As part of an in-class presentation I read Peas and Carrots by Tanita Davis. The story focuses around Dess and Hope, both around 16 or 17. The two are forced together when Dess is placed into foster care with Hope’s family. Tensions arise quickly and last: Dess is a white teen from a low-income family while Hope belongs to a well-off black family. Dess, perhaps as a result of her upbringing in the foster system, has some fairly serious prejudices against the black family with whom she is placed. I wouldn’t go so far as to outright call her racist, but her comments calling white students the “normal” students compared to the black, latinx, and asian students left a sour taste in my mouth nonetheless.

In our class discussion about Davis, Prof. Herold mentioned that Davis is often frustrated by the pressure placed on her as a black author of YA lit; apparently Davis feels that authors and audience alike demand all her characters be people of color because Davis herself is a person of color. This made me wonder: is this pressure so bad? As a member of a minority group, how would I respond to such demands?

As a queer woman, I very often feel dissatisfied with the selection of queer media for me to consume (both in literature, TV, film, song, the list goes on…). As such, I would imagine that if I were to create (a book, TV show, film, etc) I would want to fill the gaping void that’s been left in queer media. Certainly, we all differ in the type of media we consume and want to consume, but I wonder why Davis wants to resist writing characters of color. I do not mean to say that she has resisted, because claiming so would be wrong! Davis does write characters of color. At least one main character in each of her four novels have been teens of color. This post is more of my ruminating on why it would be that she expresses frustration with “having” to write characters of color. Perhaps it is merely the demand that she do it that is frustrating. Perhaps it’s because white authors never have limits (or demands that limit their scope) to what characters they write or are demanded of them. Or perhaps it’s an entirely different reason altogether! Nevertheless, it’s fun to think how I would respond if I were in the same position as Davis.