I think if they’re well researched and coming from a place of honesty and reality it’s ok. It’s similar to men writing stories from the perspective of women in my opinion. I think it’s never an easy thing to step into the shoes of another sex or race, but when done in the proper way, a moving message/story can be shared. Limiting talented story tellers from writing about other races is something I think would negatively affect the world of literature. White authors may be reaching an entirely different demographic of people that need to have their eyes open to the lives of black characters, and who may otherwise not have heard those stories. Again, they need to be very well researched and done respectfully.
I respect this perspective so much. It's hard to put restraints on a writer's creativity and that very thing that inspires their soul. Race and gender shouldn't be a deterrent to any author. However, race has such a volatile history that is still very much alive in the present that I think more care needs to be put into those stories than any other "boundary crossing" writing. It's unfortunate, but it's the reality.
Yes because the audience they reach may finally connect with something profound and it change their perspective. However you can do that thematically rather than with overt character description.
Christian writers have taught me a few sly tricks... :)
As an author, i no longer describe characters more than needed, and never by shade. Im not interested in being dragged by this way. I had a preteen girl make a supernatural friend and stand up to bullies with the extra help that isnt what it seems. I changed that to be as ambiguous as possible, short of saying she was the opposite of what i imagined. I also had a warrior of a repressed group who had the most gorgeous smile and nobility. He also has been written out and i melded his role with another character.
You grow up without seeing difference: you see characters, people who look like the way they do, who act the way they do. You relate when you do, are intrigued and love them when you dont. You love them and dont stick a label "oh they are just that" or "they cant touch this thing! It is mine!"
But nah, not anymore. I see arguement, damned if you do, damned if you dont, so i rather not even try. Dont want to play. i see "you arent allowed to appreciate or share". So i dont, and thst includes not being interested in reading the books of certain others, since after all, i feel banned and shamed if i dare. After all, i am told i am not allowed, couldnt do it good enough etc. Even though im in Australia and we arent nearly as messed up as what comes out of america... but ive seen enough online hate and.... a long list of other stuff that people into labels come up with to sling at other's.
When i write my characters now, i may have an idea of what they look like, but i leave 90% of it to the reader, and the rest to what actually stands out about them or contributes to the story, such as height. (And yes, i i write literary fiction- a blend that adds serious themes in, and realities such as oppression and being silenced- persecution- things i do in fact know about. It is through LOVE of characters, and through genuine suffering in my life that i write about these topics and share them.)
It is a shame. However, since I actually DO know a fair bit of being persecuted, alienated, judged, isolated, suffered injustice, and real danger in life, i still write such themes. Just I really loved those characters. They were the way they looked, and now they are whatever the reader decides they are. However. Readers can still explore the topics and themes and relate, or learn anyway, as those characters still exist in a tiny way in the stories that are out there now.
The saddest part is im not the only person who hasnt the sentiment of equality they had as a child.... im happy increasingly over on my side of the wall.
Shouldnt be building walls at all. But again, i have lived a life being silenced when i say such radical things as this... told im moral policing (hypocrisy much). So i write- with a pen name- instead of engage in the wars people wage- primarily online, i suspect.
That's awesome. I just feel like most of the time when I see white people trying to tell a story from a person of colors perspective, they still do it in an overdone, borderline offensive manner...kind of like black face. There have been exceptions to the rule, Pay Conroy does a good job of stepping into the shoes of black people for one , but those are few and far.between. I respect you quite a bit as a writer—ill have to check out some of your books
Thanks so much, Brandie. And I totally respect your opinion and agree with you in many ways. It's a difficult topic but I LOVE that all the comments (including yours) have been respectful and honest. It really shows that this small community on WRITERS ARE SUPERSTARS really do "get it." And yay to reading some of my books. I would start with Boys and Girls Screaming. It's my favourite :)
The piece on Flipboard asks the question, "Should white writers write entire books about black protagonists and groups?" which is a bit different than asking about black characters within a fiction book about ... oh, anything. I found Patterson's defense heartfelt. That doesn't mean he's right, but I think he is sincere.
