I never considered myself racist. I wasn’t raised to see the difference between the colour of people’s skin.

However, I also wasn’t raised to see difference between the colour of skin.

No, I’m not repeating myself. Social justice in our house focused on women in society (single mother parent raising two girls), not upon how being white granted me unspoken privileges that other races didn’t have. I had (and still have) friends from diverse backgrounds and cultures. Back then, I didn’t know how differently they could be treated (because I didn’t judge them). I didn’t figure out that social injustice until university, when I read Peggy McIntosh’s essay Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.

The upcoming Oscars are being lambasted for its lack of racial diversity, both on screen and behind the camera. The #OscarsSoWhite momentum represents a social outcry that should not be necessary. As members of a growing global consciousness, we want to recognize and support the accomplishments of a more diverse group of people.

The problem of representing diversity is not limited to movies. The recent casting of J.K. Rowlings’ character Hermione Granger as a black woman for the stage play Cursed Child, which follows Harry and his friends as adults, caused a disgusted uproar with some fans of the Harry Potter series.

On Twitter, J.K. Rowling said:

Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione 😘 https://t.co/5fKX4InjTH

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 21, 2015

Award-winning black performer Noma Dumezweni plays Hermoine on stage, and white actress Emma Watson is the character in the well known films. However, identifying a character’s race is more than specifying a skin colour. Authors must give their diverse characters some depth of culture related to that race, without relying upon stereotypes. Likewise, authors cannot universalize everyone with the same culture, but with different skin tones to adequately represent diversity.

I reached out to fans and authors of genre fiction and asked them to share their opinions on “whitewashing” and role models. Here are their thoughts on #weneeddiversebooks.

Tilley Creary: reader, blogger, geekiness fangirl, parent.

 

 

 

 

 

Constance Burris: Sci-Fi/Fantasy author, reader, parent.

 

 

 

 

Kayti Nika Raet: YA dystopian author, reader, photography enthusiast.

Samantha Kemp-Jackson: blogger, parenting writer and mother of four.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’d like to be part of my #WeNeedDiverseBooks interview series, email me lesleydonaldson@bell.net.

There’s more to come in this series of interviews. Next up in the series: The Diversity of Disability.

Please note that although I did not create the #WeNeedDiverseBooks tag, I wholeheartedly agree with the movement!