I think that non-minority authors can write some good books about minorities, but I do think that it has to be handled very carefully and sensitively.
There is a comic book running at the moment called Scalped which is set entirely on a modern reservation and features an almost entirely Native American set of characters, and there was a letter published in the comic just a couple of issues ago from a Native American who lived on a reservation and he said that he was hesitant to pick up the comic because the writer and artists weren't themselves Native American but he read and liked the comic and said that he thought that it was very good in the way it explored Native American issues.
That's a very good point. I guess that I felt, while reading this book, that the characters conformed more to stereotypes of Native Americans, rather than interesting characters in their own right. I guess I have to decide whether I'm doing the POC challenge to read more books by POC authors, or to read more books about POC issues and themes.
That comic sounds really interesting, I'll have to check it out next time I'm in the States.
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There is a comic book running at the moment called Scalped which is set entirely on a modern reservation and features an almost entirely Native American set of characters, and there was a letter published in the comic just a couple of issues ago from a Native American who lived on a reservation and he said that he was hesitant to pick up the comic because the writer and artists weren't themselves Native American but he read and liked the comic and said that he thought that it was very good in the way it explored Native American issues.
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That comic sounds really interesting, I'll have to check it out next time I'm in the States.
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