Sensitivity Readers and Racism in YA (Edited for Addition)

This is a crash course on sensitivity readers. Sensitivity readers is a term I've learned on Twitter after being involved in the book community on there for years. However, while the term is somewhat new, the process itself is NOT new. At all. I'm looking for a thread I read about this just a few weeks ago. If I find it, I'll link it here. I found the lovely twitter thread that someone wrote! This is an A+ thread to read and this is an A+ person to follow on Twitter. They're extremely knowledgable and do a lot of work helping fiction about Native Americans.

Sensitivity readers are readers that are paid to read a writer's work and mark it for offensive writing. Authors and publishers may both pay for these readers.

There are sensitivity readers for racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, religious prejudice, mental illness, etc. As you can see, there are a wide variety of subjects that writers and authors may get readers for. If you're writing outside your background, it is good to get someone or multiple someones to read your writing for offense. Even if it IS your background it can still be good to get a sensitivity reader. I know several authors who are marginalized and they still got sensitivity readers because a lot of the times, we don't see our blind spots.

It's important to note that just because a sensitivity reader says your work is okay, it doesn't mean it's okay for everyone. This is why it's important to have more than one reader if you can because people have different experiences. Just because one sensitivity reader isn't offended by something, it doesn't mean the thing isn't offensive, full stop.

Sensitivity readers do not censor anything. Authors get the final say on whether or not they change anything though. They can publish their problematic book. Publishers who want an author to fix their work are not censoring it. It's still being published, they just want it changed. If it helps, sensitivity readers are basically editors.

Sensitivity readers offer their services knowing they'll be hurt. They don't get a reward. Being paid to read a book you know is likely to hurt you several times doesn't make it better. Sensitivity readers are mostly around for Young Adult literature as far as I know. They want better fiction for teens. They want teens to be well represented in all marginalizations and also portrayed in healthy ways. They help writers and authors write better stories. A story with good representation is always going to be better than a story with bad representation.

Here is a post on sensitivity readers.
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You may have heard of a book called The Continent by Keira Drake. This book was first talked about by several people on Twitter who found it harmful and offensive with it's racism. They shared screenshots of the work. Eventually publishers decided to push the book back so Drake could fix the numerous problems in it.

Last month, the book Carve The Mark by Veronica Roth, a well known author, was published. This book was also called out for it's harmful portrayal in it's white savior storyline and dark-skinned people being aggressive. This is also the trope that The Continent has.

It's important to note that while something was done about Drake's book, nothing was done about Roth's. This is due to Drake being a debut author, whereas Roth will bring in money no matter what. Also, Roth recently made a post about people calling out CTM for being problematic. In her post, she does not apologize to people anywhere. At all. Basically we're all just reading it wrong if we're hurt by it. Roth's also hurt people with chronic illness in an interview, so that's good to note as well.

Another fantasy book, Nevernight by Jay Kristoff was also discussed as being racist, you can read about that here.

As a Native American, I found The Continent and Carve The Mark very offensive and harmful. You can read posts about the racism in these books below. They're all clickable.
Sensitivity Readers
The Continent, Carve The Mark, and The Trope of The Dark Skinned Aggressor
Please Show Your Work
Debbie==have you seen CONTINENT by Kiera Drake
Can Kiera Drake's THE CONTINENT be revised?
A post involving one of the original twitter feeds about The Continent being harmful.

Edit: Addendum
I know no one on this site is likely to pay for a sensitivity reader, but I felt it'd be good to say:
The goal of sensitivity readers are to help your fiction. You should take what they say into serious account because they know what they're talking about. They don't get their kicks for calling out problematic writing. If you get a sensitivity reader, be kind. Don't go on the defensive when they call something out. Don't defend the material because you don't understand. Just listen, remember and hopefully change it.

Two books about Native American characters have come out in recent years, Mosquitoland and The Love That Split The World. Both of these books have been talk about being problematic. I know from excerpts that I didn't like Mosquitoland's portrayal (one reason is that the main character says she's a "quarter" rather than 1/8th because it makes her 'more' native american. Another reason is because she paints lipstick on her face as a sort of war paint when Natives were war paint for actual war. This isn't dress up).

My reasons for The Love That Split The World being problematic are many.
1. The trope of the old, wise Native
2. The numerous supposed Native American folktales, multiple of which have not been heard of and they're from several different tribes. This is an issue because:
3. From what I remember, readers aren't mentioned what tribe the main character is from. We're not a monolith, you can't just make a Native character and not say what tribe they are. You can't take stories from various tribes and not mention how you found them.

If either of these books had sensitivity readers, maybe their material wouldn't be out hurting Native Americans now.

Here's a great post on Mosquitoland.
Here's a fantastic storify on The Love That Split The World.
February 18th, 2017 at 08:00am