In the past decade alone, numerous fan-favourite books have gone from receiving public adoration to being utterly despised. Many critics of the best-selling novel The Help, in which a white woman depicts the lives of Black maids, have accused author Kathryn Stockett of perpetuating stereotypes and exploiting anti-Black racism, prompting the question: Who is allowed to tell what story? Chinese author R.F. Kuang thrusts this issue into the spotlight with her latest novel, Yellowface, where she writes from the perspective of a racist white woman, June. June steals her deceased Chinese friend’s manuscript and publishes it as her own, facing criticism and violent hate from readers who accuse her of appropriation. Ironically, Kuang is also writing from a perspective that is not her own—so what is the difference? Is it fair to say that only white authors cannot tell the stories of characters outside their race? The problem lies not with white authors telling the stories of racialized individuals but with readers’ reliance on white perspectives as guide maps of allyship.

While readers and publishers have debated what constitutes offensive literature, the stories that rise to the top are those that seem to address racism but are actually perpetuating white saviourism. The controversy surrounding The Help, for instance, stems not from the fact that it depicts Black women as domestic workers in the 1960s or from the writing style or entertainment value of the book. The problem is that many readers come to rely on stories like this—white-washed, watered-down depictions of racism—to engage with the greater systemic problem, all the while failing to confront the very real, very aggressive nature of racism. 

The oppression of the maids in The Help—which mirrors the racism and sexism that Black women have faced for centuries and continue to experience today––portrays white people as saviours of Black women. Perhaps if Kathryn Stockett had questioned whether her work truly eased the suffering of the oppressed community she wrote of, her story would have unfolded quite differently. Instead, it merely uses the oppression of Black women as a means of glorifying nice white characters––an exploitative method. These kinds of stories alleviate white guilt by fostering the illusion that pitying racialized individuals is a form of allyship. They take the very real and deeply devastating experiences of racism and package them as entertainment—as feel-good stories that only feel good for white audiences. 

To say, however, that white writers, or any writer, should refrain from writing about any characters outside of their own identity perpetuates an understanding of race as natural, rather than socially constructed. Would it be better for white authors to write stories that only contain white characters and neglect diversity entirely? Surely not. Telling white authors that they cannot write these books does not address the underlying issue of why they feel compelled to do so in often offensive ways or why white readers are drawn to these kinds of stories in the first place. It also brings about another issue, as Yellowface author Kuang has discussed, of “pigeonholing” racialized authors, pressuring them to tell the stories of their own oppression and gatekeeping the exploratory nature of storytelling. Clearly, censorship will not solve this complex issue.  

So what is the solution? As some writers propose, perhaps the answer lies not in banning these books or prohibiting white authors from writing about Black characters but in embracing, exploring, and amplifying books by racialized authors, including and especially those which do not centre around oppression. Instead of relying solely on white narrators, who often keep the topic of racism at a “comfortable” level, to engage with non-white stories, readers ought to work against their white fragility and dive deeper into the subject matter outside of fiction. This does not imply that white writers are incapable of portraying racialized characters authentically, nor does it mean that all stories about racialized communities must revolve around their oppression. It simply means that white narrators who wish to write about racism should not be the only source of anti-racism learning that readers rely on because, too often, their depictions do not come close to the reality of systemic oppression. By supporting and advocating for racialized authors, we can actively challenge the existing power structures within the literary world and pave the way for more genuine storytelling.