I Messed Up – BIG TIME.

 

About a year ago, someone left me hurtful comment on my previous author blog, back when I was paying for webhosting. Without using the word, she accused me of being a racist because she didn’t like that I’d given Deshawn, the Black bodyguard in my novel Worth The Risk, the speech pattern of a Southern Black person.

At least, that’s what I thought she’d been talking about.

I got upset. So upset, I nearly unpublished the entire “Rock Star Husband” series. I got all defensive, wrote a blog post in rebuttal in which I assured the “ex-reader” (that’s how she signed off) that I’d known Southern Black people who were more educated than I and had stronger dialects than that which I gave Deshawn.

I never did publish that post, and I’m glad of it.

Because…

she was right.

Not in calling me a racist. 

BUT.

Just so you know…

After getting this comment, I did reach out to a Black fan with whom I’d been sporadically corresponding and asked for her opinion. She’d read the novel, and didn’t have any problem with me giving Deshawn a Southern dialect.

It hadn’t offended her.

Just so you know.

Now, moving on...

Let me back up a minute.

For February, 2023, I decided to make that very novel my “Book of the Month.” For each book of the month post that I create, I plan to put in a few of the positive reviews for it.

So as I wrote the post promoting this novel, I combed through the reviews to find some positive quotes from readers.

I got more than I had bargained for. I had not one, but two scathing reviews from readers who took me to task on how I portrayed Deshawn. The wording of one gave away the identity of the woman who had left me the comment on my blog.

I got all up in arms again. It was one thing for one person to rake me over the coals for her narrow and biased perception which led to wrong assumptions (MY THOUGHTS THEN, NOT NOW!). But, two?

I got upset all over again. Ranted and raved. Wrote another blog post, a kind of free-form poem, in which I poured out my heart, justifying my right to create realistic characters and accusing the reviewers in question of being in the wrong.

That out of my system, and idea began to niggle at the back of my head. The idea was to get off my high horse and just go back into the novel and rewrite Deshawn’s dialogue. The niggling got stronger and stronger, until the next morning, I decided I needed to do just that.

With a heavy sigh and not a little bit of disgruntlement, I opened the document and began searching for “Deshawn.”

What I found shocked and dismayed me.

First, I’d really overdone it. I mean, really overdone it. Seeing, “yo’ sho’” for “you sure,” and a lot of similar attempts to relay a particular dialect, is cringeworthy to even a white person. I felt embarrassed, especially because I’ve criticized other writers for doing the same thing.

Still, I wasn’t sure that had warranted the vehemence and rage of my hater.

And then, I found it. The part that had really offended her.

I had – get this – the female protagonist make fun of Deshawn’s Black Southern speech.

Now. Understand, when I first wrote it, I’d meant for it to be funny. A kind of breaking-the-tension kind of thing.  And that’s how I had Deshawn take it.

But when I was rereading it, two years after the last time I looked at it, and this time, through the eyes of an indignant Black woman, I couldn’t believe I’d been so insensitive.

No wonder she thought I was racist.

That scene is gone now, and don’t look for that second defensive blog post because I never published it.

But that’s really not good enough. I need to apologize.

So.

I’m sorry.

I am so, so sorry. Regardless of your race, if you cringed or felt like I’d slapped you in the face when you read Deshawn’s character, particularly in the deleted scene in question, I sincerely and humbly apologize for having written something that hurt you. In hindsight, I don’t know how I could have thought that scene was okay on any level.

Yes, I do. I was in a hurry to write it and get it published, so I let it slip through the cracks.

Please forgive me. I wish I could reach out to the two women who called me on the carpet for my insensitivity and apologize in person.

And, thank them. Because they opened my eyes to three things.

First, that I needed to return to my manuscript and revise it.

Second, that I’m still way more prideful than I want to be.

And third, that I have to be a lot more thoughtful when creating characters who are of races, ethnicities, or cultures that differ from mine.

I hope they might see this post one day, or my updated manuscript, and be able to forgive me.

I am really, truly sorry.