BRHood: Oh yeah, I hear that. I’m trying to diversify my characters as much as I can. I have people who are Asian (Sunny is half Korean, and there are other Asians in the story), Afro-Latin@s, one girl is Pakistani, and I want to make one character Nigerian, etc. It’s tricky, but I’m def collaborating with people from the respective races. And if I mess up, I’ll welcome any calling out and try to do better the next time.
The thing is that people think that people can’t like stuff without finding it problematic. I hope people like my work, but I do want them to call me out on any shit I mess up on. I’m expecting it and when it happens, I’ll apologize and try to fix it. The people coming to our ask box in regards to this, I think, want to do it without having to really interact with PoC. Or, they don’t want ANY criticism. But nothing written is perfect.
My issue is I don’t want them writing shit, fucking up, and then pulling a Victoria Hoyt (or Foyt…wtf is her name?) and ignoring the criticism. Smeyer does that too. And the woman who wrote Hunger Games. I feel like too many of these white, modern writers can’t own up to their mistakes and recognize what they may have done something wrong. Especially when it comes to race. The reason I’m being rather harsh is because I need them to understand that they ARE going to fuck up, and when they do, listen and don’t write it off. Because it makes you a shit person and also makes it hard for people to get into your works when you belittle these critiques (ie, the reason I won’t read Hunger Games).
