<p>Is it wrong for an “ethnic” American writer who has been born and raised in America and strongly identifies with his/her nationality more than with his/her race to NOT write about “ethnic” matters? </p>
<p>Is it weird, or even unacceptable, for a protagonist to be non-white unless there’s a good reason for it? In other words, can a protagonist be non-white when the story does not revolve around his/her race? What does this say about racial bias and privilege?</p>
Anyone can write about whatever they want. The sales numbers are the only thing that ends up mattering. If the public likes it, more power to them.</p>
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The protagonist can be whatever the creators want. The sales numbers are the only thing that ends up mattering. If the public likes it, more power to them.</p>
<p>The The Observer article cited deals with a specific (though poorly defined) goal - success. [My opinion on the article may be revealed in due time, but it is not positive.]</p>
<p>Similarly, I think that to proceed with this discussion it would help if you/we identify some dimension to speak of what is “wrong.” Surely it can’t be ethically wrong; L.O.L. Further, literary concerns are not usually so ad hominem. As for social, I don’t know. Taken seriously, it sounds like a topic for a sociology essay. My bias is a qualm with judging writing based on how it relates to the writer as opposed to taking it at its own merits.</p>
<p>EDIT:
This reminds me of JK Rowling’s attempt to hide her sex-gender.</p>
<p>i would say that there are a lot of characters that are non-white. Sometimes when I’m reading about a non-white character (that i know is asian/black/whatever by the cover picture or by their surnames), i would start wondering if their non-whiteness was supposed to pop in somehow and substantiate itself, but it never did. So there are definitely stories about non-whites that have nothing to do with race and ethnicity. In fact, there are fiction about people with non-white last names that have me wondering if they were this ethnicity or that because it never came up. And sometimes when we read a story that has nothing to do with race, we kind of assume the person is white because most people around us are white. Or we don’t give them a race at all in our minds. For those books, the race of the character would probably change if you’ve grown up in an all-Asian, or all-Black, or all-Hispanic neighborhood/country. </p>
<p>And there are definitely non-white writers who write about non-white topics!</p>