Maurice Broaddus–RaceFail ‘09 - Why Horror Ignores the Elephant

by Maurice Broaddus A few years ago, I was speaking to a fellow black horror writer and she told me that she didn’t write characters of color in her work. She didn’t think it was important, even as a black writer, for her to write black characters (and descriptions of characters with dark hair and brown eyes were enough). It was more important for her to write for her chosen audience, who she perceived as white, and she didn’t want to in anyway alienate them. This is how badly issues of race have infected and confused some people. Yes, there is a current brouhaha brewing in speculative fiction that has since been dubbed RaceFail ’09. It started when Elizabeth Bear wrote a piece on writing the other which was then openly disagreed with . Hilarity ensued ( catalogued here ). I, too, wrote a piece on writing the other (in a response to something Jay Lake had written; mind you, both pieces came out a few YEARS ago) and have stayed out of this round of self-examination except to offer up ... (link)