July 10, 2013

Heroine Week, Day 3 – For Colored Girls Who Can’t Find Themselves Between the Pages by Rebekah Weatherspoon




Rebekah was one of the first people who joined Heroine Week. When she told me that her Happily Ever Afters came in every color, I knew her contribution would be interesting and invaluable. I was right, and you're about to see why. 

*****

For Colored Girls Who Can’t Find Themselves Between the Pages by Rebekah Weatherspoon

I talked to Brie briefly about Paula Deen and how it was affecting my headspace as I put this piece together. I wanted to leave Paula out of this cause really fuck Paula, but then something else happened. Rachel Jeantel took the stand in the George Zimmerman trial. I think Rachel did her absolute best. A murder trial is not an easy thing to participate in. I don’t know what I would do if I had to speak on behalf of my dead friend, under national pressure to tell the truth and additional pressure to bring an accused killer to justice. Rachel testified for hours. Both the defense and the prosecution handled Rachel poorly.

They handled other witnesses poorly as well. Jennifer Lauer, the neighbor whose 911 call picked up the sound of the gunshot, was asked the same questions over and over and was even accused of following George Zimmerman’s brother on twitter by the prosecution who didn’t understand how twitter works. She was not following the brother. Twitter had just suggested she follow him, probably because they are both associated with the case. In the following 24 hours I didn’t hear much about Jennifer Lauer, but I heard A LOT about Rachel Jeantel.


First came the Precious jokes, making fun of her weight and her skin tone (side note: Gabourey Sidibe is a beautiful young woman who acted the hell out of an intense role so the comparison shouldn't even been an insult, but...ya know), and then people went right after the way she talks, calling her stupid, ghetto, and unsophisticated. She was memed as a drug addict whose weight impacted her testimony. Did Rachel do anything to deserve this treatment? Nope. She showed up and did her civic duty and I think told the truth to the best of her ability, but if you Google her you will find the most vile comments about a young woman whose only crime is being black and heavy.

What does this have to do with Heroines in Romance? Oh, I’ll tell you. I love love. I’m a sucker for it. I love watching romantic comedies. I love reading romance novels. I love fixing people up. I’m really a sucker for fixing people up. But I don’t see whole of women like me or Rachel getting to fall in love on my screens or in the books I read. As much as I wish it wasn’t the case, everything we consume has a bearing on our sense of self-worth. Film, television shows, magazines, newspaper articles, popular blogs,  advertisements, photographs, the words from the mouths of our teachers or employers or friends and family, and books all influence how we see ourselves and each other. That’s where female identifying folks like myself looking for positive representations of ourselves in these outlets run into a little bit of a problem.

Often we’re missing altogether. Just flip through a list of the mainstream films and books released so far this year or check the primetime line-up for every cable and network station. The landscape is pretty white. White and thin and straight. For me and many others, that’s a problem. Why?

Let me take you back to the early 90’s. Remember a little show called Friends? Remember the Rachel haircut? Some of you younger folks might not. Look it up. It was some haircut. I was the only black girl in my middle school. For 2 years I was the only black kid period. EVERYONE went out and got the Rachel. Even one of the Chinese girls in my class got the Rachel. I would have looked ridiculous with that haircut, but I felt left out. Sometimes being left out makes you feel like you means you don't matter. And you know that old (old as in Pretty Woman old) saying, if you hear something enough times you start to believe it.

Luckily for me I had mother who made sure blackness was thrust upon me at every turn and by the time I hit kindergarten I knew me and my blackness mattered. But what about people who don't have parents or siblings or even teachers to show them how necessary it is that they feel visible and important? Well, they’re left with film and TV and books. And when those mediums leave you out, then what? You're left feeling invisible and invalidated and that’s a lot to handle especially when those mediums are the average American's means of escape.

When we aren’t missing altogether, we’re unreasonably selfless friends, co-workers, or employees. The characters meant to represent us typically don’t have families or full lives. Those characters are incomplete people. Depending on the point of view, this makes sense, sometimes. But it happens enough that nearly all the media non-white woman consume tells us that we’re just nameless, faceless employees, or bitches and hos, or walking sex toys,  or like in Rachel Jeantel, and every woman who looks or sounds like Rachel, we’re nothing but hurtful joke to be circulated around the internet.

