When I Grow Up, I Want To Be An Old, White Man
And this has nothing to do with skin colour or gender
Thirty years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to do what I do with respect to writing romance with black female main characters all while living in the Caribbean. To be frank, I didn’t see it as a possibility, and only recently did I discover that this was difficult for those in the US. To think that publishers thought that black people didn’t read. And still, I want to be an old, white man when I grow up.
It has nothing to do with the upper hand that comes with having that particular skin colour and gender both in developed countries and even here on my island. It has more to do with them being invisible and as such, having to jump through hoops to be seen. It’s having to fine-tune their craft, face rejection, and keep at it just to be noticed, and because of that it is their efforts that are rewarded not their identity.
Right after the George Floyd tragedy, there were calls for authors of colour to submit their works to publishers. A friend from college had even sent me a link from a notable romance publisher but I didn’t submit to them because:
I wasn’t ready to take that step;
In my spirit, it didn’t feel right.
It felt like a knee-jerk reaction, performative even. Why exactly are you taking the story? Because it’s a good story and you can tap into a market who will enjoy it or because you are jumping on a bandwagon? Will non-people of colour take a chance on the story because the premise is interesting or because they want to feel good that they are supporting the author of colour? How can we say it is not a trend and that things have not fallen back to the way they were?
I’ll also be frank, sometimes, the books that were written with identity at the forefront fall flat. I’ve read a few books by traditional publishers that were clearly marketed towards a particular identity and I’ve been sorely disappointed. Then again, were they written to be enjoyed or were they written for readers to say that they’ve read that type of book?
Now, I’m not saying I’m the best writer out there, far from it, but I want to be known for the substance of my work rather than my being a black, female author. It shouldn’t be an anomaly. I want to be known as a reliable writer who gets better with each book written. I want to grow up to be a Dean Koontz, a James Patterson, or a Lee Child. Not based on their perceived fame or wealth, but based on their body of work.
This brings to mind a bit in one of Chris Rock’s comedy specials in which he wishes that a regular black man would be running for president. Not a celebrated black man with degrees from an Ivy League institution but Leroy from down the way.
Still, I don’t have any delusions that this current trend of inclusion will maintain. Personally, I would rather that we have our own spaces for our stories. They are not meant for the masses but for us and that should be good enough. I don’t want to have to convince others that I matter, I simply do for me and mine.
But the more I think on it, the more I realize that it’s best I stay an indie author. In this day and age, it’s easier for me to convince readers to take a chance on one of my books than to convince a legacy press to take a chance on me as an author and have no guarantees that I see success simply because I am not a white man who will eventually become an old, white man.