metalalia:boatsagainsttomorrow:wocinsolidarity: Attanya: #WeNeedDiverseBooks because I love sc
metalalia: boatsagainsttomorrow: wocinsolidarity: Attanya: #WeNeedDiverseBooks because I love science fiction and fantasy books, but I’m tired of authors treating dragons and robots and magic as more plausible than black and brown characters Jennifer: #WeNeedDiverseBooks because… when I was 13 a white girl told me it was selfishthat all of the protagonists in my stories were Latina because she “just can’t relate to nonwhite characters.” She made me feel guilty for writing about people like me. Aiesha: #WeNeedDiverseBooks because…Black Girls are more than sidekicks or “sassy, ghetto friend” Facts and Figures About Race/Ethnicity in YA and Children’s Lit: 88% of the books on the 2013 Publisher’s Weekly YA Bestsellers were about white protagonists 93% of the authors on the 2013 Publisher’s Weekly YA Bestsellers were white authors 85% of the books on the 2014 Young Adult Library Services Association’s Best Fiction for Young Adults list were about white protagonists 90% of the authors on the 2014 Young Adult Library Services Association’s Best Fiction for Young Adults list were white authors 91% of the authors on the 2013 New York Times’s Bestseller Lists for YA and Children’s Lit were white authors. According to the 2012 Cooperative Children’s Book Center, only 3.3% of books were about African-American protagonists; only 2.1% were about Asian and Pacific Islander protagonists; only 1.5% were about Latinx protagonists; and only 0.6% were about Native American protagonists. That means over 90% of children’s books surveyed were about white protagonists. #WENEEDDIVERSEBOOKS Posting this a little late, but followers please take the time out to check out this post explaining the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign and more events to come over the next few days! One of the major reasons that this is a problem is because it is easier to get almost any job, including becoming a published writer, if you are white. And since writers write what the know, most white authors will write about write protagonists, which is perfectly okay. The problem is that we need more people of color becoming successful authors, but the racism imbedded in society and industries including the book industry has made this an obstacle. We want to provide a platform where people of color and other writers who may struggle getting published by mainstream presses can tell their stories! Metalalia believes everyone deserves to be a protagonist, and that means everyone gets to tell stories too. With their art, with their words, with their music, with their voice. We want to work with diverse content creators to help people tell old, new, beautiful stories greater than the sum of their parts! -- source link
#diversity