Tagged: diversity in fiction
Guest Post: #WeNeedDiverseRomance…Now
The Crossfire series
The Hardwired series
The Submission series
The Seductive Nights series
Ava and Gideon
Erica and Blake
Monica and Jonathan
Michelle and Jack
Complex and intelligent characters written by talented writers, with interesting storylines, compelling back stories, and of course, loads of panty-melting, fabulous, raunchy, dirty sex.
And not a single one of those books contain diverse main characters.
In fact, despite all of the books I mentioned taking place in large cities like New York and Los Angeles, I believe the only diversity in any of those books is found in the secondary characters, the outliers. The characters that add some spice and perhaps a side storyline or two, but nothing too memorable and certainly nothing noteworthy.
No brown girl falling for a white guy. No black guy falling for a Asian girl. No black girl falling for a brown guy. No white girl falling for a black guy.
In cities teeming with all types of people – paraplegic, Indian, Chinese, Muslim, amputee, Sikh, transgender, Japanese, overweight, Spanish, atheist, Black, lesbian, Buddhist – all of the couples and almost all of the secondary characters are white. Continue reading
I am a Racist Reader
How much do we really think about diversity in fiction?
A while back I was reading a fascinating article over on The Masquerade Crew by JeanNicole Rivers called ‘Are You A Racist Reader?’ JeanNicole made some excellent points and I began to look at how I picture characters when I read. I have now come to the conclusion that I am a racist reader. Then I immediately started feeling guilty.
The community I grew up in was not known for its diversity or even its political correctness. It was predominantly white and racism was pretty much the default attitude for most people, especially the older generations. There is a family anecdote about how when I was two years old my mother took me shopping in the city and I pointed at an African American man and said: “Mum, why is that man brown?” Yes, that’s how white my community was. I never actually had spoken to a ‘brown’ person until I was six or seven, when my father began importing Filipino workers, who we treated as part of the family. Continue reading