: Firstly, I would say black or describe him physically, e.g., copper-colored skin (or however you imagine the character in your head). Secondly, a few replies here suggest not mentioning race

@Barnes643

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Firstly, I would say black or describe him physically, e.g., copper-colored skin (or however you imagine the character in your head).

Secondly, a few replies here suggest not mentioning race at all. I would argue the opposite. It's important to (if it's accurate to the setting of your story) represent diversity.

The example from the Hunger Games was an elegant one, but look at what happened--some readers did not see that Rue was Black. They assumed it was a book populated by (presumably) white characters (or at least, that Rue was not black). If leaving out the detail of someone being black (or East Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, etc.) erases Black people from your novel, that's unfortunate and something that can perpetuate racist attitudes (intentional or not) in readers.

It's great that you are asking the right way to do this. I asked a black friend who runs a company that caters to black consumers about this several years ago. Some of them liked POC, some African-American (the company was based in the US), but the majority preferred the term Black.

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