Whitewashing

[rachelmanija]

As you're probably all aware, the depiction of characters of color/non-white characters as white on book covers and film adaptations is a pervasive problem in America. (Very likely in other majority-white countries as well, but the USA situation is the one I'm familiar with

Comments

[rachelmanija]

I recall. Vividly.

[meganbmoore]

And sometimes, the whitewashing turns people into albinos.

Another thing I've noticed while reading: Most author pictures that are shown (in what I read) are white. If a POC author's picture is shown, the name "sounds" ethnic. I'm sure there are many, many factors that contribute to if an author's picture is included in the bio, but it's interesting. Though not really in the happy way.

[lady_ganesh]

One of my short tricks for determining if an author might be a POC (for 50 books POC) is to check for an author photo.

ETA: this is not to see if someone looks POC, though that doesn't hurt, but also because the lack of a photo is more likely to put someone in the POC category.

[pseudo_tsuga]

Thanks for writing about it. I'll send a letter in.

[free_the_goats]

I've also noticed this to be true--the Mercedes Lackey fantasy series Joust features Egyptian people. The cover? It has a dragon on it--not the human characters. The book does have dragons, but really, not a single human in any of the covers?

A good, notable exception is the Tamara Peirce series The Magic Circle--one of the main characters is black, and she is clearly pictured on the cover of her own book.

[neile]

The first, hardcover edition of her How To Ditch Your Fairy has a light-skinned girl of colour on it. See on amazon.

[dichroic]

She actually looks darker in that Amazon picture than on the book itself. I just looked - she's got a pointy nose, medium lips, light brown skin - the sort of looks that could be Jewish, Italian, Latina, or mixed. Which is actually perfect for the book!