Today, I want to discuss three stereotypes that we should avoid when creating a diverse character, particularly African-American characters.
Before we jump into the three stereotypes that should be avoided, let’s refresh the “why” behind the need to increase diversity in our stories.
When stories include well-rounded characters from different races, cultures and backgrounds, readers develop increased empathy, compassion and a greater understanding of the world around them.
Increased empathy, compassion and a healthier perspective of the world is greatly needed! Diversity reflects the heart of God, who intentionally created diversity. So, wouldn’t it be a beautiful reflection of God in our work if we added diversity to our creative offerings?
In our efforts to increase diversity, there are some overt and subtle stereotypes that can undermine our desire to create dignified diverse characters.
Let’s look at a few examples and how we can avoid these stereotypical characters in our stories:
- Sassy Black Friend (SBF)
She’s often written as the main character’s college best friend, office co-worker or Bible study friend. The SBF tends to blurt out the edgy, sharply honest or slightly inappropriate opinions that the main character wouldn’t think or say. She begins her sassy responses with the phrase, “Girl, you know that…” or “Honey, you better…” followed by a flick of her braids or the sway of her hips as she saunters away.
The problem with this stereotype is that the SBF is rarely written to display other complex human emotions. “Sassy” is her only speed, and the writer rides that pedal to the metal all the way. At best, the SBF offers a “moment-of-truth” for the main character that challenges him or her toward their better self. At worst, the SBF is a prop character to bolster the evolution of the main character. Either way, the SBF isn’t given the dignity of complete character development.
OPPORTUNITY: If you wish to introduce a diverse character into the story, elevate the sassy black friend into a real friend with a full scope of emotions and attitudes. Feature her family background, influences and cultural flavor. Give her gifts and talents as a human and friend that you can show through her relationship with your main character.
- African-American Single Mother
Every race and culture has single mothers. However, when our stories default to writing an African-American mother as a single mother, this reinforces damaging historical narratives such as the promiscuous black woman, the uneducated black woman or the unwanted black woman. You may not be aware or sensitive to those historical narratives, but African-American women are because these narratives impact how our value is calculated in today’s culture.
The cumulative effect of those negative narratives means that a reader may be less likely to empathize with what happens to the African-American mother or her family. Even worse, the reader may experience less connection or compassion because the reader may consciously or subconsciously believe that the character was morally lacking, thereby somehow deserving the conflict or suffering.
OPPORTUNITY: The goal of our stories is to create characters that our readers will care about, not reinforce stereotypes that can undermine compassion and truth.
If you’re writing about a single mom, does she have to be African-American? If you’re writing about an African-American woman with children, can she be happily married? If you need the husband to be absent for the story, there are lots of places where absentee spouses can be such as the military, Dubai or long-term missions. There are lots of opportunities for creativity!
- Once-Upon-a-Gang-Banger
This stereotype is about the black male character who rises to a position of influence or success, but his origin story includes a history as a gang banger or drug dealer. I’m not sure why this is a thing, but I’ve seen it enough times as a literary agent to mention it here.
To be clear, there are lots of possible origin stories out there. A character could leave a career in financial services to become a beloved teacher. He could have started as a youth pastor and then opened a successful franchise. While it seems more dramatic to write about an African-American male character who transformed from a thug to a theologian, the problem is that character’s youthful origin reinforces negative stereotypes that can be life-threatening to young African-American men.
I wish that we could have this conversation face-to-face so that you can see that I’m not accusing anyone of ill-intent. However, this is an important conversation that still needs to be repeated a few more times.
Here we go: When we write diverse characters that reinforce the stereotypes that induce fear, those stereotypes imprint into our readers’ consciousness. Unfortunately, our racial divide as Christians means that there isn’t a lot of connection between the races, so if the only experience that a mainstream reader has with another race is through media, including our books, then they will carry that experience into the rare and limited interactions with black men and women.
OPPORTUNITY: Here’s where it is helpful to build relationships with real black men and women of all different backgrounds and life experiences so that you can write characters that reflect a breadth of experiences instead of a narrow segment dictated by pop culture. You can begin with following online or listening to podcasts of African-American Christians like Lecrae, Preston Perry or Truth’s Table. You can look for ways in your church or community to serve alongside African-American men and women in your community who are making a difference.
WRAP-UP
If you’re looking for more ideas to widen your world, which will not only enrich your life experience and improve your character development as well:
- Challenge yourself to invite African-American friends to join your Bible study so that you can share your spiritual journeys together;
- Volunteer for African-American-led non-profits or organizations;
- Reflect on your neighborhood and church level of diversity and pray about how God may want to challenge your family to increase the number of diverse voices in your life;
- As always, sensitivity readers are recommended if you’re writing diverse characters.
As I wrap up today’s very difficult blog post, I want to affirm those who are working with all diligence to increase diversity in their novels. If you’ve queried or pitched to me and we’ve discussed one or more of the stereotypes above, just know that I appreciate your humility and professionalism during those sensitive conversations.
Finally, the goal of increasing diversity in Christian publishing isn’t going to be easy to achieve. But it’s worth it. We can do this. In Jesus’ name, we can.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Are there any other African-American stereotypes that you’ve seen in books (no titles, please) and would like to see go away? How can we support each other in Christian publishing in the collective goal of increasing diverse characters in our stories?
African American
cliches exist, so true!
But so also the Asian
that I’ll describe to you.
We are not all techno-geeks
living on boiled rice,
and do not through thick glasses peek
(for which we paid half-price).
We are not inscrutable,
nor all Zendo-wise,
nor are we all dutiful,
and don’t all have dark eyes.
If you’d like to see us clearer,
just look in the nearest mirror.
Amen to these powerful words of yours, dear Andrew: “If you’d like to see us clearer,
just look in the nearest mirror.”
