When I first started writing, all of my MCs were white because I didn't think anyone who looked like me was worthy of leading a story because there were so few of them to begin with and like... the fact that I ever thought like that at all... that's fucked up, friends. https://twitter.com/nazkutub/status/1274858495305609216

Okay I'm not done because honestly I'm mad that we even got to the point where Naz had to make such an excellent thread in response to a brick wall's question and I'm over here absolutely stewing in some pent up feelings that've been festering for my whole life, so here we go.

I've grown up internalizing the notion that I was never ____ enough to write a story with a main character that shared any aspect of my identity. For the sake of this thread, we're only going to talk about race. So. I'm biracial (Mom's Filipina, father was white).

Do you know how many biracial characters I had to latch onto when I was growing up? Absolutely none. Filipino characters? LOL still none. Kid Alex cast a bit of a wider net and found some Asian characters (Trini from Power Rangers, Jasmine and Mulan), but still... not a lot.

Do you know how many white characters in books/tv show/movies/etc I found and loved??? SO MANY. Basically all of them!!!

I grew up consuming so much media--and am lucky enough now to have a job where I can create new media. But dear lord. It was (and is) still so very white.

And do you know what that does to a kid who just wants friends and wants to fit in? When the only characters who get a story worth telling, a happy ending, or any sort of depth whatsoever aren't any of the ones that look like her, but are just... so white?

Spoiler alert: It makes her distance herself from her (in my case) Filipino heritage/culture in favor of the dominant white culture. I have spent so much of my adult years reconciling this and making up for how many times I hated myself for not being 100% white as a kid

I did not think I had any worth. That I mattered. Or that my opinions should be heard because I wasn't the protagonist of the story. Hell, most of the time I wasn't even in the story. And I hated being Filipino. I didn't want to be different. I just wanted to "fit in"

Now, there were many other issues at play here as well, but it takes A LOT to make Kid Alex want nothing to do with the parent/culture that raised her and cared for her and instead have her favor the parent/culture that told her she was not enough and was abusive.

And like... this war within myself went on long into my college years. And, as I said in the beginning of this thread, when I first started writing that war was right there, on the page. The characters were white because I thought those were the only real stories worth telling

It was only after a lot of work/struggling with my identity and the choices I made when I was a kid that I finally understood that the only way to ever get characters who looked and felt like me out there were to make them my damn self.

And it's SCARY and I know I'm not going to get everything right. My experiences are not universal and I'd never want to speak for an entire community and pretend that they are.

There is so much nuance, heartache, love, loathing, joy, envy, sadness that comes with my experience

And this is why--when that Brick Wall decided to whine about not being able to write POC POVs got me so damn mad. A white writer will never understand what it's like to be biracial, just as I will never understand what it's like to hold identities that aren't mine.

And I would never have the gall--or the self-importance--to think that I was entitled to tell a story that wasn't my own. Not when people who could express it better--who've lived it--haven't had the chance. Think of the lives those stories could change!

We don't want some cookie cutter version of what it means to be _______. We want the chance to tell our own damn stories. To reach kids like us who had nothing growing up.

I tell stories because I don't want anyone to scramble for representation like I did. I don't want kids to grow up thinking that their voices don't count, or hating themselves because they don't fit within the white default.

So, like, to make a long thread short (too late), please consider that you might be doing more harm than good if you choose to try to represent an experience/group that is not your own.

Don't make a kid hate who they are just because you wanted Diversity Points or whatever

And, for fuck's sake, make room for more diverse stories and storytellers. We're just individuals and we can't change large systems/industries overnight but MAYBE we can use what privilege we have to get more cool things out into the world.

Also--and I cannot stress this enough so I'm repeating it once again--don't you DARE ever assume that you are entitled to tell someone else's story. You don't.