Discussion: Sick of authors using excuses not to include diversity

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I’ll be blunt: I can’t take anyone who cries “forced diversity” seriously because nine times out of ten, it’s always to whine about people criticizing them for having an all white and heterosexual cast. Instead of listening to critique, they’ll cry about how you can’t “force” diversity.

Diversity is only “forced” if you throw in a token character of color to stave off accusations of racism for having only white main characters. This is not to say that authors who always write stories with mostly white casts are actively racist, because I’m sure most of them aren’t. But including a token black best friend or sassy gay friend stereotype is not diversity.

Or, to put it another way:

What diversity is: Including a wide range of characters of different backgrounds, orientations, genders, and conditions. Treating them as characters, not stereotypes, and giving them personalities and traits of their own as distinct individuals.

What many writers think diversity is: Giving the protagonist one (1) black friend and one (1) gay sidekick, in a cast that’s otherwise totally white, straight, and cis, and treating said black friend and gay sidekick solely as stereotypes (“strong” black woman, “sassy” effeminate gay man) while giving all the other characters distinct, fleshed-out personalities.

The important thing is to, above all, treat all your characters like characters. Stop using the tired excuse of “I don’t want to offend anyone!” for not writing a character of another race or orientation or what have you. It’s better to take the risk and learn from your mistakes than avoid it entirely. Making mistakes means you are making progress, avoiding making them at all means you’re not learning anything.

And by the way…if your reason for not including diversity is, again, out of “fear” of offending anyone because you might not write them “realistically”, but you write stories full of incredibly unrealistic and fantastical things like dragons, vampires, unicorns, magic, and gangsters falling in love with and marrying the girls they kidnapped instead of torturing and killing them like they would in real life, then you have zero excuses. If you can write about fantasy, you can write about characters who don’t share your background.

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To be fair, if you’re writing a fantasy story or whatever, you’re often making up stuff. If you make up stuff with a real group of people in the real world and end up getting it wrong, mobs get butthurt and no one wants to deal with it. They aren’t really all that comparable. One of them is a representation of something real and the other is a bunch of made up shit shrugs Like, you’re not going to get any responses like “Excuse me…I’m a dragon and I am deeply offended that you portrayed your dragon as a FIRE-BREATHING dragon! I breath ice…you fuckin’ bigot.” X’DDDDDDDDDDDD

You’d think that was really ridiculous because it is. Same way around with even real groups being represented sometimes just because “not all are like this”. It is just as ridiculous.

I was shown a fanmail someone had where she was portraying a black woman in a living situation inspired from and similar to the author’s actual situation and the mobs STILL came in. “I’m a black woman and I’m focused on education, not this!” Like…fanmailer is the one with the problem, thinking it is stereotypical and all. If an author doesn’t want to get shit like this because…it is very annoying and discouraging, then they will.

Some authors are better at ignoring the nonsense, especially since they live these experiences. So yay for them!! But let’s not berate authors who choose not to add in people they don’t interact with very often or people whose culture they have no interest in as being “lazy” or “ignorant” or whatever word used trying to shame them. When we approach it like that, it makes them less likely to write more diverse casts. We should be more encouraging about it, not frustrated and on the attack about it. Lesson learned on my end <3 LOLOLOL

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HA! …that is all.

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Maybe I didn’t get my point across. My point was for exaggeration. Obviously dragons and unicorns don’t exist, so they can’t be upset or critical of being “represented”. But to put it another way…writing diverse characters should be treated with the same care and imagination you would put into writing characters of your own background. Don’t rely on stereotypes, use your imagination to come up with interesting personalities. Do research on things you aren’t sure about, ask around if you need help.

And frankly, not to sound rude, but I’m tired of seeing people malign and strawman readers with genuine concerns and criticisms as all “butthurt mobs”. It’s the same mentality that shuts down legitimate critique and is the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going “LA LA LA YOU’RE JUST MAD BECAUSE YOU WANT TO BE MAD!”

(Which is not to say there aren’t plenty of stupid fanmails that just insult for the sake of insulting and aren’t criticism, obviously.)

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:smiling_face_with_three_hearts: it’s the best and most rational thing we can do, I think. That or write our own stories and include diversity. Some people still don’t understand the importance of doing that and we can try to educate them but not make them write what we want.

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Heard. Appreciate the clarification <3

When I say butthurt mobs, I mean literal butthurt mobs. Not people who are giving real criticism. I am a big fan of criticism lol - the difference being the people who complain like the example I gave “Not all women do things like that!” - Yes but some do and this one specifically does. “BUT NOT ALL!” Okay, we get it. Next. LOL

Getting things like that gets irritating after a while, so that’s why people choose to just not risk it anymore.

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Absolutely love your responses!