The question about whites writing black characters...well, sometimes a writer has to. 1) What is a world without black people anyway? 2) It helps (but is not necessary) to base the character on someone the writer has known; 3) Racists dehumanize their hated targets. It's important to make clear the humanity of all people; 4) Frank Darabont (a Hungarian refugee who spent time in camps), wrote the movie "Shawshank Redemption." Praise God for Morgan Freeman, but somebody had to write the script; 5) Black people are definitely black (or brown, tan, or even...white), and they are also definitely human. We have more in common as people than we do as races -- therefore, it allows writers to address issues larger than race; 6) Many environments call for black characters. How ridiculous it would be to write about, say, Greensboro, South Central LA, or Chicago without black characters?
7) Would bi-racial people pass muster to write about both their racial inheritances? Or neither?
8) I think that, rather than trying to pre-judge who should write about what, we need to consider the work in question and the responses of a variety of people to it.
In short, I think projects choose writers as much as writers choose projects. I would be suspicious about any work that treated all those within a group negatively. Except maybe Nazis...they're damned hard to applaud, but ask the Proud Boys...
So much of what I read here seems to address society, history and trauma as necessary components in characterizing people who are not black. Some books are not sociological studies or out to highlight political evils. To a fiction writer, such aspects character development work as background and context. The character is cherished by the author more than real people. Characters gradually recede from the pages in progress when assigned the task of confirming to an outside judgement as to their authenticity as a member of a race or creed or nationality. They feel misunderstood. Wouldn't you?
Hey Parmalee, when you say the characters feel misunderstood, in what context are you referring to? Do you mean they are misunderstood by readers? Or are you saying that if an author chooses to write a character outside of their race, it's not a political decision or not for "sociological study," as you said, and instead they are just characters in a story that the author loves and should be understood as such?
That's a tricky question. I think that even when someone is capable of being truly understanding and sympathetic to what it's like to live and grow up black in the US, you can never truly understand the black experienced without having ever been black. Some people might not agree saying marginalization is still marginalization no matter what your skin tone, but I'd have to disagree. I grew up in the deep south and I've spent most of my adult life there, and some of the things I've seen and the way I've seen other people get treated is just appalling. And the way people hold onto that ignorance and small mindedness is just indescribable. I don't think white people should write about being black, I don't think straight people should write about being gay I don't think men should write about what it's like to live as a woman and vice versa.
Fair. However, I've written two novels from the perspective of a young woman (teenagers). I never once felt like I was stepping into territory I wasn't allowed. I was a teenage parent and those were some of the toughest years of my life. My daughter was a teenager when I was writing the books. Being able to observe her and her friends daily helped shape some parts of the stories, but really I just felt compelled to tell the stories I told. Telling those stories got me publishing deals that changed my life. None of that would've been possible if I didn't think I had the rite to write from a female perspective.
I write this response for your white & white-passing readers, Kern, because you don't need me to tell you, but when my black daughter asked me to write her a heroine, I was obliged. That said, one needs at least 10 black interviewees and 10 different black critical readers, preferably from diverse regions and background, because black diaspora creates such a wide-ranging impact on black experience that is nowhere written, aggregated, or easily accessible to research by any other means. Unlike age and regional differences that are easily researched, writing about the marginalized, whose histories are expunged from all but memory, requires overtly tender handling and patience to build trust.
Gut Check: if wide ranging person-to-person research and feedback with black humans makes you BALK on any level, then as white or white-passing human, you have ZERO right to, or business telling, that story. If it seems too much work, then you don’t care enough to get it right or your latent racism is cringing. Either way, back away from the story immediately.
If it sounds like a challenging exploration of human understanding, read on.
To me, there is so much greater nuance to the black experience than any white experience because of the myriad ways systemic oppression extends its tentacles to exert control over their lives. Even in terms of how black joy is so often hidden to be protected. It's why white allies aren’t often invited to a black girls’ night out, because the need to be free of speaking in code and/or the exhausting labor of educating the white one is often required to even experience, bask in, and replenish with black joy.
My learning in this journey of writing an interracial protagonist duo has highlighted how building in the diaspora backstory defines a black character's POV and how they respond to the world, especially in realistic earth-based fiction. For example, it should be a no-brainer that a black human descended from those enslaved has a different existence from offspring of willing African immigrants, but I see this mismatch repeatedly in writing groups.
