How Dark Skin Characters are Portrayed

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I am so sick of this! When I make a character dark skinned in a story, and their parents have full on white features or lips suited for lighter skin…the actual teabag? It’s not that hard to do some extra directing and add it in.

I’m tired of the way dark skinned characters are portrayed as “sassy” and “loud” and “disrespectful.” It’s always the white MC and her black BFF who probably has no personality, and the white mean girl and the sassy black girl clone friend who’s only purpose is to act stereotypically black.

You can’t act black. You can’t act white. You can’t act like a race. Do I act like my race? How do I know? We all act like ourselves. I’m tired of people saying “you act so {insert race}” or “you act so gay!” nobody can act like these things.

It saddens me that it took so long for episode to make lip colours for dark skin.

Overall, I think peope should stop stereotyping and portray dark skinned characters based on their unique personality, not because of their skin colour.

Sincerely,
Tea.

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What are you? Just curious.

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Sorry for the late response! I’m white as snow friend. Scottish, though so there’s that

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Awesome!

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what has that got to do with anything

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I really have no idea. People trying to start a “discussion?”

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Dark Skin Characters I’ve Came Across:
Wild ass colors either clothes, lipstick, and/or hair to seem “eccentric”.
Even clearly being a POC having eurocentric or Caucasian features.
Thrown in the story just so the author can claim, “Diversity”.
Sexuality apparently being a big part of their personality whether they’re straight, gay/lesbian, or bisexual- the character OVER glorifying sex, whether they sleep with anybody or wanting the MC to sleep with anybody because “they’re so hot”. (This can go for any stereotypical best friend of an MC)
Living breathing stereotype of black folk, I don’t mind characters of color or character or non color speaking Ebonics or having a “big” personality per se. But my problem is… WHY IN ALMOST EVERY STORY THE BLACK CHARACTER is the same? Hell, some stories I’ve read where every black or dark skin character is just downright ghetto.
Also, when i customize a dark skin character, their lips are a whole light color like they’ve never seen chapstick in their life or they were “adopted”.
That’s probably about it for me and I’m really sick of it and want to see dark skinned characters in a different or unique light and are actual characters with a 3 dimensional personality and etc.

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Say it louder for the people in the back honey!

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What does that have to do with the discussion? Unless you’re talking about dark skinned middle easterns, this adds nothing to the topic.

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ok? make your own topic about that then. -_-

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i recommend for u to check out the Forums tutorial if u don’t know how to create your own topic. Also, I’ve already told you this on another thread, but you are supposed to be 13 years and up in order to use Episode and you are 12. Yes, people do break rules and we have no way of knowing that but you’ve written your age in your bio as well.

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Something that annoys me so much for some reason is when I watch a movie or read an episode story and the ENTIRE. CAST. IS. WHITE. Like no POCs at all.

And when the only POCs in the story either don’t matter or are just background characters so the authors can claim their story is “diverse”. Pretty much all of the black people I’ve seen in really popular stories have dyed hair, modern clothing, overly sassy and agressive personality, break laws and rules, etc.

I just wish more POCs would be main characters and not so stereotypical. We have personalities too! I would love to see a shy black person for once.

Lol sorry for that short rant

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So true. The dyed hair is never to be quirky/alternative its always to be ghetto.

Me too im introverted/shy and would love that.

You say what ive been thinking for years. Its discouraging when the cast is 100% white for no reason(no offense to anyone). In terms of episodes i look outta place cuz im the only black girl there

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I’m writing my first story and almost all of my MCs are of different races.
I agree that a lot of authors play into racial stereotypes; if and when they actually have a poc. I (am white but) find it completely abhorrent. I hate the “she’s black, loud, rude and blah blah” or “meet the Token POC, that’s also gay and obnoxious, and the MCs one-sided best friend” shit, too.

The summary is of my characters strengths and flaws in the story I’m currently working on. It’s a sort of who done it… read if you feel like it. LOL if not, stick to my comment above LOL :joy:

Summary

Calliope is latina/black, Cristina is Asian-American, Parker is Irish-American, Lola and Avery are white.
Calliope is a smart, secretly nerdy, popular girl (SMART “NERDS” CAN BE POPULAR,TOO! js! I am tired of seeing the “nerdy girl gets pretty and popular but before she was picked on and depressed with a crush on the cool guy” cliche. I’m over it.)… she has a tendency to hide her intelligence around certain people; although she is in fact intelligent (both academically and she picks up on other peoples intentions quickly.) She does have flaws, though. She’s all about being seen as perfect and fitting in to almost a pathologicial degree (this is due to the fact that as a youger girl, she was a little big,nerdy (can’t show it because of the limited facial and body types) and always felt like an outsider- even with her friends…), and since her parents’ divorce and her mother’s remarriage to a man with (in Callie’s eyes) a replacement daughter, she is constantly doing things to get attention that she shouldn’t do. (as most children in divorced homes do. speaking as one.)

Parker is of average intelligence, athletic, and almost too nice. she tends to go along with whatever people want her to do…which again, causes problems of it’s own. She, throughout the story, discovers her own sexuality and deals with the issues associated with it.

Avery is a very type A perfectionist, which is a strength and a flaw on it’s own. She has the perfect older sister and no matter how good she is, she can never really top her , her parents aren’t the warmest and have their own secrets to deal with.

Cris is artistic, kind, and feels her emotions deeply.She’s the one that tries to keep everything together even when they are falling apart, sometimes to her own detriment.

Lola is the Queen-B. She’s pretty, popular and mean… she uses secrets,lies and threats to get her way. Her one redeeming quality is that she will do anything to protect the people she loves. Her murder sets everything in motion. Is she really what she seemed?

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I know this is old, but I almost spit out my drink! :joy:

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Lool. It’z true, South Asians are rarely in stories :sob:

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Her comment was from 2018… but I’m new to the community and just started writing my first story. All of my characters are based off real-life people that I know… I have purposely left off the CC stuff because I want them to leave my families (and their extended families!) alone! LOL

family make-up

The Matthews’- Mexican mother/Black father
The Davenports-White
The James’-White
The O’Malley’s -Irish-American, with extended family that are interracial and have mixed kids
The Choi’s- Asian-American

And the LI for the 4 MCs are all different races and genders. And the MCs friends (outside of their own friendship) are different nationalities, too.

I want more people to write stories with NON-stereotypical POCs. Like I said upthread, I’m sick of the they’re* black so they all speak in ebonics, are loud, rude, “sassy”, ghetto and always doing something illegal (the ‘villian’). My best friend’s (since 5th grade) mom told her “don’t ever hide your intelligence. You are a strong, independent, blessed and amazing black woman. Ignore the people who dislike you because you are thick and dark. You’re beautiful. Don’t let them convince you to hide the light inside you.” She’s now a plus-sized model who uses her platform to speak about self-love, encouragement and awareness. She’s been my friend for almost 17 years and she is who I based one of my MCs off off.

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Like, I would put POCs in my stories, I just don’t know that much about them - therefore I don’t want to misrepresent them. I know people will say You can just search it up it isn’t that easy for a 13 (nearly 14!!!) year old girl to do that if she only gets a limited amount of time to do the said writing.

That may also be the reason why there isn’t much diversity. I’ll only put races that I know about into my stories, which is why you will find mostly Indians in my stories

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We are ppl like anyone else…diffrent personalities/likes/dislikes.

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what do you mean you don’t know about them? is the story about their race? if not, why make such a fuss? you don;t hav to think so hard about putting white people in, why not just put poc?

i dont think its so difficult, we just want to be represented…

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