Why My Protags Aren’t White
By Guest Contributor Justine Larbalestier, originally published at justinelarbalestier.com
I’ve been asked a few times why none of my protags are white given that I am white. (So far that question has only come from white people.) I thought I’d answer the question at length so next time I get that particular email I can direct them here.
I don’t remember deciding that Reason, the protagonist of the Magic or Madness trilogy, would have a white Australian mother and an Indigenous Australian father. I don’t remember deciding that Tom would be white Australian or Jay-Tee Hispanic USian. But I made a conscious decision that none of the characters in How To Ditch Your Fairy would be white and that Liar would have a mixed race cast. Why?
Because a young Hispanic girl I met at a signing thanked me for writing an Hispanic character. Because when I did an appearance in Queens the entirely black and Hispanic teenage audience responded so warmly to my book with two non-white main characters. Because teens, both here and in Australia, have written thanking me for writing characters they could relate to. “Most books are so white,” one girl wrote me.
Because no white teen has ever complained about their lack of representation in those books. Or asked me why Reason and Jay-Tee aren’t white. They read and enjoyed the trilogy anyway. Despite the acres and acres of white books available to them.
Because I don’t live in an all-white world. Why on earth would I write books that are?
I’m not saying my books are perfect. They’re not. If I could go back and rewrite them I would be much more specific about Tom and Jay-Tee’s backgrounds. Tom is just white. I’m specific about his bit of Sydney and about his parents’ occupations, but not about their or his ethnicity. White is not just one flavour. Nor do I go into any kind of detail about what kind of Hispanic Jay-tee is. Is her family from Puerto Rico? Mexico? Venezuela? Dominican Republic? All/none of the above? I say she’s from the Bronx but not where in the Bronx. It’s a big place. (Please forgive me, all my Bronx friends! Especially you, Coe.) As a result I was much more specific about Micah’s background in Liar. All mistakes and oversights in that book will be worked out in the books I’m writing now. The things I get wrong in those books will be fixed in the books I write after them. And so it goes . . . (I hope.)
Questions of representation were not foremost in my mind when I was writing the Magic or Madness trilogy. I’m a white girl who grew up in a predominately white country. Thinking about race and representation is something I have to make myself do because my life is not governed negatively by it as others’ lives are, like, say Prof Henry Louis Gates Jr.
It was the response of my readers that got me thinking hard about representation. Now those questions are foremost when I write.
Thus when I sat down to write How To Ditch Your Fairy I already knew none of the characters would be white. I also knew that I was writing a somewhat utopian world* in which race and gender were not the axes of oppression that they are in our world. Female athletes having as strong a prospect of making a living at their sport as a boy is clearly not true in our world, but it is in the world of HTDYF. Nor is there any discrimination on the basis of race. But there is on the basis of class and geography. (I was not writing a perfect world.)
Not many people noticed, or if they did, they didn’t mention it to me, but I was dead chuffed by those who did. Thank you.
*In some ways it’s very dystopian.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Glossolalia Black wrote:
Because no white teen has ever complained about their lack of representation in those books. Or asked me why Reason and Jay-Tee aren’t white. They read and enjoyed the trilogy anyway. Despite the acres and acres of white books available to them.
Because I don’t live in an all-white world. Why on earth would I write books that are?
A-fucking-MEN.
Posted 06 Aug 2009 at 8:47 am ¶
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist wrote:
A lot of writers, playwrights, and screenwriters don’t even realize that most of their characters are white and that they’ve created a whitewashed world.
So, I want to congratulate you for not falling into that trap.
since I’m Indian Muslim and mostly have South Asian friends, there’s always one or two South Asian leads in my stage plays, along with supporting characters featuring whites and Blacks. I have written at least one stage play that had a Mexican American leading character. One other stage play with a Black lead and East Asian lead.
while we’re on the topic of that, I hate how a lot of minority writers sometimes fall into the similar trap. I don’t like how Amy Tan only writes books about Asian Americans involved with White people. I don’t like how Jhumpa Lahiri only focuses on brown people, either.
I hate those “intercultural” books that usually focuses on ONE minority group and WHITE people. It’s rare to come across a book that involves a minority group AND another minority group.
My world isn’t brown. It’s got brown, white, black, yellow, queer, disabled, and everything else.
but that’s just me.
Posted 06 Aug 2009 at 9:45 am ¶
Honeysmoke wrote:
Clearly, the author understands the complexities of race. It is refreshing to know she is willing to talk about this. Her latest book, Liar, has a black protagonist, but a white girl with straight hair is featured on the cover. A black girl with curly representation would be a more accurate presentation of the book, but books are marketed to whites. It is good to know that regardless of who is featured in the pages that young people continue to pick up the author’s books. Marketers would have all of us think otherwise.
