(cont)to her race without it being like “she’s black and that’s about it. Isn’t that good enough?” Do you get what I’m saying?
BRHood: If you would like to consider yourself a good ally, you’ll understand how angry this question made me. Because the point of that FUBU post was to say that white people are NEVER going to be able to get that. The insinuation that you can just google what it’s like to be Black and be able to portray it accurately in a story is not only mind boggling, but it’s extremely offensive. Extremely. That shower cap thing in my story is something I can write and it’ll relate to Black girls because I’m Black. Period. You will NEVER be able to do that because you are not Black. You can’t google that shit. Some stuff comes with experience. And if the experience is something you’ll never have, then obviously you’re just going to miss out on it.
Another issue that makes what you’re trying to do problematic is the plot. Black girl goes to LA to be an actress? That’s a HELL of a lot different than if it’s a white girl going to LA to be an actress. Do you even have one iota of a clue how racist Hollywood is? Especially in today’s day and age? That this Black girl would HAVE to deal with getting told to her face that if she wasn’t Black, they would give her the role (there was a post of a Black woman on twitter saying she got told that she would have gotten the part in the new Power Ranger season had she not been Black)? For starters, this completely missed the point where I said “I’d like to be able to read something that doesn’t have it thrown in my face that people hate Black people.” And even then, you cannot understand what it’s like to audition for a role and be told no for the SOLE reason that you’re Black, so how dare you think you can accurately portray that? Or google it and find the answer? Seriously, I’m wondering what the fuck is wrong with you right now. Like, there’s no way you could be a follower of ours, or at least go through three pages of this blog, and not know how wrong you are for what you just said.
On a less angry note, your best bet is to find a Black person and have them co-write it with you. And no, I don’t mean get a Black person, ask them how they would feel in x-situations, and then keep writing yourself. I mean that at least half of the story would need to be written by a self-aware Black woman (preferably women since Black men aren’t as jilted as we are in Hollywood).
If not, it’s going to turn into white nonsense and be another example of why white people fail at writing about people of color.
