Comments on: Reflected Faces

By: Guest Post: Steampunk/Alt History Week Living in Color

Guest Post: Steampunk/Alt History Week Living in Color — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 19:15:12 +0000

[...] multicultural world. Her most recent essay was Reflected Faces, published in Hunger Mountain, the VCFA Journal of Arts. Tanita is currently writing a fantasy novel, and revising her first attempt at writing science [...]

By: tanita

tanita — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 10:04:18 +0000

Aths, isn’t it ironic how that color thing works. Many of us don’t realize that when we do that, we are defaulting toward some dominant culture/Eurocentric ideal, and unfortunately, a lot of the covers I see with brown people on them default to that as well — the lighter the model, the less uneasy people feel.

That’s kind of crazy, isn’t it? SO much beauty in the world, and we deny so much of it.

Thanks, all of you guys, for stopping by and continuing to be a part of the discourse on this important subject.

By: Carrie Jones

Carrie Jones — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:23:58 +0000

I am so glad you write, Tanita. What a poignant, exceptional piece.

By: Aths

Aths — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:53:51 +0000

Thank you for this amazing post! I grew up similar to this, and it was no fun. But in my case it wasn’t race-based, but color-based, since I grew up among Indians. The fairer-skinned strutted around, looking down upon the darker-skinned. Luckily that perception has mostly changed now, thanks to some eminent dusky-skinned actresses.

I strongly feel that changing the attitude from the inside is the way to go. We NEED more colored people on book covers. We NEED readers to understand that a colored person on the cover is not an indication that the book is of serious content.

By: Elizabeth Simms

Elizabeth Simms — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:05:34 +0000

The truths written here speak to so much in my heart. Where the dominant culture has NO IDEA that there is anything wrong with what is being portrayed. That having a non-Caucasian character on the cover makes the assumption that the subject covers racial “issues” ??? What about the fact that a non-Caucasian can have the same “issues” ??? Like not finding friends, like not have a boy/girl like them, etc. The list goes on. That “we” are so different that “our” story is inherently different that only people of our racial group (which is a social contruct) will be interested. Thank you for speaking out loud about this issue. Only when we say thing out loud do they become acknowledged. There can be no change without voice.

By: tanita

tanita — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:42:17 +0000

Thank you, guys, for chiming in on the conversation. I so appreciate not just throwing this out here to silence!!

Adrienne, I fully agree with you. Colleen Mondor once said something along the same lines, about YA literature succumbing to a sort of one-note thing where everybody’s got the same kind of parents who work the same kind of job, and do the same things at home — making Caucasian characters a sort of boringly homogeneous muddle, and othering any other group into something wildly exoticized.

We need to reflect the faces of who we are — shades of color, styles of living, all of it — or else we fail in reflecting the world as it is, and as it should be. Period.

By: Jeannine Atkins

Jeannine Atkins — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 22:51:55 +0000

Tanita, This opened my eyes to much of importance, but especially that girl hiding in the bathroom during certain years in history. I won’t forget her. Thank you.