Posted 06 Aug 2009 at 10:27 am ¶
Luis wrote:
“Because when I did an appearance in Queens the entirely black and Hispanic teenage audience responded so warmly to my book with two non-white main characters.”
Another Amen, with two hallelujahs. Let’s dispel the myth that black and Latino tweens and teens don’t read and can’t be marketed to by publishers. That’s never been true in my life or experience.
Posted 06 Aug 2009 at 12:03 pm ¶
SayNay wrote:
Thank you Justine for a conscious and insightful response to questions/criticisms of your work and for taking an active role isnrepresenting young people of color as featured characters. I’m sure any number of us here can testify on our own experiences with lack of representation in fiction growing up. I’m probably a tad old for your targeted demographics, but I look forward to reading your books.
Posted 06 Aug 2009 at 12:28 pm ¶
erin wrote:
What about the theory that one should write what one knows? How does a white person write authentically about characters of color? Is it appropriation? Romanticizing and therefore othering?
(I haven’t actually read any of the books in question and am not attacking at all – I’m just curious to hear what people think about the questions.)
Posted 06 Aug 2009 at 2:00 pm ¶
Leah wrote:
The “right to write” is such a contested issue in the field of literature for children and young adults. Many argue that only a member of a given ethnic group can write about that ethnic group. What I think this view overlooks is that this would mean that a person of color could also only write about his/her own ethnic group. Accurate, respectful, non-stereotyped representations will always be in important, but fiction allows one to imagine outside the boundaries of one’s own life/ethnic group/gender/sexual orientation/religion/etc. This holds as much for writers of fiction as for readers.
Posted 06 Aug 2009 at 2:08 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
great article and kudos to you for working to depict a more diverse world in your books.
this reminds me of the controversy surrounding the film City of God (Cidade de Deus) for a moment upon its release. the filmmaker is white and the protagonist in the novel is also white, begging the question of why the main character in the film was black. the response? there need to be more black role models in brazilian cinema and stories told from a black perspective so that black children and people in general have some sort of hero or can identify with the story.
it’s unfortunate that so few people recognize the lack of diversity in film, tv, and the literary world can have an effect on those left out of the portrayal over and over again.
Posted 06 Aug 2009 at 3:44 pm ¶
ty wrote:
thank you for writing this. its a refreshing point of view after all the news of the birthers and the anti sotamayor rallies. Its nice to hear someone say that they dont write white because their world is not white when so often you hear white people getting mad because they arent overrepresented in every part of society.
Posted 06 Aug 2009 at 4:11 pm ¶
Jehanzeb wrote:
Thank you for this, Justine. I have the same plans for my own creative work, so reading this post was really inspiring
I know what books I’m getting next!
Posted 07 Aug 2009 at 12:02 am ¶
bdsista wrote:
Justine are these suitable for middle schoolers? I am a media specialist at a middle school and have some purchasing to do!
Posted 07 Aug 2009 at 4:38 am ¶
Zahra wrote:
Thank you! Loved this piece.
I’m another white writer who creates protagonists of color, and I agree with so many of the sentiments here. (Including DIMA–stories needs to show people of color of different backgrounds in relationship WITH EACH OTHER more than they currently do.)
I think it’s especially important that you are writing PROTAGONISTS of color, not just side characters–the latter is where a lot of white writers go wrong. The world needs more stories where the POC are the heroes and not just window dressing in a white character’s story. So glad to hear you’re creating them.
@ erin
I have issues with the idea of “writing what one knows” more generally–it tends to disappear entire genres I love, like historical fiction and science fiction, and posits all of literary as autobiographical and potentially navel-gazing in a way that rings profoundly untrue with my own experiences as both reader and writer. But.
Issues of appropriation are real and any writer writing about those who have less power and privilege than she does definitely needs to confront them. As Justine L bravely points out above, it’s easy to get things wrong.
But personally, I think saying people should write only about their own ethnicity translates to the literary equivalent of “racism is brown people’s problem to take care of.” It’s not. The overwhelmingly white literary landscape was created by white people, and I personally think we have some responsibility to tear it down.
There are certain stories that I think can only come from within certain communities; and I’m a huge fan of critique as a tool; we need to dissect all those romanticized and otherwise poisonous portrayals that have come from white pens and defined POC. But for me reading is fundamentally about stretching my mind and acknowledging hitherto unknown possibilities. Writing about people different from me has forced me to confront hard and uncomfortable truths; it’s not always fun, but it’s a gift.
