Representation
Ranting & RavingRepresentation
It’s not easy to be a Black writer. I think it’s even harder to be a Black writer in this sphere. We're a small community within a small community. It’s a constant line we have to walk between writing with proper grammar versus using our personal flare and running the risk of 'sounding too black'. Between wanting your story to be universally relatable, versus targeting a specific audience. It’s tough.
I was a reader on this site long before I decided to write a word. It’s not that the ideas weren’t there, it was my fear of my Black characters not being accepted, or that my 'diverse' cast stories would not gain a readership. All of the ‘good’ stories that I read had either an Asian or a White OC. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s, I assume, a reflection of the fandom. There aren’t a lot of Black Kpop fans. We don’t make up a large portion of the population, therefore we don’t have a large representation of our presence. We are often ignored, like these problematic bastards forget that they are POCs too. The artists we follow act like they live in a world where Black folks don’t exist---even though the music they make and the way they dress and behave is heavily influenced by what we created. But that’s a conversation for another time.
I have had people slide into my box and ‘advise’ me that LMYF would be more popular if Jodi was not a POC. That might be true, but you and the underlying message that
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