Diversity in Literature

[DulceDiva]

I have notice a lack of diversity in literature & have some questions & concerns. Feel free to chime in.

I'll be discussing both online writing & print publication.
In both forms of literature their is a majority of Caucasian writers and characters.

Caucasians do not have set expectations in the way people of color do , they are represented in a variety of ways , and they have individualism in the media.
Recently a Caucasian atheist man murdered his three muslim neighbors , Deah Barakat was a dental student his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha graduated from North Carolina State University and her sister was studying architecture at NC. Source: state.http://www.wcnc.com/story/news/crime/20 ... /23540485/
The media is not saying that all atheists are evil but since 9/11 all muslims have taken the blame for a few individuals. If their was a way for the media to demonize the victims they would have already done it.

In literature people take whatever stereotypes that they get from the media and apply them to characters of color. For example that all black/ african american or latina / hispanic girls are ghetto or sassy . That all asian girls are introverted goody two shoes.

Even poc writers do it sometimes , I am tired of the beat up gang novels and all of that ,

[DulceDiva]

I wasn't done .

Interracial stories : print / online
Too many poc woman with rich white man who will step in fix all her problems and play father for her kids ( usually with a black / african american woman )
poc can be interracial with other poc not just white people.
Also if you search young adult novels this list pops up and most of the authors are not poc. Why should I have to search young adult novels for women of color to find a number of authors who are of color equivalent to that in the good reads list I linked?
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1276 ... _for_Girls

Also if I just clicked the fan -fiction tab on a particular online writing forum that mostly stories with non-poc characters pop up.When I do specifically search for interracial fan -fiction their is less of it and a lot of the work is not as well written as it could be. Their is also a lot of poorly written work about non -poc too. Maybe the authors are scared their isn't going to be a large audience for writing about poc?

Also a character's religion , ethnicity or nationality does not have to be their whole identity. this whole all people of blank ethnicity look the same stuff is irritating.
The whole all people of blank ethnicity look the same is irritating too.
I really don't mean to rant but it just happens.

[groudon17]

are you looking for diverse literature?

sara farizan has written two great books about persian lesbian teenagers. robin talley has an amazing book about a black girl and a white girl falling in love in high school during the 1960s. lies my girlfriend told me by julie anne peters is a sweet love story between a white girl and a mexican girl.

"i love i hate i miss my sister" by ameile sarn is not a romance but a great book about two sides of oppression the characters face when embracing her muslim religion.
"counting by 7s" is a middle grade/young adult book about an incredibly intelligent young black girl that loves to garden.

these are just a few good non-stereotypical books involving poc girls i can think of, assuming you are looking for recommendations. i keep track of a lot of young adult books. if you would like more i'd be happy to dig around some more. thankfully there are more and more diverse books coming out all the time

[DulceDiva]

Thank you so much groundon , please keep the recommendations coming.

[Keda]

I found this really awesome site recently, which is a catalogue of YA fiction featuring non-straight-white-cis characters. It doesn't focus on the authors' identities, but I imagine that a fair number of them belong to one or more minority group since, as you say, folks do tend to write the people they identify with: http://doublediamond.net/aow/homepage.php

[Heather]

By the by, if you don't already read Racialicious, you will probably want to jump on that. It is perpetually amazing, widely representative, and these issues come up there a lot, and with a lot of talk from a lot of gobsmackingly smart writers and community members in the comments.

It is here: http://www.racialicious.com/

Its founder, Latoya Peterson, just wrote this elsewhere today, as a fine example of her awesome for you: http://fusion.net/story/50822/stop-it-w ... splaining/