I’m just going to put this out there: I’m afraid of writing a main character who happens to be a person of color. As a matter of fact, I’m afraid of writing anyone who is not a straight white dude. And no, it’s not because I’m afraid that the story is not going to be popular if it’s not about a white male. No, it’s not because I’m afraid people are going to hate on the story because of the main character. It’s a different issue.

See, I’m pretty white, and I’m super pale too. In fact, if you put me next to Edward Cullen, he looks full of life and color.

And then there’s this, a thought—one that grows with each passing day: only a person of color can write about a person of color.

This kills me.

But, I read the idea online all the time: “why aren’t there more black main characters? Why aren’t more main characters gay? We want representation in literature!”

To be honest, that’s an fair request. Those are good questions. And, I completely agree. There should be a larger variety of characters out there. Why not? It’s actually fun to have characters with different backgrounds and different stories. Not everyone is the same after all. And, it allows for a lot more options in general.

Then, a white guy writes a person of color, or a gay character, or any character not their color or gender, and the community goes ballistic: “a white guy doesn’t understand us! A white guy can’t write a gay character! A white character can’t write a black character!”

You get my drift here.

It is not the white people I’m afraid of. It’s the communities of those other groups I fear. I should mention though. I understand that a lot of complain is about racist representations or ignorant observations from the writer’s part. A writer should inform themselves before writing. It’s simple.

I know there’s tons of bad stories out there with horrible flat characters. Writers are humans. They mess up. And sadly, stereotyping is a natural human psychological “tool.” It’s a primitive thing our brain does. We lump a lot of things together in order to ease understanding. So, it leads to a lot of error in a modern day global society.

I’m not trying to excuse bad writing. I’m just setting it aside. My issue is down with the people who immediately hate on something before even reading it or giving it a chance. My best example is J.K.Rowling and her inclusion of Native American mythology. People immediately attacked her for writing Native American mythology and called it appropriation. Even though it wasn’t explicitly stated, the problem was that she’s a straight white woman writing about a culture she isn’t a part of.

That’s my fear.

Sure, I could be over reacting, but I’ve had it happen to me. Since I usually introduce myself by first name (as people generally do), no one really gets any hints as to my background. And, in the past 8 years, I fought my accent, trying to make my English as good as I could (I was a drama minor and needed to be able to control it). I guess you could say I “appropriated” white culture. I love Starbucks. I drink it regularly. I also love cheese and other things white people stereotypically do (although I think Mexicans love their cheese too. Quesadillas ftw).

But I was born in Mexico. I lived there for a while as people who are born in Mexico do. Then, I crossed the boarder and settled in a house 1 mile from the big fence that splits the boarder (we didn’t get very far). And, even though I was in the U.S. at that point, everyone in that town spoke Spanish (unless you were some weirdo) and was pretty much Mexican too. In fact, the one guy I thought was actually American in school turned out to have Lopez as the last name.

Still, when I write something about Mexicans, and the reader doesn’t know my background, I get attacked. In workshop, a girl wrote Spanish into her story, which is fine. But, I mentioned it didn’t make sense. She simple chose random words and switched them into Spanish. So, I brought up a question. What’s the point? The person reading this (since, you know, speaks English) will not understand those words. And even if they do, they’re not going to make a difference or impact the story in anyway. Moreover, some of the dialogue sections were all in Spanish an actually were important to the plot. If you didn’t know what that said, you had no idea what that meant.

Their answer was interesting. Apparently, I could not understand why it was important to weave Spanish into the story because I didn’t speak it. Apparently, I had no voice or opinion on this matter because I was obvious white.

And that’s when I say I was born in Mexico and that Spanish is my first language…in perfect Spanish. I admit, this story is more of a combination of a couple of occasions, but it always happens. People will read some of my work that takes place in Mexico, and then ask in confusion, “where are you from?”

I guess I don’t look like what I am, and that is enough for people to throw me out of specific communities. Still, that feeds my annoyances with what you can write and can’t write. But, maybe I should fix the beginning of this rant a little. It’s not that I “fear” writing anything other than white dude, it’s just that it’s easier than to deal with the clashing desires from the different groups, and that sucks.

It shouldn’t be that way. People should be able to write whatever they want. In fact, I say that I have absolutely no problem with a white guy writing a Mexican. He can write a story about a Mexican who murders and kills for fun. He can write about a Mexican who’s so lazy he decides to make a blog instead of going out (cough cough…). I don’t really care. That’s why we have the freedom of speech. We can write whatever we want.

We just have to put up with the consequences. If you’re a racist bigot, well you’re going to be treated as one. People might not buy your books (they might elect you president though). But why should any writer be immediately prosecuted for trying to do something different?

If I want to write a gay black character, I should have the right to include them in my story. Because if you really think about it, I’m Mexican. By this line of thought, I should only be writing Mexican main characters. I shouldn’t be writing white people because what do I know about white people?

But I guess I’m still going to try and publish Jack Meredith, a story where I never really tell the audience what the main character’s race. In fact, I never really tell anyone’s race beyond the name and some basic description. I leave it up to the reader. If they want Jack to be a white dude even if in my head, he’s actually half Hispanic, why not? They could be gay for all that I care. I never have him getting involved in a romance. That isn’t the story.

Now, let’s see how many people hate this post because I’m a white dude.