Many comic book fans expect superhero stories to have a diverse cast. For example, Superhero Nation stars a black superhero and a reptile. (One of our running jokes is that black superheroes are extremely rare and always the first to die). I think that diversity can definitely add something to a novel.
Some reviewers believe that the opposite is also true, that a lack of a diversity hurts a novel. For example, this review of Soon I Will Be Invincible criticizes SIWBI because its cast is too white and straight.
A more serious drawback is the lack of ethnic diversity among the heroes. There are a few comically ethnic villains, but all the heroes appear to be inhuman Other (catmen! Aliens!), specifically white American, or undescribed. This lack of description easily lends itself to “writing in” people of colour, but since white is normally the default for superheroes, readers would have to work against their usual assumptions to do so. It’s also a very heteronormative world. Sexuality likewise isn’t visible in every character, but when it appears, it’s invariably straight sex.
This criticism is well-intentioned but ultimately counterproductive to the goal of authentic-feeling minority characters, I think. Though the industry as a whole probably has a moral obligation to include more minorities on egalitarian grounds, expecting that from individual works will likely encourage writers to insert cartoonish, stereotypical and usually token minority characters. Finally, I believe that diversity-based criticism forces authors to pick between characters that are “too black” or “not black enough”. Let me illustrate that claim with a scene between two black characters, Lash and John.
Even the conversation’s first line creates a sensitivity paradox. When Lash introduces himself to John, should he say something generic like “Hey, man” or something more stereotypically black like “Sup, m’nigg?”
If I choose something stereotypically black, readers will complain that I’m stereotyping blacks. “Blacks don’t really talk that way.” That may be true. I am not black and live in a monolithically white/Asian community, so I don’t really have much experience to evaluate that claim. My main source of information about blacks is media caricatures. Relying on those seems like a recipe for disaster.
I think that many whites would be inclined to think that “Sup, m’nigg!” is implausible for a black character and would find the work weaker on that basis. Do you? If you said yes, I’d appreciate if you could critically evaluate why you think that line is implausible. I’ll give you a minute to do that…
Hopefully, you said something along the lines of the following justifications. 1) “I’m black, and we don’t talk that way.” 2) “Although I’m not black, the blacks I talk with regularly don’t sound like that.” These criticisms are strong because the reader has the experience to challenge my portrayal*.
(*An aside: can any single person’s experiences with blacks, even a black’s experiences, suggest that a black speaking otherwise is innately implausible? Probably not. But let’s accept for our purposes that individual experiences are valid enough).
Someone that’s familiar with black people has the experience to challenge my portrayal of blacks. But I suspect that most comic book readers are upper-middle-class whites that don’t really know many (any?) blacks. I’m interested to see how such a person might argue that my representation is implausible. “I don’t have any evidence to support this, but it just seems implausible that blacks would use a line like sup, m’nigg!” Many would probably look to the back of the book to see if I was black or not and then conclude that I was clueless.
The quote is actually quite realistic; a black professor suggested it to me. That I even have to justify myself suggests how complicated this process is for white authors. I feel uninformed readers will readily disregard any research I do to create an authentic black character. But they would not do so if I were black. I think that those two premises strongly suggest that (many? some?) readers implicitly expect me to stick to white characters.
It’s hard but possible for anyone to create an authentic character of a different racial background. But I’ve concluded that it is essentially impossible for a white author to satisfy an audience with black characters (authentic or otherwise). I think the “sup, m’nigg!” example demonstrates that most of the audience presumes that I, a white person, am not credible when it comes to creating a black character. If that is true, I’d say that the audience doesn’t want a black character from me.
Returning to the conversation between Lash and John, the alternative to something like “sup, m’nigg!” is something less stereotypically black. Readers will complain that I’ve inserted token characters to add superficial diversity. They will likely add that “blacks don’t really talk that way,” a conclusion that might not be supported by any personal experience.
No matter what I do, by including a black character it seems that I have guaranteed that diversity-concerned critics will be upset.
KPhoebe at Girls Read Comics counterargues:
…when writing, you shouldn’t be “seeking to satisfy diversity critics”, but keeping in mind that white, straight guy points of view are a cultural norm, not a reflection of reality. It’s not about satisfying people who criticise a lack of diversity so that they won’t be mean about your work, but an ethical choice to reflect a diverse world. As you point out, it requires extra research and effort, and you’re still almost guaranteed to offend someone, but that’s not an ethically worthy excuse not to make the effort.
Perhaps I conceive of the author’s role differently. I consider the primary goal of a fantasy author to be producing the most captivating and satisfying story possible. Other considerations can follow (like commentary, philosophy and political judgments), but a story that fails to immerse its readers has failed.
How does identifying characters as minorities affect how immersed readers will be? I suspect that it wouldn’t help in any way, at least in any way that I can think of. In fact, I am virtually certain that it will lead some readers to question my authorial credibility, which is a total failure of immersion. “Blacks don’t talk that way!” KPhoebe anticipated that point, saying that “reflecting a diverse world… [is] almost guaranteed to offend someone, but that’s not an ethically worthy excuse not to make the effort.”
Perhaps this is insensitive and/or crude, but I don’t think that reflecting reality is (or should be) a major concern of most fantasy writers. Isn’t the point to rely on whatever aspects of reality you need to tell a story and then fabricate the rest? If you don’t need the element of race to tell your story– and most stories are not about race*– then you probably shouldn’t include it. I don’t think that it’s fair to expect authors to pay a fairly high cost in credibility, time and effort for something that is extraneous to their story.
(*An aside: if you’re interested in writing fiction about racism and/or racial tension, I have some suggestions).
