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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Authors that describe a character as “Black” or as a POC —  when they don’t directly mention the race of any of the other characters.  It’s like they assume that everyone assumes that the default for a human being is white.  White characters are described by detailed characteristics. POC characters are often described primarily or even only by their race or color.  (An elderly man, with the severe dignity of a priest, paused near the doorway, watching as a black woman walked down the steps.)  — This is the sort of thing I mean.  Once I started noticing this, I can’t not see it.

Related is the propensity for white writers to describe POC as food.  Skin tones are: chocolate, caramel, honey, almond, coffee….. Which stands out to me because non-POC characters are rarely described that way …. Pale, sallow, rosy ….are more typical.

Then there are the stereotypes, but that’s a much more complex issue. I’ll simply say that I’ve given up on one otherwise favorite author’s ability to move beyond comfortable tropes with the one Black repeating character.  She did try — but her inadequacies with this character are particularly evident when neither the author’s descriptions of the character nor her sexless ability to continually comfort the more complexly written and varied white characters ever changes — over the course of almost 20 books.

Vent, vent, vent. Rant, rant, rant. Exhale.

[/quote]

I totally get you, and the food thing is especially awful.

But here's a sincere question. White people avoid writing from a POC's POV because they almost always do it horribly (you're right about stereotypes) and it's cultural appropriation. But whites represent the majority of writers, if nothing else because they're the majority in the broader population. So, just by the numbers, the default kind of is to have a white POV. And, if the priest watches an elderly woman full stop, many will assume she's white, again just by the population numbers.

Do you have any ideas for identifying race respectfully? Identifying the race of every single character when they're introduced seems really clunky. There may be no easy answer and that's fine.[/quote]

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