POC representation and limited CC

I am so frustrated and I need a place to vent, I’m genuinely confused and the creator of this story needs to do some research. I just came across a story called The Wolf in Me and when it came to customization it said that the character was black which I was okay with but when I saw her she didn’t even look black. It says she’s of Caribbean descent and is black but is lightskin with brown hair and brown eyes. I’m honestly confused. If you were gonna make a black character don’t make a character that looks like a white girl with a tan, curly hair, and big lips. It’s not right, if you wanna make a character black make the character black and not THIS.


And this goes for all creators, if you’re gonna make a character black and have limited CC make it so we can make the skin darker or a bit lighter if not already light and give us facial features that actually make the character look black. This is laughable, take one look at her and tell me she looks black.

2 Likes

Moved to Community since this is about a story discussion. Make sure to check out our Forum Tutorial for more info about creating topics, and feel free to PM me if you’ve got questions. :smiley:

I’ve come across plenty of black woman who are light skin. I got some people in my family who are black and light skinned. They get made fun of frequently for not looking “black enough” and looking “more white”.

I don’t know who the author is… or whether or not they’re black. But just looking at this photo alone, it doesn’t bother me. Many light-skinned black woman out there… even those with brown hair (some are dyed or wigs/weaves). Personally, I got no problem with it. But that’s just me.

11 Likes

I actually looked into the author of this story. It turns out they’re black AND of Caribbean descent. I don’t think they need to do their research on anything.

11 Likes

She could be mixed? Alot of us Caribbean people are, especially with Indian and White. I get what you’re saying but I don’t think the outrage should be directed at one author, who is Caribbean herself. What more research can they do on their own community?

I think the problem spans to pretty much the platform in general. We don’t see a lot of darker MCs but Caribbean people can look like pretty much anything

3 Likes

Black comes in all different shades! But I agree there should be an option to have darker skin tones and not limited facial features.

4 Likes

as a mixed girl I’m fine with this character being represented as black tbh

1 Like

I mean this as respectfully as I can but I’ve read the story you are talking about… the author is POC herself and has a splash at the end of every single episode with a drawn picture of herself which shows that… so how come you are judging a stories authenticity saying the author hasn’t done research when its clear that you haven’t done any either? I’m white and it isn’t my place to talk on about POC issues however you are claiming the author knows little to nothing about POC when she herself is a person of colour? and you would have known that if you finished an episode of her story to the end of the chapter when you see the splash with her picture. so isn’t that kind of hypocritical to comment on such a ‘lack of research’ when its apparent that you have done the same if not less research on her?

8 Likes

She looks… American to me :joy:

And that’s a downside to freedom in CC. Readers will use the chance to customize the characters however they want and if certain aspects aren’t limited then it’s gonna be hard to address a certain plot that relies on the attributes of the character since everyone’s avatar will look different.

A great way to avoid this is simply to simply mention that this character doesn’t represent the readers, and any mismatch of description (even overlays) is at their own discretion. I do this with my own stories and so far, I’ve had no problems with any of my readers regarding that issue.

When it comes to POC representation, I think it’s best to just remove the CC altogether. If POC is so important in a story that the plot seems weird with the character being white/black/literally any other kind of ethnicities, just let it be even though it’s the MC.

2 Likes

The author of the story is POC herself and the story is genuine/not trolling - as someone who read her work. OP would have knew the author was POC if they finished the first episode in the story as the author has splashes at the end of each episode which shows a drawn illustration of herself where she is indeed black.

2 Likes

I read the replies after posting, so I deleted that part right away.

But in my defense, the original post stated that in the story, the character is described as “black”, so I didn’t think of the possibility of the character being a mixed blood. If it’s stated, I won’t call out the author for “trolling”.

The rest of my opinion still stands, though. Even if it is justified to have a black character mixed with other ethnicities, it’s more accurate to label her as a mixed blood.

1 Like

Alrighty - ( I swear I’m not tryna come at you or anything just tryna defend the author against OP because whilst I do believe people are allowed their opinions and to have their judgments you would think they’d have at least read to the end of chapter one before bashing a story online )

2 Likes

Thanks! Matured people on the Internet are hard to find nowadays…

2 Likes

Yep!

Yep. All black people comes in different shades. :100: Especially Caribbean people. I don’t see the problem with this at all. Coming from a black light skinned Caribbean person. :coffee:

10 Likes

What does an American look like exactly?

It has nothing to do with American looks. I’m expressing that in my eye, the character didn’t seem black.
Now, I understand that some black people can have lighter skin tones (according to this thread), but to my knowledge black people in general have darker skin tones, darker than just tan, like African-American. I’m saying that labelling her as “black” can mislead unfamiliar readers such as me. Hope that clears my statement.

i’m really embarassed at my previous reply. :woman_facepalming: i obviously made a very uninformed remark, which i acknowledge.

i’m glad for the other people in the comments who could educate me on this topic. in the future, i’ll think twice before saying something about a topic i know little about.

2 Likes

I think there are very diverse black people in the world, maybe the way they have known black people is in what they have seen or quite frankly look like and maybe their aren’t very familiar with all the types of different type of black I really didn’t know how to explain this soo I’m sorry if this is offensive tell me and I’ll Flag it

Oh no dont worry I don’t find your comment offensive at all, by the different diversities of black people I assume you were referencing the author? if so yes I do agree POC people come in all different shades and cultures but the author was visibly black from their end of chapter splashes so OP would have known not to be commenting on the authors ‘lack of research on POC people’ had they read past chapter one. However if you were referring to the character in the story itself that OP is saying is not accurately depicting a POC person, OP should be doing more research on defining features of that type of POC cultural features etc before bashing an author online for inaccuracy. <3

I appreciate you and hope you are having a good day/night along with anyone scrolling through the thread reading comments. <3

2 Likes