Hi all! I’m participating in the Dive Into DiversityChallenge hosted by Rather be Reading and Reading Wishes this year, and I’m
enjoying it so far, but I’ve run into a roadblock or two. The biggest one, and
the one I’d love some input on, is: what does it mean to read diversely?
One of the suggested titles to read for this challenge was Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I
really enjoyed it, and I’d recommend it to anyone who liked Ender’s Game and/or enjoys some good 80s
nostalgia. However, I’m not really sure where “diversity” comes in. The main
character, Wade, is a white male, as is the author—not very diverse. On the
other hand, Wade is poor, as is much of the country in this vision of the
future. Does that make it diverse? (Economically diverse?)
People in the OASIS can be whatever color, age, gender, etc.
that they want; you can also be a witch or a wizard or any manner of
fantastical creature. Some of the people Wade meets along the way have taken
advantage of this, using avatars that don’t match their real-life gender, age,
or race. We don’t find this out until toward the end, though, so I don’t know
if it qualifies as “diverse.”
My next Dive Into Diversity read is probably going to be Little Peach by Peggy Kern. Peggy is white,
but women are still disadvantaged in the publishing world, so does that alone
make it diverse? Is it the topic—underage prostitution—that makes it diverse? I
don’t yet know what race or sexual orientation the protagonist is; if she’s a
PoC, does that make it diverse, even if it’s written by a white straight woman?
I’ve also read Silver Sparrow by
Tayari Jones for the challenge—I would definitely consider that one diverse, as
it’s written by a woman of color about
women of color.
When you try to read diversely, what “boxes” do you check
before you consider a book diverse? Does the book have to be written by an
author of color? A woman? An LGBTQ author? Or does the book just have to have
diverse characters (LGBTQ, people of color, economic diversity, differently-abled,
etc.)? But what if the diverse characters are written by someone who isn’t “diverse”?
Does that make it less authentic/less diverse? I want to say yes, but is that
fair?
Sorry if I rambled a bit—there are a lot of questions here. I’d
love to hear your opinions on any and all of them!
