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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 8113654" data-attributes="member: 8835">Okay, writer guy here.  Not famous.  But I wrote a few things and got them published and I've studied the industry.Sensitivity readers are for making sure that when I, white guy, write some black guys into my story, that they aren't negative racial stereotypes.  the drug dealer with a tooth of gold, the hoochie mama with a heart of gold and there to get killed first.And then, they're job is to read my draft and WARN me of that as a mistake.  So that I can change it.  Because if I don't, a twitter mob WILL come after me.  That's the job.  Because somebody paid to read drafts knows not to freak out if I screw up, but somebody reading a published copy does not.Now there are three examples in the industry of people freaking out:The one that started it all was Schrieber(sp?) who got called out for her book about a white family, which included the husband remarrying to a black woman who now had dementia had had to be kept on a leash.  The author makes all kinds of great speeches about the right to tell any kind of story, not being limited to ones own experience. But frankly, she put a black woman on a leash and didn't think that was a problem.The Boy in the Striped Pajamas author.  Had to look that one up when somebody called the author out.  Again, the author makes great points about freedom.  But the core problem is he wrote about a trans character and got stuff wrong.There's the French-Chinese YA author who wrote a story about slavery, maybe set in a Caribbean style (haven't read it).  People found out about her book before it got published (and she had one of those debut miracle deals) and she pulled the release.  Odd thing was, the mob was mad that a Chinese woman was writing about slavery as if, you know, Chinese people haven't been and still are enslaved.  This is the case where it's a bit harder to see if the author did screw up in the actual work (again, would have to read it) or if they were just mad because she wrote brown characters.  The same situation is going on about a white woman's book about illegal Mexican immigrants, and the problem there as with the first two examples is she got stuff wrong. Again.The usual dangerzone problem is "stay in your lane-ism."   Writing characters who aren't like you.  Which is stupid, because otherwise every character IS you.  But the counter-problem is writing characters from other cultures/genders is harder, because I literally don't have their experience.  People aren't threading the needle very well.Add to that, YA seems to be particularly vociferous about this compared to other genres.  But it can be done.The Rivers of London series centers on a brown policeman named Peter Grant, written by what appears to be a white guy, Ben Aaronovitch.  No flak. No trouble.  It's good stuff. So presumably, he's doing something right.Pretty much every scandal I've seen, there is wise words from the author about freedom and stuff, and then there's mistakes in their work that might be cause for offense.</blockquote>

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