I have concluded (above) that using minority characters virtually guarantees that some readers will think that I’m:
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Racially insensitive, maybe even a racist. If I portray Lash negatively in virtually any way, people seem to assume that I’m trying to pass a judgment on all blacks.
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Clueless and/or a bad writer.
The alternative to racially identifying characters–leaving it all ambiguous—is much stronger.
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Readers will generally interpret unidentified characters in a way that is easiest for them. Returning to the original critique, it’s probably true that most white readers will envision most of the characters as white. But I think that it’s unfair to base your reading experience on what you think other readers are doing.
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Listing character ethnicities, particularly for the protagonist, is likely to alienate some portion of your audience.
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It’s extremely awkward for a book to mention a character’s race. “I saw Lash, the African-American superhero, sitting there.” “Senor Swagger, you set the bar for all Hispanic superheroes. Eres increible, hombre.” If race is not relevant to your plot, a line mentioning the race of a character will almost always stick out and jar your readers.
Mentioning race is probably warranted if you want to explicitly tackle themes like alienation, persecution and of course racism. But, if you were willing to implicitly address those issues, you have alternatives that are far less costly.
I’d argue that one such alternative is the use of characters that are different in a fantastical way, like mutants and non-humans. If humans persecute mutants in your story, it can be an allegory about racism, heterosexism, etc. The above reviewer didn’t like this option much. “…all the heroes appear to be inhuman Other (catmen! Aliens!)” she said.
I think that using fantastical characters is stronger for several reasons.
First, no one is ideologically attached to preconceptions about how an alien or a mutant cat will act. If my mutant cat acts dumb, no one will assume I’m a closeted mutant-cat hater. In contrast, readers are (understandably) more attached to preconceptions of how they think real minorities will or will not act. Failing to satisfy those expectations is dangerous.
Second, hardly any readers will assume that alien/mutant characters are meant to reflect on real-life groups unless the author directly makes the connection, like mutants representing Holocaust victims in X-Men. But even when we’re supposed to connect a real-life minority with a fantastical group, we cut the author more slack with his portrayal of the fantastical group. For example, X-Men’s portrayal of a bloc of mutants as vicious terrorists is obviously not meant to say anything about Holocaust victims!
If you’re telling a persecution story, using real-life groups may isolate groups of your readers. Let’s say you’re writing a story about gays facing discrimination. Many of your readers will feel that the discrimination is hopelessly wrong and backwards, but other readers will probably feel that gay relations are immoral or unpleasantly gross. (If your audience is similar to the US electorate as a whole, there is probably even some overlap between the groups). A straight-vs-gay story is virtually guaranteed to upset at least one of the groups. Most gay-themed comic books (Green Lantern, etc.) have “solved” this problem by just cutting out the second group from their target audience. That’s very parochial, both from an ideological and sales perspective.
If you’re writing something to change your audience’s mind about something like homophobia, it probably matters that the people who disagree with you are not going to read it. So you’re preaching to the choir. By contrast, a mutant-vs-human story is less likely to draw in outside baggage, like the audience’s preexisting beliefs about homosexuality. It will also probably be more enjoyable. Most people want entertainment rather than moral guidance when they buy a book. If offering moral guidance is something you’d like to do, using fantastic allegory (like mutants) is a wise marketing move.
The thrust of the arguments I’ve made so far is that using minority characters is pretty much a lose-lose proposition for white male authors– many readers will deem that your characters are too black, not black enough, or both. So I’d like to pivot to a question I get a lot: why have Lash be black?
That’s a good question. I think the author’s comfort level is critical and, at least when I started this novel, I felt pretty confident that I could do justice to a black protagonist. Right now, I’m not sure. My readers overwhelmingly think that Agent Orange, a reptile that works for Homeland Security, is a much better written and more believable character than Lash, the black superhero. In contrast, reviews consistently criticize Lash for being bland, poorly characterized and indistinct.
I think that I generally have done a better job with Agent Orange than Lash because writing a black character is vastly more sensitive and more disruptive to my creative process than a reptilian agent. When I attribute wacky statements (“mammals!”) and bizarre attitudes to Agent Orange, readers generally think it’s funny rather than a sinister insinuation about the federal government or, uhh, extraterrestrial lizards. In contrast, readers give me much less leeway with Lash. One review said I “caricatured Lash as a stock angry black male.”
From most perspectives, I believe that portraying Lash as black has cost me enormously, so much so that I’m actually considering rewriting the first thirty-thousand words to make Agent Orange the main character. Consider that for a second. It seems like it would be easier to write and sell a novel starring a paranoid and frequently delusional G-Rex than to proceed with a black lead. In fact, the prevailing view among our contributors is that we should eliminate him entirely or kill him several chapters into the book, but I don’t think that the situation is that desperate yet. (And, as team leader, I figure that the wait-and-sees have it by a vote of 1.5 to 3.5).
UPDATE: The leader of the anti-Lash faction of our writing staff convinced me to let him write a web-comic based around Agent Orange and a third character (someone who “wouldn’t be a collection of tropes tied together by an ethnicity,” he said). I think that the resulting Agent Black is an interesting and consistent character. This bodes poorly for Lash.
Please feel free to comment and/or criticize! I’d really like to know what you’re thinking.
ADDENDUM 1: A valid diversity critique?
The author of SIWBI, at least according to Wikipedia, said that he had intended to make Feral (his mutant cat) gay but he didn’t feel that was necessary because he’s such a minor character*.
I’m notoriously insensitive. In fact, insensitivity (and sexiness) are my defining traits. But even I’m inclined to think that making the token gay character an animal would have been gratuitously offensive.
. I’ll have to ask around at Parris Island this summer. 
The pun is that there’s a novel called 
