Monthly Archives: December 2013

006. ***F L A W L E S S

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If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last week then you’re well aware of the monster Beyoncé unleashed on the world last Friday at midnight. If you have been living under said rock then I’ll catch you up. On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter released her fifth studio album entitled BEYONCÉ, causing damn-near the entire world to freak out. Myself included. News broke just as the lights were dimming in the theater at the midnight premiere of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug I attended, rendering me powerless until the next morning.

When I finally had a chance to listen to the album, I I fell in love. I feel like this is the first time we’re seeing the human side of Beyoncé. We’ve seen glimpses of her personality over the years in interviews and behind-the-scenes clips but it always seemed like she was holding back a bit. Like she wasn’t quite sure if we could handle her Flaws & All (See what I did there?). But this album is different. I feel like this one is really Beyoncé for real-for real. And while all the songs on BEYONCÉ are freakin’ awesome, there was one track that stood out to me the most. Track 11, *** Flawless. The song features this quote from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “We Should All Be Feminists”:

We teach girls to shrink themselves to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, ‘You can have ambition but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful otherwise you will threaten the man.’ Because I am female I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. A marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support, but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors, not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they can not be sexual beings in the way that boys are. Feminist: A person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.

It was like the heavens opened and a choir of angels sang, accompanied by a wicked electric guitar riff when I heard this bridging Bow Down into ***Flawless proper. I felt like:

source: wavvey-tare.tumblr.com

This seconds-long clip summed up everything I believe in so perfectly and drove home the idea that I am a feminist. As a child of the 90’s, I grew up on the Spice Girls. At 9, I bought into the concept of “Girl Power” wholesale. To kid!Brit, “Girl Power” meant I could be anything I wanted to be. I was awesome, smart and just as good as my boy counterparts. My “Girl Power” often showed up in gym class where I went above and beyond to crush my crushes to prove I was their equal. The Spice Girls had planted a seed but growing up, feminism was always depicted as something bad in popular culture. Feminists were always presented as a group of shrewish, unshaven women who were suffering from Freudian penis envy if not misandry. Those unsavory stereotypes deterred me from claiming my spot on the team for quite a while even if though I believed and agreed with the central tenets of the movement.

Feminism seemed to become more accessible to me over time. Probably since I had grown up and was capable of digesting and processing theories with age. In recent years, feminism seems to be the thing. And you know what? I’m absolutely here for it. By including Chimamanda Adichie’s speech, Beyoncé helped some things click in my head. A light turned on. Cogs began to churn.

I began thinking about feminism and how it relates to my writing. I began thinking about the stories I want to put out into the world for young women (and possibly some young men) to consume. Ideally, I want to write stories that invoke the spirit of Run the World (Girls)— tales of young women who do great things. But upon further thought, my definition of “great things” seemed to be novels about girls who come through strong like a sword-wielding Xena riding into battle. Kick-ass girls who do kick-ass things. I was kind of buying into the whole Strong Female Characters thing and eh. Not everything has to be kick-ass. Being chill and vulnerable are desirable character traits as well. Katniss Everdeens and Olivia Dunhams can exist with Bella Swans and Sansa Starks. They’re all good. I had to think a little longer and was able to determine I want to write books that encompass all of those things while considering who my characters are as people and their role in their story. One thing I’ve come to learn about writing is, my views may not be my characters’ views. Everything has to make sense narratively.

Ultimately, I want to write stories that don’t sell teenage girls short. Teenage girls already get so much crap from society. They are the butt of so many jokes and snide comments. Read most articles about YA lit and you’ll see what I mean. I want to create things that inspire new ideas. Full disclosure, not everything I write has substance as you’ll soon learn. Some things are for giggles and light-hearted eye rolls. But for the things that are meant to have purpose, I want to make sure the reader has something to take with them.

005. Handle With Care 2.0

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Hey y’all!