This leads to our claims of injustice, racism, rape, or domestic violence being ignored or again, turned into a joke. Why? Because the leading sources of influential information say we aren’t complete people. We’re here to offer sympathy and wisdom. Or recipes. But we’re not here to be listened to or defended and we sure as hell aren’t here to be loved.

I’m of the mind that every woman deserves to be the star of their own story. I’m not the sidekick in my own life. I’m not the support or the help or the sassy black woman. Sometimes I do give a little more than I should to fair weather friends, but I think a lot of people are guilty of that, but I’m not at their service no matter what it costs me. I’m not invisible in my own life. I might be invisible to others, but my own life is pretty full of me. I’m in a relationship with an amazing human being, who happens to be pretty freaking cute. Funny thing is, I don’t see myself much of anywhere else. The only woman on TV I can remotely relate to in relationship to the way the world sees me is Amber Riley’s character Mercedes Jones on Glee, but Mercedes is in high school and that I know of Mercedes’s character can’t keep a man that she actually wants and she doesn’t have a visible family, even though her family took in a pregnant Quinn when her parents, who were featured on more than one episode, tossed her out. I love me some Olivia Pope, but Olivia and I have very very little in common. I do wish I had her wardrobe though.

I have NEVER seen myself in a romance novel. Ever. Maybe there’s a character out there who is a lot like me, but I haven’t found her yet. And why is that?

We can start with the money. White people sell, on the surface. The truth is people of color sell too, when their stories are given the proper exposure. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is always a movie I like to point out. Amazing, award-winning film and not once have I heard anyone say, “That really could have used more white people.” It did well in the US market because it was a great film that got proper exposure. Marketing matters, people. When it’s really difficult to find positive and realistic stories about people of color, white and people of color alike think those stories don’t exist. When people think those stories don’t exist, those stories don’t sell, so publishers and production studios put out less of those stories. The ones they do released get a fraction of the marketing push or they are only marketed to who that publisher or studio thinks will like that type of story.

I swear if I ever find the jerk who is making this crap up, we will have a very unfortunate conversation, but there is some awful rumor going around that women of color don’t read romance. We also don’t like sci-fi or fantasy. I’ve heard this many times. It’s been said to my face. I’ll let you think about that too. I, a black woman who writes romance, have been told to my face that women of color don’t read romance. Tell that to Charlaine Harris, and JR Ward, and Stephenie Meyer. Women of color have helped them out quite a bit. They’ve taken a nice chunk of my money. Not only do we like romance, we write it too. Just ask Francis Ray*. I hear it’s working out pretty well for her.

My first book, Better Off Red is pretty darn diverse. I tried to hit every continent when casting my seven vampires, but I still feel like I didn’t do enough. I realized that I would have to just keep writing people of color, over and over again. I’m pretty happy with this decision. Still, I had another author ask me why I write couples where at least one character isn’t white. She thought I was trying too hard to be politically correct. That my writing about relationships between Mexican women and black women and white women and Asian women was somehow a gimmick.

I let that roll around in my head for a while and realized that some people really do see an effort to include people of color as doing too much, as being unrealistic. But here’s the thing, when I leave my house I see all kinds of women. I try to walk every morning. I pass a few schools and every more I see Asian, Black and Latino moms taking their kids to school. I see them with their husbands and friends. They have lives. They have full stories. That’s real, no trying too hard about it. I feel like that reality to continue over into the media we consume because being visible creates a connection and often times, a connection can make a huge difference.

I see color, but I see people as well and it’s important to see different types of women in our entertainment. It’s important that we see different kind of women in different professions, in different situations and in love. Love humanizes us all. In my life, I needed I had to know that Beverly Jenkins and Farrah Rochon were out there writing about black love different from the love my parents shared.  I needed to know they are out there writing the type of fiction that I wanted to write and read. They not only continue to show me, where films and tv fail, that black people are out there, falling in love. And they showed me I could that I could write about those people falling in love too.

