I recently received a letter from a reader regarding my novel, Milk Money. The reader made the following comment in her letter:
I would have enjoyed the story more if you hadn’t continually commented to the color of people’s skin as though it was an oddity. I don’t see that in books about Caucasians.
Here was my response to this reader:
If you read a lot of books written by African-American authors, I’ve noticed we do tend to mention skin color more. Why? I suppose skin color is more of an “issue” with us, a way of life. Our skin color comes into play more often than with Caucasian characters simply because we are Black, living in America, and there are things that may happen to us (Blacks) that might not necessarily happen to Caucasians, because of the color of our skin. I know skin color has been a HUGE factor in my life – I lived in an all-white area and I felt ostracized a lot of the time because of my skin color. So, I guess I’m saying that with most Blacks, we’re probably going to mention skin color more frequently when we’re writing about African-American characters. I hope my explanation helps!
Do any of you read novels written by African-Americans? If so, do you think we mention the color of people’s skin more than Caucasians? I know when I do it, it’s not intentional, that’s just the way that I write! I also notice we use food as adjectives to describe people’s skin: mocha-colored, chocolate, toffee, caramel-colored, etc.
Feel free to share your thoughts!