Read on Twitter
Example: I introduce all the American characters, they are varied; they have flaws, and sweeter character traits that ground their humanity. Then I introduce the French exchange student. He arrives on a bicycle, smells of garlic and cheap beer. Later, I reveal he's the villain.
While this example is obviously using a blatant stereotype, it's also precisely what a sensitivity reader is there for. To catch the stereotyping you're not aware you're doing. To say "uh, hang on!" Not to tell you how to write your story, but to help you.
Like y'all are just fine using the onboard dictionary and following the grammar rules of the English language when you're writing, and you'd want to know if you'd accidentally opened up a plot hole in chapter 5 that ruins the ending. Why is avoiding stereotypes such a big deal?
My French villain example is egregious, but the more your story is about a minority, the more important a sensitivity reader is. I'm not stupid, I know why you don't want to do it. You're making bank selling ~Romance the Savage~ books and dreaming up NA based magic systems.
You're terrified of getting "cancelled" for something you've written before. Gee. I wonder what you could do to stop that happening? Maybe apologize when presented with examples, educate yourself, and make sure you do better in the future? Start now. Keep receipts.
If you don't want to do that, that's up to you--just as much as it will be, when it's time for a reckoning, the choice of those with $$$ in their wallet not to spend them buying your new books. And bigotry dates your back catalogue pretty quick too. It's a poor business decision.
You know that huge mental dissonance between how we watched Friends in the 90s, desperately wanting Ross and Rachel getting together, and how now we're all pretty united in thinking he's a creep and her constantly going back to him is sad actually? Gets dated quick, doesn't it?
So you don't want to do things for other people's safety? You don't see how queercoding villains in romances for kids for 120 years might be bad for LGBT people, or how JK's goblins could possibly drive anti-semitism? It's got nothing to do with you? Congrats, you're an asshole.
But if you won't think about the harm you're doing to other people by perpetuating this bullshit, maybe you will care about your bottom line, your perpetuity as an author, and the inevitability that the world WILL move on without you, and you can either get on or be left behind.