It's not enough for women of color to think “I can be a doctor I can be a lawyer. I can go to space.” And still a lot of women aren't receiving those messages. There needs to be voices out there saying I am worthy of love in its simplest and spine tingling forms. I can be the princess. The damsel. I can save the prince and it won't change a thing between us. I can be a writer whose expression is taken seriously and not as an under-selling niche to be marketed not at all and sold separately. It's important for other women of color to know that they too, can be.

Here are three books featuring heroines of color that I rather enjoyed.


Parties In Congress by Colette Moody (lesbian romance between an Indian woman and a white woman written by a white woman)

Back to the Good Fortune Diner by Vicki Essex (contemporary romance between a Chinese woman and a White man written by a woman of color)


Night Song by Beverly Jenkins (historical Black romance written by a woman of color)

*The day after I submitted this post to Brie, author Francis Ray passed away. I only had the pleasure of talking to Ms. Ray online, on two separate occasions, but both times were wonderful, not only because she was enthusiastic and kind, but because it meant so much to me as a black author on the come up to be able to speak to another woman of color who had carved out such a fantastic, prolific career in romance. I’m just one of the many people who has been touched by Francis Ray and her work. If you haven’t picked up one of her titles, I highly recommend you do so.  http://francisray.com/

*****

Connect with Rebekah:


55 comments:

  1. Add to this: Heart Block by Melissa Brayden - lesbian romance: Latina woman and white woman written by a white woman.

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  2. Thank you for this post! I too am a black woman and I struggle to characters that remind me of myself and my friends in mainstream romance novels. Those stories are out there somewhere, and some authors are trying their damnedest to make them heard, however, most of the books that get a lot of push from the publishers and plenty of blog coverage aren't those sorts of books.

    I remember my mother taking me on weekly library trips as a child and her efforts to seek out the stories about black children like me. There was a lot of Jacqueline Woodson reading going on during those years. Being the voracious reader that I am, there came a point where those stories ran out. During the 90s there was a dearth of books featuring children of color and, it's my understanding, that this issue persists today. Despite the fact that I now primarily read adult - and some YA - fiction, I still deal with this on a daily basis. I don't think it's fair or logical that in a country where white people will soon be outnumbered by minorities, there continues to be a disturbing lack of non-white stories and story-tellers.

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    1. Thanks Jacquline! It really is hard to find the material. Latinos now outnumber white people in California. The same month that the only show featuring an all Latina cast on mainstream TV was Devious Maids. The representation is heartbreaking.

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  3. Thanks so much for this post and for your recommendations. It's so empowering to hear different voices, to see both how different cultures shape different perspectives AND how people of different cultures still share lots of the same fundamental qualities--including the desire for love.

    Heroine Week is going to leave me broke.

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  4. I have never seen even an attempt by anyone to write a romance heroine anything like me (and to be honest, I’m vaguely grateful given what I *have* seen done with representations of Native Americans in historicals). There are a handful of NA writers in RWA, and we’ve spoken about writing an “Urban Indian” collection together, but since it’s totally off brand for what we all write normally, I’m not sure we ever will.

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    1. I would love to read that! I hope that you all seriously consider it.

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    2. I would read the crap out of that!

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  5. Probably not. It doesn’t fit in with any of our genres or brands (UF, Historical, Women's Fiction) and it isn't something any of us want to start writing as secondary genre on a regular basis. But maybe that will change. Who knows.

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  6. This was an amazing article. I'm just blown away at how you were able to put in words my feelings about women of color in romances. I work in a library and had to argue about my recommendation of a Jenkins title for our collection. My boss couldn't believe that the book would get checked out.

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    1. Thanks Diana. I don't know what I would do without some Beverly Jenkins in my life. :)

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  7. Great post, Rebekah. One of the things I liked about your book was the inclusion of women of color in a way that felt very natural. Sometimes these portrayals do seem forced or token or stereotyped. I thought Victoria Dahl did a nice job with a black female secondary character in Good Girls Don't.

    My library has a pretty diverse selection. I checked out Zane's erotic lesbian anthology there, which was terrible overall but maybe good for the representation factor. They have something called Urban Lit? also, which isn't romantic from what I've read. Santa Olivia (UF) features a poor, half-black lesbian heroine--loved that book. But you know, I can't think of any "urban" AA romance. The characters I've seen tend to be well off, and the home/hearth Harlequin lines with non-wealthy characters are exceedingly white. How can that not leave the impression that poor people of color are unworthy of HEAs?

