, what can we do about the alligators?" you're saying, "But not everyone who takes pictures of alligators hates children. Those of you whose children have been eaten need to stop and think about how it hurts my feelings when you talk about alligators that way." Whether your feelings are hurt or not--their children were eaten by alligators. They're the ones who are losing limbs to alligators. Whatever you might feel about alligators, they have been hurt FAR WORSE than you. Insisting that the discussion about alligators center around your feelings is hurtful and self-centered.

No matter how genuine your intentions, you are standing in the way of a discussion about what to do about alligators--er, I mean, structural racism. You are trying to center this discussion around you and how you feel, instead of letting others have a conversation about writing and marketing diverse characters. What you are doing is actively harmful, and it contributes to the problem at hand. You are derailing a legitimate conversation.

Please consider the possibility that your feelings about alligators are not the point of this thread.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Courtney, I cannot see how your alligator response bears any relation to what Daniel has said. There will be diversity so long as there is a mix of characters across published fiction, it does not have to be in each and every novel or even each and every author (or in your case the covers of each and every series). I would not be surprised if someone wrote a novel based in Seattle with exclusively white (or non-designated) ethnicities as it is a very white city. My novel based there has among its huge cast Japanese Americans, Jewish Americans, Korean Americans, Chinese Americans, African Americans, Gay Americans, Lesbian Americans, Trans Americans, Americans with Disabilities, and Native Americans, but then I was writing about the past treatment of minorities in that very white city. There also needs to be people writing about Seattle that has some diversity in its characters without making any political points. It all goes together to create a Pacific North West fiction section that is diverse, not an enforced diversity in each and every book about Seattle/PNW.


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

Mercia McMahon said:


> Courtney, I cannot see how your alligator response bears any relation to what Daniel has said. There will be diversity so long as there is a mix of characters across published fiction, it does not have to be in each and every novel or even each and every author (or in your case the covers of each and every series). I would not be surprised if someone wrote a novel based in Seattle with exclusively white (or non-designated) ethnicities as it is a very white city. My novel based there has among its huge cast Japanese Americans, Jewish Americans, Korean Americans, Chinese Americans, African Americans, Gay Americans, Lesbian Americans, Trans Americans, Americans with Disabilities, and Native Americans, but then I was writing about the past treatment of minorities in that very white city. There also needs to be people writing about Seattle that has some diversity in its characters without making any political points. It all goes together to create a Pacific North West fiction section that is diverse, not an enforced diversity in each and every book about Seattle/PNW.


Literally nobody has said that we need to enforce diversity and make people write books they don't want to write.

This is what I said: This thread is not supposed to be about people who don't want to write diverse characters. It is supposed to be about people who do. Someone coming into this thread and insisting that he has the right to not write diverse characters and he doesn't want to be questioned for it is shifting the discussion from writing diverse characters to NOT writing diverse characters.

How is this difficult to understand?


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

When I read through this thread I see what appeared to be a conversation flogging Terrence for having some legitimate points and not liking his explanation. My comments are meant to shed some light on how people arrive at a different, yet legitimate point of view. I don't see anyone disagreeing with the overall topic. I see differences in opinion about the solution. How is asking people to keep in mind that a difference in opinion doesn't mean a disagreement about principle equate to harmful remarks?

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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Andrew Ashling said:


> And maybe it's just writing to market. You know, study your genre and follow the tropes. Write what readers like to read.
> Which would shift the problem and the blame to... who again?


The writer for making lame excuses.

This is like how Hollywood won't make a Wonderwoman movie, claiming audiences don't want to see female superheroes when the truth is Catwoman and Electra just sucked.


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

Daniel Dennis said:


> When I read through this thread I see what appeared to be a conversation flogging Terrence for having some legitimate points and not liking his explanation. My comments are meant to shed some light on how people arrive at a different, yet legitimate point of view. I don't see anyone agreeing with the overall topic. I see differences in opinion about the solution. How is asking people to keep in mind that a difference in opinion doesn't mean a disagreement about principle equate to harmful remarks?
> 
> Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


Because you're derailing a legitimate conversation. You're changing the focus of the conversation from talking about including racial diversity to talking about you. You're demanding that people stop talking about structural racism to focus on the feelings of people who do not suffer from structural racism. If you've watched these conversations enough, you see that they always go like this--people beginning to talk, strategize, and consider, and then someone jumps in and turns the discussion away from its course. And very often, they turn the conversation from how to dismantle privilege, to a discussion about how, before we can get there, we need to give a privileged person more consideration.

If you're legitimately interested, read through this: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/

It's a little snarky, but it explains why derailing arguments are harmful and the effect that they have.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Courtney Milan said:


> Literally nobody has said that we need to enforce diversity and make people write books they don't want to write.
> 
> This is what I said: This thread is not supposed to be about people who don't want to write diverse characters. It is supposed to be about people who do. Someone coming into this thread and insisting that he has the right to not write diverse characters and he doesn't want to be questioned for it is shifting the discussion from writing diverse characters to NOT writing diverse characters.
> 
> How is this difficult to understand?


What is difficult to understand is how you think a Twitter hashtag campaign is only for preaching to the converted. Twitter campaigns by their nature are about provoking debate and debate is what this thread is about. Your rather extreme speciesist alligator analogy was saying in highly figurative form that if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem, so please leave the room while the nice people talk to each other (even though we don't plan on being nice to the alligators). That is difficult to understand in a thread about a Twitter campaign, which is the very definition of talking in the full glare of those you agree with and those who vehemently disagree with you.


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## Brian Olsen (Jan 13, 2013)

Krista D. Ball said:


> For everyone saying they can't write non-white folks, or are afraid to write non-white folks, please please please read this writing book:


I love the idea of this book, but I was surprised by the use of the fairly dated term "sexual preference" in the blurb. Even someone writing specifically about how to write diversity can get it wrong sometimes, I guess.

EDITED TO ADD:  (My comment read snarkier than I intended - emoticon, save me! I really am happy the book exists, and might check it out. I know I'm very conscious of making my books as diverse as possible - they star a bunch of twenty-somethings in modern day New York, so I'm just being realistic and reflecting my own experiences at that age - and I've always got concerns about writing the other in my mind as I write.)


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

No. I think the conversation is healthy. I think the difference in how to handle the market is healthy. My comment was it looked like Terrence was being targeted because he wasn't in lock-step agreement, which is harmful.

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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "Please consider the possibility that your feelings about alligators are not the point of this thread."


The OP announced and supported a a movement to increase the number of books with a diverse cast of characters. That allows for a variety of points. One point is an examination of whether a shortage of such books is indicated by market behavior.

We might consider there are multiple aspects of the issue introduced by the OP. So what reason do we have to presume there is market failure?



> When I read through this thread I see what appeared to be a conversation flogging Terrence for having some legitimate points and not liking his explanation.


God Bless the floggers, for the market will never be whipped into shape for them.



> My comment was it looked like Terrence was being targeted because he wasn't in lock-step agreement, which is harmful.


And I'm still standing and talking about markets, those same markets the OP referenced on that long past page one.

God Bless a diversity of thought, for the alternative is to embrace the alligators trying to flog the thread into shape..


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Vaalingrade said:


> The writer for making lame excuses.
> 
> This is like how Hollywood won't make a Wonderwoman movie, claiming audiences don't want to see female superheroes when the truth is Catwoman and Electra just sucked.


Since I write the books I write, I agree of course.

I've said it a few times before: independent publishing is saving literature from the stranglehold of trade publishing.
At least we _can_ publish books with gay, black, transgender or disabled heroes, and some of us do.
Every book we sell is a small victory for diversity.


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

Mercia McMahon said:


> What is difficult to understand is how you think a Twitter hashtag campaign is only for preaching to the converted. Twitter campaigns by their nature are about provoking debate and debate is what this thread is about. Your rather extreme speciesist alligator analogy was saying in highly figurative form that if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem, so please leave the room while the nice people talk to each other (even though we don't plan on being nice to the alligators). That is difficult to understand in a thread about a Twitter campaign, which is the very definition of talking in the full glare of those you agree with and those who vehemently disagree with you.




You think that people on Twitter never tell other people to sit down because they're derailing conversations?

Bwa ha ha.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Courtney Milan said:


> You think that people on Twitter never tell other people to sit down because they're derailing conversations?
> 
> Bwa ha ha.


I think you missed the point. Silencing a difference of opinion is a tactic often used by people who disagree with someone. But it doesn't encourage any sort of discussion. A diverse base of opinion is the best cure for a market segment that hasn't been filled. And that's exactly what we have here. The real question is for those of you actively trying to fill it, how are you going to reach them?

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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Daniel Dennis said:


> No. I think the conversation is healthy. I think the difference in how to handle the market is healthy. My comment was it looked like Terrence was being targeted because he wasn't in lock-step agreement, which is harmful.
> 
> Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


No, he's being 'targeted' (in this case, 'targeted' means 'refuted', I guess) because _he is saying awful things_.

The same things that are ALWAYS trotted out as an excuse to pretend minorities don't exist in a given situation.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Someone who will happily stand up and shout "***********" is an obvious racist. They're ignorant and hateful and pretty easy to avoid. Everyone recognizes this problem. Someone who talks about God hating gays is an obvious bigot. They're a problem, but they're not half the problem that casual racism and bigotry are. 

Someone who will happily stand by and think everything's okay just the way they are because white, male, straight and able-bodied is the natural default and anything else should be kept to an occasional deviation, that's the kind of -ism that's the hardest to fight. When people are so steeped in their own privilege that they won't even CONSIDER their own attitudes might be problematic, it's hard to make changes. 

White is not the default, even though you've been taught to believe it should be your whole lives. Straight, able-bodied, white, male--totally not the sun everything else must revolve around. You've been lied to, and it's time to recognize that.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> No, he's being 'targeted' (in this case, 'targeted' means 'refuted', I guess) because he is saying awful things.


I have made two points.

First, a market shortage is normally indicated by either an increase in price for the scarce goods, or a large increase in sales when there is a price ceiling. This idea can be applied to books to see if the market indicates there is a shortage of books with the recommended mix of characters. This is standard economics.

Second, I said people have the intelligence, imagination, and capacity to dream that enables them to formulate a question and ask for what they want.

These ideas have not been refuted because they have not been addressed.

I stand by both ideas.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

The most insidious form of discrimination is the almost unnoticed one. The one that only gets recognized as blatant when compared to how members of the majority are treated.

Like this one. White people "find" stuff. Black people loot.


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## Rin (Apr 25, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Second, I said people have the intelligence, imagination, and capacity to dream that enables them to formulate a question and ask for what they want.


But then you have the fact that most media is presented as a wall of cis, staight, neurotypical, able-bodied white males.

You get tired of asking for things, because the default wears you down. I don't, for example, refuse to consume media just because it doesn't have queer characters in it - I just sigh at missed opportunities.

To me, the biggest point is. #WeNeedDiverseBooks...because it shouldn't be a conversation at all.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

And then you do ask for those things and the response is 'Nope, Market something or other.' or 'I don't think race matters because my race is the only one that matters.'


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

Brian Olsen said:


> I love the idea of this book, but I was surprised by the use of the fairly dated term "sexual preference" in the blurb. Even someone writing specifically about how to write diversity can get it wrong sometimes, I guess.
> 
> EDITED TO ADD:  (My comment read snarkier than I intended - emoticon, save me! I really am happy the book exists, and might check it out. I know I'm very conscious of making my books as diverse as possible - they star a bunch of twenty-somethings in modern day New York, so I'm just being realistic and reflecting my own experiences at that age - and I've always got concerns about writing the other in my mind as I write.)


No, I thought the same. I went to take a look because I'm one of the people saying that while I write protags of all backgrounds, I'm not confident yet to write a protag who is fully immersed in a culture not my own. But I will in future, and this book sounded interesting. I did notice the same thing you did in the description however, which made me stop and wonder about the authors' filters. 'Sexual preference' is an odd and incorrect term and always was.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Andrew Ashling said:


> The most insidious form of discrimination is the almost unnoticed one. The one that only gets recognized as blatant when compared to how members of the majority are treated.
> 
> Like this one. White people "find" stuff. Black people loot.


That I understand. And the example you've cited is an excellent one. I've long believed much if the news media is inherently biased for whatever reason. But as far as authors are concerned, since we're talking about fiction the motives aren't always the same. I think the biggest question I have isn't so much about why this is a perceived problem but how it's remedied. Many here have expressed discomfort writing about a culture they're afraid of getting wrong. I've never tried writing one but I think that fear would be in my mind. But how does someone ho about marketing to that specific segment aside from a book's title and keywords for searches?

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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> But then you have the fact that most media is presented as a wall of cis, staight, neurotypical, able-bodied white males.


Could be. But that tells us nothing about the ability of people to think, imagine, and dream.



> You get tired of asking for things, because the default wears you down. I don't, for example, refuse to consume media just because it doesn't have queer characters in it - I just sigh at missed opportunities.


I suppose some people do get tired. However, with demographiocs composed of millions of people, there can easily be lots of questions before fatigue sets in for a subset. And those questions would be answered by referrals to the limited set of subject books. That is sufficient to either increase the price or sales of an existing small supply of titles.

This is standard econ stuff that would be applied to any good. The increase in bid price or sales signals an increase in demand and producers respond by making more. That appears to be the idea behind the Twitter campaign. Buy more of the subject books to trigger more production. It's a good technique, but it has to persist beyond a few days.

What I reject is the notion that those of a given demographixc mix lack the intellighence, imagination, or capacity to dream that is necessary to formulate questions and ask.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

A.A said:


> No, I thought the same. I went to take a look because I'm one of the people saying that while I write protags of all backgrounds, I'm not confident yet to write a protag who is fully immersed in a culture not my own. But I will in future, and this book sounded interesting. I did notice the same thing you did in the description however, which made me stop and wonder about the authors' filters. 'Sexual preference' is an odd and incorrect term and always was.


It was originally published in 2005 from a series of notes that they do from their talks. I think it's simply a matter of not having updated to be the current language.


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## Christopher Bunn (Oct 26, 2010)

The market responds to the needs of the market.

If one is going to accept the premise that gender and race are used to relegate people to inferior positions within society, I think, along those lines, there is a much stronger argument to be made that obesity and lack of visual appeal are much more insidious and pervasive.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Daniel Dennis said:


> That I understand. And the example you've cited is an excellent one. I've long believed much if the news media is inherently biased for whatever reason. But as far as authors are concerned, since we're talking about fiction the motives aren't always the same. I think the biggest question I have isn't so much about why this is a perceived problem but how it's remedied. Many here have expressed discomfort writing about a culture they're afraid of getting wrong. I've never tried writing one but I think that fear would be in my mind. But how does someone ho about marketing to that specific segment aside from a book's title and keywords for searches?
> 
> Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


"perceived problem" -- See, there's a problem right there. 



> But how does someone ho about marketing to that specific segment aside from a book's title and keywords for searches?


Ah, yes... I tried to ask that question in the many "sell a bazillion books" threads. And got shouted down for my efforts. "Oh well, if you really _must_ color outside the lines and be one of those artsy folks.... Know your genre. Write to the market. Write what sells. Write what readers demand you write, you simpleton."


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## SunHi Mistwalker (Feb 28, 2012)

A.A said:


> No, I thought the same. I went to take a look because I'm one of the people saying that while I write protags of all backgrounds, I'm not confident yet to write a protag who is fully immersed in a culture not my own. But I will in future, and this book sounded interesting. I did notice the same thing you did in the description however, which made me stop and wonder about the authors' filters. 'Sexual preference' is an odd and incorrect term and always was.


