One of the moments from the West Hollywood Book Festival last Sunday that has stuck with me is this comment from a woman who came up to the Tokyopop booth and, having looked through my book UNDERTOWN, said to me:

"For your next book consider putting in some minority characters. Kids like to read about characters that look like them."

I think I just smiled and nodded at the time -- I've calmed down a lot from my trouble-making days, and I go to book festivals to meet fans and sell books, not get into fist fights.

But, man, I should have punched this stupid, ignorant woman right in the face.

How dare you judge me or my work without knowing me or the work that I've done? Have you read the thirteen books I've written? Have you read ANY OF THE BOOKS I've written?

Okay, here's the UGLY truth about Undertown. All of the human characters are white. That's right. The main boy Sama, his sick father, and sad mother are white. The whole family. White.

Everyone else? THEY'RE ANIMALS.

A woman came up to me to argue that there aren't any minorities represented in a BOOK FULL OF TALKING ANIMALS.

WOMAN, ARE YOU HIGH? Are you so self-righteous that you can't recognize that by having a book filled with animals is exactly designed to appeal to a wide pool of ethnicities specifically BECAUSE there is no alienating predominant race throughout the book?

This affirmative action in fiction is bullshit. I don't want to read a black book with white characters thrown in so I can relate to it better.

Part of an author's job is balance. If there's too much of something -- action, dialog, characters of one gender, characters of one race -- there's a point to which this can harm a story, unless it is specifically FUELING the story, trying to create a discomfort in the reader. But no story will ever be better by playing Snow White and marching seven little minorities to work, whistling all the way.

Labels: minorities, Undertown, West Hollywood Book Festival