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    1. And the romances I can think of (E.g. The Sleeping Night by Barbara Samuel and The Highest Price to Pay by Maisey Yates) feature interracial couples where the hero is black. Meljean Brook and Nalini Singh have several heroines of color, but other than that, I have a hard time thinking of more romances. Not to mention that some readers sent negative feedback to M&B to complain about the cover of Maisey Yates' book.

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    2. @Jill - It also suggests that Black middle/upper class people dont exist. Brenda Jackson and Farrah Rochon do an excellent job of writing upper class black people of which there are plenty in the real world. i hate the term Urban too, since TONS of black people don't actually live in cities.

      @Brie - I have Nalini and Meljean in my to-read pile. I've only read Maisey's white couples, but I've seen that she's done some Sheik titles. I tend to skip those.

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    3. The Highest Price To Pay has a black African hero. It wasn't published by Harlequin in the US, only by Mills and Boon in the UK.

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  8. Amazing article, Rebekah! I completely agree that we don't see people that look like us in "mainstream" romance novels. What I find even more insulting is that any story with a black hero/heroine is automatically deemed "african american" romance and segregated to the "african american" section with all the other "african american" books that only "african americans" can relate to. How did this happen? Is our love different or unrelatable to the mainstream reader? I think this is the underlying reason why we don't see ourselves in mainstream romance. This misconception that you have to be a POC to identify with a romance about a POC. How in the world do we begin to tear down that stereotype?

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    1. It's like you're in my brain. And I don't know, but I wish it would happen soon.

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  9. Fabulous post Rebekah!! Keep defining the HEA in your own words and on your own terms and I promise to keep doing the same. Brava!

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    1. Thank you, Ms. B! Encouragement from you means a lot. :)

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  10. Part of what contributes to the vileness toward people like Rachel Jeantel is a total inability to empathize with her. Stories help us put ourselves in other people's shoes. The dearth of strong black female characters means black women don't see themselves represented, and it also means that white readers don't develop the ability to empathize with black women. This is true across class lines as well, and acts as a particularly sinister method of social control.

    So glad you wrote this post. I think the best we can do is to keep writing, reading, and buying stories with women of color at the center. Even though what I really want to do is punch a few publishing gatekeepers in the face.

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    1. YES! Exactly this. We need to read about people who are like us, but we also need to read about people who aren't so that we can find out that they are just people too.

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    2. @Rebecca - I am wary of the "strong black" anything as that supposed strength has caused a lot of problems for us. but yes, the temptation to dish out a smack or too is strong. :)

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    3. I meant strong as in strongly written. But I see how that word is problematic. Complex is more accurate.

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  11. Fabulous post, Rebekah. Well written, thoughtful, and timely. You are one smart lady. Now that authors have more options within publishing I hope we will see more diversity in hero's and heroine's and that color will no longer be an issue. We just need to keep reminding everyone that the language of love is universal and crosses all cultures.

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    1. @Robena - Amen. I think it also just helps us as human beings to see what other experience. i'd love more romances with Muslim women for example. religion does impact how courtship is handled. I WANT MORE!!

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  12. I began writing novels for two reasons. First, I loved to write and I couldn't stop myself from writing. Second, I'd been reading lesbian literature for many, many years, and I was so tired of not seeing myself represented in romance stories. Although my writing is headed toward dramatic general fiction, my four published novels are love stories (with additional themes) featuring African-American lesbians. I invite you to meet my work.

    Renee Bess
    Author of Leave of Absence, Breaking Jaie, RE:Building Sasha, and The Butterfly Moments
    www.reneebess.com

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    1. Thanks Renee! They are going right on my enormous to-read list. :)

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  13. This topic has been bubbling around for a while now. My online friend, Melissa Hillman, wrote an excellent blog post here.

    http://bittergertrude.com/2013/06/04/skinny-white-girls-are-exhausting-my-eyes/

    I think this is one of those things - those of us who write should write more inclusively. Older women, women of color, women of size, women of varying sexuality; we are all, men and women alike, deserving of love and deserving of seeing our lives on stage, screen, TV, and in books. I'm trying. I'm trying very hard.
    Hugs hon!!!