Writing the Other was first published back in 2005 I believe, so "sexual preference" was still being used then. Regarding the author's filters, I believe Nisi Shawl is lesbian, so I don't think she used the term carelessly, but I do get your point about the term being a bit dated. On that point, I had the pleasure of having dinner with Nisi last year, a very wonderful, smart lady who is COMMITTED to increasing diversity in science fiction. I put committed in caps because I could feel her passion around the subject and her 'do something' attitude which I respect. I highly recommend her book "Writing The Other" which is used by many of the writers I know and respect. And I also recommend her fiction which I love. And she's VERY productive: http://www.nisishawl.com/Bibliography.html She is a Tiptree Award Winner and often works with children to help expand the audience for Science Fiction. She also works with the Carl Brandon Society which works to increase diversity in Science Fiction. If you want to help increase diversity in Science Fiction and by extension the entire literary community please consider giving a donation to scholarship funds such as the Octavia Butler Memorial Scholarship: http://www.carlbrandon.org/butlerscholarship/index.html which helps low-income writer's of color attend Clarion West. And for those of you who might take issue with providing funding for writers of color, Clarion also offers scholarships to the financially needy without regard to race/color/creed, so if you don't want POC getting your money then donate to those: http://www.clarionwest.org/donate/ They provide scholarships to students based on income, some of those recipients are white, male, gay, disabled etc.

Regarding the points made in this thread, I won't be responding. I've been on the planet long enough to realize that these conversations about "race" are circular, exhausting and non-productive. I won't be debating, there is no debate. You either are for diversity or against it, there's no in-between. So for those of you who are for diversity, above are at least a few ways you can be that drop in the bucket and make a difference.

Edited to correct typos.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

A.A said:


> 'Sexual preference' is an odd and incorrect term and always was.


It is really difficult to hit a moving target. In the 1970s, the LGBT crowd was telling people to use the term 'sexual preference'. Those of us over 50 have internalized that and use it out of consideration for people's feelings. Now, you and others say it always was an odd and incorrect term.


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## Melody Simmons (Jul 8, 2012)

I read to my kids almost every night and boy am I tired of characters with blond hair and blue eyes...physical traits may not be all there is to a culture but just a few different skin colours and eye colours make it way more interesting for a start.  I always enjoy the books with a variety of characters much more!  And if they have eccentric or different personalities even better...can't stand stereotypes...in any race that is!


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

shelleyo1 said:


> Yes. And no matter how many times he says the same thing in a robot voice, it's not going to become true.
> 
> I have things to write.


It is true that people of all demographics have the capacity to think, dream and imagine.

And it is true that demand curves are downward sloping and apply to books just like they apply to widgets. There is no reason to think demand curves no longer operate in the market. Here is what the Twitter campaign has planned for day three.

_On May 3rd, 2pm (EST), the third portion of our campaign will begin. There will be a Diversify Your Shelves initiative to encourage people to put their money where their mouth is and buy diverse books and take photos of them. Diversify Your Shelves is all about actively seeking out diverse literature in bookstores and libraries, and there will be some fantastic giveaways for people who participate in the campaign! More details to come!_

This is a simple recognition of what I have said. If they are seeking out and finding the books, then some set of the subject books exist.

If consumers ask for and buy these books, the price will be bid up, or sales will increase with no price increase.

The question I have, if these books do exist, have they already been bid up by all the people who want them?

Have people asked for them?

Are stocks depleted by demand?

Have they bought them?

Are the publishers making a fortune from these books?

This is the same kind of standard analysis we would do for any good. Books are not special.

This part of the campaign can have an effect if the demand persists.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

BookJoker said:


> Look at any mass market paperback rack and pretty much all the spots will be occupied by either James Patterson, Lee Child or other paint by numbers authors churning out the same stuff.


I laughed out loud at your post, complaining about James Patterson in a thread about diversity?

He's a white male author whose biggest series, Alex Cross, is about a black protagonist.

His second biggest series is about a group of women protagonists.

People don't even appreciate diversity when someone's giving it to them.

Sent from my LG G2 Android Phone.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

CraigInOregon said:


> I laughed out loud at your post, complaining about James Patterson in a thread about diversity?
> 
> He's a white make author whose biggest series, Alex Cross, is about a black protagonist.
> 
> ...


Alex Cross Rules.


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

SunHi Mistwalker said:


> Writing the Other was first published back in 2005 I believe, so "sexual preference" was still being used then. Regarding the author's filters, I believe Nisi Shawl is lesbian, so I don't think she used the term carelessly, but I do get your point about the term being a bit dated. On that point, I had the pleasure of having dinner with Nisi last year, a very wonderful, smart lady who is COMMITTED to increasing diversity in science fiction. I put committed in caps because I could feel her passion around the subject and her 'do something' attitude which I respect. I highly recommend her book "Writing The Other" which is used by many of the writers I know and respect.


I didn't realise this was ever a standard term, but it seems that it was. I remember talking on this issue with friends at school in the 80s (so a looooong time ago) and trying to figure out how the word 'preference' could encompass everyone. It could encompass some, but certainly not all. Cheers to diversity in science fiction!


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Here's my bottom line, personally.

I write what I write. The stories and characters that interest me. And they have a cast in them that reflects the area I'm writing about.

In Shada, that meant four preteen girls as the main cast. Two were white, two were Lakota. That's reflective of NW Wisconsin, which is my setting.

So, diversity is cool to have, but I don't force it.

If someone else wants to write about four preteen girls and have them be a different mix, that's great, but that's their story to tell. I'm telling my story.

But as for movements, those are buzzwords and may work for some folks, but writing long posts where people just accuse one another of not getting it accomplishes nothing.

Here's what does: Become the solution you want to see in the world. Write the books and characters you think are missing.

But complaining about James Patterson or Stephen King not writing it is pointless.

If you see the books you want to read are not there, fill that gap yourself. Be proactive. Become the change you want to see instead of name calling on here.

In other words: get to writing. 

Sent from my LG G2 Android Phone.


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## SunHi Mistwalker (Feb 28, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> _On May 3rd, 2pm (EST), the third portion of our campaign will begin. There will be a Diversify Your Shelves initiative to encourage people to put their money where their mouth is and buy diverse books and take photos of them. Diversify Your Shelves is all about actively seeking out diverse literature in bookstores and libraries, and there will be some fantastic giveaways for people who participate in the campaign! More details to come!_


I'm glad we're getting back to the subject at hand. On that note here are a few diverse books I've read this past year.























I would add more but I can't figure out how to make the images smaller.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Daniel Dennis said:


> So... now you're offended that I've acknowledged that there are people who do perceive this topic as a problem?
> 
> Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


Tisk, tisk. I'm not that easily offended.
Notice the winking smiley in my previous post while you're getting of your high horse.


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## SunHi Mistwalker (Feb 28, 2012)

I spend as much as $3,000 a year on books, plus I borrow from the library. When I buy I always have an eye for expanding my experience. What that means is reading books about things I don't understand, have never experienced and about cultures I may or may not be part of. It's one of the reasons I enjoy science fiction. I really don't understand people who want a less diverse literary world, especially not writers. I just don't understand this. It boggles my mind. God, I mean there are so many perspectives in this world, so many ways to see the world, it's extraordinary. I  use to travel a lot and when I did I made sure I read books by the people from that culture. And doing that opened my mind in ways I couldn't have imagined. Do you understand what we lose when we lose diversity? We lose beauty and truth and extraordinary experiences.  

We should want diversity because it enriches our lives and the world. 

ETA: Why don't people understand this?! And another thing, for those people who keep saying "well I write what I write and that's white, male etc." Well, duh! Guess what? That's diversity too! Yes, it is! No one is saying that you shouldn't write those things. No one! You too are diversity for someone who doesn't share your experience. When I read about people living in a trailer park in the Appalachian mountains that is diversity for me because it's an experience I've never had and a culture I'm not from. But...and here's the rub, what people are saying is that they want to hear about a myriad of experiences not just those that have become the mainstream in our society. They want to hear about and FROM the Ethiopian boy coming of age, about and FROM that Filipino girl from Manila who straddles the line between her traditional culture and westernize society, about and FROM the marathon runner who must now operate with only one leg, about and FROM the Gay kid who grew up in a religious home. I just can't believe that anyone here is really trying to pretend that anyone at the #weneeddiversebooks campaign is trying to make anyone write something they don't want to. Come on, let's not play dumb here. 

ETA again: Thanks, Betsy!


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

SunHi Mistwalker said:


> I would add more but I can't figure out how to make the images smaller.


SunHi--

put a "width=xxx" parameter in the first img tag, like this:
[nobbc]







[/nobbc]
where xxx is the width you want.

It will change both height and width proportionally. You could also set height=xxx

I reduced the large images in your post.

Betsy


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## SunHi Mistwalker (Feb 28, 2012)

More diverse books I've read:

A Cuban American writer who talks about her experiences growing up in Hialeah.









A compilation of science fiction by writers who are African or of African descent.









A science fiction book by a writer known for his crime fiction.









A nonfiction book with first person accounts about interned Japanese.









I've read quite a bit of indie fiction, but since they're all on my kindle and I don't have physical books, so they're not easy to pick out and post here. But I want to make one more point I think is important and then I'll shut up. If you don't read diverse literature, both nonfiction and fiction, your writing WILL suffer. Believe that!

ETA: At the risk of sounding dramatic I will go even further to say that if you fail to read diverse literature, both nonfiction and fiction, not only will your writing suffer, but your mind, your spirit, your interactions with the world, your perspective and your soul will suffer. Believe it. It's the truth.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "At the risk of sounding dramatic I will go even further to say that if you fail to read diverse literature, both nonfiction and fiction, not only will your writing suffer, but your mind, your spirit, your interactions with the world, your perspective and your soul will suffer. Believe it. It's the truth."


Interesting idea. How do we know? Illiteracy was the norm for most of human history. It's the norm in many places. How did our ancestors and all those illiterate people today suffer? When we live in a diverse culture, why do we need to read about it? What are the effects? How do they manifest?

I learn to interact with the world by doing it, not reading about it. Reading is a small part of that interaction.

What is diverse nonfiction? Would that mean reading both Bill OReilly and Al Franken? Sowell and Krugman? Al Sharpten and David Duke?


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

> ETA: At the risk of sounding dramatic I will go even further to say that if you fail to read diverse literature, both nonfiction and fiction, not only will your writing suffer, but your mind, your spirit, your interactions with the world, your perspective and your soul will suffer. Believe it. It's the truth.


No, it's your opinion. Your opinion is as legit as anyone else's, but it's still your opinion, not fact or truth.

I think it's always wise to be well read, but you're taking it too far.

I have favorite books, too, and while I might highly recommend them, it'd be presumptuous of me to tell anyone they'll be a worse writer and human being if they choose not to.

That's what you're doing above, and it's insulting to anyone with an IQ. Read widely is good advice. Read books I think you should read or be terrible is not. It's bullying.

Sent from my LG G2 Android Phone.


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## SunHi Mistwalker (Feb 28, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Interesting idea. How do we know? Illiteracy was the norm for most of human history. It's the norm in many places. How did our ancestors and all those illiterate people today suffer? When we live in a diverse culture, why do we need to read about it? What are the effects? How do they manifest?
> 
> What is diverse nonfiction? Would that mean reading both Bill OReilly and Al Franken? Sowell and Krugman? Al Sharpten and David Duke?


Hi Terrence,

My statement is not about literacy per se. What I'm trying to say is that exploring the mind, paradigms and experiences of other human beings who are different from you opens you up to possibilities and can expand your horizons. I also believe that failing to explore what is different from you can cause an erosion of your spiritual, mental, and intellectual health. In this case I'm talking about reading, but it could also be oral storytelling or even film or whatever medium humanity creates next. It could also be personal interactions. But since we are writers, I'm talking about books.

When I say diverse nonfiction I mean reading news, magazines, biographies, essays etc. by people who are different from you. That difference can be racial, ethnic, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, political, religious -- really anything. I also make it a point to read other people's books/essays/articles who I may not agree with. As a result I've read Christian books (I'm not religious) and I've read books about Karl Marx (I'm not communist) I've even studied Hinduism. And what I've learned is that no matter how different a person is from me, there is usually some common ground that I can find. And I've also been transformed by some ideas coming from people I may not agree with. But my statement is not about agreeing or disagreeing with a text, it's about exploring and seeing the world from a different point of view. Oh and btw, I have read some of the writings of both Bill O'Reilly and Thomas Sowell. I've also read articles by people who are considered racists, sexists and homophobes. I've read work by liberals, conservatives, libertarians, anarchists, socialists. When I say I explore the minds and paradigms of humanity, that's what I REALLY mean. I am not afraid to have my ideas challenged or to have my understanding of the world turned upside down.

I've done my best to answer your questions, so please try to answer mine.

Do you read books written by and about people who are different from you in terms of race, ethnicity, class, gender? If so, can you share a few with us, please.

ETA my response to Craig.



CraigInOregon said:


> No, it's your opinion. Your opinion is as legit as anyone else's, but it's still your opinion, not fact or truth.
> 
> I think it's always wise to be well read, but you're taking it too far.
> 
> ...


Hi Craig,

Please read my post again. Nowhere do I say read my favorite books. I just listed those books as an example of some diverse books I've read. I wasn't suggesting them as required reading. I stand my statement about reading diverse literature. If you don't agree, I respect that. 
I really don't expect anyone to agree with me. I know that my idea about this is considered radical and I accept that reality.

ETA one more thing: I don't want to pretend that I've never been closed minded and that I don't currently have views or perspectives that could be limiting my life. I know that's not true. I've held some really ignorant views before and it was my real life interactions and reading that opened my mind. It's my life experiences that let's me know that exposure to different paradigms, ideas, cultures etc can have a transformative effect on a person. And it's my life experience that also has shown me that lacking this exposure can harm a person. I am certain of this. Could I be wrong? Of course. But I don't think I am. But even so, I don't believe that others should be forced to read or write things they don't want to, but I don't think that's the intention of the #weneeddiversebooks campaign.


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

I just wanted to add that it seems Terrence has no valid posts to make anymore.
Earlier in the thread they were and now they are just contradictory and challenging for the sake of it.
I would guess he's enjoying himself, arguing his point and picking apart everyone's comment, while offering nothing in return.
It seems like an attention grab, from someone who keeps turning the conversation of this thread to himself and his opinions.

We need to keep this thread about what it's meant to be about.
And not let him steer anymore attention his way.
As they say, Don't feed the Trolls.

I agree with Sunhi Mistwalker, in that reading diverse books has opened my eyes, and my world view.
That is REALLY what I think is at the base of this movement.
People are craving to explore new experiences.
This movement may not mean anything to some people, but to others, it could be a gateway to understanding and empathy.
Is this going to change everyone's mind?
No.
And that's not the point.
This is for the people, or even the one person, to who it will matter.

I'm reminded of Lupita Nyong'o's acceptance speech at the Oscars.
She thanked the women who came before her.
Particularly the women with dark skin.
For her, when she began seeing these women in magazines and movies, it changed her view of herself. 
Suddenly dark-skinned women were beautiful.
It was validation for her, as she is validation for other young girls.
Seeing these representative figures changed her view of herself for the better.

Lupita Nyong'o is an important example from me, 
because as a light, biracial person, this struggle was something that I wasn't aware really existed. 
This expanded my empathy, my view of someone else's world.
That is why this is important.
That is why this matters.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> My statement is not about literacy per se. What I'm trying to say is that exploring the mind, paradigms and experiences of other human beings who are different from you opens you up to possibilities and can expand your horizons. I also believe that failing to explore what is different from you can cause an erosion of your spiritual, mental, and intellectual health. In this case I'm talking about reading, but it could also be oral storytelling or even film or whatever medium humanity creates next. It could also be personal interactions. But since we are writers, I'm talking about books.


Sure. There are all kinds of experiences and ways to learn. Reading is just one.



