I just finished reading a book set mostly in a small Mississippi town, with a secondary setting of a nearby city. The book is a somewhat awkward cross between a romance and a murder mystery. The author spends a lot of page space describing the local restored Antebellum mansions, which are apparently the root of the town’s tourism based economy.
Which is what makes it seem utterly weird to me that this place that clearly had a slave population in the past does not have ONE SINGLE black person anywhere in it. Not a major character, not a minor character, not a walk on. It’s like the slaves weren’t freed, they were wiped off the earth.
I think this might be the only novel I’ve read set in the present day Deep South – is this normal? I mean, I’m not asking every book to be a treatise on race relations or anything, but according to Google Mississippi’s population is 37% black. Shouldn’t it just happen that the occasional nurse or postman or customer at the next table over just happens to black?
You’re absolutely correct. About the only places in the South that have few people of color are newer areas (beach resorts and mountain resorts come to mind) that would not have had many if any antebellum mansions.
I think I asked that badly. I’m sure that in reality the population is a mixture of races just about everywhere. I was wondering if it was normal for authors (perhaps especially for writers of genre romances?) to ‘just happen’ not to include minority characters in their books? As a way of sidestepping the possibility of some subset of readers being offended by how you described a character’s looks or mannerisms or speech while another subset might not like your including minorities at all regardless of what you say in regard to them?
The omission just seemed so striking to me, given the real world percentages.
Did the author describe every character in a way that was designed to give the impression of whiteness? You know , as red-haired or blue eyed or something like that. Or were a minor characters not described at all beyond being a customer at the diner or a nurse at the hospital ? Because I’ve read a fair number of books where the characters race or ethnicity isn’t described unless it’s necessary to the story in some way , and the race of a random customer or a nurse is often not going to be necessary to the story. And if you are assuming that every character is white unless described otherwise , that’s really kind of your assumption more than the author being unrealistic.
It is perhaps easier to see in movies or TV- for the most part, a minor character's race or ethnicity doesn't matter. The people who find the crime victim in the first few minutes of a "Law and Order" episode could be anything. It doesn't matter , and if it were a short story rather than a TV episode, you wouldn't necessarily see a description that told you the race/ethnicity/gender/height/weight. You might just get Cop A saying to Cop B " A couple of citizens found the body at the bottom of the steps.
I don’t think it would be at all unusual for a novel either written in, or set in a certain time period to not even acknowledge the presence of black people, unless there was a plot-related reason for it.
There was definitely a certain “good white people don’t mix with the negroes” attitude, so there just wouldn’t have been a mention at all- they might mention “the housekeeper”, but not their ethnicity, because it would be assumed.
Agree with doreen that I want to know if characters are explicitly white, or if they’re just not described as anything in particular.
ETA: I ask this because it’s tricky business, making a character a specific race. If you don’t point it out hard enough, readers don’t glom onto it. If you point it out too hard, it becomes a Chekov’s Pistols situation, where agents/editors/readers assume the character’s race will be relevant to the story, and they’re mad when it isn’t.
This might certainly be part of it. No, the author didn’t clarify the race of every character, of course. For example, in the scene where the heroine and hero are rushing down a crowded city sidewalk – it may be that precisely 38% of those they passed were black.
OTOH, she did describe the physical appearance of quite a few characters, and those were in terms that made them sound white – hair color, sunburns, called some ‘typical rednecks’, etc.
OT3H, a good chunk of the major characters were a single family, so its not at all surprising that they were the same race.
So…I dunno. As I said, I haven’t read other novels set in the present day US south so I just got mislead by sample size.
The OP describes the book as “a somewhat awkward cross between a romance and a murder mystery.” Sounds to me like the author just isn’t very good. They’re more interested in the antebellum mansions than showing the people who live in the town, Which would have a considerable African-American population–descendants of those who worked the plantations.
There’s no need for every book to go into issues of race. But the all-white cast of characters seems silly & shallow.
Robert A. Heinlein was fond of making his characters minorities, and including subtle but obvious-once-noticed hints to that effect, as a way of tweaking the sensibilities of racist editors.
