(Apologies if this comes across as harsh. I’m not trying to jump down anyone’s throat, but I think my point needs to be put across.)
“So if the writer’s white I’m sure if easier to relate to someone who looks a little like yourself”
That’s not an excuse to have nearly every single character white. We have Neena, Baden Trains, Elise Whisks and Queen Amberly. Baden was eliminated in the Heir and never seen again, Elise was the stereotypical “Asian searching for honour”, and Neena was a stereotypical “working black woman”. That’s it. When there are seventy Selected characters and a whole host of other supporting characters. How hard would it have been to make Natalie, Kriss or Celeste non-white, or two girls in Maxon’s Selection gay, or even Lady Brice mixed-race?
We had two confirmed LGBT+ characters in the entire series of five books. Two. Hale was the “gay best friend” stereotype. There was also the troubling “LGBT+ people were ostracised in Illéa”, but I won’t even go into that because that speaks for itself.
It would take one sentence to say “I could tell they were black/ New Asian/ clearly had Native American routes somewhere” or have a character say they were bi, or gay, or asexual. Heck, even have a woman character groaning about how her wife cooks badly would be enough. It’s not difficult.
And it’s great that the black writer writes an entire cast of black characters, because the white writers aren’t. There are thousands upon thousands of books about white people, and certainly with white people as the protagonist, but nowhere near as many about black people. Do you see the difference?
You can relate to a character and not share their race or sexuality. What about Neena? Or Hale? Can’t relate to them because she’s black, or he’s gay? Of course, you probably ask, why don’t POC and LGBT+ people do that, then? Because we’ve been doing it for our entire lives, across every single medium. I don’t want to always have to headcanon characters to be like me. I want characters like me to be full on stated in the text, like they are for every single white/ straight character in existence. Again, not hard to say “her skin was dark” or “he told me he was ace”.
I love the Selection and it’s world but I can still understand and criticise it’s flaws. It’s not diversity for the sake of variety, it’s diversity for the sake of not being hetero or racially normative, because non-white and non-straight people exist.
(Not to plug my FF either, but the main character and his sister are mixed New Asian, his valet is gay, his bodyguard is black and gay, the Capital Report host is a black woman, the Selection organiser is Indian, his main advisor is New Asian, and there are as many non-white and non-straight girls for the Selection submitted by readers as there are white and straight characters. There’s even a deaf Selected. If I, a fanfition writer, can do it, so can published authors.)
