I love reading works that write across, write through, write into the cracks of our human lives. LaTeisha, you've created a wonderful conversation here, and yes, for writers of all races. Please keep writing the world you love.

Zetta, those sound like amazing stories. There are so many stories that we have lost or may lose if we don't hop to it.

Have you read Where Did You Sleep Last Night? By Danzy Senna. Danzy writes about uncovering her father's patronage--dad was a Catholic Priest. Painful, painful stuff.

I have to say, I will also look forward to reading your WIP's-- both of them. Let me know if you want a beta reader. 

@Mardith - Thanks! LeTeisha has provided some great insight into this and I've enjoyed hearing how people--of any color--are writing or have written interracial/multicultural stories.

Although I've seen the hashtag several times for #WeNeedDiverseBooks, I didn't know there was a corresponding website and movement - http://weneeddiversebooks.org/.  Check it out if you haven't already.

@Sakki - my paternal grandfather served in Europe and was in France and Germany after D-Day and helped process German POWs. My maternal grandfather served in the South Pacific. I also had a great-uncle who served in Asia and helped build the Ledo Road/Stilwell Road--a fact I didn't know until his funeral earlier this year.

My grandmother never talked about her father, in part I think because she was ashamed. She was the illegitimate offspring of a prominent white man in a small east Texas town. She lived one way while her white half-siblings lived a different way. The sad/funny thing is that he kept in contact with my grandmother--and even her kids, even though her kids (like my mom) never really knew who he was. He was just some strange white man who seemed to take an interest in them. It wasn't until years later that they discovered who he was.

I have 2 very different WIPs that involve discovering family the protagonists didn't know they had. One WIP is humorous while the other will be much darker. Just goes to show that writing about family trees can provide endless ideas.

You guys are a huge help, by the way. Thank you, fellow travelers. From the heart. 

I'm glad to hear that, Zetta. I'm really trying to write straight into that complexity, just open it up to light.

Zetta, where did your grandfathers serve? I'd love to know more about what your great-aunt said about her father, too. Research and questions, those are amazing things. I'm excited--I just got a copy of The Strange History of the American Quadroon, Free Women of Color in the Revolutionary Atlantic World, by Emily Clark. Just the book jacket, talking about how marriage, not concubinage, was the basis of the family structure in the 1820's, so the popular culture notion of that time is not historically accurate. 

The story I'm trying to tell. . .I have all these people living sequentially in the same house, looking down on one another, or at least seeing those others as Other--but in the house, in the thick of their lives, from cleaning to cooking, eating, listening to music, parenting, being children, sibling rivalries, even hair-care, they are much more the same than different. and in the writing, I'm trying to loosen up the sequential and focus on the connected parts. Hard to explain. 

Monday, I'm workshopping a revised revised revised first chapter and hopefully in a week or so after that, chapter #2. I'm very excited about the changes, but I'm still too close to see if it's confusing. 

Thank you all for posting on this topic. It's a great resource and the comments the posts have generated show how necessary and interesting the topic is to all of us. Many of us Caucasian writers have wanted to figure out how to address some of these topics and your conversation is immensely helpful in finding ways to think about it.

@Sakki - Wow! Your WIP has me hooked already! I think it's plausible that the wife could know her pas, and it's plausible that she doesn't know it too. I don't think I'm the only one to find out amazing things about my ancestors only because someone finally talked about it.For example, I was well into my teens when I found out that both my grandfathers served in WWII--and they were both alive. They just never talked of it.

Like LeTeisha said, the wife may know her history, but doesn't want to discuss it. Taking another personal example; my grandmother's father was white. She never talked about him to any of us. I only discovered this fact from her older sister. 

So it really depends on how you want to play it with regard to the story you're trying to tell. It's amazing what a little genealogy can uncover because you never know where it'll take you.  People think (assume) they come from a certain background only to discover something totally unexpected.

@Sakki, I am sure that she would know and talk about it, at some point. That might be even something you could use to illustrate race and the difficulties those faced. It could even be a bone of contention ith their family versus other blacks. I would really look into fleshing that part out, depending.

