Writing characters with sensitivity.

I played roller derby from about 2015 to 2019. It was pretty well understood that roller derby was predominantly white and North America-centric. (I'm white and from the United States, myself.) While exceptions exist, of course, it was something of an elephant in the room. There also were/are those in the community working to expand accessibility to roller derby, but I'm just speaking to how things panned out around that time in my scope of vision.

So when it came time to design teammates for a roller derby team, I knew I wanted it to be more diverse than what I'd seen in my own region. It's my made-up world, after all, so I can make it whatever I want. Furthermore, when you're looking at seven different characters wearing uniforms, a little variety in skin tone, for starters, makes them easier to tell apart. Progressive or practical?

¿Por qué no los dos?

The teammates started out with their own little tropes, simply enough. The gym rat, the party girl, the geek. But as I began to write more dialogue for them, panic struck me. The whole point of affection mechanics is to delve deeper into a character, and the deeper the characters got, the more paranoid I became that I was potentially channeling subconscious stereotypes. Or I was just writing white characters and "skinning" them as something else to maintain some kind of diversity quota.

I'm blessed with friends who took the time to tell me about their experiences and answer questions, as well as others who linked me to resources like Writing With Color. I'm less intimidated than I was, but I realize I still need to be really mindful of what I'm doing here. Yes, I don't want to make anybody mad at me or offend anyone, which are shallow and selfish desires. But I also want my world to be warm and accessible to people of all kinds. And representation, to me, is a really important part of that.

I'm thinking about getting a sensitivity reader or two on board. Is this overkill? Potentially. But I've been part of the problem for a lot of my life, and I'm trying to repair what I can and become a more considerate person who ultimately veers in the direction of having a net positive impact on the world.

It could be a messy process, and I'll have to admit when I make mistakes. Hopefully I don't make too many.