Baltimore Magazine, our city’s monthly rag, is so popular in our house that we subscribed to it even when we lived in another state. My husband thinks it’s better than the Washingtonian which is probably more prestigious, but maybe that’s just because he likes Baltimore more. At any rate, last month’s issue featured the top 25 hair salons in and around the city. I didn’t pay much attention – I have locs I was fairly certain they weren’t going to feature any natural hair care salons.
Another black woman reader was not so jaded and sent a letter to the editor which appears in the March issue:
Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that, in a city that, according to the Census of 2010 is 63.6% black, all of the salons seemed to be centered around services that Caucasian women would need. I was looking for a salon that I could go to in order to get my hair braided … I hope you will make an effort to have your magazine represent the diversity of your city.
The editorial staff responded with this:
Your point is well taken. There are salons on the list that do cater to African-American hair, but we should have been more specific.
When I read this I had that little cringey feeling I get around racial cluelessness. It brought to mind a point stated by author David Mura in the AWP panel on writers of color in workshops – whiteness is invisible. It’s important for white people to keep whiteness invisible to avoid uncomfortable discussions on race.
In that same panel, Faith Adiele relayed how, to prove a point, she had asked white acquaintances to reference white people by their race in conversation. For instance, “The white cashier at the grocery gave me the wrong change,” or “There’s my white neighbor, Stanley.” No one she asked was comfortable with that because, in general, that’s not how white people relate to the world. To paraphrase Mat Johnson, the consensus culture has been misunderstood to be universal.
I have absolutely no information on the diversity of the Baltimore magazine’s staff, but the oversight in specifying what hair types the salons catered to makes it safe to assume at least that if there are black women on staff, they did not read the article before it was published.
Recently, I had an exchange with a self-published author of YA novels. She is a white author whose novels include characters of color in supporting roles. One particular character is described as being “dark-skinned” with “curly black hair.” I assumed he was black when in reality she had intended him to be of East Indian descent. She hadn’t specified his race or background because “he was American” and “it wasn’t important.”
His race was, in fact, not important to the plot of the story, however, I would imagine that as excited as I am to see black characters in the books I consume, Indian readers are just as excited to see themselves represented. I’m sure I actually read far more books with black characters than Indian ones so they may even be more excited. I told the author this, and it was something she hadn’t thought of. So while I applaud her for actually including characters of color in her work, and recognizing the value and necessity of such, I was disappointed that she didn’t take the extra step to fully describe the character and embrace his racial identity. I believe her when she said it never occurred to her that it would be important – and that is exactly the problem.
It’s not news that their own race is unimportant to white people. For people of color, it is extremely important. And when that fact doesn’t make white people uncomfortable, I think we’ll all be better off.
Agree/Disagree? Let us know in the comments!
Responses:
03/15/2013 at 11:58 am
I completely agree. But on the flip side I recently read a novel about black folks, written by a black woman, where black characters skin color and features were described to a T, but then white characters were not. It completely confused me. I only figured out that these characters were white because of the context of the dialogue or their actions. This says to me that this universal-ness is so inbred that writers of color are just as guilty as our white brothers and sisters of the offense.
03/15/2013 at 4:07 pm
You’re absolutely right, Nakeesha. Writers of color should not get a pass on accurately describing their characters. Everyone (at least in American culture) is a victim of white invisibility to all of our detriment.
03/15/2013 at 1:38 pm
Interesting thought. I immediately tried to remember how I handled that in my stories. My first (published) novel is a fantasy set in something vaguely like the Pacific Northwest of about 500 years ago. The culture modeled on a local Native tribe is called out fairly clearly, but the one modeled on ancient Japan might not be. There’s physical description, but the only other clue is in modified-Japanese personal and place names (Kizashi, Kagame, etc.)
I was a lot more specific for my next two (which are being prepped for publishing at the moment), but that was somewhat easier, as one’s modern-day and the other is near-future. One protagonist is specifically mentioned as Egyptian/Canadian, another as Brazilian/Romanian. There are also many other PoC characters called out fairly clearly: a couple of British Indians, folks from Turkey, Tibet, Eritrea and Macao, and a Native Alaskan. Another is named as Creole, though not all readers might get that; another has a Latino name and features, but isn’t called out as such. The one fail I may have had is an African-American woman described only as having deep-bronze skin, and tight, natural curls she wears short, in tiny twists. May need to be more specific about her.
Come to think of it, I was fairly specific about most of my white characters though, too; describing their ethnic backgrounds (Russian, Belgian, Irish, Italian, English, etc.) Also described their skin tone (pale, freckled, ruddy, gardener’s tan, etc. One’s actually described as pink.) I figured it would be a pretty boring story if everyone was assumed to look basically the same but for descriptions of hair and eye color. I didn’t touch much on issues of racism, though my Egyptian/Canadian character mentions being annoyed about being racially profiled at airports, and some of those themes come up with regard to non-human characters. (There are bigger issues, plot-wise, in terms of LGBT stuff.)
03/15/2013 at 4:08 pm
Sounds like you truly have a rainbow cast of characters! The world is such a big place, its great to have fiction really represent that. Also, I agree that other types of descriptions are just as important. Having freckles or being a ginger may affect someone’s life and character in a significant way (being teased, etc.) much as their cultural background would.