: Re: How to find authenticity in a character of color I am working on a book. I am aware that, being a white guy, I always perceive characters as white men. I want to push myself into building

@Kevin153

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I really appreciate this question, because as a black person who reads a lot of writing by white authors, I've found that very few do a good job with their black characters, and many do a very poor job. Michael Chabon is the only well-known white author who easily comes to mind as creating black characters that read as authentic (to me).

I'm not sure there's a shortcut to writing characters that will read as authentic to someone of that culture other than to actually take the time to get to know someone of that culture AND to try to see the world from his or her viewpoint. The key problem is that many people --writers included --are heavily (although usually not consciously) invested in NOT seeing the world from the minority viewpoint.

With that said, being forced to adapt to majority-white cultural setting is a typical experience for most American and European black people. I think if you took the time to try to really understand the experience of even your seemingly assimilated black friends, you would find that their world and experience is very different from yours, even though you might expect it to be the same. For instance, you both might be at the same party, but if he is the only black person there, it is a different party for him than for you.

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