Andrew, thank you for adding another layer to our conversation in such a creative way!
Barb, such a lovely opportunities you are offering for us to diversify our novels! In one of my books, my main character has a friend who is Hispanic and I dearly love her (hope my readers do too!). The two characters learn from each other and develop a Christian ‘iron sharpens iron’ relatlationship.
Hi Virginia, thank you for joining the conversation. I’m so glad that you see the opportunities that exist and I applaud your desire to include diverse characters in your stories.
Thank you so much for sharing these, Barb. It grieves me that you’ve already seen these so often in your career as an agent (and to think how often I’ve seen them even in Christian movies), but without talking about them, we won’t be able to change, will we? So thank you!
I hesitate to answer the question as I’m not black and still have much to learn in all this, and I’m not sure if this is really a stereotype or not, but another type of African-American character I feel I’ve often seen is the wise old man/woman figure in a story. That is certainly not a negative role at all, but sometimes it bothers me a little when that character is the only black person in the story and it seems like their only purpose is to offer wisdom and guidance to the main (white) character, and they don’t really have a developed character or “life” of their own beyond that, and thus no real reason for readers/viewers to care about them as a person. Does that make any sense? Is that something you’ve ever noticed?
Thank you again for your heart and courage, Barb. Definitely sharing this post! 🙂
Kiersti, thank you for sharing your comments and insight. Yes, the wise black sage is another potential stereotype – kinda like a Morgan Freeman’s God character in Bruce Almighty, James Earl Jones in almost any role and more recently, Samuel L Jackson in the Marvel Universe movies. Jackson’s character was written to by mysterious and at times, quite valiant, but his backstory is left wholly secretive as compared to the origin stories of the other characters. While this isn’t a negative stereotype per se, it’s still a segregative stereotype because the characters aren’t in close relationship with the main characters.
A segregative stereotype vs. a negative stereotype…that makes sense for what I’ve observed but haven’t quite known how to express.
Thank you for writing this Barb.
It’s not an easy conversation, but a necessary one…
Great post, Barb! It “rounds out” for me the prior conversation we had about one of my characters. Not sure I “fixed” it well enough, but I’m determined to make my character non-stereotypical while not changing his race.
Thanks for writing this . . . it’s food for thought on several levels.
Deb, I applaud you for adding in diverse characters as well as your humble openness to conversation and feedback. Cheering for you!
I can’t thank you enough for this post, Barb. I am a pre-published white author and my WIP features an interracial couple. I’ve been told by a several people that my book will never be published because I’m not the race of one of my POV characters. If that’s the case, then who can write and publish a book with a mixed race couple since an author can’t be both?
I paid for a sensitivity read on my story and met via Zoom yesterday with my reader. She too cautioned me that I will receive lots of flack for seeking to write and publish this story and to make sure this is what God is leading me to do because it won’t be easy and some won’t support me no matter how well-written or well-represented the character may be. I ended the meeting with her a tad discouraged, but determined to settle in my heart if this is the story God wants me to write and the way He wants me to write it.
This morning in my prayer time I asked God to give me clear direction on whether I should continue to pursue publication for this story as is, to change the race of my hero (which I already tried to do and didn’t feel peace about), or to set this book aside and move on to a different story.
After praying, I opened my email and read your post. I have to tell you, I had tears in my eyes because it felt like a direct answer from God. Especially your last line, “Finally, the goal of increasing diversity in Christian publishing isn’t going to be easy to achieve. But, it’s worth it. We can do this. In Jesus’ name, we can.”
Amen and amen!
I’m gearing up for the hard road ahead and will remind myself frequently about this post. I want to be an agent of change for the better, not an author who runs the other direction because something is difficult or unpopular. That’s never been my MO.
Thanks again for your obedience in writing this article. Just wanted you to know how God used you today. Blessings to you!
Hi Deena!
I loved this post, too.
I, for one, can’t wait until your book is published. It’s hard to think that some readers wouldn’t accept a story about an interracial couple from a white author. I have a character in my WIP who is a black pastor, and I had to change some of his backstory because, I admit it, it was stereotypical.
I believe in my heart that our good God will lead us to write what’s on His heart in words which will be a catalyst for change in our world and to our readers.
Can’t wait to see what He does with us.
Hi Deb. Thanks so much for your reply! It’s definitely a learning and growing process as we wade through these deep waters. But nothing worthwhile is ever easy, right? I’m buckling in for the ride. It will no doubt be pretty bumpy. Blessings to you as you seek to honor the Lord with your writing!
Amen!
All the best to you, Deena. Thank you for sharing your journey and your prayerful discernment around the writing of your story.
Thank you, dear Barb, for showing us and not shaming us. Movies have a lot of stereotypes. And some of them were because the books they were based on also did the same.
When I watched the latest Dove Music Awards show via my computer, I cried with joy through the first few songs because diversity was prevalent and beautiful. Nothing has touched me so deeply on YouTube as that did. It made me think of Heaven.
Blessings ~ Wendy Mac
Hi Wendy, thank you for joining today’s conversation. Yes, the goal was to show and absolutely not shame. While movies have these stereotypes, we can totally do better in Christian publishing.
Thank you for these great tips, Barb! Good to remember. I so want to represent many different kinds of people in my writing, but doing that well can be harder than expected. An example of a great middle grade novel that did a beautiful job with the characters was Greggor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins. I recall that moment when the princess takes Gregor’s hand and marvels at the wealth of sunlight that his above ground world must have for him to have brown skin. Of course that is what a girl living underground would notice, that he must live with so much sunlight.
This is so good and needed. Thank you, Barb.
Thank you for this, friend. I very much appreciate your wisdom–and you! 🙂