listen to your language. "That's a self own". LIke, I'm guilty of something because I don't engage in it. I haven't even begun? I'm already guilty of something. Language... "You don't know what cultural appropriation is!". Christ, I've not even done anything yet? Now I'm guilty of something twice. Way to make me not nervous.
Yet, I feel you're trying to have a real conversation. I'll reciprocate. true story. I just got back from the service. I was in college. SOme girl got hired to work in the university computer lab. Where I worked. Man, she was tall, a couple inches under six foot. Real skinny, but not that diet down skinny. She still had those cute little curves. But, like some caricature but in real life? Gigantic and I mean g-i-g-a-n-t-i-c gazongas. Every guy in the lab was staring at her. MAN, I tried working that any way I could. Followed her around like a puppy dog. Tried everything.
After a couple months of this, getting nowhere. She lambasted me at a frat party. "You're nothing but a racist pig! You just wanna tell your buddies at the gym? You split black oak!"
Never *once* did any of that shizz come out of my mouth.
I was dumbfounded. I was babbling, and it just came out. Truth serum.
"That's not true! That's not fair! I just wanna go out with you! What the *&^% are you trying to do to me?"
Her next line:
"Well? Why DO you like me then?"
It just came out...
"I like you because you have giant boobs! Look at you!"
(everyone is dying laughing at the party, I guess this was high entertainment)
SO? Now she screamed at me I was a misogynist and I was... you get the picture.
Moral of the story, which was true. This stuff, is a minefield.
Now. Black characters I have liked. Spenser: For Hire. A hardboil detective series. He had a best friend, "Hawk". Hawk was a big giant black guy, but everyone knew he was a stone cold contract killer. I remember the scene where Spenser had a problem with a "made" guy, who was making fun of him, how he couldn't shoot him, because he knew it was against his moral code. Hawk was standing behind the guy. He just leveled his .44 he always carried right at him.
"You *know* I'll do you." One of the best scenes in that book.
bad guy sh!t his pants and took off. ALso, the book "Laguna Heat". Another hardboil. MC was into motorcycles, bad guys had cut his "Cogiva" spark plug wires on his speed bike. He called his best buddy, again some giant black dude, who picked him up for the several hour trip back on the back of his huge Harley Davidson.
I wonder if these are tokenizations. Just included, to have a black character.
Now. One of the best black MC I ever remember? "I, Robot". Detective Spooner. The author (Asimov) had a humorous field day with that one. The robot CEO is accusing SPooner (black) of "being prejudiced against their kind!" (the robots, lol)
I could never pull off that humor, I don't think.
PS - have you figured out that I am a pen name? Do you know why. ZIllions of agents, were stating openly. No white male authors need apply. "We're looking for voices that have been silenced for too long..."
Another common one. "we do not accept any cold submissions. No exceptions! Inbto the garbage it goes, if you don't have an agent. And we mean a real agent." But, right on the same page. "we are looking for any submissions from black writers we can find. No agent required."
hence, my pen name.
this whole subject? is to me, some kind of a minefield. White people? A lot of us don't like talking about it. Even if you're not racist? You're still guilty of something.
Now. I feel I *could* write a white guy/black girl smut. Write what you know, right? I once drove a cab. I developed the cutrest crush on this one young black lady that got a ride three times a week on my route. She was even pregnant, but she had that "glow" that some pregnant girls have. Just, oozing cuteness. Mm. I'll never foreget how she smelled. She wore some kind of coconut lotion, either skin cream or hair product. I could smell her an hour after she left my cab. Always smiling, always flirty friendly. Sweet girl. I could draw on *that*, to make a short smut story, I'm sure.
When I do first person MC, my movie in my head I'm writing from, I'm looking out thru the MCs eyes. To do a black MC, I'd basically be just stating the MC is black, then ignoring it other than that for the rest of the story. The this all brings up the other question. If race is unimportant, why is it so important I must have a black MC. This whole thing is a minefield to me. I leave it to the writers who know how to trackle these issues.
There. My thoughts.
