Our Pain Is Not Yours To Convey

Gi- what? She said black pain isn’t meant for entertainment not once did she say white authors shouldn’t add black characters. :tipping_hand_woman:t5:

2 Likes

I ligit can’t with you at all did you not read what she said.

2 Likes

I don’t get what you’re trying to say here. You can have black people in your story and not center their story on racism. That’s what the other person is saying. And if you feel you can’t write a black character without that, then no, maybe you shouldn’t write black characters.

5 Likes

Me reading this whole conversation again… 0.0

2 Likes

I was being sarcastic. But it’s these types of issues which makes white people scared to put black characters in their stories. They would rather play it safe

I’d rather have people write about what they do know. Writing about stuff you don’t personally know enough of while pretending that you do is harmful.

1 Like

No, I said stop portraying our trauma. We don’t have to have trauma to be included. Write us as you’d write every other character. We are not racism ourselves

2 Likes

Exactly. So maybe can we cut white people some slack when they don’t want to add diversity in their stories? Maybe because they’re scared of unintentionally causing offence? Of course once the offence is committed, they will get hung and bullied and they wanna avoid that

At f**king all :joy::joy: is clear they just wanna start some sh*t

1 Like

That was terrible sarcasm and also, if ppl would just listen to us maybe they wouldn’t have to be so scared, because we say the same sh*t every single day

2 Likes

But between you and me, we both know that the majority…I’m gonna DM you

:100:

1 Like

key word listen and be patience something we all need to listen to each other even if we don’t agree at atleast hear each other sides and respect it

2 Likes

To add on, we shouldn’t feel guilty or responsible for white people being too afraid to write about us. Maybe they should be 🤷

We shouldn’t have to cater to their feelings, cause like you said we say the same shit on repeat almost everyday. All they have to do is listen. And honestly, I really do not give a fuck if they feel scared when it comes to writing characters who are POC. :skull: Am I supposed to to pity them? Like why tf do they keep bringing that up, as if we’re supposed to care? :sob:

1 Like

Right, I’m not going to feel sad about it because I’ve been in the community for almost 5 years and I have yet to see the majority of white ppl (for those who are finna say something to me, peep that I said majority and not all) haven’t done shit for us or advocated for us. Not the way we need them to.

2 Likes

Technically, the logistics of most of these reasonings are pretty sound, but there are some flaws.

  1. Not calling this person out, I just like how they worded it

Yes, but then people who may not be part of the LGBTQ+ community can’t include LGBTQ+ characters. And then for the background characters that are LGBTQ+ community can’t be represented to go through tough times. Well, that’s a problem. Especially for contests:

So, that’s posing as a bit of a roadblock for diversity in story, especially if they don’t want just background characters to be diverse, they want the main cast to be as well.
2. I’ve seen lots of criticism over non POC authors including POC characters, but I’ve barely seem anyone suggesting how to correct it. It’s like if you get a question wrong on a test and the teacher doesn’t tell you what you did wrong, then you’re going to keep making the same mistake. If white authors are including a character they represented wrong and people are just saying they’re wrong, they’re not going to know specifically what they did wrong.
I know I’m including a black character that is going through tough times, but personally, I’m not black, so essentially I can’t include this character? Well, I can, but I’d have to inquire with people that might take offence to the actions, behaviors, and the way others react to this particular character. I’m consulting a friend of mine who’s personally had to deal with a situation like this (she’s actually the inspiration) to see what I’ve written right and what I need to fix. So, there are ways to include POC characters, but it’s not being suggested enough for it to be widely known and accepted.
3. Regarding the broadness of the term “POC.” POC refers to anyone who is not white. Yet, my friend who is Asian, like me, was under fire for including a black character that wasn’t quite accurately portrayed, and many people (and I mean many) were saying things like, “You’re not a POC. You shouldn’t be including POC characters if you know nothing about them.” Yet, she clearly said she was proud to be Asian on her profile. So, what happening there?

Overall, I completely agree with the first post and many of the things said on this thread, but I decided to take an authors standpoint today and point out things that may be confusing to them

I don’t think that’s what we’re saying, we’re saying represent them correctly

We always suggest how to correct. But we mainly do it in DM’s. I’ve never seen someone who’s called out an author not give input.

If your friend portrayed black ppl in a wrong way, I feel like ppl have the right to say something and feel a certain way, because we don’t know if it was intentional or not and micro-agressions and stereotypes or wrong features are always being misplaced onto us. But I do agree that it’s not ok to make the Asian community feel excluded from POC’s because in my opinion they are, but that is a conversation that is a whole different topic for a whole other day, because there’s so much mixed emotion on it.

3 Likes

I don’t think anyone is saying you can’t include those characters. In fact, a lot of people in this thread have been saying on repeat just to not revolve these characters based solely around their identity. And no one is saying these characters can’t go through tough times either. It’s only just when those tough times strictly revolve around their identity does it get tiring. We’re more than our identity and I’m kinda tired of us being used as props to talk about homophobia or racism etc

3 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.