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Okay, I hope I’m not stepping into a landmine. \u00a0I debated on whether or not I should even post this and it boiled down to this.<\/p>\nOkay, I hope I’m not stepping into a landmine. \u00a0I debated on whether or not I should even post this and it boiled down to this.<\/p>\n
I wanted to. If I didn’t, it was because I was being a chickenshit.<\/p>\n
And I don’t do chicken.<\/p>\n
There was a blogpost the other day. I saw it on twitter. I’m not linking to it. \u00a0It’s a version of one we’ve probably all seen before…<\/p>\n
White author asking…I’ve got this idea…POC heroine, how can I write her story and do her justice…fill in the blank<\/em>.<\/p>\n FYI, this post is not about me trying to fill that quota of ‘writing diverse romance’ or ‘trying to write more diversely’.<\/p>\n I do not<\/em> want to take any shine from authors of color…there are great ones out there\u00a0and they don’t enough shine as it is. Check out a couple of my personal favorites, Farrah Rochon & Phyllis Bourne.<\/p>\n This is about white authors and writing POC. Because frankly, unless you want to whitewash your entire world, I think POC belong in\u00a0the books we read.<\/p>\n I’ve written any number of books with POC and I’ve been doing this almost from the beginning. \u00a0I think my first really\u00a0big<\/em> character was Leandra, a black woman who I introduced in my Hunters series…inspired by Kendra, the vampire slayer, because she was awesome, thank you. \u00a0That was why I created Leandra–I loved this bad-ass vampire slayer and I wanted to write somebody like her.<\/p>\n Then there was The Missing. \u00a0One of my most popular books, even now. \u00a0The heroine was biracial, half-black, half white, grew up in the south and fell in love with a rich white boy. \u00a0Were they driven apart because his rich white parents didn’t like her blackness?<\/p>\n No. \u00a0They were driven apart because of her psychic abilities…see, Taige was psychic. \u00a0They fell in love as teens. It was a summer love sort of thing. \u00a0When Cullen was about 19…ish? Going by memory, his mother was murdered. And he blamed Taige, because he knew about her abilities. In his grief, he needed somebody to blame, and he thought she should have been able to save his mom. \u00a0Was he right to do that? Of course not. \u00a0But do things like this happen? Yes. \u00a0In grief, we lash out at those we love all the time. And Taige blamed herself as well. \u00a0They split up and it took them years to find each other again.<\/p>\n Then there was the follow-up book to that. \u00a0Black heroine, white hero. \u00a0The hero was an ass. Heroine loved him anyway. \u00a0He pushed her away because he saw that love and he didn’t think he deserved it–and he was probably right…again,\u00a0<\/em>he was an ass. I tell everybody that was the asshole’s book. It’s called The Departed.<\/p>\n Then The Protected. \u00a0The heroine is black. \u00a0The hero is Latino. \u00a0I emailed, long hard and often with a friend to get some serious Spanish cussing in that one, let me tell you. What drove them apart? Hero was an ass. \u00a0(See a theme here?)<\/p>\n Then there was Busted…one of my more recent books. \u00a0Heroine is black. Hero is white. Both are raising kids. \u00a0Color isn’t what comes into play here. \u00a0Is the heroine’s color part of her? Of course it. There is even a part where her aunt sort of tears into her…<\/p>\n \u201cBut . . .\u201d<\/p>\n Angeline \u201cNo buts. I\u2019m not saying it will be easy. You probably already have some challenges. Shoot, we still don\u2019t live in a world where a black woman can marry a white man without people giving us the side eye. That\u2019s one hurdle you\u2019ll have to handle already. That he\u2019s a public figure . . . that makes another one. But if you care for him, and he cares for you, those are just details.\u201d<\/p>\n Just details . . .<\/p>\n \u201cYou make it sound so simple,\u201d she said, her heart twisting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What was driving them apart? It was doubts the heroine had. Not about their races, mind you…yes, she’s aware that race will be an issue for\u00a0others<\/em>, but her problem is one that comes from her past and whether or not he can get over it.<\/p>\n These are just a few of them. \u00a0I’ve got others. \u00a0I’m at the point to where I can’t even keep track of all my books. But there’s IF YOU KNOW HER and the love interest in my UF series, Damon, he’s half black, half…well (I’m not filling that blank in yet.) \u00a0Her best friend, Justin is about a quarter black, and 125% trouble, btw.<\/p>\n Is the character’s race important to them as I write the book? Absolutely. \u00a0I wanted to be as true to the character as I can and make them as real as I can. \u00a0I\u00a0can’t<\/em> be black, I won’t pretend to be, but I want to learn as much cultural information as I can when I’m writing. \u00a0When i first started out, I talked to my sister-in-law a lot. \u00a0She’s black. \u00a0I asked her if she’d mind if I asked her some things that would help me make the character more authentic–without<\/em> trying to make this into a black woman’s journey. Again, I\u00a0can’t write that<\/em>. But I can write about a woman falling in love. \u00a0However, this is a woman who is black (or half black, depending on the book.)<\/p>\n There are things a lot of white women aren’t going to consider…a black woman doesn’t wash her hair as often as most white people. I say most, because if you’re curly-haired, like me, maybe you only wash a few times a week. \u00a0If your character has dreads, plaits, etc, there’s care that goes into them. \u00a0Hair is important to a black woman (and the guys), and i wanted to respect this.<\/p>\n Just like when I was writing the book with a Latino, I wanted to make sure I understood other cultural things. Some of the language, how this man might feel when he was put into the circumstance he was put into.<\/p>\n So…carrying on…how do I, being a white woman, write about black women or Latino women? \u00a0Why do I write characters of color?<\/p>\n I can’t write about a black woman’s experience. I can’t write about a Latino woman’s experience. I am white. \u00a0I have white privilege and I know this.<\/p>\n But I can write about a woman’s experience. I can write about falling in love. I can write about the struggle a couple faces, the ups and the downs. I can write about the fear a man might feel if the kid he’s been charged to protect is suddenly thrust into danger.<\/p>\n These are human emotions.<\/p>\n Not every I\/R book has to have the I\/R angst you see in so many of them…and I know this is factual because\u00a0this\u00a0<\/em>is one thing I can write about with experience. \u00a0See, I’m involved with a guy. He’s not white. \u00a0How often has this fact caused angst in our relationship?<\/p>\n Yep. \u00a0We’ve been together for twenty-five years and the two of us have never had any sort of ground-shaking, earth-shattering dilemma about the fact that we don’t have the same skin color. I don’t think he fell in love with me because of my ivory white skin–okay, I do tend to redden easily. \u00a0And I didn’t fall in love with him because of his wicked, savagely savage Native American ruggedness.<\/p>\n We fell in love with each other for who we were–and we love each other for we are.<\/p>\n These are emotions.<\/p>\n I can write about emotions, because that’s what a romance writer does.<\/p>\n We write about that experience and if we don’t write people of color into our stories, then we’re whitewashing the world we’re creating. \u00a0The world I live in doesn’t have all white people.<\/p>\n I want the worlds I write to reflect the world I live in. Only better sometimes, with happy endings for everybody but the bad guys.<\/p>\n0<\/h1>\n