Then family definition, gender-identity, and geography layers widen that terrain, as a child raised with a single white mother in suburban San Francisco Bay with no family support will have a very different cultural experience than one raised with two black parents in New Orleans with an extended family and their history all around them. Parent melanation and gender identity may disconnect from their offspring in a multitude of ways that complicate one’s story.
We must consider the continuum of greater or lesser geopolitical stressors from the volume & degrees of microaggression to systemic institution denials like university admissions and voter suppression that go beyond the easy to identify overt, even gleeful, deadly-violence racism that plays out online.
One cannot be remiss in considering the likelihood of a character having an unjustly incarcerated parent, one disabled by medical misconduct, or humiliated at a young age by a racist teacher that turned them against learning from any white teacher forever, including their children’s teachers.
Even if much of your black character’s backstory is not explicitly shown in the story, the generational impact of such trauma and internal community support simply must be embedded in their mindset for them to feel authentic to the black community. Repeatedly, we are shown how easily black critical readers completely identify with black characters not from their same circumstance if the characters are steeped in a cohesive, authentic derivation of black identity. The visceral experience of black identity includes exposure to that wide milieu of diaspora outcomes that only comes to light for white writers with open, honest, and deeply thoughtful dialog.
And let us not forget generational socioeconomic layers to build in our characters of achieved affluence by legal vs desperation means, how that's relative to others in their back story and present. How country poor is very different from city poor, how buying land doesn’t equal security when it makes one a target for predatory lenders and land developers who think black buyers have no right to rise up. All must be considered.
NOT DONE yet! Writers must crucially illustrate how that character's black community responds within itself to all these circumstances, not just the white external POV perception of and response to black life. Cannot stress this enough! It is the ultimate measure of whether a white writer gets it right.
Internal black community relationships initially hidden by coded survival linguistics to all whites for safety, still lie mostly in that realm. Black community strength and love is the toughest to correctly perceive & portray, even for ride-or-die allies, and I extend that difficulty to white-passing mixed authors, who may have the blood and empathy for oppressed brethren, but do not directly suffer the consequences of dark skin and are often subtly excluded from such conversations. There simply must be dialog before writing and certainly before publishing black stories especially about their strength and love because those were used as justification for persecution.
Generally, subjugation diaspora must be handled similarly in societies born of genocide and bloody forced slavery, where humans are torn from their homeland of ancestral burial and worship grounds, denied access to their language and cultural practices with terror acculturation, and then still denied unimpeded access to their new unwanted and unwelcoming society. 1st Peoples cultures intimately tied to a land regions often fell to eugenics that swept the globe and require the same need for tender handling by writers: Native American, Maori, Tsuti, etc. (*I omit the Jewish and Palestinian rift here where both sides have at one time and simultaneously both been oppressed and oppressor. Before writing watch "Five Cameras" documentary shot by children under occupation, then decide if you have what it takes to walk through doubly dense storytelling landmines.)
Bottom line: Black diaspora, pervasive subjugation, and its generational impacts cannot be ignored in black characters, especially those descended from the enslaved ancestors, but neither should it be the only focus of a black character's life, and this delicate dance of words can only be exposed and illuminated by non-black writers willing to dive deep into a broad ranging black conversation/critique process, and then bowing to that greater lived experience.
After all that :D, I forgot to say I enjoyed the article and appreciated his in-person relationships necessary to write well. I'm mostly glad those black humans felt heard, and I think that's great for contemporary fiction, however, I believe works of Black History & Black dominant Historical Fiction, should be left to Black authors entirely. The world just doesn't need even 1 more white word on those topics. For a white writer to think otherwise, regardless of an aching need for virtue signalling in states of white guilt, it's all pure Id fueled by ego hubris with far too little superego at the helm - that ole YT privilege chestnut.
Fair point, Brandon. I think the perspective of the story and the type of book does matter. I wonder about the responsibility of readers. Should they reject a book based strictly off the fact that it's a white writer? And here's another point to think about: what if the book is really, really good?