It’s also important to recognize that POCs are people of diverse experiences; the obsession with literary “authenticity” has roots in some real qualms, but sometimes comes uncomfortably close to expecting one person to speak for their entire community, and erasing the divides of class, sexual orientation, etc., including just plain different experiences.
I highly recommend Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward’s Writing the Other. It’s a manual for writers creating characters with less social privilege than themselves, but it treats some of the main issues you raise.
Posted 07 Aug 2009 at 5:21 pm ¶
j chang wrote:
@6 erin:
My personal opinion is that if we all should only writing what we know, then all written works should only be autobiographies. And that’s under the assumption that we know ourselves.
Consequently, I think we should write that which we are capable of believably imagining. That’s not to say that every person can believably imagine a [insert identity adjective here] character–but if such a writer can, then such a writer shouldn’t be restricted from writing that character.
There’s the whole different issue of representation of writers of color getting published, which can link into this discussion at times. But in terms of what we can write about, if it’s believable enough (in particular, if it’s believable enough to a person holding that identity), then it’s game.
Posted 07 Aug 2009 at 7:56 pm ¶
ashlynn wrote:
I am familiar with the “write what you know” sentiment, but I think the more accurate one would be to “write the book that you want to read”. Write the characters you want to see, especially if you have yet to see it anywhere else. As a writer, it is natural for you to go out of your personal bounds of experience; but there is a difference between you yourself, and you as the writer(usually). You as The Writer are allowed to explore, and imagine, and still connect to reality. Chances are at some point in the process you’ll need someone to read your draft and go, “Um, sweetie, he would NOT say that. Try it like this.” But that shouldn’t stop you from going after a vision. This is why I admire Justine’s openess and honesty; in the writing word, especially stale YA, it’s truly refreshing.
Posted 08 Aug 2009 at 3:28 am ¶
Marie wrote:
This reminds me a bit of my beloved Ursula K Leguin’s discussion of writing childrens’ fantasy in the 60s, in which her protagonist was not white, and how that played out over the years with here publishing company and was evntually televised in the 00’s:
here
Posted 08 Aug 2009 at 7:32 pm ¶
erin wrote:
Thanks for the great responses to my questions.
Regarding the “write what you know” – This was a concept that I was introduced to by the writer Cherrie Moraga (Latina, lesbian) in a writing workshop many years ago. I do think that there’s a lot of value in that concept, but I also think that there’s room for negotiation within it. For example, sci-fi and fantasy: obviously, one can’t write that because it’s pure imagination (unless my dreams are coming true and elves and faeries ARE real!). But…the characters themselves are still people experiencing emotions and conflict, regardless of the setting. And perhaps that’s where a writer writes “what they know.”
For example, I’ve read many of Charles DeLint’s urban fantasy novels. They’re not great literature by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s a good storyteller and it’s fun escapism. He’s able to create very believable female characters and then…wham! appropriation and romanticization of Native American cultures. And it’s not the inclusion itself of Native beliefs and characters – it’s that the way it’s done rings so false that it’s obvious and jarring (to me, at least).
I think I’m rambling a bit, but I’m glad to hear some thoughts and perspectives on this so that I can keep mulling it over myself.
@Zahra – excellent points re: literary authenticity. I hadn’t heard of that book and will have to check it out.
Posted 09 Aug 2009 at 12:28 am ¶
Jess wrote:
Write what you know becomes a bit of a fallacy when you are writing genre fiction, especially sci-fi and fantasy. The Magic series is a modern-day fantasy where magic users have to decide whether to use magic and die young or not use magic and go insane.
And while this kind if situation is based squarely in fantasy, the character’s emotions and relationships are entirely relatable.
@bdsista – middle school might be a big iffy becuase *spoiler warning* one of the characters has sex in the middle book and becomes pregnant. Nothing graphic but prehaps something that parents might be upset about.
Posted 09 Aug 2009 at 4:03 pm ¶
Joy wrote:
What a beautifully written post! I’m not into sci-fi (is that what the books are?), but I am happy at this author’s appeal for teens of many colors and wish her continued success.
I love the idea of authors not confining themselves to one color/culture/race/whatever when they write. I’d like to read books that have people who look like me right along with people who don’t. I know sometimes an author’s main focus *is* based on something “unique” to a race/culture/etc. But a lot of the times it’s just a quick description of skin tone/eye color/hair length or color that has no bearing on the content of the book.
I don’t see a reason why authors wouldn’t be able to write people different from themselves into meaningful roles – it’s not anyone who looks different you is from Mars, LOL. Still just human – just handle the characters the way you would any other one. With care, I’m sure.
Posted 10 Aug 2009 at 4:16 pm ¶