Eni

I recently had to make a proposal for my term paper and was confronted with a lot of really good ideas. For reference, my term paper is about representation in fiction and how it's entirely entwined with anthropology as a concept. So, essentially, lack of representation in fiction, especially literature and film, is much more harmful to POC than I think we all realize. It creates a cultural disconnect especially amongst the YA genre consumers. Fiction, as we all know, is a form of self expression, and in terms of anthropology, it's a cultural exchange. When representation is lacking in media, it damages self view, perpetuating the idea that novels are only famous because of their proximity to whiteness, which ends up reflecting with the statistics, unfortunately. As an anthropology major, I just want to remind white authors and filmmakers, especially in the Western Industry, that we have too many resources to learn about POC for you to shy away from adding representation into your content.

To clarify, in case it isn't glaringly obvious, not all representation is good representation. There is no excuse for ignorance in a world where everything is at your fingertips. Claiming you cannot do justice to POC characters is a cop-out. POC characters should never be something you fear if you genuinely care about the quality of your work and do research before hand.