How to Write Women of Colour and Men of Colour if you are White

by Kayla Ancrum

A colleague of mine was talking to me recently about her misgivings about her capabilities regarding writing Women of Color. She wanted very badly to include several WOC characters in her sci-fantasy series, but she had some concerns about correct portrayal and writing them in a way that wouldn’t instantly piss people off. I told her I would write something about it that might help. So, here we have it: How to write POC without pissing everyone off and doing a horrible job.

When writing people of color, producing quality work comes down to three things. Research, Persistence and Consideration. To streamline the effectiveness of this essay, I am going to use the individual struggles of Black women, Native Women and Mixed Race women as examples within each section, as they each represent different (yet very important) racial environments that need consideration.

1. Research is by far…