LaTeisha, Zetta, I have a sort of off topic question--I just rewrote, for the zillionth time, the opening chapter of a novel I'm working on. It's 1948, hubby and wife are looking at houses. Hubby is a surgeon, first of his family to go to college, Med school, etc, and a war hero though he never got overseas (fighting fires with the rest of the 10th cavalry (buffalo soldiers) in Southern California). Wife is black nobility, family became freed early enough that great, great etc grandfather built wealth through a series of famous barber parlors, owned land and a couple of slaves of his own, and wealthier families intermarried up to our character. (Based in in-depth research into people who broke racial real estate clauses to buy our old house in LA.)
My question is--and you or others might not be able to answer this--would our character know that her ancestors not only both were but later owned slaves, as people of mixed race sometimes did at the time? Would this ever be discussed with her spouse? The whole novel is about taking apart our monolith notions of "race" whether it's preconceptions about African-Americans, Asians or Jews (who are still considered a race--go tell that to all the converts and adoptees at my synagogue.) I wrote the husband ribbing the wife about her background, works brilliantly to introduce another aspect of theme, but just now thought--would she even know? If she did, would she ever, ever talk about it?

@Cate

Thank you so much for your story! I believe that your case is a beautiful example of how the world is. Zetta touched on a good point: people (whatever the color) aren't always aware of things that are going on. There is even something called the 5 percent: those blacks that understand the struggles of African-Americans and that what were taught and the trauma of slavery is still with us and are trying to change. Those 5 percent look at ourselves and say we need to change before things go too far. Those 5 percent receive a lot of criticism as well. I believe that it is something that we all must be aware of as human beings. It takes all of us to fix what's going on and move on from it. We have an obligation to our future generations. 

Looking at what I've gone through as a write is a microscopic view of the whole, but it works. It really works, and highlights the divides of our lives. In every aspect we are touched and deal with it. The more knowledge others have, the more they can't claim ignorance or childhood lessons. We must create a world that our children will be proud of.

FYI - Part 2 of the discussion where LeTeisha discusses "What Does It Mean to Go Mainstream?" is now up! :) 

Hi Cate!

It's ironic you mention Oprah's talking to other black actresses about their Hollywood experiences. You may not know it, but there was a big blow up on Twitter after Viola Davis won her Emmy and a white actress criticized Viola's acceptance speech where she mentions the difficulties actresses of color face in Hollywood.

Even though the other actress later apologized (profusely) and admitted she was unaware of certain things, what that actress said--and the sh*tstorm that followed--exemplified at least 3 things to me:

1) There are a lot of people who are simply unaware of that people of color (POC) deal with every day in practically EVERY area of their lives. It's never been an issue to them because they've never been exposed to it. Conversely, there are a lot of POC who are unaware of this and that's when misunderstandings occur. I once worked with a woman who never saw a POC live and in person until she was 12. She really did think that the ones she saw on TV were covered in make-up. So, it does happen.

2) Lack of awareness can leave you open to criticism and accusations that may not be totally justified. For example, this woman is quite an advocate for Civil Rights--and has been for decades--but her behavior on Twitter only showed that she is still quite naive in just how deep this issue goes and still goes to this day.

3) It says something when a person admits their unfamiliarity of something--and then asks to learn more about it.

With all the race baiting going on with the upcoming US presidential election, a lot of people are displaying pride in their ignorance rather than trying to learn more about each other, if not empathize and find common ground to work together.

Personally, I think the problem lies in the fact that too many people rather emphasize differences rather than appreciate variety.

Whether it's writing a story or passing legislation, it is possible to appeal to a broad range while still be true to yourself. Appreciate who you are while appreciating and respecting the same in others.

Thank you, LeTeisha, for your response! I'll check out Avarice  Touched.

@Sakki Thank you!!! That means a lot

@Mardith thank you so much! It's been work but Avarice Touched is moving along golden.

If anyone is interested in looking at Avarice Touched you can HERE

I just wanted to support you again on writing the particular, the distinctive. That's what you're supposed to write. Not somebody else's idea of romance, family, even race, but your own. Go for it, LeTeisha. Yahoo!

