Diversity in the YA genre is something which is really close to my heart.
I started reading YA when I was about thirteen, probably starting with Twilight, and since then I think I was just too complacent with what I was presented with. Even though I am mixed race myself and have faced prejudice and racism in my life, it wasn't until I was about sixteen or seventeen that I began to see the glaringly wrong trends of YA, my favourite genre.
If you walk into a book shop and find the YA section, there are rows upon rows of covers of beautiful white girls, in long flowing dresses or underwater or embracing similarly beautiful white boys. For those whose covers don't give it away, the inside often reveals a cast of white characters with perhaps one or (at a push) two secondary characters of colour. The number is even less for LGBTQ+ characters. It's practically non-existent for both.
When I woke up to this fact, I could not stop seeing it. Realising that 99% of the books that become bestsellers, that are on my bookshelves, contain solely white, straight, cisgendered protagonists suddenly felt extremely sickening. This is not an accurate representation of the world we live in, this is not an accurate representation of teens – who of all of ages, possibly struggle the most.
I remember picking up Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman when I was about fifteen and it became one of my favourite books, and series, ever. My sisters and I have a copy that we've read between us so many times it's falling apart. I even used the novel for my A Level English Literature exam with the topic of 'The Struggle for Identity'. The book felt revolutionary in my hands. In the later books, there's even a mixed race protagonist named Callie. Finally, a character who looked like me. I wanted to shove it into everyone's lives, to force them to read it, to show them what a role reversal would be like. To my dismay, the books were never as hugely popular as I'd always hoped. They were successful, but not on the scale of other contemporary books. They're still extremely important to me.
Frankly, I don't know how the YA genre has ended up like this. This is the genre where the fantasy novels are wonderful and abundant with all kinds of beings. Yet, it is apparently too far fetched to have people of colour? The lack of diversity is sometimes stifling. Of course, for people who are already represented, this might not be such a big deal. For me, having every hero or heroine of mine be white, literally made me think that being brown was an actual flaw. An imperfection. Do you see what I'm trying to say? A 13 year old girl thought that she was worlds away from Bella Swan, not because Bella was in love with a vampire, but because Bella was pale skinned and beautiful. That became an ideal in my mind. It stuck like superglue.
Enter, Katniss Everdeen. Katniss Everdeen changed everything for me. When I found The Hunger Games and read that Katniss was olive-skinned, I was floored. Katniss, the leader of a rebellion, the girl who defied the Capitol, the Mockingjay herself, who is still one of my ultimate (if not THE) YA heroines, was not described as being white. It honestly blew my mind. I even had ridiculous thoughts like 'I should be an actress and audition! I could be her!' I mean, who was I kidding, I cannot act and our builds aren't remotely similar, but that's not the point. The point is that the idea that Katniss could have my skin tone or similar, meant that I could see myself in her. I could never be invisible as long as I had Katniss Everdeen. Hollywood then whitewashed her, but I can still cling to my version of Katniss that they can never, ever, take away from me. That belongs to me and always will, because books do belong to those who read them.
So how did YA get to be this way? How did the vast majority of authors and agents become so complacent with promoting this very prominent idea of a white, beautiful heroine, who does not understand her own beauty until she is noticed by a boy? How did we become so complacent with picking up these books and just accepting it?
When I found the #WeNeedDiverseBooks movement, honestly it made me a little emotional. People are noticing, people are standing up and saying no, this is not right, and we cannot continue like this. We cannot have young people growing up thinking that their skin colour, sexual orientation, or gender identity is a flaw or an imperfection or unnatural. We have a duty to protect them and encourage them. Authors have a duty to their readers, to acknowledge the reality of the world. The reality being that we live in a diverse world, where sexuality and gender are not simple, and cannot be simply be put into neat little boxes.
As an aspiring author myself, I read the books that I wrote when I was between 14 and 17 and I'm honestly shocked. My protagonists are white. Their friends are white. It's wrong. This is not how I grew up. I have a mixed race family, my friends over the years have been of many races and sexualities. So why had I been brainwashed into thinking I could only write about white people? It honestly angers me. Back then, I didn't think I could write about girls who look like me, I didn't think anyone would even read it if I put it online.
