Why Am I Afraid to Write African American Characters? by Marshall Botvinick

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Why Am I Afraid to Write African American Characters? by Marshall Botvinick

January 8, 2012 | BY Marshall Botvinick | READ BIO

I teach theater appreciation at a community college in rural North Carolina, and I love my students. I love my students because they have no preconceptions about what theater is supposed to be (most of them have never seen a live production before taking my course). I love my students because they do not have a sense of entitlement. Mostly, though, I love my students because in this era (or error) of political correctness they are not afraid to speak frankly about any topic, so I was very excited to finally reach the subject of identity/community-specific theater in the textbook, and because this was not a matter of grammar or punctuality, my students did not fail to disappoint.

Our discussion began with A Doll’s House. I asked my students if they believed that A Doll’s House was a woman’s play despite the fact that its author was a man. With near unanimity, they said that it was because the play empowered women and fought against false stereotypes. No matter what I said my students refused to concede that the objective existence of the Norwegian master’s penis represented any impediment to his ability to write a woman’s play (at least as they defined a woman’s play). So then I asked them if I, as a white man, could write an African American play. The question prompted almost all of my students to do an about-face, and I was told in no uncertain terms that I could not write an African American play. One African American student moderated his position, opining that I could write an African American play “only after I lived a long time with black people.” Following this remark, I asked my students another question: “Does African American drama need to be by African Americans, about African Americans, or both?” My students maintained that it only needed to be about African Americans, but that it would be almost impossible for someone who is not African American to write credibly about the black experience. Thus, our entire discussion about community-specific theater boiled down to one point: sometimes it is possible for an outsider to accurately depict a community to which he/she does not belong and sometimes it is not. In particular, one’s sex is not a barrier to understanding but one’s race is.

On days when I teach, I commute two hours in each direction, so on my return trip I have ample time to contemplate the day’s discussion while listening to NPR. Initially, I was struck by the logical inconsistency in my students’ position. How could they say that sex, which is far more grounded in biology than race, does not constrain the imagination while skin pigmentation does? Their point of view made no sense to me. Then I began to think about all of the great plays and playwrights of the American theater, and pretty quickly I realized that the white men whose plays have dominated our stages over the last century have produced countless iconic women and almost no African American characters of note (I am sure there are more, but the only ones that immediately come to my mind are Porgy and Bess, Brutus Jones, and Belize). Next, I considered my own writing (not that my list of plays is extensive), and it dawned on me that I do not hesitate to write female characters yet I have never written an African American character. Why? What am I afraid of?

Is it that I do not trust that I, as an outsider, can authentically capture the nuances and complexities of African American culture? If so, how can race serve as such a barrier to the imagination? The entire purpose of theater, in my opinion, is to foster understanding, thereby eliminating any notion of the other. Performance exists so that we can see the world through someone else’s eyes, walk in their shoes. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our oldest extant play: Aeschylus’s The Persians. With The Persians, Aeschylus, who also happened to be a Greek soldier and a participant in the war against the Persians, still managed to insert himself into the minds of the vanquished foreigners. He identified with their suffering, and he dramatized it authentically. If Aeschylus can do it, why can’t I? (okay, maybe that’s not the best question for a fledgling writer to ask) Furthermore, how is it that my specific gender experiences place only a limited constraint upon my mind while my specific racial experiences act as a massive roadblock on my journey to creativity? I have no definitive answer to this question, but I do have several hypotheses about what makes race for many American playwrights, including myself, the last frontier of the imagination.

1. Authenticity/Fear of Misrepresentation
As anyone who knows me can attest, I have an obsession with being right. This pathology takes on an even more extreme form when I write because I believe that a writer, above all else, has a duty to the truth, and to be frank, I am not sure that I will ever be capable of writing truthfully about the African American experience. Much to my chagrin as a trained dramaturge, culture goes so far beyond what can be researched and studied in a book. It encompasses everything, including the smell of a place, a common life rhythm, subtextual/nonverbal cues, and more. Culture is all of the things that make up a shared, silent knowing between people. It is mostly intuitive; therefore, the value of study only extends so far. Once I concede the limits of my understanding, I must then ask myself if there is value in creating a work of art based on my limited understanding of a subject. Typically, I would say yes. We are all creatures of limited understanding, and the subject of our art, life, is only something we have just begun to comprehend; yet I find myself granting an exception when it comes to race and the African American community in particular. All too often African Americans have been misrepresented and stereotyped in the theater and on film. They are victims of false representation, and who can say if my limited understanding would lead to misunderstanding?