I’m here to share something I wrote a few years ago after reading Party by Tom Leveen. I posted a review on my old blog Taking Friday about the novel. It was okay, for the most part but I found the portrayal of the PoC characters a little….for lack of a better term, problematic. It prompted me to write a blog post entitled “Handle With Care.” I’m sharing it again with a few added thoughts because it still seems to be an issue. The following is simply my opinion which is based on a few observations. I am in no way speaking on behalf of an entire group of people. Only myself.

Earlier this week, Leonicka posed a question on Twitter of would you rather misrepresentation or no representation in regards to media. I did some thinking on the matter myself. No representation means I’m invisible yet misrepresentation means having to fight an uphill battle to dismantle negative stereotypes. It’s a no-win situation. It’s funny that the question was presented while I was thinking about reposting this blog post because my thoughts from that time seem to be 100% against misrepresentation.

In my original review of the book (which is now lost to the ages), I stated that it seemed like characters of color in some YA novels are there for the sole purpose of allowing the other characters to be able to say “Oh, it’s cool bro. I have a black/Asian/Hispanic/Middle Eastern/etc. friend.” It remains that at times it seems as though PoC characters are props and not people. Sometimes, it seems like PoC characters are there as a half-hearted attempt at diversity. What good is it to have PoC character if it’s just a flat mash-up of terrible stereotypes? Using diversity to further negative portrayals of underrepresented groups just ain’t the business and does more harm than good. A part of writing is challenging yourself to step outside your comfort zone and write about things that you may not have experienced. If you aren’t a person of color and have imagined this character that happens to be one, research is important. You don’t want to be one of those authors who rely heavily on stereotypes to create a character. The results of that method are– if not totally offensive, then definitely bordering on it. Nothing’s more cringe-inducing than reading something that feels like the author has browsed through Urban Dictionary to find the latest slang for more “ethnic” appeal. Thus giving the character some weird, unrealistic way of speaking. Or going to great lengths find a simile to describe a character’s appearance and ending up with something like “black as coal.”

No, sis. That’s not the way to do it.

I’m not saying that slang shouldn’t be used. Slang is totes fine and can help develop a character. Same with dialects—people speak differently—but, you don’t want to venture off into offensive territory. Nothing makes me put down a book faster than having difficulty understanding what a character is saying or feeling belittled by the way author chooses to have the character express themselves (given the context of the story, of course).

I believe writers should approach using characters of color with this in mind: THEY ARE PEOPLE. NOT ALIENS. It’s troubling to find that people can create an alien species with complexities that leave the reader wondering if they could exist yet will write an African-American character who’s sassy or an Asian character who is good at math. Are we that difficult to relate to? We’re people with varying interests. There are things we like and things we dislike. We have hobbies, unrequited crushes, family dysfunction, friend drama, etc. just like everyone else. We’re people. We breathe. We cry. We love. We hate. Just like everyone else.
Finding the humanity in your characters should be the starting point. Flesh out their likes, dislikes, their history just as you would any character then go on from there. View them as a human being who just so happens to be African American/Hispanic/Asian/Middle Eastern etc. Sometimes their cultural/ethnic background may impact the story you’re trying to tell. Sometimes it may not. That’s okay.

Not every African American youth has to struggle with poverty and the decision whether or not to join a gang. Not every Asian teen has an extremely strict upbringing. Not every Hispanic/Latino young person has to struggle with maintaining cultural identity while trying to assimilate into the American way of life. Yes, these are building blocks for powerful stories. Yes, this is a way of life for many people. However, these scenarios should not have to be the back story for every minority character. Yes, their cultural/ethnic background will impact the way they interact with other characters and their world but they shouldn’t be the literary equivalent of stick figures with “Hi, I’m [INSERT MINORITY GROUP]” taped to their foreheads. In the long run, it doesn’t make the characters seem well-developed or thought out.

from The Office Screen Caps tumblr


These are just a few of thoughts. Like I’ve said, I’m not speaking on behalf of anyone other than myself. I swear I’m not going to spend all my time complaining about the lack of diversity in young adult literature but it’s something that’s near and dear to me.