When a racial minority doesn’t write about race

Edit (7/5/23): This is one of those posts that rather make me cringe in retrospect. Sometimes I have no idea what I’m talking about–I’m clueless–and I bumble along, making racist mistakes. I’d love to say that I’ve progressed since then; I hope I have.

Why am I disappointed when a racial minority doesn’t write about race?

This was a question I asked myself a while back (think months ago). I read a novel by a woman who was of Asian descent. (It was obvious from her author bio and her photo.) She had lived all over the world: America, Canada, France, China. I was excited to read her debut mystery novel. I was disappointed.

The novel itself was good. It had all the right elements:

While the villain fell a bit flat—I didn’t find him frightening—but the protagonist and the other characters were great.
Strong writer’s voice.
Great character development.
Funny banter between the protagonist and her maybe love interest.
Fast-paced plot.
Cool setting: intriguing and unfamiliar, loaded with information only a local might know.

What was wrong?

Race. Or lack of it.

Halfway through the novel, I realized that no one had mentioned race or ethnicity.

Not one. I didn’t have any idea if the American protagonist was white or not, and all the other characters seemed . . . white. The locale seemed like a white bubble in the remote and beautiful European countryside. This wasn’t what I expected.

Based on the author’s ethnicity, I had expected someone of color in the book. Asian descent, probably. A biracial protagonist, a minority villager, random mention of race. But there wasn’t anything.

I found this odd. Sure, white people write entire novels without ever mentioning their characters’ race, but that (I thought) was because I (a white person) am conditioned to think of white as the “default.”

(This is problematic, obviously, especially as I don’t always realize that I am conditioned to think this way.)

(7/5/23 edit) This problematic aspect goes in two directions, I think. I was assuming the characters to be white based on the lack of an explicit statement from the author. But why? Those same characters could have been any race. Why do I even “need” the characters’ races/ethnicities to be spelled out for me?

All the other novels I’d read by people of color mentioned race at least once.

It was in their work somehow, even if the plot didn’t center on racial prejudice. It’s a big deal for a lot of people in this world. I don’t understand this from an experiential point of view and never will, but I acknowledge this truth.

An entire novel without a single mention of race? From a minority author? I couldn’t understand it.

Why hadn’t she . . .

. . . taken the opportunity to write about this?

. . . better shown the reader how she experienced the world as a woman of Asian descent living in a white-dominant society?

. . . met my expectations?

After a few weeks of frustrated agitation, I realized that my thinking was faulty.

The author isn’t obligated to meet my expectations as a reader.

The author was not obligated to mention race or ethnicity or prejudice. Just because she is a woman of color does not obligate her to write about it. Especially not for my benefit. Why should minority authors have to explain their experiences to me?

It would be like walking up to random African-Americans or Asian-Americans and asking, “How ya doing, what’s it like not being white?” Cringe. I’d never do that in real life. If others want to talk about it, I want to listen. But no one else is obligated to talk just because I want them to talk. How egotistical.

Why should I expect that–why did I expect that? Why am I so disappointed when a racial minority doesn’t write about race?

White privilege, I think, and an awfully big ego. I was trying to make this novel revolve around me and my experience reading it. I was trying to use the novel to get a different perspective of the world. Even if trying to learn from another’s point of view is a good thing, my desire to exploit the author’s ethnicity is not. That’s what it would be: exploitation.

Cringe.

I like to think that I don’t exploit people. Pat myself on the back. Congratulate myself on how many minority authors I read. I like to think that I picked up this novel because it sounded interesting and read it for the pleasure of reading a mystery.

Obviously, I failed. I may be failing with this blog; I don’t know.

Sure, I want to learn from other people’s perspectives.

Race. Gender. Sexuality. Nationality. Religion. I want to know how other people think and see the world.

(7/5/23) In hindsight, I wasn’t doing a great job of seeking out other views and emerging from my own white bubble lifestyle.

And if I can do that, in part, by reading awesome mystery novels, I want to. I enjoy reading suspense and thriller and crime and mystery novels. Reading fiction develops empathy, and I want to be an empathetic person.