2. Ownership
Cultures are very protective of their stories. As a Jew, I bristle when a non-Jew, even a well-intentioned one, coopts the Jewish experience and uses it as he/she sees fit. By nature I am not a territorial or possessive individual, yet such acts instinctively make me feel as if my turf is being encroached upon, like someone is trying to take something that does not belong to him/her; as a result, I worry about doing the same thing to someone else, so perhaps I do not write about African American characters because doing so would necessitate taking an experience as well as a professional opportunity that does not belong to me. This feeling, I think, goes to the heart of the 2009 controversy involving Bartlett Sher’s direction of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. At question was not only the ability of Sher, a white man, to understand the culturally specific experiences of Wilson’s characters, but whether or not the chance to tell those experiences should even belong to Sher. Fortunately or unfortunately, life is even more complicated than the most opaque copyright laws, and since I cannot say with certainty when an experience of a person or a group transitions from the private domain to the public domain, I will continue to respect experiential property rights (is that a legal term?) even when it means limiting my creativity.

3. Lack of Interest
Although I do not want this to be true about myself, I at least have to ask the question: am I not writing African American characters because I am not sufficiently interested in the African American experience? We all write about the things that matter to us, and if I am not writing about African Americans, does this suggest that their experiences are not that important to me? Not necessarily. With matters this complicated, it is not sufficient to simply apply the transitive property of equality. On the other hand, this question cannot be dismissed simply because I find its personal implications to be deeply troubling. Like most of us, I gravitate towards the familiar. My life is a series of concentric circles beginning with the familial, extending to the familiar, and culminating with the one human family that makes up this planet. As a result, my interests, as well as my understanding and sense of ownership, reside in those small circles closest to me. Thus, the task before me is not expanding those circles closest to me but shrinking those circles furthest from me.

While writing this article, a series of other questions has cropped up in my mind:

Could my fears and limitations lead to an artistic separatism that I find morally repugnant? Yes.

What can be done about that? Continue to write colorblind characters.

Would that choice mean I am abdicating my responsibility to discuss race and culturally specific experiences in my work? Yes.

Are there some races that I am more comfortable writing about than others? Yes.

Is that feeling entirely arbitrary? No. If I write about Danish people, I do not, even though I am not Danish, feel as if I am mining and exploiting their unique experience for my personal gain, yet somehow it strikes me as crude and self-serving to use the African American experience for a creative endeavor. Perhaps it is “white guilt.” Interestingly, though, I do not have the same level of guilt when it comes to Latinos or Muslim-Americans.

Is that feeling irrational? Yes, but such is the nature of guilt; and what is irrational is not necessarily arbitrary.

Am I doing the African American community a service or disservice by not making more of an effort to write about the black experience? I don’t know.

Is it easier or more acceptable for members of one oppressed group to write about members of another oppressed group? Probably.

Does this extend to white women? I don’t know.

And finally, there is the question that I ask every time I sit down to write: am I alone in my anxieties, fears, and limitations?

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RVCBard Thank you for your candid and reflective post. It's rare that a White person shares their honest thoughts and feelings while also pointing out the problems behind that. We need more people doing that. But, as a person of African descent, I would like to address something I notice in this post that I would like to explore in more detail. Several times you mention The Black Experience. Without putting words in your mouth, do you believe that there is something essential about The Black Experience you mention that is shared regardless of other factors such as class, gender, sexuality, disability, temperament, and so on? If there is such a thing, what characterizes The Black Experience in your mind? Is it slavery and Jim Crow, or is it something else?

mbotvinick Thanks for your comment, RVCBARD. I did not mean to imply that I somehow think "the black experience" is monolithic and not impacted by class, gender, temperament, geography, etc. I guess I merely used that term for simplicity's sake. If I were writing a book on the matter, I could treat the subject with all the nuance and gray it needs. Unfortunately, when writing an article, I sometimes find that I have to use larger umbrellas than I would like if only to keep myself from going down 7 or 8 different rabbit holes that I don't have the space to explore.