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Bump

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I’m Catholic, in a way, I’m glad most non-catholic writers don’t include catholic characters.
Mainly because they’re incorrect stereotypes. Catholic characters are usually shown as being completely obsessed with religion, always on about rosaries and going to confession. The Protestant character is shown as matter of fact about their religion, why the catholic is portrayed and religious obsessed extremist.
There’s a trend of priests to be depicted negatively, mostly breaking celebacy, etc.
Nuns are usually portrayed as cruel stereotypes how enjoy beating students as punishment. I, myself went to catholic school and had pleasant experiences with nuns who were kind women and hardworking teachers.
Sometimes if you know nothing about certain groups, it’s better not to include it.

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bump even though the OP has taken a break and/or left :pensive:

miss ya @anon71852408 :yellow_heart:

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AHLIE. We live in a society where not everyone looks the same. Seeing the same white li with blonde hair and blue eyes is annoying af. Just do your research (thats all it takes to be a decent person) Growing up poc was hard because we constantly see white people in the media. INCLUDE DIVERSITY U COWARDS

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Include well written racial diversity.

Really though. I read a story where they used a pink blush overlay looked outta place on my characters skin.

Even narration is excluding(probably an after thought) i see phrases like “Your skin turned white.” If my skin turns a whole diffrent 10 shades somethings medically wrong x3

Dont get me started on art scenes either

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Haha yeah. I couldn’t have said it better!

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Honestly I do not mind if the is or is not diversity in the story. Enything what is forced - evewn forced diversity is in my openion not OK. Everybody has rigt to write the story as he feels. If somebody want to write story which will be exclusively about black lesbian woman so let him make it why forcing him tu put inside some white straight men when the story is not about them? Or if someone want a story which is going on in japan and he want all character to be japaneese …why to label this as wrong?

I do not like that underneeth the preasure on diversity is like unspoken hate towards the people who do not do it and labeling them as rasit or xenofobe or what ever. It feels like comunism …if you are not in the party we will hate you for it because we comunist are better people…

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I feel as though I’m one of those people who make lame excuses not to include diversity. I’m trying to add more diversity into my stories.

My lame excuse is: I’m too nervous to go all out with diversity because I’m scared that I’ll represent them in a wrong way on accident and get others of that culture/orientation/religion/gender offended or upset.

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The question is why is one even having to explain or making excuse to anybody why he wrote his story as he did?

Where you have seen such excuses from authors? Do they just from themselves write it in authors notes or is is just thay way how they react when somebody asks them about why he doesn’t have diversity in the story.

If the first yes it is weird but I have never seen such thing actually.

If it is the second - well this is “forced question” underneath one can feel the one who asks is already thinking that it is a bad thing he doesn’t have it…this is a question which cant be satisfied by any answer because the one who ask actually doesn’t want to know the reason, he just want to point out the writer did something wrong.

Being supported to use diversity is a completly different thing than being shamed for not doing it.

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I never understood why diversity isn’t included by default anyway. The same amount of time it takes a person to create a white character with blue eyes is the same amount of time someone can create a diverse character. The excuses on why they “can’t” include it is always bs. It’s not that you “can’t” it’s a simple fact that you won’t. Of course, we can’t force people to add diversity in their stories, but why wouldn’t you want to? Branch out. Learn new things. Try new things. When you go outside and you’re surrounded by people. You see all types of people. Mixed, white, African, and Chinese, etc. You don’t just see one race. So, why is it so hard for people to include this? If you are scared of misinterpreting the representation of a certain race or culture then do research. Or hell, ask someone. It’s that easy.

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This doesnt answer my question why anybody has to even explain to anybody why he wrote it like he wrote it.

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Precisely! It’s really not that hard. People have a million of excuses for everything. I rather just here a flat out no or I don’t want to.

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The asking doesn’t automatically proof the one who asks is right …I go sometimes through fan mails on other people stories and not so far ago I stumbled on this.

  1. in one story somebody is asking - why is the mean queen bee always white and blond, it is such a stereotype, do you think that black girls cant be a mean queen bee???

  2. and another story - why is your queen bee mean girl black? Why do you show black people as a mean stereotype?

As you see - in this case, you are as a writer always wrong (because thay want to see you so) - whatever color your queen bee has always somebody can find a reason why you did it wrong.

And always explaining to such questions will look bit lame no matter what you write to it.

And that is a reason I do not like the forced part of it. To be clear I am pro-diversity and I have it in my story including full CC. But being forced to it is simply not OK.

It is so easy to tell about other people what thay do something wrong… but it brings nothing good it only makes the one who says this feels being a better person but it is not approach that starts the change. What is much harder but can make a change is to be a positive example and support others to do it in a positive way.

look at the name of this discussion - do you see there something positive in “sick of authors”? I do not it is just pure negativity. and that is what I am talking about.

Trying to change something by expressing you hate the one who is not like you … this will not motivate them to do the change.

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