Teenage girls didn't know that they wanted an historical movie about a sinking ship until they saw Titanic.


Likewise, the assumption that teenagers or adults or any kind of reader absolutely will not read a book because the characters in it don't have their skin color, come from their cultural background, or live in their kind of environment, is LAZY at best and racist at worst.


If the publishing industry still designs covers and selects manuscripts on the basis of that assumption, then it is time to slap them upside the head and wake them up. Go not gently into the fight, bowing before the old guard for fear of being thrown out the front gates. Stand up with back tall and change our industry with your sword unsheathed.


I would LOVE to be the one who twisted the industry arm into finally accepting race as just another marvelous way of offering diversity in storytelling and maybe I will get my chance, but I think there are others who are already in the position to do so, and can make it happen before my first manuscript ever gets anywhere near a white-washed cover. Many have already fought, ferociously, to bring about the modest changes the industry has already experienced (kudos to the likes of Chip Delaney and Ursula K. LeGuin), but I think it's time for additional generations to pick up the gauntlet and do far, far more than blog about it.


So I am throwing that gauntlet down in front of those authors who are the name brands of today's book market. You may not hear my small voice shouting from the back of the crowd, but on the off chance that you will, listen hard.


If your books do not feature racial diversity or if they always have a white protagonist, change that NOW. Change it TODAY, in whatever story you are working on right now. Change it in your outline, your rough draft, the manuscript you just sent your agent. Don't wait until the next book or next year. Don't use the Easy White Excuse I've heard a million times about not being able to write what you can't relate to, haven't personally experienced, couldn't "accurately" portray from where you're sitting on the comfortable Safe White Pedestal. Climb down off that pedestal and do what you have always done well: create characters that are compelling and meaningful and have the power to change people's lives. Only this time, don't make the window dressing white.


The gauntlet is thrown. Goddammit, someone better pick it up.


(I'd also like to throw the gauntlet down to editors, agents, publishing houses, etc. to not only openly accept manuscripts from your Reliable Whites that don't feature ::gasp:: all-white casts, but to also, and perhaps more importantly, go back and re-read that manuscript you just rejected because you've already got your "quota" of "books written by minorities" for the year. You could be staring at next year's TITANIC, but you won't know it if you're still wearing those Caucasian-tinted sunglasses.)