RVCBard OK, I understand now. TBH, and speaking only for myself, any portrayal of a Black person that does not fall into the usual stereotypes is one I'd probably enjoy. Because the vast majority of the time, its so blatant that anything that's not like that is honestly a relief.

RVCBard Also, you may find my latest blog post interesting.

David I think it would be quite difficult to write a play using the language of, say, August Wilson's characters. This is less true of some newer Black writers' characters, for example Lydia Diamond. Thank goodness political correctness didn't get in the way of creating Othello or Shylock. "Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" Good advice from a generalist.

LOUIS Something else to be considered, perhaps as an extension of authenticity, is explicit objection to your work. I've had a number of people tell me that, as a white man, I would never be able to truly capture their ethnicities in my writing. It's almost a philosophical dilemma, because one can never truly know what it is like to be someone else, even through extensive observation. Gender and sex differ, I think, because women and femalse are absolutely necessary to almost every story that can be told. The right and supposed ability for a man to write a woman character is born out of necessity. I've always been curious, though: what would the results of a blind study, in which people of Ethnicity X read plays about Ethnicity X characters written by both white people and people of Ethnicity X. Empirically, would a difference be obvious?

TOM It is difficult, if not impossible, to write about something that you know little or nothing about. Even more so to write about something you don't care about (or have little interest in). The root of your dilemma lies in the history of slavery and race and Black authors alike. Gender is different than race: men know women and vice-versa, no matter their race. (I've been told by both men and women that my female characters ring true) It is very difficult to write about a group if the only contact you have with that group is as a superior (teacher) or musings on your trip home is its basis. Also, these are college students you are bouncing this idea off of. Try meeting with several Black writers and pose the same question. You have some very interesting points that I think should be discussed (I am bring it to my mostly Black playwright group). If you continue being honest with yourself, asking and answering your own questions, you'll get to where you're trying to go.

Gwydion Suilebhan As someone who has written African American characters from time to time, and who will likely continue to do so, I want to say I think a healthy disregard for the ability to do so respectfully and creatively and thoughtfully is probably the first, best indication that you can do it. For me, it's really about following your creative calling wherever it leads, being fearless and unflinching in your self-examination when you do (as you have demonstrated here), asking African American collaborators and peers to review your work and give you feedback, and then (most importantly) actually listening to them and acting on what they tell you. Do that and you're likely to be close to fine.

Keith Josef Adkins This is a very intriguing post. It is rare to hear a non-black person articulate their reservations about playing in the black narrative. A lot of times I feel white writers don't understand the outrage (or the suspicion) when they attempt to tackle black story and characters. It is definitely an issue about capturing authenticity and accuracy, but it's also an issue about opportunity. There are very few opportunities for black playwrights to have their work produced. The works of Katori Hall, Lydia Diamond, Lynn Nottage and August Wilson are exceptions compared to the hundreds of other plays and playwrights. Then there's the issue of diverse black narratives and how many theaters seek black stories that are steeped in poverty, pathology or music. Black playwrights are both challenged by the lack of opportunities for production and a lack of diversity. So it's disheartening when a white playwright steps forward with their "black play" and it gets a production. It's disheartening when a white playwright (who lives and works among black theater practitioners and who can clearly see the imbalance) yet doesn't say "no" to a commission opportunity to write a black story because they'd rather for their fellow black playwrights to get a shot in a world of very few shots. It's disheartening when white playwrights express outrage and annoyance when a black writer (or any other writer of color) questions their intentions when they decide to craft a black story or when there's quiet protest against the production of their "black play". I do understand that this is the real world. I understand that many writers feel we should be living in a post-racial America or a place where anyone should be able to write whatever they see it, damnit. However, as long as the real world, particularly theater, is plagued by an imbalance in narrative representation and that the white point of view is deemed paramount then some things will remain under the microscope for scrutiny and restructuring. We're all in this together. Let's take responsibility for each other. Thanks for your article. Thanks for the honesty Thanks for the conversation.

