Okay so let me start with when I just began writing on Wattpad which was like May I think. I had already started reading some really popular fics on here and literally every main character was white.
Okay cool, so I started writing a Cal fic and I was debating with myself whether or not I should make my character of my first fic white or black. I heavily thought about this because I wanted to have a character that was actually relatable to me and represented black girls/fans but I was worried that if my main character was black it would be too obscure and make everyone uncomfortable, no one would read it and it would never make it to mainstream Wattpad. These are just things that white authors don't really have to think about.
They don't have to worry about being misrepresented because they're surrounded by literature with mainly/only white characters and it's a completely normal ideal. It doesn't dawn upon them that their story may fail because the main character is white because that's not true. They don't have to worry about possibly making people uncomfortable with the race of the main character. Whiteness is treated as the norm as the default and "normal" anything isn't white is treated as irregular. In general, success is equivalent to whiteness so there really isn't a "popular" book with a main character that is a person of color. That's why #poctakeoverwattpd, #projectpoc, #charactersofcolor, #weneeddiversebooks exists.
I feel like the term "urban writing" sort of segregated black art from mainstream wattpad. I think it's where they feel they can push all of the black people and the cultural diversity. I just don't understand it at all. What is "urban" supposed to mean? What is "urban" literature and what the fuck does it say about blackness in literature? If I'm being honest I think "urban" is code for black but it's not so blatant but just as obvious. I feel like it's where headquarters thinks what satisfies black people and that they're somehow giving us a platform but it's not really beneficial at all, it just erases us from other spaces and genres.
Now with that being said, please do not put "interracial" in the title of your story because that's following the concept that interracial fan fiction and interracial love is not just as regular as the rest. Don't treat it as a trigger warning, as if people will be disturbed by it and need to be warned. If people are honestly disturbed by something like that, then they're problematic and that's in no way your fault for not "warning" them. Same with girlxgirl, boyxboy because we are entitled to being "normal" and being the default.
Also, please stop comparing blackness to food. It stops being endearing and empowering and begins to sound disgusting. I'm not "chocolate", I'm a human being. Start writing about black people as people and not objectify them because it's starting to sound predatory and fetish-like. You're putting a group of people in some sort of submissive position as if their main purpose is to be devoured. That's not cute, please stop its disgusting.
It's funny because people will be openly write an story with nothing but white people as characters but will find that saying "Black Lives Matter" is being exclusive. Bitch...
