Emotions on the lack of Minorities as Main Characters

[Kꌗꓘ]

I've vaguely noticed the lack of colored protagonists in a majority of novels now an days. Especially in Young Adult, Paranormal and Fantasy novels. I hadn't realized how largely minorities are ignored or pushed into the background as secondary characters. And even if there are colored protagonists, it doesn't seem to be in a large amount of best-selling or well-known authors employing colored protagonists. So I was wondering how other people felt on the matter.

The Article That Inspired this: http://www.slj.com/2009/04/books-medi...

[[deleted user]]

I definitely think self publishing is where POC authors or creating characters of color could really do big things. In the United States , whether we wish to acknowledge it, the people writing the paychecks at the traditional publishing houses just don't find POC marketable.

And if they do feature POC, they occasionally make them biracial, which there is absolutely nothing wrong with. But it definitely opens the door to authors not having to deal with the perils of researching the race of there character. And for readers to automatically just envision someone tan as opposed to a person of color. Mind you, you can be a person of color and not actually be of a significant skin tone.

Soledad o'brien( an Afro-latina), Vivian Leo (a white Puerto Rican actress) and too many major asia based actresses(zhang ziyi) are all fair skinned.

If publishing houses are anything like Hollywood , they don't like to be the first to do anything. To invest in POC , they have to know we are marketable. But they will never take the time to find out because will not take the risk on us.

[[deleted user]]

I HAD to put my input on this matter!

You're totally right the amount of books that feature poc main protagonists is very, very small when you compare it to the amount of non poc protagonists. And the truth is they're out there but you really have to search hard and wide to find them. My sister and I started our book review blog about a few months ago and decided we would make our main focus on diverse themes. When we made that decision we didn't realize how hard it is to find books with leading poc as protagonists.

Some may say that it doesn't matter, that if a story is so good why should it matter if the protagonist is black or white but I disagree. It's so important that young people are able to relate to characters they see in books and sometimes I feel that's the reason young black and Latino kids aren't diving into the world of reading with enthusiasm. They aren't seeing themselves in books that they would otherwise be interested in and I know first hand that can be discouraging.

I read a lot as a child but I rarely read books with characters that looked like me, talked like me or acted like me. So my default was "white". It wasn't until now in my 20s that I made a conscious decision that I would read more books with diverse characters and I've noticed that I can't get enough of these type of books!!!!

With the world of self publishing, more and more authors are surfacing, giving us more books to choose from with non white protagonists. If I solely relied on traditional publishing houses to give me what I want I'd be waiting forever, so often I look into indie and self published authors.

[[deleted user]]

I've made a conscious decision to research mainly books that feature some type of multiculturalism.

It's difficult , but there are more than you think. Something I'm noticing in self publishing though, is Caucasian authors, when not pressured by a publishing house , will in fact write diverse characters, even leading ones.

I see quite a few these days by self published authors, that I often question how many traditionally published authors had POC characters and were forced to change them based on the needs of the publishing house :/

[Kꌗꓘ]

I think that's true. There's a book called Liar that features a black protagonist and a pathological liar and yet the original US cover featured a white girl who looked nothing like the character described herself. The author talked about fearing that the cover would effect the way people read the book and wouldn't believe anything the character just from her appearance on the cover. Also, I'm a Psychology student and I've been studying how children see race and I wonder if the way minority children rarely see themselves featured in books also contributes to their self-esteem. Or even does it contribute to the idea of inferiority in white children. And I hadn't really thought about how the colored protagonists are biracial. Even the girl I used in the book reference above is half white (French-American).

[The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears]

Seeing Lt. Uhura on that bridge in the original Star Trek series changed a lot of lives and influenced a lot of young black people. Even Martin Luther King Jr. was a huge fan and it was he who kept Nichelle Nichols from leaving the series. So yes, when PoC see heroic characters who look like them, it matters.

[Ayesha]

Kaya wrote: " Also, I'm a Psychology student and I've been studying how children see race and I wonder if the way minority children rarely see themselves featured in books also contributes to their self-esteem. Or even does it contribute to the idea of inferiority in white children."

A study showed that white male children who watch tv show an increase in their self-esteem. Black males, and all females showed a decrease. So. Further proof that it rocks to be a white man.


Something else to consider in this topic is the idea of having a minority character, but having no representation of his/her culture. In the last couple of months, I've read two novels (Cinder and Moon Called) in which the main character is a minority (Asian, for Cinder and Native American for Moon Called) but the author completely fails to include anything related to the characters culture. No history, no family, no connection to their racial past. The author gets to have it both ways: they get to claim diversity and inclusivity for having a minority character, without including any of the history or culture of a minority character.

ETA: @ thefountainpendiva: I totally agree. When ever someone claims that creating a minority character is just "tokenism", my internal response is always "so what?" Having representation on the screen is immensely powerful. Of course, having that character being the constant butt of jokes, or the first person to die, doesn't help much. Unfortunately, I think I've gotten to the point where I'll take misrepresentation over complete erasure.

[Lanelle]

When I was younger I use to read hundreds and hundreds of books, very few had minorities and when they did the main plot revolved around race.

It made me mad.

I wanted to read about minorities with a plot which had absolutely nothing to do with that. Nothing. If there were more books with minorities that didn't center around race issues I think we'd see more books with diversity in them. I'm writing my book with a black mc, she makes one line about her race in the entire book, that's it.

I'm not saying ignore these issues, but I just think in certain books the race shouldn't be such a big deal. Especially if the author wants to appeal to a wider audience.