Great post, LeTeisha. Love your answer to Patricia, too. And love, love, love the how-to without resorting to labellingeverything, clothes, speech, names, etc.

He @Sakki No problem at all. Here are some things on the Jim Crow Laws of segregation and further study into the letters written into law...HERE and for more on the Lynch files, though while argued against, there is more evidence that it, in fact, happened HERE and HERE and even a  video on Denzel Washington, younger, speaking about it HERE

http://library.mtsu.edu/tps/sets/Primary_Source_Set--Jim_Crow_in_America.pdf

@Emma, why would having pretty hair link to slave mentality? I'm natural, and I think that's beautiful. And, yes, I was specifying my genre as a whole, versus across the board with issues of supportive writers. The pretty hair comment as more from statements and comments I've received based on my books or characters. 

@Patricia You can most certainly link this with other cultures and races. You write what you know, but you can research what you don't. I have a fantasy piece, Avarice Touched, that I wrote with my cousin, Sarah Rodriguez, and author of Marvel's Agent Carter: Season One Declassified. In that book, we have a lot of different races represented, without naming a single one. It's in their features, in their mannerisms. You can tell when you read their names, style of clothing, or their interactions with others. Their differences are celebrated because each "race" can do something the others can't. We didn't know the intricacies of every race, but we are cross-cultural in our friendships, likes, and views. It made it easy to research and find out way. So it can be done. And being tasteful is a matter of handling another race as you would handle your own. Do that, and you're golden.

Thanks.  I couldn't find the crow letter anywhere on line. I'd love to read more about it, if you could give a link or something. 

Don't forget the horrendous disparities in drug law and drug offense enforcement for the last almost 40 years. In our old neighborhood in Los Angeles, every family had lost somebody, either to drugs or prison. And the refusal of unions to allow African-Americans to join for so long.  

Sometimes I think of the Biblical--to the tenth generation. We've got the Holocaust in our family history. Especially with what we're learning about the epigenetics of trauma--that trauma during pregnancy or childhood literally changes our brains. We have to find the ways to make sure this trauma of the past does NOT continue to the tenth generation. 

Thank you @RYCJ. I've had that unfortunate situation at one time, and was shocked. It's part of the reason, along with some in-fighting in the genre, that made me broaden my horizons and change how I marketed myself. It didn't change the story, or what I love to write, but it DID change me.

@Vivienne Thank you so much! I will be sure to stay in touch!

@Crystal, I completely understand and have those sam questions plague me. Starting to ignore that, in a way, has made things easier for me as a writer.

@Sakki The Lynch files and Crow letters were the basis of how to make African slaves perfect in their servitude. It's from this system that we have the difference between a House and Field slave (and the start of the light skinned vs dark skin rivalry), separation of family, taking fathers out of homes early, and awarding turning on each other. If you think about that, really think about that, and look at African-American culture today, can you still see the effects? We're one of the few cultures that can't reside, build, and own together successfully on a larger scale. It doesn't mean we can't do it, but history has taught us not to, and we continue to perpetuate it as a whole.

I really enjoyed this post and your distinct perspective. I think it's so important to write boldly what you are called to write, and to do it as clearly, and--well, this is my perspective--as ethically as we can.

Could you explain more about the Crow letter and the Lynch files? All I could find was a letter about the founding of a Missouri University and a speech given by a Willie Lynch about how to control slaves on a plantation. Wikipedia says it's questionable that the Lynch speech was real, though I'm sure divide and control was--and is--used against minorities. And poor people. Etc.  

@Emma, great catch on your question... which leads into answering @Patricia. As writers when we write 'exactly' what we see and experience with not only other races or ethnicities, but the great diversity in culture in general, we do our stories great justice. There'll always be the naysayers, though the key is in what we see, which for me means living with and working with and really watching people over a very, very long time. Not only seeing what is on the surface, but being able to get at those places that reside deep inside.

Again, great job bringing up the topic LeTeisha! Think I'm inspired to do a post on my blog as well, which to that end; hope you find it kind of cool that I hopped in here with my extra two cents.