Judy Goss Thanks for the thoughtful post, and thanks to the respondents. Living and writing in the South, I find it's natural to feel the history and current realities of complex race relations and unnatural to omit African-American characters from all plays I might write. I'm indebted to former African-American students, colleagues, and friends whose perceptions have guided my efforts when I have imagined African-Americans as essential to my scripts. Doubt fuels creativity and challenges empathy. Hope this dialogue continues!

William S. Yellow Rob e, Jr. Uh, I find this question very odd, since for several years Non-Native American Indian playwrights have been writing Native American Indian characters, themes, and cultures and have never questioned their use of another people's cultures, identities, beliefs, etc.

Marisela Treviño Orta What makes a character of color believable and who gets to determine that believability? Would I pass a test for a believable Latino character if written? Tall, almost six foot Latina of Mexican American heritage who didn’t grow up speaking Spanish, who learned it in school and who sometimes goes days without speaking it; who’s in her mid 30s, single, lives half a country away from her immediate family; whose parents are not immigrants, whose family has been in the U.S. for 4 to 5 generations depending on which branch of the family tree you follow; who loves Neruda, science fiction movies, Tolstoy, and Greek tragedies. Who loves astronomy, science, history, Sudoku. Would I, written as a character, pass a litmus test for a believable Latina character? I wrote about a similar subject last year on 2am Theatre and I’ll repeat some of what I said there. I believe that Latino culture is not monolithic in experience, nor static, I know I fit along a varied spectrum of cultural experience. I think the same can be said of characters. And because I believe in imagination and empathy I think writers outside my cultural community can write Latino characters. Their success, as my own, depends on where along the spectrum a character is and how far away it is from the writer’s own experience. Meaning it may take more work (exploration, research, imagination) to close that gap. And their perceived success, as my own, is dependent upon a third party who brings their own ideas of culture and experience to bear. But how do we know if, when we say a character of color doesn’t ring true, that the character fails for the same reasons other characters defy believability? That it’s the writing in general and not specifically the portrait of the character that has been drawn? I agree with Keith that underlying this conversation is the issue of access and opportunity regarding who gets to tell the stories of a cultural community. I also agree with Judy’s impulse to write a cast of diverse characters because that authentically represents her world. I do not think “the answer” is a zero sum game. Just as I don’t think there is any one specific way to write a character of color, I think we should welcome multiple approaches to diversifying who we see on stage, the stories told and the community of writers who tell those stories. This is a complicated and nuanced conversation. Thank you for opening it up for discussion.

Robert Kaplowitz To begin with, thank you for bravely addressing an important question - I think you're wrangling with really great stuff. I am not a writer, so have no direct personal stake in the answer to your well considered thoughts, but I will say, as an observer & maker of theater, that I am frightened by the implications not only of what you've written, and the responses you've received, but by the notion that underlies your questions. If the issue of race politics (rather than your well considered questions of discomfort with a lack of knowledge) stand in the way of white writers writing legitimately about non-white characters, then we are not only censoring ourselves, we are taking potential characters off the stage who need to be heard, as well as reinforcing the racial divisions in our society. Put simply - if there were more authentic African American characters onstage in America, there would be more parts for African American actors, more African American voices coming at the audience, and a possible increase in the positive feedback loop that could to an increase in African American theater artists - when young kids of color see characters with whom they identify onstage, they increase potential ownership/ identification with a life in the theater. Anyone (of any race) can write stereotypes - I have worked with writers of color who put far more stereotypical African American characters onstage than any white author would ever dare. Are these characterisations ok because they come from within the culture? Wouldn't we be better off with a writer like you (who can write authentic Danes and women) consciously struggling to write authentic African Americans? I also feat the notion of bi-directional limitations - if white writers can't write African American character, are we suddenly limiting the writing potential of every writer? Can African Americans write Asians? Can Latin Americans write Hispanics? It is SUCH a rabbit hole. The current generation of high school age kids in the US is more than 50% non-white. Our playwrights, of every race and creed, need to be able to write about our country, not just a diminishing part of the population... Thank you again for raising this vital question.