> I just wanted to add that it seems Terrence has no valid posts to make anymore.
> Earlier in the thread they were and now they are just contradictory and challenging for the sake of it.
> I would guess he's enjoying himself, arguing his point and picking apart everyone's comment, while offering nothing in return.
> It seems like an attention grab, from someone who keeps turning the conversation of this thread to himself and his opinions.
> ...


If you have some ideas you want to discuss, I'm happy to engage. However, I don't discuss individual posters or their work. That applies to me, too.



> I have to say asking the right questions is almost impossible when the media is controlled by people with a specific agenda that is directed to world domination. Most Americans have no clue that a coup took place when JFK was assassinated and LBJ took over. That coup is still in progress, but most Americans have no idea.


The right question? I don't know. The question that prompts this discussion is the one that asks a store clerk if they have a given class of books. That's a pretty simple one that anyone can formulate and ask with their intelligence, imagination, and ability to dream.

All the various subsets of demographics have the intelligence, imagination, and ability to dream that is necessary for this.

There are lots of other questions available, but I'm just discussing one.


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## SunHi Mistwalker (Feb 28, 2012)

Hi Terence,

I took the time to answer your questions to the best of my ability, but you did not answer mine? Was this an oversight? I'll repost it here: 

Do you read books written by and about people who are different from you in terms of race, ethnicity, class, gender? If so, can you share a few with us, please.


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## KBoards Admin (Nov 27, 2007)

I think there is little to be gained from keeping this thread open. It's locked. Let's move on, friends.


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## KBoards Admin (Nov 27, 2007)

We locked this thread after several reports from members. 

Earlier we had posted a warning about people making argumentative and increasingly personal responses. Some members persisted after that warning. We'll prune some of those posts, delete future argumentative posts without comment, and may administer posting vacations to those who persist despite the warnings.

Some topics tend to bring out the argumentative, but my hope is that we can continue this conversation in positive ways. We're re-opening the thread.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Instead of arguing and trying to convince people they are wrong (ha!), I'm going to talk about why I write diversity. 

My mother is physically disabled, yet I never see women like my mom in books. She is invisible. If there is a character like her, she's trying to overcome some obstacle or scale a mountain or some such. There's too few books with characters who live day to day with a disability, who have to make small adjustments to their daily routines.

I work in an office that is about 40% POC and 60% white. Previously, my clients were about 75% POC (mostly men) and 25% white. I have been surrounded by so many different people, backgrounds, religions, and income brackets. Yet, it's a big deal to have a book with two non-white characters. And they are always described clearly as not white. You know how it goes. Everyone is described as tall, pretty, whatever. Then the black EMT shows up and his race is always stated. Likewise, the "oriental cast" or the "exotic foreign features of India" or the "tanned skin of the Mayans" or whatever comes up. White girl? "She was pretty, tall, and thin." 

My brother is gay and several members of my family don't talk to him...except to de-gay him. He's 55 years old. No matter how much my sister prays, the gay ain't going away.

So I write characters from different backgrounds. They have everyday racist comments pushed in their direction and they deal with it in their own ways. Or sometimes they choose to just ignore it. 

Have I made mistakes? Lord yes. Loads of them. but I keep trying. And while some reviewers comment that my books resemble racial paint-by-numbers, but I want my books to look like my life. And my life when I take the bus in the morning looks like my books. I'm sorry you didn't notice that Rachel in the Spirit books was a brown girl, even though I've said it a dozen times. Stop sending me hate mail when you reach Book 3 and discover her skin ain't white. Buzz off. I'm sorry you don't like that there are gays in your precious Austen book. Austen cracked gay jokes in Mansfield Park; she knew all about it.

That's just how it is for me. I've made the decision to keep trying. I'll fail, I'll make mistakes. But I'm trying to make my books look like the world in which I live.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Krista D. Ball said:


> I work in an office that is about 40% POC and 60% white. Previously, my clients were about 75% POC (mostly men) and 25% white. I have been surrounded by so many different people, backgrounds, religions, and income brackets. Yet, it's a big deal to have a book with two non-white characters. And they are always described clearly as not white. You know how it goes. Everyone is described as tall, pretty, whatever. Then the black EMT shows up and his race is always stated. Likewise, the "oriental cast" or the "exotic foreign features of India" or the "tanned skin of the Mayans" or whatever comes up. White girl? "She was pretty, tall, and thin."


That is a circular argument. You are assuming that all characters without a designated ethnicity are white and then complaining that the ethnicity of non-whites is always mentioned. I practically never give any description of a character unless it is directly relevant to the story (e.g., to reveal that the speaker is speaking from an ethnic minority setting or that their good looks cause them problems). This means that it is even harder to guess the ethnicity of a character and so the reader's imagination can create their own image. I avoid any description largely in reaction to my one-time favourite author Jonathan Kellerman, who would devote a paragraph to describing each new character and I just thought "Get on with the story."


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

Thanks for your post Eelkat!

While not as severe as yours my ADD/Autism combination influences my life on many hidden levels. Many of them socially or structurally.
People sometimes tell my I'm too aware of myself or my body, but when (to others) silly things like caffeine can influence your life in ways that make you unable to live in a normal (to you) way, you learn to be aware of many many things. Because not negatively influencing your own life becomes a goal to yourself.

I write a diverse cast because I have many diverse friends, while I haven't written about autistic characters specifically (though I'm sure someone who knows ADD and autism can figure out that my characters all have a bit of it), I have written about depression, automutilation (self-harming) and abuse at the hands of people you love in your teens (boyfriends in most cases in my story, since I mainly write gay characters). Topics that, while sometimes touched on in books, are mostly used as a "learning moment" or "moral moment". I have had people tell me that I was "brave" for writing this which didn't make me proud but mostly pained me. Because many of my friends in my teens went through things like that and while we talked about it to each other (if we dared) we didn't find it in books that weren't about how to "fix" things. It was hard to find books about it that didn't talk down to us how "stupid" we were.

I write diverse books because I write about topics I would have liked to read when I was younger, and in some cases books I would still like to read today.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Mercia McMahon said:


> That is a circular argument. You are assuming that all characters without a designated ethnicity are white and then complaining that the ethnicity of non-whites is always mentioned.


No, I'm not assuming anything, since it's clear in many, many books that this is the case. If you are the exception to the rule, then the discussion isn't about you.


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

Just wanted to add that I usually have the pleasure of reading diverse books 
I've found that Fantasy/ Scifi and Thriller are great for that!
Probably because most of the Fantasy I've read could be considered middle grade/ YA 

An awesome series is Immortal Quartet by Tamora Pierce  so so good <3 

Edited to add:
Actually anything by Tamora Pierce!
Her world building covers societies similar to European, Middle Eastern, Egyptian, and African!


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Krista D. Ball said:


> No, I'm not assuming anything, since it's clear in many, many books that this is the case. If you are the exception to the rule, then the discussion isn't about you.


Hardly the exception, how likely an author is to give you a description of a character will vary by genre and even when there is a description it will not always tie down the ethnicity. In my genre of literary fiction the tones of a character's personality is much more important that their skin tone. It does not change the circularity of your argument in that you are engaging in a non-diverse reading of texts by assuming that the non-designated ethnicities are white and then complaining that non-whites are always noted. That is something that I would never assume about a novel set in 21st century London, although I generally would if the novel was set in 20th century Belfast, as the historical context is also important in how you read a character's ethnicity.


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## SunHi Mistwalker (Feb 28, 2012)

Reading the latest posts I realized I haven't read many books with disabled protagonists. Any recommendations? I prefer speculative fiction. I'm also into biographies. Any story about ordinary people overcoming extraordinary odds is appealing to me. My brother became blind a few years back, so I find myself much more aware of the challenges disabled people face.


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## Gary Anderson (Apr 17, 2014)

Harvey said:


> We locked this thread after several reports from members.
> 
> Earlier we had posted a warning about people making argumentative and increasingly personal responses. Some members persisted after that warning. We'll prune some of those posts, delete future argumentative posts without comment, and may administer posting vacations to those who persist despite the warnings.
> 
> Some topics tend to bring out the argumentative, but my hope is that we can continue this conversation in positive ways. We're re-opening the thread.


So, Harvey, why did you delete my post? Diversity in writing is stymied because media is controlled by a cabal that does not want Americans to know the truth. So, how was my post the cause of the locking of this thread? I don't trust you, Harvey. I was answering our friend, without getting heated, and without accusing anyone of racism or being racist or whatever and you delete me? Perhaps you could message me and let me know where I have violated your TOS. Then we can discuss it. If my post has not been deleted I apologize in advance, but I don't see it.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

SunHi Mistwalker said:


> Reading the latest posts I realized I haven't read many books with disabled protagonists. Any recommendations? I prefer speculative fiction. I'm also into biographies. Any story about ordinary people overcoming extraordinary odds is appealing to me. My brother became blind a few years back, so I find myself much more aware of the challenges disabled people face.


The list on my website is mostly children's books, but I think there are a handful of YA in there... http://kristadball.com/2013/07/looking-for-childrens-books-with-disabled-characters/


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Gary,

sorry for any confusion.  Your post was not the reason the thread was locked; the thread was locked because, as Harvey said, it had become too argumentative and had moved away from the topic.

Your post was removed because our culture here (though not formally) is that neither politics nor religion are discussed and your post was essentially political in nature.  There are many forums where you can discuss politics, but not here.  Our experience has been that it never ends well.  The admin staff believed your post would be disruptive to the conversation here and so it was removed.  I was preparing to post a warning to that effect when we made the decision to lock the thread instead for the reasons stated.

If you have any questions, please feel free to PM me.

Betsy
KBoards Moderator


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## SunHi Mistwalker (Feb 28, 2012)

Wow, I'm going to have fun with the YA List. Thanks, Krista!


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## Gary Anderson (Apr 17, 2014)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Gary,
> 
> sorry for any confusion. Your post was not the reason the thread was locked; the thread was locked because, as Harvey said, it had become too argumentative and had moved away from the topic.
> 
> ...


Hi Betsy, that is fair enough. No politics. I would just make the case that it is a cabal against all of us, regardless of party. I actually find some activities under both parties to be revolting. So, I honestly believe my cause is above politics as we define it by our two party system. But I have had my say and will not talk about it other than to promote a book in the bazaar. Thanks for the explanation.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I just want to say that the posts here on why y'all write diverse characters are the most compelling argument I've read in the whole thread for diversity in books.  Well done!

And hopefully, we can prevent the endless arguing that derailed the thread earlier.  After stating one's arguments and reading the responses, after a reasonable time, let's try to agree to disagree and move on, thanks.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

SunHi Mistwalker said:


> Wow, I'm going to have fun with the YA List. Thanks, Krista!


The list came about because of First Wrong Impressions. Jane Bennet (it's a Pride and Prejudice adaptation) was a figure skater who lost her leg in a car accident. Her story isn't about learning to walk or scaling a mountain, but about falling in love with herself again, and then someone else. I had included a lot of tiny details about life with an artificial leg (i.e. Lydia getting really angry at Charles Bingley for making a comment about Jane going shoe shopping, or how she wore special indoor shoes for fear of slipping). A reader posted that her daughter had an artificial leg and wanted to know if I knew of any books. That post is a combination of tweets, facebook, emails, etc.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I just want to say that the posts here on why y'all write diverse characters are the most compelling argument I've read in the whole thread for diversity in books. Well done!


We all have different reasons for why we do what we do. Mine are a direct reflection of my life. For others, it's more nebulous. Still others, it's deeply personal to their own individual experiences. I think the reasons are all fine and it's nice to talk about why we do it. It's a better conversation than arguing over semantics.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

SunHi Mistwalker said:


> Reading the latest posts I realized I haven't read many books with disabled protagonists. Any recommendations? I prefer speculative fiction. I'm also into biographies. Any story about ordinary people overcoming extraordinary odds is appealing to me. My brother became blind a few years back, so I find myself much more aware of the challenges disabled people face.


I wish I could help, but most of the ones I know are either Dutch or Flemish and not translated into English (though are usually into German, if you can read it).

Here is a link to the post I made for the event which lists different types of books and authors depending on the topics: #WeNeedDiverseBooks because not everyone is a white, able, straight, gender conforming kid from America
I have read some books with disabled kids from the US and the UK in the past years, but since I wanted to mainly focus on non-US and non-UK books I didn't list them. I've even read some gay BDSM with disabled characters (though from an Aussie author) but I didn't add it because I tried to keep the list mostly Young Adult friendly.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

SunHi Mistwalker said:


> Reading the latest posts I realized I haven't read many books with disabled protagonists. Any recommendations? I prefer speculative fiction. I'm also into biographies. Any story about ordinary people overcoming extraordinary odds is appealing to me. My brother became blind a few years back, so I find myself much more aware of the challenges disabled people face.


It's a series best read in order since it is heavily dependent on the actual flow of history.

http://www.amazon.com/Sovereign-Matthew-Shardlake-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0012GTZJI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1399251793&sr=1-1&keywords=sansom+shardlake+series


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

> THE SINGLE MOST COMMON reaction readers have to meeting me is: "You wrote that? But, but, but...you're retarded, how did you write that? You couldn't of written that...you...you're...you...couldn't of...you're, you're a retard! Retards can't write. Seriously, whats the joke, where's the real author?


Eelkat, that was such a great insight. People can be so ignorant (yep, all of us are ignorant in some areas, but we have to be willing to learn and keep our minds open).


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## KBoards Admin (Nov 27, 2007)

I was quite surprised today when I received a review comment from a woman who said how delighted she was that a Chinese boy was a main character, and the love interest, in my historical mystery. (The reviewer is of Chinese descent.) It never occurred to me that that element of the story would strike that kind of chord. I found the review really gratifying, and it brought home this diversity topic for me.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

What was fun for me about writing Shada was combining life observation with research into the Lakota tongue in order to get things right.

And it's not like there's a ton of Lakota stuff out there, so I felt like it was a chance to tap into a seriously underrepresented population.

But the best part for me was going off the life observation and having a story that was diverse without diversity itself having to be the theme.  The four girls were friends because they grew up near each other, and so the diversity was a natural element.

Sent from my LG G2 Android Phone.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

If you like thrillers, try Jeffrey Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme novels. Rhyme is a brilliant forensics investigator who also happens to be quadriplegic.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

I've taken care to include a diverse cast of characters in my series because I want my books to be realistic and logical. Their general premise is a parallel-worlds kind of thing, with the parallel worlds having been populated with human beings from this one over time. Populations from here ended up in all sorts of places in the other worlds, so the mix of people over there tends to be diverse. I tried to be systematic -- I took a look at our planet's human population and tried to figure out what percentage is white. I came up with fewer than 1 in 6 people. So while there are a fair number of white folks in the action taking place in the U.S. (about half the major characters are white), there are a whole lot fewer in the action taking place in the other world. I've also tried to represent diversity in gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and religious outlook, since these (and many other) diversities are also realistic.

Another thing I've tried to represent: the repercussions of growing up in a non-diverse environment. My MC, who is white, is from a small Midwestern U.S. town. While there are forms of diversity everywhere, there's less apparent diversity in race and sexuality in the place where she grew up then there might be in other parts of the country. Her town has only a few residents who are people of color. She didn't grow up knowing anyone who was out as gay or transgender. This overly homogeneous background has an impact on her. She's an open-minded person and wants not to be a bigot, but she's a little nervous about interacting with people of color and gay folks -- will she say the wrong thing? What words should she use? What's okay to ask about, and what isn't? She sticks her foot in her mouth sometimes. Sometimes she just sits in silence, feeling awkward and uncertain. This is not a central thread in the books, but it is one aspect of how I develop her character. The point is not to make people feel sorry for her: _Poor little white girl is uncomfortable! Boo hoo!_ The point is to show, in a matter of fact way, that if you're not comfortable in diverse environments, you're going to be at something of a disadvantage in today's world, where diversity is increasingly a fact of life.