I think if they’re well researched and coming from a place of honesty and reality it’s ok. It’s similar to men writing stories from the perspective of women in my opinion. I think it’s never an easy thing to step into the shoes of another sex or race, but when done in the proper way, a moving message/story can be shared. Limiting talented story tellers from writing about other races is something I think would negatively affect the world of literature. White authors may be reaching an entirely different demographic of people that need to have their eyes open to the lives of black characters, and who may otherwise not have heard those stories. Again, they need to be very well researched and done respectfully.
I respect this perspective so much. It's hard to put restraints on a writer's creativity and that very thing that inspires their soul. Race and gender shouldn't be a deterrent to any author. However, race has such a volatile history that is still very much alive in the present that I think more care needs to be put into those stories than any other "boundary crossing" writing. It's unfortunate, but it's the reality.
100%
Yes because the audience they reach may finally connect with something profound and it change their perspective. However you can do that thematically rather than with overt character description.
Christian writers have taught me a few sly tricks... :)
As an author, i no longer describe characters more than needed, and never by shade. Im not interested in being dragged by this way. I had a preteen girl make a supernatural friend and stand up to bullies with the extra help that isnt what it seems. I changed that to be as ambiguous as possible, short of saying she was the opposite of what i imagined. I also had a warrior of a repressed group who had the most gorgeous smile and nobility. He also has been written out and i melded his role with another character.
You grow up without seeing difference: you see characters, people who look like the way they do, who act the way they do. You relate when you do, are intrigued and love them when you dont. You love them and dont stick a label "oh they are just that" or "they cant touch this thing! It is mine!"
But nah, not anymore. I see arguement, damned if you do, damned if you dont, so i rather not even try. Dont want to play. i see "you arent allowed to appreciate or share". So i dont, and thst includes not being interested in reading the books of certain others, since after all, i feel banned and shamed if i dare. After all, i am told i am not allowed, couldnt do it good enough etc. Even though im in Australia and we arent nearly as messed up as what comes out of america... but ive seen enough online hate and.... a long list of other stuff that people into labels come up with to sling at other's.
When i write my characters now, i may have an idea of what they look like, but i leave 90% of it to the reader, and the rest to what actually stands out about them or contributes to the story, such as height. (And yes, i i write literary fiction- a blend that adds serious themes in, and realities such as oppression and being silenced- persecution- things i do in fact know about. It is through LOVE of characters, and through genuine suffering in my life that i write about these topics and share them.)
It is a shame. However, since I actually DO know a fair bit of being persecuted, alienated, judged, isolated, suffered injustice, and real danger in life, i still write such themes. Just I really loved those characters. They were the way they looked, and now they are whatever the reader decides they are. However. Readers can still explore the topics and themes and relate, or learn anyway, as those characters still exist in a tiny way in the stories that are out there now.
The saddest part is im not the only person who hasnt the sentiment of equality they had as a child.... im happy increasingly over on my side of the wall.
Shouldnt be building walls at all. But again, i have lived a life being silenced when i say such radical things as this... told im moral policing (hypocrisy much). So i write- with a pen name- instead of engage in the wars people wage- primarily online, i suspect.
That's awesome. I just feel like most of the time when I see white people trying to tell a story from a person of colors perspective, they still do it in an overdone, borderline offensive manner...kind of like black face. There have been exceptions to the rule, Pay Conroy does a good job of stepping into the shoes of black people for one , but those are few and far.between. I respect you quite a bit as a writer—ill have to check out some of your books
Thanks so much, Brandie. And I totally respect your opinion and agree with you in many ways. It's a difficult topic but I LOVE that all the comments (including yours) have been respectful and honest. It really shows that this small community on WRITERS ARE SUPERSTARS really do "get it." And yay to reading some of my books. I would start with Boys and Girls Screaming. It's my favourite :)
The piece on Flipboard asks the question, "Should white writers write entire books about black protagonists and groups?" which is a bit different than asking about black characters within a fiction book about ... oh, anything. I found Patterson's defense heartfelt. That doesn't mean he's right, but I think he is sincere.