cgeye "Put simply - if there were more authentic African American characters onstage in America, there would be more parts for African American actors, more African American voices coming at the audience, and a possible increase in the positive feedback loop that could to an increase in African American theater artists - when young kids of color see characters with whom they identify onstage, they increase potential ownership/ identification with a life in the theater." So, if African American playwrights are concerned that the few 'black play' positions, when taken by non-AA playwrights, might limit their potential to be heard, that's a *bad* jobs program... but when non-AA playwrights bravely write AA characters, to inspire the AA youth (not the living, breathing, ready AA theatre artists trying to work *right now*) to seek out more theatre opportunities, that's a *good* jobs program? I am perplexed -- doesn't that imply that theatre is a jobs program anyway, with a little noblesse oblige kicked in? Isn't the Internet chatter about Those Negroes And Their Theatre Habits just an outburst of pre-February anxiety? Those AA casts must now be rehearsing in theatres that won't see their talent (or their supportive audience) for the rest of the season, as statistics do tell -- so why even bother? Maybe it's time for the Last Mama On the Couch Play -- if playwrights of all sorts truly receive color blind breaks.

Samantha Collier We have to recognize that, historically, people of color have been denied the right to tell their own stories. Any white playwright who sets out to write black characters should do so from a place of respect and humility, rather than from a misguided notion that s/he will improve the lives of African American theatergoers. Furthermore, s/he should also recognize, attend, and promote the work of artists of color, too.

Jeni Thanks Marshall. As I was reading this article, I couldn’t help thinking about race in terms of what it means to be an American writer, and how important it is for all of us to figure out how to honor work that is about a particular part of the American experience, without demanding that every play – and playwright - somehow identify itself with one particular aspect of that experience. I always tell my students that “write what you know” doesn’t mean that they should all write plays about being college students. It means that they can only write from what they know of being human. And I believe this is true, and is what has allowed playwrights throughout history to access characters that are so far from their own lives and experiences. On the other hand, I also think it’s important for us to question why we are drawn to certain stories and characters, and how that affects our ability to inhabit their experiences. As a white, female playwright, I’ve been told that my plays aren’t “women” plays and that always makes my blood boil. Is hope not a "woman" thing? Faith? Fear? Ambition? Should I write about tampons and boyfriends? On the other hand, I can’t imagine that I’d ever attempt to write a play about the male African-American experience. I have written a role to be played by a black man. The character isn’t American – and I have wondered at times if I’d be as comfortable if he were, but at some level it’s like asking what I’d be like if I were from Peru. Who knows? When we’re talking generally about the black experience, or the female experience then it’s one thing, but when we’re talking about Porgy or Nora it’s different. Perhaps because great characters are like all of us: going after what they need without necessarily being aware of how their actions impact on blackness or femaleness or any other “ness” we might come up with. Ultimately great plays aren’t about the experience of any race or gender; they’re about specific characters that shine a light on our larger humanity. There are places that I can stand and shine on light on things, and there are places where I best not stand – because even if I think they’re interesting or important or educational - they don’t give me the best angle or shine the fullest, most honest light. And that’s what I want: to shine the light as best I can. I also know that I cannot judge by looking at another’s face where they have the right to stand because if they’re shining their brightly, their own face remains in shadow and all I see is thing they are shining a light on.

Bruce You're not alone, Marshall, to answer your question. I think this is one of those "good problems" that has come about because our integration is accelerating and our awareness is heightening. I don't have an answer, but I do know there are subjects I've tried to tackled and then stopped because I didn't feel I had a bead on the characters or situation. I always think of the word "authenticity," not as meaning verisimilitude but more in the vein of convincing and knowledgeable enough to suspend disbelief. I don't ever want to discount the outsider's vision because they often shed a light the insiders can't see. So I sort of dispute the idea that culture members "own" their culture. If you're in the Dramatists Guild, one of their magazine's issues last year took up this same point in detail. Agree this is a really great discussion.