So, I think there are multiple ways to reflect the importance of diversity. Actually writing diversity into your books as an accurate reflection of the setting has got to be the most important -- by far. But even when you're writing a white, straight, cis, able-bodied character, the issue of diversity can be made present in ways that are hopefully thought-provoking. All in all, I suspect any book, no matter how non-diverse the central characters, _could_ engage with diversity, at least in small ways. I hope more and more of them do. I'd like to be part of a culture whose artistic production, taken as a whole, makes people feel known, not invisible.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> So, I think there are multiple ways to reflect the importance of diversity. Actually writing diversity into your books as an accurate reflection of the setting has got to be the most important -- by far. But even when you're writing a white, straight, cis, able-bodied character, the issue of diversity can be made present in ways that are hopefully thought-provoking. All in all, I suspect any book, no matter how non-diverse the central characters, could engage with diversity, at least in small ways. I hope more and more of them do. I'd like to be part of a culture whose artistic production, taken as a whole, makes people feel known, not invisible.


If one is trying to reflect the importance of diversity, I agree. But if an author is trying to write a specific story, in a specific book, with a specific plot, there is no reason to presume reflecting the importance of diversity adds anything. Perhaps provoking thought on social issues just doesn't fit in the book. Anyone interested in reflecting the importance of sound fiscal policy in their books?

The fact that something can be done doesn't mean it is a positive contribution to the final product.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Terrence OBrien said:


> The fact that something can be done doesn't mean it is a positive contribution to the final product.


I think if it wasn't planned on the front-end and poorly implemented after you run the risk of being accused of having a "token [fill-in-the-race]" person. I remember watching a number of movies in the 90s that felt that way and thought it was pretty obvious. So obvious movies like South Park did it in a way to openly mocked other films.

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> If one is trying to reflect the importance of diversity, I agree. But if an author is trying to write a specific story, in a specific book, with a specific plot, there is no reason to presume reflecting the importance of diversity adds anything. Perhaps provoking thought on social issues just doesn't fit in the book. Anyone interested in reflecting the importance of sound fiscal policy in their books?
> 
> The fact that something can be done doesn't mean it is a positive contribution to the final product.


<shrug> There's also no reason to presume reflecting the importance of diversity adds nothing. I tend to think that making books richer generally makes them better, so long as the enrichment doesn't exceed the writer's ability to pull off coherently.

Daniel, you're right that creating characters who feel like tokens is not desirable. On the other hand, I think those early movies, ads, and TV episodes, despite the awkwardness of their engagement with diversity, where an important step in moving toward better representations. For instance, I remember a _Designing Women _episode in the late '80s where one of the ladies reconnects with an old friend, and the friend has _turned out to be a lesbian_! <shock, gasp> In retrospect, it was all pretty awkward and lecturey, and the whole thing ended with the designer lady saying to her friend, "If we can put a man on the Moon, we can put a man on you!" which is just, you know, painful.

And yet, I was watching the show with one of my roommates who was lesbian, and she was elated. She had literally never seen someone who shared her sexual identity on a primetime TV show. I've lost touch with her, so maybe now she thinks that episode was somewhere between stupid and offensive -- I don't know. But at the time, it was clearly very meaningful to her to be recognized as _a kind of person who actually exists_.

So, yeah, I think it's important not to create "token" characters. But I also don't want to let the fear of tokenism keep me from trying to write diverse characters. If I hear from readers that one or more of my characters comes off as a token, then I need to try to improve my skills. Well, I need to try to improve my skills anyway, lord knows.  I mean I'd need to devote particular attention to improving my characterization. And even if I got that kind of criticism, I'd still feel good about having attempted to create a diverse set of characters.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

Huh, I guess I'm _not_ the only person who wonders how it is that only heterosexual caucasians were allowed in outer space when we began to colonize other worlds.

I'm not even sure why an explanation is needed as to why diversity is important.

Maybe that's because I live in a bubble full of minorities, women, disabled persons, non-Christians, Republicans, Democrats, Muslims, homosexuals, atheists, nerds, call girls, athletes, fetishists, mentally ill, emotionally damaged, and all that other stuff that doesn't belong in the 'privileged white male' category that I'm a lifetime member of.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> If one is trying to reflect the importance of diversity, I agree. But if an author is trying to write a specific story, in a specific book, with a specific plot, there is no reason to presume reflecting the importance of diversity adds anything. Perhaps provoking thought on social issues just doesn't fit in the book. Anyone interested in reflecting the importance of sound fiscal policy in their books?
> 
> The fact that something can be done doesn't mean it is a positive contribution to the final product.





> Anyone interested in reflecting the importance of sound fiscal policy in their books?


I am and I do.

In my Historical Fantasy series, the reigning king is the second of a new dynasty. His father, the founder, broke up the great noble Houses and replaced service in the field for the nobility by taxation, in a move to break their military power. A generation down this causes problems when the country is threatened by an enemy strong enough to force the current monarch to guard his southern border with a standing army. As a result the treasury hemorrhages money... When there is also a minor threat at the northern border, the king and his advisors decide to do... nothing. The treat involves barbarian tribes looking only for loot, not conquest. After some calculations, they come to the decision it's simply _cheaper_ to let the barbarians plunder a few towns and suffer the loss of revenue than to send in another army, large enough to withstand them.
This stumps the MC, the youngest son of the king, who can't understand why his father doesn't act.
Granted, this is only one of the minor plot lines in the book.

Later on, in book 3, having become just a little bit wiser, the MC has this conversation:



> "Still, you're young, very young. Why wouldn't you want to go down in history as a great monarch?"
> Anaxantis sighed.
> "Hemarchidas, what do you know about the high kings of Ximerion? Or rather, which ones do you know?"
> "Cheridonians aren't big on Ximerionian history, you know. But let's see... Ah, yes, Herruwold Long-Sword, then there is Merdinack the Fearless. There is also your grandfather of course... eh, the unhappy Berimar IV... ah, yes, the other Herruwold, Herruwold the Bold. Hm, I didn't even realize I knew that many of them."
> ...


So, while maybe not the subject of the series, sound fiscal policy does get a mention now and again.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

I just want my books to look like my neighborhood and my park friends. I live in Chicago's West Loop, so it's a pretty diverse lot.

I do actually joke about unsound fiscal policy in Part II. Hmmmmm....


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Anyone interested in reflecting the importance of sound fiscal policy in their books?


That's a different thread, Terrence. 

Betsy


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## AJHolm (Feb 18, 2014)

I personally can't wait til we're all a nice shade of coffee brown. Perhaps then this madness will end.

Oh nevermind we'll still have religion, nationality and politics.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

AJHolm said:


> I personally can't wait til we're all a nice shade of coffee brown. Perhaps then this madness will end.
> 
> Oh nevermind we'll still have religion, nationality and politics.


And (dis)ability and sexuality and gender...

Not all the fights are the big fights.

@Terrence, I had originally listed "middle class" as an item on the list of homogeneity, but I took it out after I realised that the only examples I had nearby were gay bdsm books and I wanted to keep the list Young Adult friendly (for the most part). And because I know middle class doesn't really exist in the US anyway, but it's the term we would use here in the Netherlands.
It is something that I don't worry about for my books, since I usually have a mix of "wealth" and financial stability in my stories. Because that is what I know from both my experiences in the UK and the Netherlands.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Kia Zi Shiru said:


> And because I know middle class doesn't really exist in the US anyway, but it's the term we would use here in the Netherlands.


The middle class is still alive in the U.S., though its health varies state to state.


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## Guest (May 5, 2014)

I just have to address something that got under my skin (and always gets under my skin whenever I hear some incarnation of it).

There are ten months in a school year. When I was in high school (in the 1980s), we spent one month of the school year discussing African American contributions to society. We spent one month discussing female contributions to society. That’s because we have Black History Month and Women’s History Month. And even back then, people in my family who thought they were being witty would make some comment about “How come there is no White History Month?”  People who felt threatened because they were being “marginalized” by giving a minority group a whole month. 

But there were ten months in the school year. The other eight months were, in fact, “White Male History” months. Because the other eight months, all we really learned about were white, Anglo-Saxon, male Protestants. It wasn’t even a “diverse” white history. It was a specific type of white history. 

And let’s not even get started on the fact that when we DID discuss other cultures, it was always through the lens of the “White Savior” bring “freedom” or “civilization” to the savages. Whether it was the Crusades, Manifest Destiny, slavery, or the Holocaust, the Other were portrayed as savages to be tamed or victims to be liberated. Even the fact that women didn’t get the right to vote in the U.S. until 1920 was generally downplayed as little more than a happy occurrence without any discussion as to the fact that until that point, the phrase “All men are created equal” was NOT talking about humanity as a whole, but men (white landholding men) specifically.

Discussion about the need for diversity doesn’t “marginalize” white, able-bodied, straight men. Frankly, you don’t know what being “marginalized” is until you are a woman business owner who gets formal business correspondence directed to the owner that opens with “Dear Sir.” You don’t know what being marginalized is until you are a woman manager and have some salesman call you “hun” while asking to talk to the “decision maker” because he assumed that when you told him you were the office manager all that meant was that you were a glorified receptionist. You don’t know what being marginalized is until you’ve been told that you are “too forceful” then ten minutes later hearing a male colleague get praised for his “strong leadership ability” for saying the EXACT SAME THING YOU HAD JUST SAID.

The point is, diversity is still an issue. And awareness is important. This morning I was talking to a co-worker about last night’s Game of Thrones episode. It was a generic conversation. She was talking about some other HBO shows. I mentioned I was looking forward to watching The Normal Heart. She raised an eyebrow and said, “But you’re not gay?” I replied that she wasn’t a vampire, but she still watched True Blood.

Those sort of cerebral disconnects are what we are talking about with diversity. The default thought process that only gay people would be interested in films with gay characters. That if you have more than two black people in a movie it becomes a “black” movie that won’t appeal to white moviegoers. The assumption that if there is a minority character on the cover of a book, the book must be a “special interest” topic for that minority group.  

So if you are a white, able-bodied, straight male feeling a bit “marginalized” because some folks want to have one day to celebrate diversity in books, well, now you know how the rest of the world feels the other 364 days of the year.


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## Guest (May 5, 2014)

And on a related note:

http://time.com/87024/kareem-abdul-jabbar-why-donald-sterling-does-not-think-he-is-racist/

I think a lot of points in the article also apply to this discussion.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> There's also no reason to presume reflecting the importance of diversity adds nothing. I tend to think that making books richer generally makes them better, so long as the enrichment doesn't exceed the writer's ability to pull off coherently.


There is no reason to presume anything about it. It depends on the author and the book.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> There is no reason to presume anything about it. It depends on the author and the book.


Actually, I think it depends on the reader. Sadly, there is a market out there for books that go out of their way NOT to portray diversity, and I imagine that market will remain viable for some time to come.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Becca Mills said:


> Actually, I think it depends on the reader. Sadly, there is a market out there for books that go out of their way NOT to portray diversity, and I imagine that market will remain viable for some time to come.


I'd disagree there. During the production cycle, the decision about what works and what doesn't work in a specific book lies squarely with the author. They are his decisions during production. It's his creation. He can't abdicate that responsibility until something is published. He has to make decisions.

Every author and every book leave out zillions of things that could be included. Many of those things are serious social issues, but just don't fit with the specific book.

There may be a market for non-diverse books, but that has nothing to do with determining what does and does not work in any specific book by any specific author.

This would be the case with anything third parties suggested for inclusion in a book.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

EelKat said:


> It is very difficult for me to set up to do a book signing, I'll get to the store and be 'doing my thing' while I'm attempting to set up, and the store owners will respond with...
> 
> "Good gawd what in the heck are you doing in here. No body but the authors are supposed to be in here."
> 
> ...


  Love you, Eelkat.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

I took the early X-men approach to race politics in the Descendants by making one of the dangers Our Heroes face being policies of the day that effect their (fictional) minority group to display just how wrong they are purely on principle.

There's also a sub-theme of racism 'level' in the Ere settings where war-era the hailene are literally Nazis with wings (torture, experimenting on those they deem lesser, the whole nine yards) and have 'graduated' societally to being simply discriminatory. Meanwhile everyone has views of stereotypes for the other races that are incorrect, the lasconti are suffering from _positive_ discriminaiton because everyone expects every lasconti to be a dime-novel hero, and even the highly educated and enlightened Bardic College uses the term 'savage races'. Meanwhile the humans, while being originally from three different worlds, don't discriminate based on color so much as nation of origin because self-defeating nationalism is fun.

I also cover fiscal policy. Budget cuts are explicitly why the primary Big Bads of the DU got away with what they did from the start.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

SunHi Mistwalker said:


> Reading the latest posts I realized I haven't read many books with disabled protagonists. Any recommendations? I prefer speculative fiction.




LOVED this book! Protag is blind, but discovers he is psychic.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> Actually, I think it depends on the reader. Sadly, there is a market out there for books that go out of their way NOT to portray diversity, and I imagine that market will remain viable for some time to come.


Maybe. I haven't seen a lot of tolerance for that way of thinking in too many people from younger generations that I've encountered. Seems like most people who make comments that make my jaw drop are older. I do think you can always expect a certain percent of people to believe just about anything. I always ballparked it to be about 10%.



Vaalingrade said:


> I took the early X-men approach to race politics in the Descendants by making one of the dangers Our Heroes face being policies of the day that effect their (fictional) minority group to display just how wrong they are purely on principle.


I always thought they did a pretty good job putting discrimination and life for the discriminated into context within the barriers of mutantcy in X-Men. I didn't always understand what was going on when I was growing up but I can look back and put it into context as an adult and appreciate the life lessons they taught.


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## Marie Long (Jan 11, 2014)

Harvey said:


> I was quite surprised today when I received a review comment from a woman who said how delighted she was that a Chinese boy was a main character, and the love interest, in my historical mystery. (The reviewer is of Chinese descent.) It never occurred to me that that element of the story would strike that kind of chord. I found the review really gratifying, and it brought home this diversity topic for me.


That must've been very motivating for you to get such a letter like that, Harvey! That just goes to show you that there IS a market out there for diverse characters in books. _Stone & Silt_ was a wonderful story.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> I'd disagree there. The decision about what works and what doesn't work in a specific book lies squarely with the author. They are his decisions during production. It's his creation. He can't abdicate that responsibility until something is published. He has to make decisions.
> 
> Every author and every book leaves out zillions of things that could be included. Many of those things are serious social issues, but just don't fit with the specific book.
> 
> ...


Of course the author makes the decisions. But whether those decisions work or not depends on how readers react to them. If your decisions lead to characters who feel 1) glued on and artificial or 2) unrealistically homogeneous, some readers may react poorly to your book. If your characters feel real, they'll probably be received well.

Any setting can include diversity. Maybe you're writing about a bunch of white supremacists holed up in a compound in Montana, and one of them lost a leg in the first Gulf War or suffers hearing loss. Maybe you're writing about 14th century London, and one of your characters is Scottish. The idea that representing diversity means artificially folding some "serious social issue" into your book in an obtrusive way strikes me as wrong-headed.

Daniel, I think you're right about younger people. I'm a college teacher, so I'm struck frequently by their laid-back attitudes toward diversity. There are, of course, still plenty of blind spots, but all in all, they seem to have a strong, sort of libertarian sense of respecting individual difference.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Daniel Dennis said:


> I always thought they did a pretty good job putting discrimination and life for the discriminated into context within the barriers of mutantcy in X-Men. I didn't always understand what was going on when I was growing up but I can look back and put it into context as an adult and appreciate the life lessons they taught.


That's why it's so disheartening that later iterations of the Marvel U have flanderized the anti-mutant sentiment to the point that an entire street full of people will gather into a howling mob to beat a child to death for being green. It doesn't have any impact when every racist is literally the worst KKK member.

