Today the Swirl Awards hosts the 2nd Annual Loving Day Blog Hop. This online event joins various other celebrations across the United States which commemorate the U.S Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Loving v. Virginia, which struck down anti-miscegenation laws in the United States.
That landmark decision removed legal barriers that prohibited marriage between couples of different races. However, many of the societal deterrents remained firmly in place.
It is no longer uncommon to see diverse families in our communities. In fact, the majority of us would hardly give a second thought to seeing a woman walking down the street with a baby of another ethnicity in her arms. Yet, for those of us living outside of that experience, it is easy to forget that not everyone in the world is as an opened-minded and accepting as we are.
Then an innocent Cheerios commercial features a diverse family with a Caucasian mother and an African-American father and suddenly all hell breaks loose.
Such moments remind us of the importance of commemorating decisions like Loving v. Virginia and that for all the delusions talk of a post-racial society, the world really isn’t made of sunshine and rainbows and we’ve got a lot of work to do, as a society, still.
In the Today Show segment above, one of the observations made is that interracial families are rarely portrayed on television, especially in advertising. As our nation becomes increasingly diverse, such a glaring absence of multicultural families in advertising and other media is decreasingly reflective of who we are as a society.
Art often reflects society. However, it also has the power to shape it. Diversity in art, such as movies, television shows and multicultural books isn’t just entertaining. It can also subtly shift our mindset. There is no shortage of multicultural art available, including multicultural and interracial romances penned by many of the authors taking part in the Loving Day Blog Hop. However, unless we raise the profile of diverse books and movies, few mainstream readers will ever see them. One of the many reasons #WeNeedDiverseBooks.
But that’s a post for another day. 😉
The LOVING DAY BLOG HOP, which celebrates the many shades of romance, kicks off at 9:00 am EST today and features posts by participating authors on a variety of topics surrounding interracial love/marriage, and of course the Lovings. They’ve also graciously donated free books, gift cards and swag to help us celebrate. So be sure to visit the next author along the stop.
Here at the Reese Ryan Diaries, I’m giving away digital copies of the two books in my Bad Boys Gone Good series: Love Me Not and Making the First Move. The stories feature heroines Jamie Charles and Melanie Gordon, both members of the diverse, non-traditional Gordon family.
To participate and enter to win great prizes during the Loving Day Blog Hop:
- Leave a comment on this post to enter for a chance to win digital copies of both books in my Bad Boys Gone Good series: Love Me Not and Making the First Move.
- Enter the Giveaway: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/74d7d71/
- Go to the next stop on the hop and visit with Sydney Arrison.
Reese, well said. I get pushback from other authors. Why do you have to make that character black or Asian? You’ll sell more books if you keep them “mainstream.”
Excuse me? That’s exactly the thinking that perpetuates the notion that interracial families don’t exist, that no one other than “mainstream” can be a hero or heroine in a story, and that NO ONE will buy books and stories about people outside of what they consider mainstream.
Keep fighting the fight and and doing what’s right!
Rachelle
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with creating multicultural characters, Rachelle. It is a battle worth waging and I’m thankful to have authors like you by my side. Then maybe we’ll get to a point where neither publisher nor authors are afraid for their stories to be tagged as multicultural.
Reese, I hear ya on this post. We live in a broadly diverse society and we can no longer hide behind the theory of a “traditional looking” family when there’s nothing traditional about today’s society. Everything is modernized, and it’s only logical (and should be acceptable) to modernize family and culture. It’s sad some people are still so unaccepting of this.
It really was sad to see the reaction many people had to that Cheerios commercial. We’ve made so much progress. However, this situation confirms that attitudes haven’t changed among a substantial group of people.