Joel I should predicate my comment from the point of view that I am an American (like the author of the article) and grew up in a culture that was and is deeply informed by the concept of race. In the US context there is no such thing as color blind even if we wish it to be so. You can't walk down the street for five minutes in any US city without some level of awareness of this harsh reality. It is an ever present dissonance buzzing in the background. If you are an American writer you can't avoid it and so you must honestly embrace it and face it with FEARLESS EMPATHY for all souls around you. Empathy means you step outside of yourself. It requires you to use your imagination to stand in another person's place. James Baldwin as a young, black gay northerner could write convincingly about a southern white heterosexual sheriff 30 years his senior because he was a master at that. Personally, I have no fear of writing characters whose ethnic backgrounds differ from my own because inherent in writing any character is the need to reach outside of yourself. No matter what the character's ethnicity, my only fear is that I am not truthful to the character, to myself and to the audience.

Ali Garrison Thanks so much for posting this query. This is right up my "Ali" so to speak, as so much of my work over the years has required recognizing my status and privilege (as much as the avid socialist and anti-racist in me finds it a burden) in order to approach intercultural art with sensitivity, respect, equanimity, awareness and nuance. I really admire Marisela’s forthright self-description, so I’ll follow suit. I am the Pan-European-American Quaker mother of a Pan-Afrikan-Canadian teenager, life-partner to a Pan-Afrikanist artist- teacher, a professional singer, performer and teacher of thirty years living a rich and fully integrated life in downtown Toronto, Canada. Many of the ensembles I have been a part of and roles/music I have chosen to play and sing over the years have subtly or not-so-subtly challenged the imposed boundaries of race and culture. I am, definitely a non-conformist and I could certainly be accused of being a perpetual idealist, so as not to resort to the deadening evils of cynicism. I ask this question to you all: Why further the age-old problems of confining and censoring anyone anymore by merely making art that stays within safe boundaries? In this crucial time on the planet, we need expansive thought from all humans, not limiting or fearful thought. It is time to work-through but proceed to drop these old thinking patterns and habits of race and gender and belief. We need full diversity and a shared perspective that comes from the full spectrum of humanity in order to survive on the planet. This is not said in naiveté or denial of the very palpable issues of inequality that remain on the planet much of which concerns me and drives me. But it is absolutely vital that we take this very moment now to deconstruct "other". Somehow, to keep evolving as artists, whatever the ethnicity we identify as, and in spite of our human and societal limitations, we MUST force ourselves to go continually through the process of doubt and questioning (Marshall, this is what we all are really appreciating about your article). Then, in spite of it our individual and collective prejudices, blindness and herstory, summoning our full powers of observation, empathy, imagination, creativity, we must then wade in and participate in deconstructing the barriers of race and “other” to shine that "light on larger humanity". This is our JOB! This is artistic courage...to defy our own fears and what society says we have to be, envisioning what we could be and then using our gifts and abilities to make it manifest. Many of the great artists through all time and from every corner of the world have done this, overcoming huge obstacles that far exceed our own in North America…this is not a new idea. By the way, Marshall, if this isn’t a call to create an amazing work where you embrace your fear and accept the challenge and go through the journey, learning to write fully-dimensioned, vivid, diverse Afrikan-American human characters, I don’t know what it is! LOL! I look forward to reading all about it!

J D MacAulay I haven't written any "race" oriented characters because my interests are not in the politics of race. However, I don't see any obstacles should I suddenly feel compelled to tell that type of story. A good story is a good story, especially if it's important subject material. It so happens that I've never even considered writing from that perspective because it's a non-issue for me personally. Moreover, I consider that any person regardless of race, age, or sex can play any role I've written and I wouldn't have a problem with it. How many times have you seen Shakespeare done with all women? Many times probably. Or someone too old playing someone too young or too young, too old? My question is this: what type of force or pressure is it in our particular cultures that define what can and can't be done. Is it not a question of place? And how do we break definitions without being offensive to extend academic debate onto the stage and into the community? What's unacceptable today might be taken for granted and overlooked tomorrow. What makes great theatre? A great story told with the emotional truth in tact. Maybe that's idealistic and simple but it is a broad brush with which to paint. Write with no barriers. That's my 2 cents for what its worth.