The short stay in San Fran they had was a nice throwback to the early stuff where there were people who accepted them, people who tried to come at them through political maneuvering, and people who would do stuff like kick thme out of shop rather than, you know, _literally crucify them_ (Thanks, Austen).


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Harvey said:


> Earlier we had posted a warning about people making argumentative and increasingly personal responses. Some members persisted after that warning. We'll prune some of those posts, delete future argumentative posts without comment, and may administer posting vacations to those who persist despite the warnings.


If you've already expressed an opinion that writing diverse characters and/or environments should not be a goal (not the goal but a goal), you've stated your case. Please make a different point or move on. We're going to be quite ruthless in deleting posts in order to prevent this thread from becoming an endless argument as it did yesterday. And, as Harvey said, we are prepared to give posting timeouts to those who persist.

And Terrence, I removed your latest post about fiscal responsibility as I had told you earlier that that was a subject for another thread.

Betsy
KB Moderator


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## 70040 (May 17, 2013)

Mercia McMahon said:


> Courtney, I cannot see how your alligator response bears any relation to what Daniel has said. There will be diversity so long as there is a mix of characters across published fiction, it does not have to be in each and every novel or even each and every author (or in your case the covers of each and every series). I would not be surprised if someone wrote a novel based in Seattle with exclusively white (or non-designated) ethnicities as it is a very white city. My novel based there has among its huge cast Japanese Americans, Jewish Americans, Korean Americans, Chinese Americans, African Americans, Gay Americans, Lesbian Americans, Trans Americans, Americans with Disabilities, and Native Americans, but then I was writing about the past treatment of minorities in that very white city. There also needs to be people writing about Seattle that has some diversity in its characters without making any political points. It all goes together to create a Pacific North West fiction section that is diverse, not an enforced diversity in each and every book about Seattle/PNW.


I promised myself I wouldn't post in this thread, yet here I am.

I write about Seattle and I live in Seattle. While I agree that the ethnic majority in Seattle is overwhelmingly white and American, it would take work to find an all white or exclusively heterosexual community within reasonable radius of the metro area. I'd be impressed if you could find one in King county at all. I say this as someone who's lived in many places around the area, including the more insular island communities.

Even if I had created a universe where my protag and her family where the only people of color, or if the only non-white characters were black, that would have been a gross oversight. I've lived all over the United States and for as white as it is, Seattle also has a staggering diversity, particularly of Asian ethnicities. My series also has a large multi-everything cast, but that wasn't to prove a political or social point (human vs. non-human xenophobia and class distinctions are my bludgeons of choice). If I had created a Seattle and University of Washington with no Filipinas, no old lady black women driving buses, zero exchange students, and no gay people, I'm pretty sure I would've called it "Bizarro Seattle" because all those kinds of people just make up the typical contemporary Seattle experience. You would have to live a very sheltered Seattle life to never encounter anyone who wasn't exactly like you no matter who you were.

Every author is entitled to make inclusions or exclusions as they wish without explanation, but it gets more and more difficult to make a case for all stories with multiple ethnicities are only about social justice, and I don't write about other types of people because they don't exist, if that's the argument.

House elves don't make the majority of characters white, male, and heterosexual. Writers do.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

winifredburton said:


> I write about Seattle and I live in Seattle. While I agree that the ethnic majority in Seattle is overwhelmingly white and American, it would take work to find an all white or exclusively heterosexual community within reasonable radius of the metro area. . . . I've lived all over the United States and for as white as it is, Seattle also has a staggering diversity, particularly of Asian ethnicities. . . . You would have to live a very sheltered Seattle life to never encounter anyone who wasn't exactly like you no matter who you were.


If someone wrote a Seattle story as white as _Kyle XY_ I'd not be bothered as it all depends on what the story is about and your style of introducing characters. I say nothing about a character unless there is something relevant to the story line and I certainly do not detail bus drivers' ethnicities. Maybe that is my Northern Irish/London perspective on diversity, but I suspect that a lot of Seattleites would baulk at being told a cleaner or bus driver's ethnicity is they had merely a walk-on part, just as I would not write about my native Belfast and tell you whether the bus driver was Catholic or Protestant, unless it was relevant to the storyline.

I lived in Seattle for 3 months in an apartment overlooking Cal Anderson Park right in the middle of Capitol Hill's gay clubland. Yet I only mentioned characters' sexuality/gender identity if it mattered and for about fifteen of the characters (in a cast of 50+) it was important that they were queer. Of those characters who were there to carry forward points about ethnic minorities only one had their sexuality mentioned and that is because that character functioned to move forward both the ethnic and sexual diversity tropes. In the midst of all this is the main character who is a white heterosexual mentally ill female and all four of those characteristics are important to her storyline.

I wrote a Seattle-based novel that focused on dealing with diversity (with the focus on the Japanese American experience), but that does not mean that I think _Kyle XY_ should be remade with a more diverse cast. I am more concerned that there are novels that treat the problems of being an ethnic minority in a city that is overwhelming white and previously used that might against minorities, especially Asian ones. For my Asian American contacts in the city, novels with diverse casts would not be enough, there also needs to be treatment of how difficult they find the experience in one of America's less diverse cities, particularly in terms of the huge burdens of the past shouldered by the Chinese and Japanese American communities. That has already been done beautifully by Jamie Ford's _Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet_, but that does not stop the Asian American experience in Seattle remaining a deeply conflicted and bittersweet one.


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## Guest (May 5, 2014)

winifredburton said:


> My series also has a large multi-everything cast, but that wasn't to prove a political or social point (human vs. non-human xenophobia and class distinctions are my bludgeons of choice).


Thank you for bringing up this point. It isn't even about "social justice." It is about "normal universe." While the main character in my book is white, his partner on the force is black and we also see his partner's family (and extended family) in the book. There are Hispanic cops on the police force (including his captain). And none of those characters exist in the book to make a point about social justice or anything political. They exist because the story is set in the Greater Philadelphia area and there are large black and Hispanic populations in the area. How in the heck can I have a story set in this area and not populate it with people that match the general demographic of the area?

It is one of the things that always bothered me about The Walking Dead (besides, well, the zombies). Atlanta's population is 54% African American. Approximately 1% of the survivors they have stumbled across in the greater Atlanta area are African American. Did the virus target minorities harder than whites or something?

This entire discussion about diversity is not about forcing a social agenda. It is about acknowledging the actual demographics of the real world.


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## 70040 (May 17, 2013)

Mercia McMahon said:


> If someone wrote a Seattle story as white as _Kyle XY_ I'd not be bothered as it all depends on what the story is about and your style of introducing characters. I say nothing about a character unless there is something relevant to the story line and I certainly do not detail bus drivers' ethnicities. Maybe that is my Northern Irish/London perspective on diversity, but I suspect that a lot of Seattleites would baulk at being told a cleaner or bus driver's ethnicity is they had merely a walk-on part, just as I would not write about my native Belfast and tell you whether the bus driver was Catholic or Protestant, unless it was relevant to the storyline.
> 
> Of those characters who were there to carry forward points about ethnic minorities only one had their sexuality mentioned and that is because that character functioned to move forward both the ethnic and sexual diversity tropes. In the midst of all this is the main character who is a white heterosexual mentally ill female and all four of those characteristics are important to her storyline.
> 
> I wrote a Seattle-based novel that focused on dealing with diversity (with the focus on the Japanese American experience), but that does not mean that I think _Kyle XY_ should be remade with a more diverse cast. I am more concerned that there are novels that treat the problems of being an ethnic minority in a city that is overwhelming white and previously used that might against minorities, especially Asian ones. For my Asian American contacts in the city, novels with diverse casts would not be enough, there also needs to be treatment of how difficult they find the experience in one of America's less diverse cities, particularly in terms of the huge burdens of the past shouldered by the Chinese and Japanese American communities. That has already been done beautifully by Jamie Ford's _Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet_, but that does not stop the Asian American experience in Seattle remaining a deeply conflicted and bittersweet one.


If I understand your point correctly, I think this is part and parcel of the issue of diverse representation.

I submit that it's possible to represent characters of all kinds of backgrounds, without their presence used to propel a very specific ethnicity/diversity based plot or trope. I submit that it's possible and preferable to represent these characters in all kinds of stories, simply as entities that exist moving along a plot that isn't limited to their difference, because most people while affected by their non-majority status or identity, don't live a life plotted around it exclusively. I know all about being a minority woman in all white settings and all that that entails. I didn't write a book about that because diversity and representation isn't just investigation of social problems, I wrote a book about a young black woman in extraordinary circumstances in a genre where they're often invisible, because visibility is important. It matters to readers, even those conditioned to substitute themselves into a white male body in order to have an adventure.

I don't know Belfast the way that you would but I've studied in Northern Ireland. Wouldn't it be odd to write a Belfast in which everyone was either Catholic or Protestant but didn't acknowledge that the other group existed, like, at all?

And while I find myself in the unfamiliar position of trumpeting Seattle's diversity, one of the things that I love about it here is diversity runs the gamut of class and education. That means black bus drivers and black CEOs. It means newly immigrated Asian cleaners and fifth generation Asian multi-millionaires. The issue (to me) isn't one of quotas. It's that people who are "other" are being told by media creators that their desire to exist in media at all (let alone stories that don't restrict them to a tragic figure or model minority) is distracting, unrealistic, and irrelevant because their absence doesn't bother _the market_.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

winifredburton said:


> I don't know Belfast the way that you would but I've studied in Northern Ireland. Wouldn't it be odd to write a Belfast in which everyone was either Catholic or Protestant but didn't acknowledge that the other group existed, like, at all?


Belfast when I was growing up there was the most ethnically ghettoised city in the Western world, where walking into the wrong area meant a high possibility that you would never be seen alive again. So in a novel set in the bitter back-streets of 70/80s Belfast it would not be surprising to only deal with one community. Back to my original point in my previous post: it all depends on the story that you are telling.

To illustrate that extreme ghettoisation: I was 18 before I met a Catholic and that was because I deliberately went to a inter-community weekend, to the disgust of most of my friends and family. So if a novel was dealing with such ghettoised communities from that era it would not be surprising to link it in to just that community. In fact most cinematic depictions about the period (e.g., _The Devil's Own_) are about the Catholic community and the British Army, with the Protestant community largely absent (the TV mini-series _Billy_ broke the mould in dealing with the bitter Protestant back-streets -with Billy a break-through role for Kenneth Branagh).

Similarly my Chinese American contact in Seattle remembers a time when few outsiders dared venture inside Chinatown and in the community memory is the experience of Chinese women being abused in the street for being seen outside Chinatown, and further back the entire Chinese community being rounded up and placed on a ship for San Francisco by a white mob.

I hope you enjoyed your Northern Irish experience; my introduction to the Seattle story came through a close London friend who is a Chinese/Japanese Seattleite who first arrived in the UK to research the Protestant (and Cantonese) communities in Belfast, although I first met her in London.

As to the point about mentioning an ethnically diverse case and not make a social justice point, yes but not necessary in my novel full of characters whose sexuality/ethnicity/disabled status is part of the story. But there is still room for a primarily white cast in a novel set in Seattle, and moreso the further back you go in Seattle's history when restrictive covenants kept non-whites and Jews out of most of the city's neighborhoods. Not all novels need to push the diversity envelope and pushing it too strongly could lead to a historically inaccurate depiction of Seattle (again, depending on the era and neighborhood setting of the story). That is why I responded to the alligator comment as it was implying that everyone must write diversity, which goes further than the Twitter campaign which is for more diversity, not exclusive diversity (which is as much a contradiction in terms as it sounds).


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## CecilyKane (Mar 4, 2014)

I knew there was a reason I had no interest in _The Walking Dead_.

Ugh, anything set in the deep South that has an all-white or almost all-white cast = realism fail.



SunHi Mistwalker said:


> Reading the latest posts I realized I haven't read many books with disabled protagonists. Any recommendations? I prefer speculative fiction.


There's a thread in the book corner about this very question. http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,182255.0.html


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> It is one of the things that always bothered me about The Walking Dead (besides, well, the zombies). Atlanta's population is 54% African American. Approximately 1% of the survivors they have stumbled across in the greater Atlanta area are African American. Did the virus target minorities harder than whites or something?


That's... misleading and an exaggeration, Julie.

There's Michone:










...Tyrese...










...Sasha....










...T-Dog...










...Bob Stookey...










...Jacqui...










...Andrew...










...Big Tiny...










...Oscar...










...Paul...










...Shumpert...










...Mr. Jacobson...










...Jeannette...










...Dr. Stevens...










...Tony...










...Guillermo...










...Duane Jones...










...Morgan Jones...










...Lambert...










...Sean...










And that's not counting extras who play in "dead" makeup only, nor all the Latino, (East) Indian, and Asian actors.

So what's my point?

My point is that it's HARDLY "1 percent" as you allege. There's some very diverse casting to The Walking Dead, so unless you believe in quotas and that the "percentages MUST match," I think you'll see that the show's doing a lot better than most... and far better than your defamatory post suggests.

You're usually a LOT more careful than this, Julie.

Don't insult all these talented folks who've contributed to The Walking Dead. That's 20 actors who've had anywhere from starring to featured roles over the past four years, who've all done fine work on the show.

For it to be 1 percent, they'd have had to cast about 2,000 white actors over the past four seasons in starring-to-featured roles, not counting Dead roles. (Since they're all gray-skinned, anyway... so far as the camera is concerned.)

The Walking Dead has a large cast, but nowhere near 2,000 featured (or larger) roles over four seasons. I'm guessing it's probably closer to about 50 "featured or larger" roles per season, several of which recur, some of whom are guest stars with shorter arcs.

That means about 200 roles over four seasons, 20 of which have been African-American. It's not 54 percent, sure, but it's also nowhere near 1 percent.

SIDE-NOTE: Not a comfortable post to make... and why does diversity always have to focus on just one minority group? There are SO many, and when you have the right character matched to the right storyline, there's more than one way to enact "diversity" that mere percentages cannot reflect.

In NW Wisconsin, in the community upon which I based the town of Hope, the racial makeup of the county was 93.25% White, 0.36% Black or African American, 4.45% Native American, 0.24% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 0.21% from other races, and 1.42% from two or more races. 0.77% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 28.9% were of German, 15.4% Swedish, 12.8% Norwegian and 6.3% Irish ancestry.

(Those are the actual percentages from a Wikipedia web page.)

So, by pure percentages and demographics, all four of my main character girls should have been white.

Instead, half of them were Lakota (4.45%).

So... should I be taken to task for over-representing Lakota? Or am I telling a story about four specific characters, two of whom were white and two of whom were Lakota?

I'd be surprised if anyone were genuinely offended by my 50-50 cast.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Mercia McMahon said:


> Belfast when I was growing up there was the most ethnically ghettoised city in the Western world, where walking into the wrong area meant a high possibility that you would never be seen alive again. So in a novel set in the bitter back-streets of 70/80s Belfast it would not be surprising to only deal with one community. Back to my original point in my previous post: it all depends on the story that you are telling.
> 
> To illustrate that extreme ghettoisation: I was 18 before I met a Catholic and that was because I deliberately went to a inter-community weekend, to the disgust of most of my friends and family. So if a novel was dealing with such ghettoised communities from that era it would not be surprising to link it in to just that community. In fact most cinematic depictions about the period (e.g., _The Devil's Own_) are about the Catholic community and the British Army, with the Protestant community largely absent (the TV mini-series _Billy_ broke the mould in dealing with the bitter Protestant back-streets -with Billy a break-through role for Kenneth Branagh).


I think you're applying a more restrictive interpretation of what it means for a book to engage with diversity than I am. In my mind, a book in which one community's geographical movements, relationships, and socioeconomic health are directly tied to its status as a religious majority or minority _is_ engaging with issues of diversity, even if the plot isn't explicitly constructed on those issues. The fact that only Protestants or only Catholics showed up in the book wouldn't have mattered. Such a book couldn't not engage with diversity unless it went out of its way to whitewash the Troubles out of existence.