The question about whites writing black characters...well, sometimes a writer has to. 1) What is a world without black people anyway? 2) It helps (but is not necessary) to base the character on someone the writer has known; 3) Racists dehumanize their hated targets. It's important to make clear the humanity of all people; 4) Frank Darabont (a Hungarian refugee who spent time in camps), wrote the movie "Shawshank Redemption." Praise God for Morgan Freeman, but somebody had to write the script; 5) Black people are definitely black (or brown, tan, or even...white), and they are also definitely human. We have more in common as people than we do as races -- therefore, it allows writers to address issues larger than race; 6) Many environments call for black characters. How ridiculous it would be to write about, say, Greensboro, South Central LA, or Chicago without black characters?
7) Would bi-racial people pass muster to write about both their racial inheritances? Or neither?
8) I think that, rather than trying to pre-judge who should write about what, we need to consider the work in question and the responses of a variety of people to it.
In short, I think projects choose writers as much as writers choose projects. I would be suspicious about any work that treated all those within a group negatively. Except maybe Nazis...they're damned hard to applaud, but ask the Proud Boys...
So many things to think about. It really is a difficult question to answer.
So much of what I read here seems to address society, history and trauma as necessary components in characterizing people who are not black. Some books are not sociological studies or out to highlight political evils. To a fiction writer, such aspects character development work as background and context. The character is cherished by the author more than real people. Characters gradually recede from the pages in progress when assigned the task of confirming to an outside judgement as to their authenticity as a member of a race or creed or nationality. They feel misunderstood. Wouldn't you?
Hey Parmalee, when you say the characters feel misunderstood, in what context are you referring to? Do you mean they are misunderstood by readers? Or are you saying that if an author chooses to write a character outside of their race, it's not a political decision or not for "sociological study," as you said, and instead they are just characters in a story that the author loves and should be understood as such?
That's a tricky question. I think that even when someone is capable of being truly understanding and sympathetic to what it's like to live and grow up black in the US, you can never truly understand the black experienced without having ever been black. Some people might not agree saying marginalization is still marginalization no matter what your skin tone, but I'd have to disagree. I grew up in the deep south and I've spent most of my adult life there, and some of the things I've seen and the way I've seen other people get treated is just appalling. And the way people hold onto that ignorance and small mindedness is just indescribable. I don't think white people should write about being black, I don't think straight people should write about being gay I don't think men should write about what it's like to live as a woman and vice versa.
Fair. However, I've written two novels from the perspective of a young woman (teenagers). I never once felt like I was stepping into territory I wasn't allowed. I was a teenage parent and those were some of the toughest years of my life. My daughter was a teenager when I was writing the books. Being able to observe her and her friends daily helped shape some parts of the stories, but really I just felt compelled to tell the stories I told. Telling those stories got me publishing deals that changed my life. None of that would've been possible if I didn't think I had the rite to write from a female perspective.
I write this response for your white & white-passing readers, Kern, because you don't need me to tell you, but when my black daughter asked me to write her a heroine, I was obliged. That said, one needs at least 10 black interviewees and 10 different black critical readers, preferably from diverse regions and background, because black diaspora creates such a wide-ranging impact on black experience that is nowhere written, aggregated, or easily accessible to research by any other means. Unlike age and regional differences that are easily researched, writing about the marginalized, whose histories are expunged from all but memory, requires overtly tender handling and patience to build trust.
Gut Check: if wide ranging person-to-person research and feedback with black humans makes you BALK on any level, then as white or white-passing human, you have ZERO right to, or business telling, that story. If it seems too much work, then you don’t care enough to get it right or your latent racism is cringing. Either way, back away from the story immediately.
If it sounds like a challenging exploration of human understanding, read on.
To me, there is so much greater nuance to the black experience than any white experience because of the myriad ways systemic oppression extends its tentacles to exert control over their lives. Even in terms of how black joy is so often hidden to be protected. It's why white allies aren’t often invited to a black girls’ night out, because the need to be free of speaking in code and/or the exhausting labor of educating the white one is often required to even experience, bask in, and replenish with black joy.
My learning in this journey of writing an interracial protagonist duo has highlighted how building in the diaspora backstory defines a black character's POV and how they respond to the world, especially in realistic earth-based fiction. For example, it should be a no-brainer that a black human descended from those enslaved has a different existence from offspring of willing African immigrants, but I see this mismatch repeatedly in writing groups.