Right now, the sad truth is that my work-in-progress novels would probably never see the light of day on a book shelf. All of my protagonists are girls of colour, my secondary characters are diverse in skin colour, sexuality, body types, and gender. There are white people in my stories, but as a part of a cast of diversity – not the overwhelming majority.
Diversity is so important and I want to see genuine, huge change in the YA genre. I want to see authors called out on their white heteronormative casts of characters. I want to see them continue to try to justify it. I want to see them uncomfortable about it, because that's the only way change will come about. I don't buy into the 'I'm white so I don't want to misrepresent/I can't put myself in different shoes' I think that's a complete cop-out. It's an excuse. They are writers, writing pretend situations is their job, yet writing diversity is too far fetched and too much of a stretch for them? I don't believe it for a second. If you are an author and you remain in your comfort zone for your entire career, frankly, you are wasting your potential. If you don't even try to write diverse characters and protagonists, and then just bring out another novel with a white heteronormative cast of characters, you are knowingly contributing to the awful YA culture.
Fantastical, magical, heart-racing adventures should not only belong to white, thin, straight people and characters. Please, take a look at #WeNeedDiverseBooks on
twitter and
tumblr. This tumblr
Diversity In YA is also brilliant. I am going to do my absolute best to buy and support more books that contain diverse characters, and I hope that you will too!
(Obviously, this is bigger than just YA fiction, this happens in just about every genre and in most movies and TV shows. YA is the one I'm discussing because it is such a big part of my life)
EDIT:
In response to a question about this post :
i think what you said was really interesting. but (as one of the privileged peoples about whom most YA books are written and a writer) i'm personally terrified to write about poc chars. i've seen so many white writers (even ones w/ good overall poc represention like cassandra clare) being torn to shreds on the internet over that i get the impression no matter what you do you're gonna get crit over poc representation. no way an excuse ofc but its the way i feel
My response: I think it’s understandable, although I wouldn’t say Cassandra Clare necessarily has a great amount of poc representation, she just has MORE than the usual YA author. I guess what I meant in the post is, I kind of understand being uncomfortable straight up writing a poc protagonist if you are white, because it is a touchy subject, but especially with secondary characters…I can’t see the excuse. And honestly, right now I think it’s better to TRY in a sensitive way, than to never even try at all and sweep it under the rug.
I’m not white, I’ve written white protagonists. I am forced daily to put myself into the shoes of white protagonists and sympathise with their struggles, else I wouldn’t have any favourite movies or TV shows or books. I’ve written all kind of races of poc protagonists. people might never read it, but it gets me comfortable in doing it. I listen to my friends, I listen to my family, and even strangers, and people online. I take it in and I use it, because that’s what writers do to learn, you know?
But honestly, if you can research a whole new world, a whole new country, create names and terms for your aspects of your story, people even invent whole languages, but what scares you the most is to even put some research into representation of different races…it’s just seems wrong to me. I think everyone’s capable of putting across a fair representation of diverse characters, even if they are white.
And if someone says, “you know what, you’re white, how could you get it enough to write it? How could you get my struggle enough to try to represent me? You did this and this and this wrong!” You say, “You’re right, I can’t understand it, but if I have the power to put something into the public eye for thousands to read, I have a duty to at least try, and if that backfires, then I’ll learn from it and listen and try to do better, as well as supporting diversity and making an effort to promote diverse books” that, to me, is a better scenario than someone one day coming to you and saying, “I could not find one single character in your book to relate to or feel represented by.”
If you’re terrified, write something no one will ever read. Write it for you. Get more comfortable with it, just try is all I’m saying. You’re right, you will probably get criticised, but to me, you at least tried. You’re already miles ahead of the authors who don’t. You’re not obligated, of course, it’s your writing, but someday someone might just thank you for not making them invisible or reducing them to a stereotype!