To pick a different example, I think _12 Years a Slave _would've been a film that engaged with issues of diversity even if it had focused entirely on the experiences of free and enslaved African Americans, with no white characters on screen. It would've been a film about the repercussions of one particularly terrible way humans have reacted to our species' diversity.


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## SunHi Mistwalker (Feb 28, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> It is about "normal universe."


This. When I was writing the sixth episode of my serial After The Darkness, I ended up writing in a gay character. This is not something that I planned or thought out, it just came about naturally. He just appeared because that's just reality. My world includes all types of people. But maybe that's just not the world of other people.

I'm torn on discussing this subject. On the one hand I certainly don't want to be denied the diverse selection of books I enjoy, but on the other hand I'm not typically into arguing about things that to me are just common sense. I think at the end of the day, if we want to be included in the collective imagination of the society, we have to become decision makers. We have to be the ones deciding which books get made and which don't. On some level, we're all doing that by self-publishing. But I think we need to go in eyes wide open. There are some people (maybe even a lot of people) in this world who don't want to read diverse books for whatever reason. That's just the truth. Even if some people won't come out and say that directly, their actions speak loud and clear.

On the subject of Seattle, I recently finished reading Seattle 1900 - 1920 which uncovered a lot of Seattle's historical diversity.










ETA: I don't think writing books with "agendas" are bad. And I don't think purposefully adding certain demographics to your books is bad. I've come to understand that no matter what I'm doing, I'm always making a statement with my books, no matter how "neutral" they may seem. I was attending a book signing here in Seattle maybe a year ago, and a published Mystery writer told me that she will not include any blacks in her books which are set in the 1960's because that means that she would have to talk about racism and she felt that would make her books sad and downers. I just looked at her. I honestly didn't know what to say. She thought that she was doing good and being neutral by excluding Blacks from her books but I took her exclusion as making a very bold statement. It said a lot about her and the publisher and none of it was positive. I will say that I left that book signing WITHOUT buying her book.


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## Callie Ray (Jan 6, 2014)

SunHi Mistwalker said:


> I'm torn on discussing this subject. On the one hand I certainly don't want to be denied the diverse selection of books I enjoy, but on the other hand I'm not typically into arguing about things that to me are just common sense. I think at the end of the day, if we want to be included in the collective imagination of the society, we have to become decision makers.


Exactly. If people don't want to write diverse characters and take my money, that's fine. I'm not going to beg people to diversify their casts of characters.

But for the writers who would like to add diversity, but are afraid, I encourage you to try. With one caveat - just don't try too hard. We are just like you. We have the same hopes, the same dreams, the same challenges. I may have grown up eating different food or worshipping in a different church, but my way in the world is not defined by being black or a woman or a mother or right handed or brown-eyed.

I was just reading an article about Sandra Oh leaving Grey's Anatomy. Surprisingly, she originally auditioned for the role of Bailey which eventually went to Chandra Wilson. However, Shonda Rhimes originally "saw" a curly blond in the role. The talents Oh and Wilson brought to the roles made those characters come to life, but I would argue neither character is about being Asian or about being black. Cast your story in a color/ability/class blind fashion and see what develops.


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## 70040 (May 17, 2013)

SunHi is correct. I am so guilty of this http://xkcd.com/386/ bait.


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## Guest (May 5, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> That's 20 actors who've had anywhere from starring to featured roles over the past four years, who've all done fine work on the show.


You of all people should know I don't play the "deflection" game. The only people would would consider my comment "offensive" to the "fine work" those actors did are people who want to dismiss the point entirely and change the subject.

2. 20 black actors over the course of four years.

FOUR YEARS.

And with the exception of eight of them, the majority didn't make it past five episodes. So when you actually consider total screen time in relation to the actual demographics of Atlanta, I stand by my assertion. In truth, 20 actors IS meeting a quota and not real diversity when the real world demographics are 54% percent. It is basic statistics, Craig. All things being equal, is 54% of a demographic is African American, and a virus affects everyone evenly, half the survivors should statistically be black. That is not a quota. That is basic math.

Let me ask you a question. Iowa City is 82% white according to 2010 census statistics. If I created a series set in Iowa City in which over the course of four years only 20 white actors out of a total cast of 100 were white, wouldn't that see strange to you? This is what people don't get. It isn't that there is a "quota." It's about looking at it in the reverse and realizing how bizarre the whole thing is. Until you take the scenario and look at it in the reverse, you don't realize the significance of the problem.

The issue is that Brad Pitt makes a movie that does well with African Americans, it's just another good day at the box office for Brad Pitt. Will Smith makes a movie that does well with whites, and he has "crossover appeal."

My skin crawls whenever I even see that point brought up in reference to African American actors. Nobody says that Chris Evans has "crossover" appeal because lots of African Americans went and saw Winter Soldier. But The Rock has "crossover appeal" because white folks go to see his movies.

To this day, on every MMO I play, if I create a dark skinned character I get people asking me in chat if I'm black. Because white is the norm, even in World of Warcraft where there are orcs and trolls! To this day, I get emails asking me (or thanking me) for the number of black NPCs in one of my setting sourcebooks. It's set in New Orleans, so to me it is a no-brainer that there should be black NPCs in the setting. To the rest of the world, this is pandering to a demographic.

If you want to quibble over 1% or 5% or 10%, have at it. But that quibble doesn't change the fact that my point is still true.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

CraigInOregon said:


> SIDE-NOTE: Not a comfortable post to make... and why does diversity always have to focus on just one minority group?


Because one group has been fighting for equality for three hundred years and if they can't get any further than this, what chance does anyone else have?

The only people who have been fighting longer are even WORSE off.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Let me ask you a question. Iowa City is 82% white according to 2010 census statistics. If I created a series set in Iowa City in which over the course of four years only 20 white actors out of a total cast of 100 were white, wouldn't that see strange to you?


Absolutely not. Because it depends on the story being told.

If one's telling the story of a black family, for example, living in a black neighborhood in a mostly-white Iowa city, I'd expect a very high percentage of the cast to be black.

As I posted above, the county on which I based Hope, WI, is 93.5 percent white, and my four main characters were two characters who were white, two who were Lakota.

I told a specific story about four specific characters, so forget the percentages; I wanted two Lakota in the main cast, so who cares if the county I based Hope on is 93.5 percent white?

And if, in that county, there was only one person in a five-year period who ever contracted Guillan-Barre Syndrome, the percentage would be just fractionally above zero percent... does that mean I shouldn't tell such a story? I covered that very story extensively in real life, as a journalist back in 2002, when it happened.

Living in the real-life area that Hope was based on, I covered four local football teams with two featured running backs per team. In that time, only one of those RBs were black, while four where Lakota and the rest were white. Who started in those RB positions was based on coaches deciding which kids were practicing hard, playing hard, and had the talent to do it. Their choices didn't match "percentages" ... in fact, on a pure percentage basis, there shouldn't have been even one black RB. (One-third of one percent in that county are black.)

But who cares? That kid ran for well over 1,000 yards and over 20 TDs that season... He was talented and earned the position... not on a percentage basis, but through hard work. And his all-white offensive line loved blocking for him, because he ran well, not because of his color.

Percentages are a very artificial way of determining creative decisions (or even other sorts of decisions).

The story you're setting out to tell is far more important, and I generally trust that most writers are of good intent, so if a cast doesn't match demographics, I don't immediately assume negative racial motivations.

Maybe others do...


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## SunHi Mistwalker (Feb 28, 2012)

Yeah, so I see this discussion has become circular so this is where I bow out.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

SunHi Mistwalker said:


> I'm torn on discussing this subject. On the one hand I certainly don't want to be denied the diverse selection of books I enjoy, but on the other hand I'm not typically into arguing about things that to me are just common sense. I think at the end of the day, if we want to be included in the collective imagination of the society, we have to become decision makers.


Which is something I posted about early in this thread. So we agree. 

As I wrote up-thread... if you see something you want to read is not on the shelves, don't wait for other writers to fill it... fill it yourself! Become the change you want to see in the world!  Write the books you want to read, as only you can!


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

winifredburton said:


> The issue (to me) isn't one of quotas. It's that people who are "other" are being told by media creators that their desire to exist in media at all (let alone stories that don't restrict them to a tragic figure or model minority) is distracting, unrealistic, and irrelevant because their absence doesn't bother _the market_.


Well said.

Craig, I've read a lot of people saying what Julie said in regard to The Walking Dead. Not being American, I don't know the percentages. Yet, I did notice there didn't seem to be many Black American zombies. I was looking up sexism in that show at the time, wondering if anyone else was annoyed by certain things. And yes, they were. I'm not putting the series down. I continued to watch. While I don't care a zot about the characters or what happens to them, I do love the inventive story lines and gritty, horror-style American landscapes.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Becca Mills said:


> I think you're applying a more restrictive interpretation of what it means for a book to engage with diversity than I am. In my mind, a book in which one community's geographical movements, relationships, and socioeconomic health are directly tied to its status as a religious majority or minority _is_ engaging with issues of diversity, even if the plot isn't explicitly constructed on those issues. The fact that only Protestants or only Catholics showed up in the book wouldn't have mattered. Such a book couldn't not engage with diversity unless it went out of its way to whitewash the Troubles out of existence.


Actually you are agreeing with me. If you re-read my post you will see that I am responding to the claim that it would be odd to have a Belfast novel featuring only one of the major communities and ignoring the other. I responded that it would not be odd in such a ghettoised and violent situation and cited the cinematic focus on the Catholic community and the British Army. If I ever wrote a novel about my birth city it would probably be about women in a deeply patriarchal society getting on with their daily lives confined to their ghetto, but surviving despite the violence that leads to the fear that keeps them trapped in the ghetto and at the mercy of the hard men of their area. And I would probably throw at least one deeply-conflicted lesbian into the mix for good measure.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

winifredburton said:


> SunHi is correct. I am so guilty of this http://xkcd.com/386/ bait.


Many a sleepless nights I have endured due to this.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

A.A said:


> Yet, I did notice there didn't seem to be many Black American zombies.


How can one tell what ethnicity they were when alive? They're all gray-skinned when Dead.

Zombies are the equalizers of us all.

(Side-note: Post-9/11, lots of news reports commented on how post-racial the aftermath of the New York/WTC attack was because everyone on the ground was covered in gray ash and what color you were didn't matter... everyone just worked together to find survivors and help each other. I've noticed the parallel between that and TWD. Once you're a zombie... you're gray. Post-racial.)


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

CraigInOregon said:


> How can one tell what ethnicity they were when alive? They're all gray-skinned when Dead.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

To me, the best argument for diversity is this: it adds variety and makes the story more fun.

That's something I first noticed when reading a review of an Elmore Leonard novel as a teen. (Can't remember which one, but it had a criminally-inclined nun in the cast. And a trip to South America was involved, somehow.)

I'm not huge on Elmore Leonard, but I remember reading that review about the really odd-ball group of characters he threw together to go through the paces of one of his crime novels, and the thought going through my head at the time was: "What fun! Those five characters are all so DIFFERENT! Reading about them trying to work together to accomplish ANYTHING would be an adventure in and of itself!"

The sense of "have fun with casting your story... make your characters unlikely to interact, but then place them in a situation where they must... that's story!" has always stuck with me.

Percentages aren't fun. Tossing contrasting characters into a group to play off of each other? That's fun. (For writers, at least; and hopefully for readers.)


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

Not sure why, but this discussion reminds me of something I sometimes see on websites with starting writers. The whole cast will be white, living in the US, the whole county is white, and they all have Japanese names... And yes, it's totally obvious the names are Japanese... But it's just the names, nothing else. While it used to annoy me, especially since it seems to be something that is prevalent in gay fiction stories because of the huge influence of yaoi on the scene. Now I just smile, they will get there some day.

Writing should never be about the numbers, unless you decide the length of your scenes and stories that way. People shouldn't be about the numbers. You shouldn't have to have elderly people in your Young Adult because most people have grandparents. You shouldn't have to do anything, but it is good to know why you do something and sometimes (re)evaluate your writing and characterisation.

I write my characters my way, I see many returning elements between series and books, sometimes from books over 12 years old (half my age). At the same time I often try something new, I like trying new things with characters and plots. At the same time, I haven't written many things I would like to attempt if I can find time and courage for it. Like a crossdresser dating a transgender, or some things from my own past that I've only sideways talked about in books.

Write what matters to you, but realise what effect that has on you and others around you. Sometimes it's good to sit and think.


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## LeeBee (Feb 19, 2014)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> That's a different thread, Terrence.
> 
> Betsy


Not to mention a different forum.


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## LeeBee (Feb 19, 2014)

I just want to say, as someone who loves diversity in the fiction I read _and_ write, and thinks that diversity that simply exists in fiction as a fact rather than a mission enriches and elevates us all, that I really appreciate the fact that this discussion has been happening. I especially appreciate that the mods watched and pruned it so carefully and judiciously, and then reopened it so that discussion could resume. I think it all says something really hopeful and positive about the WC.


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

Vaalingrade said:


> Because one group has been fighting for equality for three hundred years and if they can't get any further than this, what chance does anyone else have?
> 
> The only people who have been fighting longer are even WORSE off.


Good point.


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## CecilyKane (Mar 4, 2014)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Thank you for bringing up this point. It isn't even about "social justice." It is about "normal universe."...
> 
> This entire discussion about diversity is not about forcing a social agenda. It is about acknowledging the actual demographics of the real world.


This.

Not a dispassionate observer here -- part of this for me is about social justice, so to speak. But we live in a world with diversity not just of ethnicity and gender and sexual orientation, but also of ableness and thought and perspective. Why write a world that's far more boring than the one that actually exists?

I tend to hear echoes of the same question in writing discussions of this topic: why include LGBT/PoC/disabled/etc. characters? I'm not writing an "issues book." But the question should be, why _not_?

It's not that there's anything wrong with the cisgendered straight able-bodied middle class white male perspective. It's that while it's actually stunningly a minority of the total human experience, it's the default in fiction.

And there's absolutely no reason why that should be the case.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Cecily, it doesn't have to be. All it takes is a group of writers who write what they think is missing and make it great and fun to read. All it takes is being willing to stop waiting for other writers to write it for you... Write it yourself. If it's not there, that's an unmet need in the world. Fill it yourself...before someone else does and leaves you in their dust.

Sent from my LG G2 Android Phone.


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## Guest (May 6, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> To me, the best argument for diversity is this: it adds variety and makes the story more fun.





> The story you're setting out to tell is far more important, and I generally trust that most writers are of good intent, so if a cast doesn't match demographics, I don't immediately assume negative racial motivations.


So we only add people who are not white, male, able-bodied, and straight if it makes things fun, and not because these people EXIST in the real world and should not be treated as decorations to make things more 'fun' for white people?

Again, Craig, this isn't about quotas. It is about breaking past this concept that white is the default and everything else is nothing more than seasoning!

The evil of white privilege is that there is no INTENT to be discriminatory. It is invisible. Your comments are in truth the very core of the problem. You think because you deliberately added two Native Americans to the story that you are showing "diversity." But how many of your non-essential characters are minorities simply because minorities exist and not because you were trying to create some conflict or "spice" for the story?

Someone up thread mentioned how they were writing a story and realized one of the characters was gay. It wasn't a plot point. It wasn't done deliberately because she wanted to tell a story about a gay person. The character was gay simply because the character was gay. In my mind, THAT is real diversity. Not diversity to create plot tension or because it spices things up. But diversity simply because it exists and shouldn't even be a thing. If your argument for diversity is simply because it makes things entertaining, you are still abiding by the "standard" and using minorities as seasoning. You are still only adding minorities if "there is a reason for it."