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    1. Thanks Christine and thanks for the link. xoxo!

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  14. Hi Rebekah!
    I get shivers when I think about what I've undertaken, but am currently under contract with three books the first has a bi-racial woman protagonist (white/black), the second romance is between a Japanese woman and Scandinavian man, and the third book features a hispanic woman. I pray every day that I can do these characters and their stories justice.

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  15. Hi Rebekah,
    I appreciate your comments and applaud the inclusion of people of color in fiction, particularly lesbian fiction. However, I wonder why your cover doesn't include the diversity that you want?

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    1. the stock image world is one of the most racist corners of the internet i have ever seen. search "black woman" or "japanese woman" and you get 500 picture of white women doing god knows what. my Cleo on the cover of Blacker Than Blue i have seen on 4 other books. that's how hard it is to find images of black women who aren't smiling oddly, crying, or eating salad.

      my Benny on that cover is about half of her actual weight and twice as old. if i could shoot my own cover models i would. because of that reason half of my books do reflect my couples. the other half meet the esthetic of the story. my next book has a Korean-Jamaican lead. i have to yet to find her in the stock image world so we went pink themed instead.

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  16. Thanks, Rebekah, for the thought-provoking post. Robin Covington just released a Brazen titled "Playing the Part" featuring an inter-racial couple, (white heroine/black hero), and, although this is clear from the cover, I didn't notice a ton of discussion about the fact that it was an inter-racial romance. I honestly thought, "Hey, that's because nowadays, it's totally mainstream." Your post points out mainstream isn't quite as broad as I like to assume.

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    1. @Samanthe -- Black Man/White Woman is actually done to death so it might feel pretty mainstream. But plus-sized black woman/Latino guy? heck nah. Indian Man/Chinese Woman? HUUHHH! That's my issue. It's not too to hard to find certain interracial combos (no comment on quality), but it is really hard to find a various other than slim, perfect stereotypical or completely unrealistic black and white.

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    2. I'd like to read these stories too Rebekah. Thank you for your excellent post.

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    3. @Kaetrin right now im drooling over Farrah Rochon and Beverly Jenkins's work. I cannot gobble up their books fast enough.

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  17. I loved this post. Cannot say how much I love it. I write romance as well and I struggle with my own whiteness being front and center. Yeah, I know that the market is predominantly white, 30-40's and female, but it doesn't have to be that way. Heck, I'm white and I'm fascinated by other cultures, I want to understand what it's like to walk in another person's shoes. And I'm rambling here. Basically, rock on. There should be more.

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  18. Love you, love your writing, and have already added some of these books to my Kindle queue, per your recommendation.

    Would love to talk with you sometime about what I, as a writer who is white (and hopefully not too much of an a$$hole), can do to advance the cause of diversity and inclusiveness. I've tried in my own writing, to use black, Hispanic, and Asian characters, although not yet as the lead characters. Because that brings up a whole issue of, is it RIGHT for me to do so? I've gotten into sometimes intense discussions over the question of whether is it right/fair for white writers to "once again profit from the bodies of men and women of color" when there ARE writers of color creating those stories and who are not getting published/attention. Or whether use of interracial couples goes into fetishizing the "other." And is that really so bad? Some people are initially attracted to someone who is tall/dark-skinned/disabled/busty/redheaded, but as time goes on, either they fall into or out of love for many additional reasons.

    IMO, every author should write diverse characters who aren't caricatures, if we can, but besides that, besides reading, reviewing, and trying to support writers who use POC as lead characters, what other things can/should we be doing?

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    1. @Beverly - you know how i feel about you and all of your awesomeness. this is a whole other conversation, but there is something to the idea that NO ONE questions me if i write all white characters. that's completely okay. but if a white person write characters of color everyone must pause. we can talk about this at length next time i pounce on you in person, but i am of the mind that every single character should be treated as human and then the nuisances of cultural differences can be addressed. if you're nervous about misrepresenting, then ask. ive had people ask me to pre-read their black characters. i ask my mexican friend for her opinion on my mexican characters and so on. it is really obvious when white people are writing the fantasy of what people of color are and it can be completely avoided.