Adam Szymkowicz I'm a white playwright and a couple years ago I got a job writing for a black sitcom. From the season I worked on that show, I learned a great deal about a certain version of the black experience but mostly I came away realizing how much I still didn't know about what it is to be black. I came there with a certain simplified idea about the politics of writing about African Americans and while there I learned a much more complicated version that often confused me, and honestly probably still eludes me somewhat. I have not written a specifically black character since my job ended at the show. I do have quite a few plays which I specify that "actors can be of any race" which I hope helps make it possible for me to employ non-white actors, while at the same time letting me say, this play is about people, not just white people. But not all plays can or should operate that way.

David Marshall, you have asked a great, thoughtful, painful, embarrassing question. In my own work I've written women characters and had women tell me (a) how could I possibly be a man and write women that well? and (b) my women characters are not persuasive because I do not share their experience. Both (a) and (b) were about the same character. I have also written First Nations characters, but Bill, I have to say that I did a lot of self-questioning before I did so. I don't want to offend anybody out of ignorance or carelessness, but of course I risk that whenever I write anything. In the case of the First Nations characters, I asked a native friend who is very visible and active in the theatre whether I should do so. She replied, "Go ahead. Anybody can write anything they want to. If you get it right, we'll applaud you. If you get it wrong, we'll laugh at you." That made sense to me, and still does.

Monica Bauer I grew up in a segregated city, in a Polish neighborhood. When I was 12 years old, the local Accordion Studio was turned, almost over night, into a Rock and Roll Studio, where neighborhood kids could learn to imitate bad top 40 bands. My first drum teacher was also the first black man I ever met, the late, great, Luigi Waites. I wondered how it was that Luigi got along so well with the Accordion Guy who owned the store. Thirty years later, that's turned into a play that Urban Stages will open this March, My Occasion of Sin. When I first started developing this at Nebraska Rep. Theater, there was only one black character in the play: Luigi. The play's climax comes during a race riot, inspired by the all-too-real race riot of 1969 in my home town (Omaha). After the staged reading, the only black person present (other than Luigi) spoke out, saying he was disappointed there was not enough of the black perspective in the play. A year later, a new character, a 14 year old black girl, started talking to me. When the play was produced in Omaha this past April, there were Talkbacks given with me sharing the stage with black folks who had lived through that riot. And the most important thing to me was hearing them say that I "got it right, told the truth." So I'd encourage anybody to write about any subject where they have a genuine emotional connection. Be brave. But be respectful. And listen.

Lyn Fairchild Hawks Marshall, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. This is a powerful discussion. Ali, your comments really resonated with me. Artists must take risks to create. It's not art otherwise. Joel, your comments really hit me, too. We take these risks in the U.S. knowing that so much history weighs us down. I live in NC as well and because I write YA, I can't write a high school setting where it's Anywhere, USA--this strange mix of white kids who all look and act fairly similar. I'll read some YA and say to myself, Where is THIS place? The NC I know has very intense and complex black-white relationships, so I try to capture that in my YA novel, and I struggle with the fact that I don't have space to deal with other cultural communities. I also had to cut several characters that show I don't see a community as monolithic. (That's another point people don't understand once the work is out there--what you had to cut. Characters. Elements of setting. Dialogue that would have made the book more photographic and realistic than literary and narrative.) I'm drawn to stories with multi-ethnic casts. I've written from the perspective of white women, African-American women, white men with Asperger's, a teen survivor of sexual violence, from the perspective of a male molester, and so many other voices I don't live or own. I try them, I feel them, I want to keep hearing them. That choice could offend but I have to keep listening. This vocation may come from being a teacher, too--so many students taught me in all my years in high schools and middle schools. I keep seeing them as I write, though my stories turn out so different. We often debated in my English classes whether works like Heart of Darkness with its racial epithets should stay in the canon. My meditations on white women writing from the perspective of other races are here at my blog: http://lynhawks.blogspot.com/search/label/racism All the best, Lyn

Ian Thal You ask about Aeschylus, but his Persians were played by Athenians for an Athenian audience. It was unlikely he expected any Persians to attend his play. Likewise, when Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice, there was little concern with real Jews (or real Venetians.) Let me turn the question around and ask, if, as a Jew, you bristle when an even well-intentioned gentile co-opts the Jewish experience, why aren't you more concerned with writing that experience, which you know first hand while the majority of American playwrights wouldn't be able to quite get their finger on? This is not to say that one should never attempt to write across such lines, but why torment yourself about what you don't feel you can write, when you you can write to your strengths? There are plenty of writers who really shouldn't be writing men, or women, or children, or gays, or Jews, or Muslims, or blacks, et cetera.