We as creatives have to break ourselves of looking at the world as white as the standard. But to break yourself of it, you have to first realize you are doing it. You have to have that self-awareness. Diversity doesn't mean you are willing to add minorities "when the story calls for it." It means you add them instinctively simply because the character is what it is. Just like real people, characters don't need a "reason" to be black or atheists or gay or handicapped. They can simply "be" without having to serve a purpose.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Someone up thread mentioned how they were writing a story and realized one of the characters was gay. It wasn't a plot point. It wasn't done deliberately because she wanted to tell a story about a gay person. The character was gay simply because the character was gay. In my mind, THAT is real diversity. . . . We as creatives have to break ourselves of looking at the world as white as the standard. . . . . Just like real people, characters don't need a "reason" to be black or atheists or gay or handicapped.


I assume that my characters are asexual unless I give them a sexuality, are mixed race unless I need to give them a race, are multi-ethnic unless I choose to give them an ethnicity, are agnostic unless I choose to make them atheists or religious, but they are never ever required to go cap in hand, even if like me they are people of disabilities. Handicapped is a golfing term - keep it there.

The only way to break a stereotype completely is to be comfortable with it being one of the options. In the context of this thread that means being comfortable with not introducing every character with a run-down on their race, ethnicity religion, (a)sexuality, gender identity, dietary choices, body silhouette, and whatever you would need to tick every box. Until you are comfortable with a character's race being undesignated you continue to assume that white is default. This is especially true in novels, but even in cinematic depictions an assumption that you can tell every character's racial origins by looking at the actor is shadism.


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## LeeBee (Feb 19, 2014)

Mercia McMahon said:


> I assume that my characters are asexual unless I give them a sexuality, are mixed race unless I need to give them a race, are multi-ethnic unless I choose to give them an ethnicity, are agnostic unless I choose to make them atheists or religious, but they are never ever required to go cap in hand, even if like me they are people of disabilities. Handicapped is a golfing term - keep it there.


Those sound like some really compelling characters.


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## Guest (May 6, 2014)

Mercia McMahon said:


> I assume that my characters are asexual unless I give them a sexuality, are mixed race unless I need to give them a race, are multi-ethnic unless I choose to give them an ethnicity, are agnostic unless I choose to make them atheists or religious, but they are never ever required to go cap in hand, even if like me they are people of disabilities. Handicapped is a golfing term - keep it there.


But we don't live in a world where everyone is asexual, mixed race, agnostic, or multi-ethnic. This is a bit of a cop-out. It is still requiring a homogeneity in which everyone meets a certain fixed "default" and has no cultural, religious, sexual orientation, or any other defining feature of their humanity unless their is a "need" for it. And this also doesn't help, because as our society has been trained to read everything as white, all of your "mixed race" characters will be read as white by the reader. Because we have culturally conditioned people to read that way.


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## LeeBee (Feb 19, 2014)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> But we don't live in a world where everyone is asexual, mixed race, agnostic, or multi-ethnic. This is a bit of a cop-out. It is still requiring a homogeneity in which everyone meets a certain fixed "default" and has no cultural, religious, sexual orientation, or any other defining feature of their humanity unless their is a "need" for it. And this also doesn't help, because as our society has been trained to read everything as white, all of your "mixed race" characters will be read as white by the reader. Because we have culturally conditioned people to read that way.


All of which doesn't even touch on the point that you can't create characters people care about if you create them without putting in any of the stuff that makes them seem like real human beings. Forget social messaging or any of that other crap - if you see your characters as essentially mannequins until such time as you deign to give thought to who they actually are, your writing will not be worth reading.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> But we don't live in a world where everyone is asexual, mixed race, agnostic, or multi-ethnic. This is a bit of a cop-out. It is still requiring a homogeneity in which everyone meets a certain fixed "default" and has no cultural, religious, sexual orientation, or any other defining feature of their humanity unless their is a "need" for it. And this also doesn't help, because as our society has been trained to read everything as white, all of your "mixed race" characters will be read as white by the reader. Because we have culturally conditioned people to read that way.


Maybe. I think it would depend on the issue though. For example, one character being religious would likely have an effect on their outlook on a number of issues. For other characters, a lack of religion could mean that person is a hardcore atheist, putting him/her at odds with some of the other characters. Or it's also possible that the character's lack of religion doesn't really factor into his/her background or personal outlook. In the latter case it might not add anything to the plot and only warrant a passing comment and instead focus on how the character does formulate thoughts (life experience, influence from others, etc.). So there may not necessarily be a need in diving too deeply into the religion (or lack of) in both equally, but instead focus on what _does _matter to each character.

I hope I explained that the way I intended to. I'm trying to keep my comments in theory and not to pull in specific examples.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> So we only add people who are not white, male, able-bodied, and straight if it makes things fun, and not because these people EXIST in the real world and should not be treated as decorations to make things more 'fun' for white people?


Wow. Julie, only you could take a sentence led with the phrase "the best argument" and pretend it means "the only argument." Only you could take a post in favor of diversity and attack the person who posted it like they oppose diversity.

For heaven's sake, Merriam-Webster forbid that ANYTHING about diversity or the writing and reading of such be FUN! What a terrible person I am to even suggest such a thing.

In fact, NO PART of writing or reading should ever be enjoyable... thanks, Julie. Thanks for that.



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Again, Craig, this isn't about quotas. It is about breaking past this concept that white is the default and everything else is nothing more than seasoning!


And you think putting pressure on white male writers is the best way to accomplish that? Good luck waiting for Stephen King and Clive Cussler and others who top the charts to suddenly change their ways.

That's why my theme is "become the change you want to see in the world. Stop complaining and start filling that gap yourself. If something you want to see is missing... write it yourself, instead of waiting for someone else to do so."

That's an empowering message. And it's a much better use of one's time. And gee, it might actually solve the problem!

I mean, one can be all in favor of diversity, but does anyone really believe that Stephen King can write more convincingly about, say, a black family growing up in urban Birmingham, Alabama, than a writer who actually did? There's a reason the majority of King's works are set in Maine and Colorado... those are places he's actually spent time living.

Or does "write what you know" suddenly become an evil agenda in your book?

Anyone who looks at the market and sees something missing... that's a HUGE marketing and "market gap" opportunity. Grab it for yourself, folks! Write the books that only you can write, and ... maybe even make 'em fun to read (horrors!) ... and take advantage of that gap in the market while it's still there! Be the leader in that category!

Because eventually, some big-selling writer will come along, recognize it, do it worse, but get all the credit for recognizing that need and filling it.

(I mean, my goodness, is there anything that James Patterson WON'T write, someday, if he lives long enough?)

We're living in the era of self-publishing. The only thing holding anyone back from writing the books they want to write is... themselves.

But yeah... guess I'm just someone arguing against diversity, because Julie says so.


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## KBoards Admin (Nov 27, 2007)

Folks -- you know who you are -- your opinions are fine, but please avoid the personal comments and poking. We'd really like to keep this thread unlocked.


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## Callie Ray (Jan 6, 2014)

Except, we aren't asking for white men to write stories about black families living in Alabama. I am telling writers I am more likely to buy their books if the characters reflect the world I live in or want to live. Or if it's a future dystopia, I'd like to know people of different colors made it.

Penchant for Magical ******* aside, I think King actually does a decent job with diversity in his novels. (Or at least he did; I haven't read much of his work since my obsession in high school.) In _The Stand_ he has people of color, a person with a mental disability, a teen mom, people of different classes, etc. And isn't the caretaker in _The Shining_ black? That's in the middle of Colorado.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

LeeBee said:


> All of which doesn't even touch on the point that you can't create characters people care about if you create them without putting in any of the stuff that makes them seem like real human beings. Forget social messaging or any of that other crap - if you see your characters as essentially mannequins until such time as you deign to give thought to who they actually are, your writing will not be worth reading.


The follow-on question is what makes them seem like real human beings. For most of the thread that reality is assumed to be the pigmentation of their skin (or racial identity as most people would be unaware that that the Manchester United manager identifies as black), yet that is a rather non-diverse notion of diversity. If we have to mention racial identity every time a new character is introduced why not whether they suffer mental health issues as that impacts on 25% of the population at some point in their lives or why assume that someone is straight until you say that they are queer? A diversity that is fully diverse has to work at the level of not designating most characteristics because to go through the whole list would not make the book worth reading, but unreadable.



> Big bad Jake pushed open the saloon doors with his two undamaged hands and walked to the bar without a limp. He removed his hat to reveal a lack of male pattern baldness and had an indiscernible ethnic look that hid his background as three-quarters Scottish and one quarter German. He brushed his hands across the smooth bartop, but probably not because it reminded him of the church pews that he never sat in as a boy. He starred around the saloon at the typically male-dominated crowd, lamenting the fact that he was no longer in a mixed sex setting, even though he never had any doubts about his male gender identity or the fact that his attractions where not to his fellow males. His mental health was reasonably good, but he had an invisible disability in his left lung, which explained his occasional coughing fits, although he had not had one of those since riding into town. Suddenly he tensed up as he noticed that the bartender was looking at him in a funny way: the tension was quickly defused when the undesignated minor character reached for a bottle of whiskey and said "Do you want me to serve or would you rather wait while the narrator keeps describing you?"


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Mercia, cleverness aside, all the things you painstakingly described are the things people already assume--able-bodied, white, straight. When nothing is said _otherwise_, people will assume these things. As a reader, I assume it because most writers make those the defaults (because society does).

Did nobody watch "A Time to Kill" to the end? His final, devastating line to the white jury, after re-describing the horrors that the little girl went through, "Now picture her black," and the looks on their faces, that was powerful and painful for a reason.

In the same way a reader can discover a character is male or female quickly, general appearances like skin color can be conveyed quickly, too. There are few things more annoying than thinking my protagonist is a woman because the author's name is female and there's nothing in the text to indicate otherwise, then discovering several pages in the character is a man (or vice versa). The same would be irritating if I assumed white and the character was not. This is basic mind's eye stuff I want established in my reading material because I "see" the book. I have assumed another race because of language, mannerisms, etc. and been right, and that works just as well as--better than--talking about someone's dark or olive skin or country of origin. Good writers can give readers a quick sense of a character in few words. It's just not that hard or tedious. If a character cherishes a rosary that was kissed by the Pope when her Grandmother was a little girl living in Rome, nobody has to say "This character is of Italian descent, and Roman Catholic." Same goes for everything else.

I remain amazed at the arguments in this thread.


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## LeeBee (Feb 19, 2014)

Nashira said:


> Except, we aren't asking for white men to write stories about black families living in Alabama. I am telling writers I am more likely to buy their books if the characters reflect the world I live in or want to live. Or if it's a future dystopia, I'd like to know people of different colors made it.


Precisely. I don't set out to send social messages when I write diverse characters - I simply write a world where all sorts of people are represented and can play important roles in the story. If I'm writing something and I sit back and suddenly realize, damn, there are twice as many white characters as anything else, or not nearly enough women, or a cast of only straights, I know that I'm writing from ingrained societal biases rather than from the reality that I know and enjoy. And I don't want to be that kind of writer. I want _all_ kinds of people to be able to feel they are reflected in the worlds I create.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

Nashira said:


> Except, we aren't asking for white men to write stories about black families living in Alabama. I am telling writers I am more likely to buy their books if the characters reflect the world I live in or want to live. Or if it's a future dystopia, I'd like to know people of different colors made it.
> 
> Penchant for Magical ******* aside, I think King actually does a decent job with diversity in his novels. (Or at least he did; I haven't read much of his work since my obsession in high school.) In _The Stand_ he has people of color, a person with a mental disability, a teen mom, people of different classes, etc. And isn't the caretaker in _The Shining_ black? That's in the middle of Colorado.


King does an excellent job and the way he dies it focuses on it where it's necessary and doesn't focus on it where it doesn't add much to the overall plot. His Dark Tower series has a band of people from varying backgrounds: a middle-age white cowboy figure (not sure if Roland was ever explicitly described as white but he was inspired by Clint Eastwood), a white heroin addict, a black woman with schizophrenia who can't walk who later marries the heroin addict, and a young child (I think he was a white kid but I don't remember).

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Nashira said:


> Except, we aren't asking for white men to write stories about black families living in Alabama. I am telling writers I am more likely to buy their books if the characters reflect the world I live in or want to live. Or if it's a future dystopia, I'd like to know people of different colors made it.


Which is totally legit. Some writers do it; others don't. Read those who entertain you best while also satisfying other needs, wants, and desires, such as diversity. I mean... it's your reading time and your money! Spend it on the folks who are the best fit for you! Just because everyone else is buying a book on the NYT list doesn't mean you have to... give the sale to an indie who's writing the stuff that scratches your itch! 

If you're more a reader than a writer, ignore the "call to the word processor" portion of my encouragement. But supporting writers who provide what you're looking for? Go for it! That's awesome. 



Nashira said:


> Penchant for Magical ******* aside, I think King actually does a decent job with diversity in his novels. (Or at least he did; I haven't read much of his work since my obsession in high school.) In _The Stand_ he has people of color, a person with a mental disability, a teen mom, people of different classes, etc. And isn't the caretaker in _The Shining_ black? That's in the middle of Colorado.


I think King does okay in that area, until one gets concerned with demographics over story.

I liked the unjustly-accused supposed killer on death row character that King included in The Green Mile, played in the movie version by the (sadly) late Michael Clarke Duncan, who did awesome work in that role, and outshone Tom Hanks, which... isn't easy to do.

Even if Duncan's character hadn't had the weird healing-touch ability, that story could have stood on its own without any supernatural elements; but a very nice work of "quiet horror."


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> Which is totally legit. Some writers do it; others don't. Read those who entertain you best while also satisfying other needs, wants, and desires, such as diversity. I mean... it's your reading time and your money! Spend it on the folks who are the best fit for you! Just because everyone else is buying a book on the NYT list doesn't mean you have to... give the sale to an indie who's writing the stuff that scratches your itch!
> 
> If you're more a reader than a writer, ignore the "call to the word processor" portion of my encouragement. But supporting writers who provide what you're looking for? Go for it! That's awesome.
> 
> ...


Duncan was great in that role. I also thought he made a great Kingpin in Daredevil, though the rest of the film was complete garbage.

Sent from the back of a white CIA van using Tapatalk. Please help!


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Nashira said:


> Except, we aren't asking for white men to write stories about black families living in Alabama. I am telling writers I am more likely to buy their books if the characters reflect the world I live in or want to live. Or if it's a future dystopia, I'd like to know people of different colors made it.


*clap*


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## Gary Anderson (Apr 17, 2014)

I personally feel America is stronger if we embrace diversity. I live in Las Vegas. You go to a casino on the strip and there are all people, every race and ethnic group and language. But everyone gets along. That is how it should be. Sad it takes a casino to teach us this basic fact.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

A reminder that neither religion nor politics are discussed here on KBoards. This was a thread about a specific Twitter campaign about diversity in books. Let's keep the focus on that.

Betsy
KB Mod

_Edited for clarity._


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Gary Anderson said:


> I personally feel America is stronger if we embrace diversity. I live in Las Vegas. You go to a casino on the strip and there are all people, every race and ethnic group and language. But everyone gets along. That is how it should be. Sad it takes a casino to teach us this basic fact.


To my mind the most important thing about casinos and race is the way in which is has saved many Native American communities from destitution. Last Thanksgiving I saw a wonderful act of diversity being played out. Standing outside the ferry port in oh so white Bainbridge Island, the site of the first removal of Japanese Americans into internment camps, I saw mostly East Asians climbing into the complementary coach to take them to the casino that lifted the Suquamish Port Madison reservation out of poverty. It is not just about telling a Sesame Street story of races in harmony today, but also about ensuring that past injustices are made known to kids so that they can grow up to fulfil the motto of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial: Nidoto Nai Yoni (Let it not happen again).