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  19. Thanks for posting this! I work for a Major Chain Bookstore, and it's hard to help customers find good fiction featuring African American women that isn't "urban fiction" or showing black women in a historical context. A friend of mind summed it up when she told me, "I am a black woman with a Master's Degree, a minivan and a high paying job. I don't want to read about "gangsta sistas in the hood" because I can't relate at all."

    Another area I have trouble finding titles for is Juvie Fiction with main characters of color - if you're a ten year old non-white girl who wants to read fiction, your selection is sadly limited.

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    1. @patti- thanks for your comment! i dont know that life at all either, but i want gangsta girls in their hood to have their love stories too. in my ideal world EVERYONE gets their love story. mini-van moms and girls who run the hood and everyone between and to the side and up and down. :) it's just so hard to get publishers and book sellers to see the value in showcasing a wide range of perspectives.

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  20. I loved this, Rebekah. Very well said!
    Parties in Congress just went to the top of my TBR.
    I write Indian romance, and I do have the Indian Man/Chinese Woman as a subplot in my debut novel.
    I still remember reading my first Indian commercial novel and LOVING that the characters weren't British or American (which is all we read growing up in India until I was a young adult). Much as I love to read about different cultures, everyone wants to see themselves between the pages. You are so right.

    Sonali

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  21. Rebekah,

    Thank you for your thought-provoking post.

    "Love humanizes us all." This to me was powerful statement, along with Rebecca's "Part of what contributes to the vileness toward people like Rachel Jeantel is a total inability to empathize with her. Stories help us put ourselves in other people's shoes."

    This morning, I was looking for books for a display at my library on the royal baby--hoping to include those lighter novels on getting pregnant and picking out a baby crib (the unfortunately named Mommy Lit). Those motherhood/pregnancy books are all white. The books with pregnant African-American characters are either about teen pregnancy or having the drug dealer's baby. I'm frustrated that my display won't reflect the people who walk into my building--and I'm sure I can't begin to understand how it would feel for the people to walk into my library building and not see a display that reflects back at me.

    If someone knows authors who write those stories, please tell me.

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    1. @Jennifer I will most certainly investigate. I love baby/pregnancy stories, but I've never read one with anything other than white women. please bug me on twitter about it.

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  22. Rebekah, Thanks for this wonderful post. As a black British woman who also writes romance, this article really encapsulates a lot of what I've been thinking and feeling as both a reader and writer. Rarely do I see myself reflected in mainstream media except as an issue - drugs, violence, poverty... or as a perpetual bridesmaid - a totally incidental character there to buttress the character development of the main, usually white characters, but with no arc or development of my own.
    I set out to write a commercial novel and recently published my first novel, The Modeliser, but even the process of marketing my novel and helping the book find its audience felt and feels like a fraught and loaded endeavour - the consensus seeming to be that I can write for and market to readers of colour or a mainstream white audience but not both. I'm still trying to find a balance and hope that books with women of colour as romantic heroines can appeal to a wide mainstream readership.
    Thanks for a great, thought provoking read.

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  23. Rebekah, Wonderful post. As a white writer, I learn more and more about intersectionality from posts like these and want to become better all the time. I'm starting my next series with the first two couples as mixed race, and it's very exciting to me. Your thoughts are so valuable and I learn from your Twitter all the time. Thank you!

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    1. Thanks Lucy! You're my to-read mountain as well. I'm excited to see what you have coming up next.

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  24. What a wonderful blog, written by a smart, gorgeous, funny and insightful lady! I've always thought the world of you, and had much respect....this just upped it ALL!! Love you, girl. Great post, wise words.

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  25. *applause* thank you for this post, Rebekah.

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  26. I’m of the mind that every woman deserves to be the star of their own story.

    This. Very much this.

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  27. An interesting post. I'm of Eastern European Jewish descent, and many times I wanted to find a heroine that I could relate to, or that was Jewish, and its difficult to do so. Not sure if it matters or not.

    sveta-ranmdomblog.blogspot.com

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  28. Oops, here's link

    http://sveta-randomblog.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete

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