Kaaron B Minefee Marshall, is it possible that you're thinking of African-Americans as a monolith? All of our opinions and life experiences are not the same. A fact that I know you know. I appreciate your soul searching, but maybe instead of thinking about a general character it's more about how a specific character would aid your story. As a Black actress, I appreciate it when a playwright shows how diverse our backgrounds and outlooks are. I like it when I'm asked to play a role that isn't stereotypically Black because I don't know any stereotypical people. You're a smart writer, Marshall. You're conscientious and very often brave in your approach to your work. I feel that if you're interested in writing a play with a Black character/characters that you won't do so in a ham fisted way.

What4 Why not try an experiment? Recruit black, white, male, and female authors. Ask each to write a scene in which black, white, male, and female characters have prominent roles. Review these without knowing who wrote them. Will you be able to tell which scenes were written by the author who was black, white, male, or female? What would it mean if you could not identify the race and gender of the author?

La’Chris Jordan Marshall, thank you very much for your honesty and opening up this very important discussion. (An ongoing one, to be sure. ) And you're spot on - it is very challenging as a playwright to write from those places that are unfamiliar to you and kudos to you for admitting it. Although, you must swim in that sea of unfamiliarity for a time in order to achieve the honesty in your story. I come from this perspective: Write your truth as you know it. The problem with this is, there are so many playwrights out there whose “truth” regarding ethnicity is based on the sum of their (often limited) experiences. How many folks can actually say they have a rainbow coalition of friends and experiences? More the point – and this speaks to the core of us – do you care to? For instance, if you have a black character in your play, who is that person based on? Is it from your imagination or is it based on a black person actually you knew? Did you know him intimately, meaning were you best friends, colleagues, or just coffee buddies? Or did you base your character’s stereotypes on the few black characters you saw in a movie? I find the playwrights who are the best at writing diverse characters are those who have lived the most colorful and eclectic lives. They’re also thoughtful, compassionate and reflective. They listen and they don’t filter. They also don’t judge or flinch when their perceptions are challenged. It’s true that you don’t have to be Jewish to write a moving piece about a Nazi survivor escaping her past; or be Muslim to write about religious persecution; nor grow up as an Italian man in order to write a comedy about two friends. I've been able to do it. These are my characters. You just have to have the ability to “channel” and internalize all that is as authentically as possible. It's a skill that not everyone has. David Simon, the creator of HBO’s ‘The Wire’, is one of my favorite writers, not just because he wrote great dialogue for many black actors on the show, but because he lived and breathed his characters. He also listened to his black cast and corrected himself when he was “off.” When you do that as a writer, you not only walk away with a good story, but you create a story that people can feel rather than judge.

Lisa A white novelist/playwright who I think has successfully written about black South African characters and experiences is Athol Fugard. His academy-award winning film 'Tsotsi' consists almost entirely of black South African characters, as do many of his other plays. I have taught this film in a high-school English class and the students love it. Not only is the writer a white South African, but so is the director of the film, and yet, they successfully capture a variety of black South African experiences post-aparteid. I was actually shocked when I found out that it was white males who wrote and directed the film. I highly recommend people check out this film and other work by Athol Fugard.

Samantha Collier A number of commenters have replied that their work isn't concerned with race, that they write about "the human experience." This reaction is short-sighted. When writers say this, they usually mean that they write white characters, or "colorblind characters" who never think/talk/deal with issues of race. But of course, whiteness has racial implications, too. It is only because of white privilege that our white characters are able to move through their lives without having to think about racial ramifications. If white playwrights are going to honestly tackle this dilemma, I think we need to start by recognizing that every character has a race - not just the Black ones. If we choose not to recognize the way in which whiteness affects our characters, we are making a political statement that race is only relevant to people of color, that white people don't have a race and are therefore "the default." This is a dangerous path to take.