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## Brian Olsen (Jan 13, 2013)

I attended the #WeNeedDiverseBooks panel at Book Con in NYC last weekend, and I have to offer my congratulations and kudos to everyone involved. The author Q&A was particularly interesting. Great line-up and a great discussion.


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## baldricko (Mar 14, 2014)

artan said:


> My book female protag is Chinese American. I've one critter called it white washed because the grandma didn't "speak with an accent" or fit any stereotype of the old Chinese ladies he knew. But what he doesn't understand is that is that immigrants usually become "mainstream" within a generation or two of living in the US unless they have a support system to promote the culture (which you won't find outside of big cities).
> 
> I'm first generation and I don't have an accent. We live in the suburbs. You think my children are going to speak fluent Chinese when the primary language at home is English? The best I can hope for is to keep some of the cultural holidays. Being Chinese is just who I am, but I don't sit around thinking it all day. I'm not living an Amy Tan story life. I have bills to pay, children to raise, etc.
> 
> So my book reflects my reality. However, there are some cultural things I weave into the story like gift giving at weddings, but only as they pertain to the story. The themes are a reflection of the Chinese sub-culture. But readers aren't going to catch it unless they are paying attention. So diversity is great, but keep in mind that we are more alike than we are different.


This is exactly right. I agree with you 1000 percent. My main character is a Japanese woman. She is totally like everybody else in the world. Equal, human, period. The only noticeable differences are language, cultural mannerisms, and skin deep. People from originating from different parts of the world are shaped by generations of adapatation to their environment and what it offers or does not. They are the kinds of aspects of any person that initially provoke in readers curiosity, intrigue, sometimes annoyance. All in different degrees, depending on how different the readers sees that person. Fundamentally, we have got to get over this fixation on what makes us all different and see ourselves for what we are, exactly equal and the same. Ask any surgeon how different we are beneath our skin, and see what response you get.

But anyway its those little and really insignificant differences between people from different points on the globe that can annoy as much as intrigue us all. The reactions and acceptance between characters also make for a great story.


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## Srongwitter (May 29, 2014)

As a "diverse" reader, I am less likely to buy books from authors who do not have direct experience with the group they are trying to represent. That being said, I plan on starting a pen name which focuses almost exclusively on romantic and erotic stories featuring main characters with disabilities. It hasn't happened yet, but I'll let you know when it does!


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Srongwitter said:


> As a "diverse" reader, I am less likely to buy books from authors who do not have direct experience with the group they are trying to represent.


I have a problem with this because as a biracial person, this attitude manes I'm essentially screwed no matter who I write.

The Descendants has over 80 characters, they can't all be half black, a quarter Irish, and an eight Blackfoot and Chinese (I am a cocktail of the oppressed).


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

> As a "diverse" reader, I am less likely to buy books from authors who do not have direct experience with the group they are trying to represent.


This also assumes that ethnicity is a plot point, which, as far as I can see, is counterproductive to the aim of inclusiveness. It assumes that if an author is from XYZ background, they should be writing about this background. Many writers write about characters who are what they are not, and it's absolutely imperative that the freedom to do this remains.

I think that is a book is being billed as a narrative from the XYZ community, it helps if the author is from that community, but that's again pigeonholing. Diverse characters should be included in books without them becoming tokenistic or to fulfil a plot function.

If you write a character who comes from a different background as you do, you're not representing them, or promoting their issues. Diverse characters should just be allowed to *be* in fiction without fulfilling a plot function that's related to their ethnicity.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Srongwitter said:


> As a "diverse" reader, I am less likely to buy books from authors who do not have direct experience with the group they are trying to represent.


I'm all for supporting writers who are a minority--this is important. But this smacks a little of believing that no one can really write about anybody but who they are, which is problematic. I hope you reevaluate that from time to time and give some diverse books a try regardless of their authors' backgrounds.


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## baldricko (Mar 14, 2014)

Srongwitter said:


> As a "diverse" reader, I am less likely to buy books from authors who do not have direct experience with the group they are trying to represent. That being said, I plan on starting a pen name which focuses almost exclusively on romantic and erotic stories featuring main characters with disabilities. It hasn't happened yet, but I'll let you know when it does!


It really, really helps of course if you do have direct experience. I certainly wouldn't have attempted to write a book that gets right into the head of the main character if I had not that experience. Anyway, of what use is a writer if they cannot write about the entirety of the world? You don't have to be or even have direct experience of the subject to represent them artistically. But some experience undoubtedly helps. Picasso painted French and African people in his own particularly way. He was Spanish. Hemingway wrote about characters from a variety of countries all the time.

I don't think we can say if we as writers wish to write about X we have to be from land/group X and look, sound, act like X people do in order to write about them. I know you are not saying this per se, but how are we to know who has this "direct experience with the group" and who doesn't? And does it really matter if the story is in the hands of a humanistic and good writer?

I think we need to be careful as writers not to fall into the trap of thinking there is something essential about each specific group of people, some essence they must have making them who they are. History shows us several recent eras when society was told this was the case and that led to some very bad events in world history. It's extremely dangerous ground for writers to walk. We only need to keep in mind books are more or less for ever.

People are just people. You spend some time in Japan, for example, and you will meet people who talk about themselves as Japanese, and others who talk about themselves as being human. You find the same everywhere.

Diversity is all well and good but focusing on the uniqueness of individuals and groups is problematic for me. Where does it end? How many groups can a single human identify with, and to find they don't fit the categories others will place them in?

There's the saying, we are all three people. The one we think we are, the one others see us as, and the one we really are. For me most meaningful is the last. Equality and humanity first, second and last.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

I don't know of anyone who's arguing in favor of something contrary, like all-white literature. Being true to a setting in terms of what types of diversity is found there, perhaps. But if no one is arguing in favor of some opposite position, then statements like this are nothing more than moral grandstanding and the needless savaging of straw-man arguments.

In other words, I think we'd all be better off writing the sort of books we want to see more of in the world, rather than bemoaning that there aren't enough of them. Most of us are authors; it's up to us to make the change we want to see become a reality.

So let's get to work.  Let's write great stories with as wide a variety of characters as possible. Because, as writers, that's what we do.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks,

once again, this thread is about diversity in writing and a specific twitter campaign.  Posts that go beyond the scope of the thread are subject to editing or removal.

Thanks.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Srongwitter said:


> As a "diverse" reader, I am less likely to buy books from authors who do not have direct experience with the group they are trying to represent. That being said, I plan on starting a pen name which focuses almost exclusively on romantic and erotic stories featuring main characters with disabilities. It hasn't happened yet, but I'll let you know when it does!


I think those responding to Srongwriter's post have engaged in a knee-jerk reaction to what is not actually there. She wrote "do not have direct experience with" not "being a member of." E.g., my novel's acknowledgements is mostly about thanking the Seattleites who helped me understand their city from Japanese, Chinese, Native American, and living near the Space Needle perspectives. For the paperback version I have chosen to place the Acknowledgements as the final page so anyone flicking into the inside back cover will see a page with several Japanese names (one of whom is actually Chinese), plus Jewish and Native American references. So if the diverse reader is in any doubt that a White Irish Londoner can write a book set in Seattle and primarily about Japanese Americans they can be reassured that I am an author with direct experience with the Japanese (and broader) Seattleite community.

So to respond to Srongwriter's reading preference if you are writing outside your known community involvements find ways to convince the reader that you still know what you are writing about.


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## jamielakenovels (Jan 14, 2014)

I'm a firm believer in this movement. But I think more effort needs to be made for diversity in YA. People love children but sometimes forget about the pimply-faced teen.  They say they don't like to read, but that's a lie.  Teens spend hours online reading and writing every day. It's just not in print form. They want their world reflected in "books" too.  Disney Channel does a great job with middle grade and younger kids and diversity. It'd be great to see this with literature too.  We need a contest for YA writers of all colors to include as principle characters, characters of all colors. I think teens want great stories, that HAPPEN to feature teens of color.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

#WENeedDiverseBooks because some people still feel the need to 'subtly' disparage the idea.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

And to move the discussion away from skin colour...

What about books from different countries? (I know many non-US authors who write US books because they sell better)
What about differences in ability? (deaf, blind, autistic, severely dyslectic or dyscalculia, etc.)
What about poor kids? (and not in a from-rags-to-riches story)

Somehow the diversity discussion keeps coming back to skin colour, which I think slows the whole discussion down. If you're uncomfortable writing about X or Y nationality or skin colour, there is so much more out there, but somehow it keeps being ignored/forgotten.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

That's because skin color was what racism was founded on back when they needed to justify getting non-paid labor to grow rum fixin's. 'They look different, therefor they aren't _really_ human, so it's okay to treat them like dray animals.

I'm not going to say other kinds of diversity aren't important. They SO are. It's just that racial issues have been such a clear and present problem for so very, very long. It helps that universally recognized villains were all about that to solidify it into the public consciousness.

Sadly, I imagine people would then slyly suggest you could imagine the book is taking place in Singapore just as easily.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Vaalingrade said:


> That's because skin color was what racism was founded on back when they needed to justify getting non-paid labor to grow rum fixin's. 'They look different, therefor they aren't _really_ human, so it's okay to treat them like dray animals.
> I'm not going to say other kinds of diversity aren't important. They SO are. It's just that racial issues have been such a clear and present problem for so very, very long. It helps that universally recognized villains were all about that to solidify it into the public consciousness.
> Sadly, I imagine people would then slyly suggest you could imagine the book is taking place in Singapore just as easily.


Actually you are erasing White Irish slavery. You may know it as indentured servitude, but it was slavery as the master who paid your passage to escape Ireland usually found plenty of excuses as to why your initial seven year indenture had to be extended (assuming you were one of the lucky ones that was still alive after seven years). This is another story that US kids need to be taught, so that they learn that America once had its own white slave trade.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> #WENeedDiverseBooks because some people still feel the need to 'subtly' disparage the idea.


This is a really passive-aggressive stab underwater.

Why don't you spell out, in polite words, which attitudes in particular you find disparaging? Because at the moment, every contributor to this thread is going to feel it's about their contribution.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> This is a really passive-aggressive stab underwater.
> 
> Why don't you spell out, in polite words, which attitudes in particular you find disparaging? Because at the moment, every contributor to this thread is going to feel it's about their contribution.


There's really only the one in the last page or so that's basically saying 'stop discussing this' and suggests people 'just' write their own rather than question why others don't include more diversity.

I'm not sure I could have been more obvious without calling the dude out.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Mercia McMahon said:


> Actually you are erasing White Irish slavery. You may know it as indentured servitude, but it was slavery as the master who paid your passage to escape Ireland usually found plenty of excuses as to why your initial seven year indenture had to be extended (assuming you were one of the lucky ones that was still alive after seven years). This is another story that US kids need to be taught, so that they learn that America once had its own white slave trade.


Without getting really deep into this, the historic awful treatment of the Irish is a slightly different animal than racism. It's a part of colonialism (reducing the class standing of the 'defeated' peoples) that was exacerbated to an ugly level when the victorious colony vs England then internalized it.

Then it folded back on itself thanks to the intermarrying and relaitonships between black slaves and indentured servants (yes, this was a thing. There were Free Men in America even before the Revolution) and Irish indentured servants.

Anti-Irish sentiment is in large part guilt by association where the thing the other person is guilty of is 'not being Western European'. A similar weird thing goes on now among citizens of former Soviet states and Russians, only it goes both ways and is highly confusing.


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## baldricko (Mar 14, 2014)

Vaalingrade said:


> Without getting really deep into this, the historic awful treatment of the Irish is a slightly different animal than racism. It's a part of colonialism (reducing the class standing of the 'defeated' peoples) that was exacerbated to an ugly level when the victorious colony vs England then internalized it.
> 
> Then it folded back on itself thanks to the intermarrying and relaitonships between black slaves and indentured servants (yes, this was a thing. There were Free Men in America even before the Revolution) and Irish indentured servants.
> 
> Anti-Irish sentiment is in large part guilt by association where the thing the other person is guilty of is 'not being Western European'. A similar weird thing goes on now among citizens of former Soviet states and Russians, only it goes both ways and is highly confusing.


You got it first with 'class'. That is what it's all about. Identity politics has been placed on a pedestal for all of us to pay homage to and it is all about creating divisions by suggesting to us we focus on difference. But in reality it's all about obfuscating the truth of what really divides the world today and is becoming increasingly obvious as the GFC worsens rather than improves. The only substantial difference between peoples in the industrialised countries since industrialisation began is workers versus capitalists. I know I'm opening a can of worms but that's the way history can and should be analysed. 
Slavery was simply a way for capitalists to extract maximum profit from labour. The differences in races was an encouraged myth (which many did and probably many still do believe), and it serves nationalism (a product of our economic and political system very well. But getting back to books.

I think it very important if authors are interested in digging for the truth, rather than poking around the can of worms, there is a lot to be learned from books written by writers of the classics (like Dickens) and more recent writers like Hemingway and his treatment of war. Of course I'm talking serious writers here who probably if writing today and trying to publish their books on the main outlets would be struggling to find readers for a very long while, given the market driven importance placed on genre. Just imagine them trying to deal with the issues of book covers.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Yeah, pointing out the obvious and glaring problems with capitalism is going to go far on this board.

_not sure what you said, but mentioning a politician made it political. Just sayin.... --Betsy_


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

It's been a while since this was trending, hasn't it?  Most of the comments I saw on Twitter and Tumblr about this were along the lines of teenagers wanting YA that reflected different experiences -- i.e. gay and bi characters, characters of different backgrounds and colors.  The common complaint (which I think is incredibly legitimate and to the shame of the publishing industry), was that "I've never seen a character like me in a story."

That shouldn't be.  I think it's legitimate for young people to want to see characters like themselves, as well as different.  We learn to identify with other people by reading stories, but if there is only one or two sort of characters allowed in fiction, it sends the message that some people aren't really welcome, and that's a bad message to send.

To support this, I set one of my stories free on Amazon for a few days while this was trending.  I don't know if any of those kids downloaded it, but some people did.  I wish I'd have access to more and better variety of diverse fiction as a teen.  Personally, I think the Kindle (and other electronic reading platforms) offer a huge opportunity to young people to find stories they won't find in their libraries.  Indies are the future!

Okay, off my soapbox now.  BTW my book was a gay romance between two teenagers, one black, one white.  It was difficult to write, because I'm not black, but worth it.  So worth it.  To stretch myself and try to tell stories about people who aren't just like me.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

If we want to talk non-racial diversity, how about more female characters where her second X isn't necessary to the plot or made a big deal of?

As in, why can't your Standard Issue Bourne-Spy be a woman and still have the exact same kind of adventure? Or why can't the sword-swinging hero be female without it being tied to something highly plot relevant or everyone talking about her lack of a... an auxiliary sword?


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## Srongwitter (May 29, 2014)

Mercia McMahon said:


> I think those responding to Srongwriter's post have engaged in a knee-jerk reaction to what is not actually there. She wrote "do not have direct experience with" not "being a member of." E.g., my novel's acknowledgements is mostly about thanking the Seattleites who helped me understand their city from Japanese, Chinese, Native American, and living near the Space Needle perspectives. For the paperback version I have chosen to place the Acknowledgements as the final page so anyone flicking into the inside back cover will see a page with several Japanese names (one of whom is actually Chinese), plus Jewish and Native American references. So if the diverse reader is in any doubt that a White Irish Londoner can write a book set in Seattle and primarily about Japanese Americans they can be reassured that I am an author with direct experience with the Japanese (and broader) Seattleite community.
> 
> So to respond to Srongwriter's reading preference if you are writing outside your known community involvements find ways to convince the reader that you still know what you are writing about.


Thank you


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

There have been a couple of warnings . . . and yet, discussion continues -- heatedly -- into the political and otherwise off topic.  Thread locked for the time being while we review.


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