OwnVoices, in my own opinion, is something I feel shouldn’t really be a problem, but turns out to be something controversial people feud about. A brief summary of what OwnVoices is about, is that it is an argument of whether who has the right to write about other races and people of different backgrounds.
My take on this is that people should have the right to write whatever they want, but they should have a degree of understanding about what they write about and how it affects the people they are writing about. For example, Ursula le Guin’s Wizard of Earthsea is a good example of an author of an author of a different race writing about a different race. She expertly writes about her characters with minimal regards to race based stereotypes and mostly focuses on story and world building. Her story was so loosely based on race that many people around the world failed to see the other race besides as white, which most books dictate their characters to be. This stunning revelation is a good example of how many publishers want books to have white characters and how it affects people reading these books as they will automatically imagine many characters to be white people if descriptions are not provided.
Let’s take another book series The Lightning Thief. This book series written by Rick Riordan, a white male, is able to integrate people of many races into books and still keep it engaging with no stereotypes mentioned with at all. I used this book series as an example of my view point on OwnVoices as I feel that Riordan is writing a book series that he imagined, but also takes character’s races and culture into account and writes it so nothing offensive is written about them. OwnVoices should be about sharing literature with each other and other people should be able to take other cultures/races and put a spin on it. People sharing their understanding about other people and how they interpret their culture can be something great and enjoyable to read. People and culture should not be something fixed or put up to a standard by everyone because, simply put it, not everyone will be able to comprehend a culture as well as those living in it. If people write about other people and their cultures it can allow those not exposed to the cultures to learn and understand it so they don’t directly assume something wrong about it. I find it important that this should be seen through as it can lead to a lot less conflict and racial shaming in general.
All in all, people should be able to write what they want and about any thing as long as they keep in mind what they write can and will affect those being written about. Writing this way can be a double edge sword as people can take it the wrong way and assume that it is racial slander, but other can take it as a learning opportunity or simply something that is enjoyable to read. People can have their own viewpoints on OwnVoices and I won’t hold them to it, but I believe that people are able to write about other people with a conscious mind , it can possibly change how people think.
The Magic of Writing About Magic 