Then family definition, gender-identity, and geography layers widen that terrain, as a child raised with a single white mother in suburban San Francisco Bay with no family support will have a very different cultural experience than one raised with two black parents in New Orleans with an extended family and their history all around them. Parent melanation and gender identity may disconnect from their offspring in a multitude of ways that complicate one’s story.
We must consider the continuum of greater or lesser geopolitical stressors from the volume & degrees of microaggression to systemic institution denials like university admissions and voter suppression that go beyond the easy to identify overt, even gleeful, deadly-violence racism that plays out online.
One cannot be remiss in considering the likelihood of a character having an unjustly incarcerated parent, one disabled by medical misconduct, or humiliated at a young age by a racist teacher that turned them against learning from any white teacher forever, including their children’s teachers.
Even if much of your black character’s backstory is not explicitly shown in the story, the generational impact of such trauma and internal community support simply must be embedded in their mindset for them to feel authentic to the black community. Repeatedly, we are shown how easily black critical readers completely identify with black characters not from their same circumstance if the characters are steeped in a cohesive, authentic derivation of black identity. The visceral experience of black identity includes exposure to that wide milieu of diaspora outcomes that only comes to light for white writers with open, honest, and deeply thoughtful dialog.
And let us not forget generational socioeconomic layers to build in our characters of achieved affluence by legal vs desperation means, how that's relative to others in their back story and present. How country poor is very different from city poor, how buying land doesn’t equal security when it makes one a target for predatory lenders and land developers who think black buyers have no right to rise up. All must be considered.
NOT DONE yet! Writers must crucially illustrate how that character's black community responds within itself to all these circumstances, not just the white external POV perception of and response to black life. Cannot stress this enough! It is the ultimate measure of whether a white writer gets it right.
Internal black community relationships initially hidden by coded survival linguistics to all whites for safety, still lie mostly in that realm. Black community strength and love is the toughest to correctly perceive & portray, even for ride-or-die allies, and I extend that difficulty to white-passing mixed authors, who may have the blood and empathy for oppressed brethren, but do not directly suffer the consequences of dark skin and are often subtly excluded from such conversations. There simply must be dialog before writing and certainly before publishing black stories especially about their strength and love because those were used as justification for persecution.
Generally, subjugation diaspora must be handled similarly in societies born of genocide and bloody forced slavery, where humans are torn from their homeland of ancestral burial and worship grounds, denied access to their language and cultural practices with terror acculturation, and then still denied unimpeded access to their new unwanted and unwelcoming society. 1st Peoples cultures intimately tied to a land regions often fell to eugenics that swept the globe and require the same need for tender handling by writers: Native American, Maori, Tsuti, etc. (*I omit the Jewish and Palestinian rift here where both sides have at one time and simultaneously both been oppressed and oppressor. Before writing watch "Five Cameras" documentary shot by children under occupation, then decide if you have what it takes to walk through doubly dense storytelling landmines.)
Bottom line: Black diaspora, pervasive subjugation, and its generational impacts cannot be ignored in black characters, especially those descended from the enslaved ancestors, but neither should it be the only focus of a black character's life, and this delicate dance of words can only be exposed and illuminated by non-black writers willing to dive deep into a broad ranging black conversation/critique process, and then bowing to that greater lived experience.
Have I left anything out, Kern??
After all that :D, I forgot to say I enjoyed the article and appreciated his in-person relationships necessary to write well. I'm mostly glad those black humans felt heard, and I think that's great for contemporary fiction, however, I believe works of Black History & Black dominant Historical Fiction, should be left to Black authors entirely. The world just doesn't need even 1 more white word on those topics. For a white writer to think otherwise, regardless of an aching need for virtue signalling in states of white guilt, it's all pure Id fueled by ego hubris with far too little superego at the helm - that ole YT privilege chestnut.
Good comparison. And it really is all about how it's executed.
Fair point, Brandon. I think the perspective of the story and the type of book does matter. I wonder about the responsibility of readers. Should they reject a book based strictly off the fact that it's a white writer? And here's another point to think about: what if the book is really, really good?