I grew up afraid to write minority characters. For me this came from two primary places; the first was the idea pervasive to our culture that people who aren't white, cis, heterosexual, middle-class/wealthy, able-bodied, neurotypical males are "other" to such an extent that they're often seen as not fully human, or maybe human but in a different way. Society insists that those who don't fit inside the rigid little sector it's blocked off as "normal" aren't really people in the same sense that those who do fit into the sector are.
Obviously, I'm not all of the above; however, society's belittling of marginalized groups is so pervasive that it's not uncommon for marginalized people to marginalize themselves (see: internalized sexism, racism, ableism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, intra ableism, intra racism, biracialism, etc.).
Growing up a tomboy in a primarily masculine household, I came to see women as lesser, and later fell prey to the many ailments inherited by young girls--the conflicting standards, the fear of being seen as inferior, the apologies, the feeling of being a burden, etc, etc, etc. Unlearning these things was (is) a long process I won't talk about now, but I guess my point is that when I started writing novels at the ripe old age of nine, the only reason I felt comfortable writing girl characters was because I was a girl, and even still I had a lot of trouble at first with writing female characters that weren't either based off of real people or stereotypes.
The other thing that caused this fear was my limited experiential resources.
I grew up in two towns, one of them full of rich white people and the other full of not-rich white people. In the town I usually say I'm "from," I had exactly one black classmate, and the only black classmate I had in the town I "grew up in" moved away after first grade.
I never thought of people who were different than me as really different. They were people just the same as I was, and I recognized them as such, as I'm sure many people do when they meet "othered" people face to face, especially in their youth. Even with my internalized sexism, I still judged every girl on her own merits once I met her--I generalized groups, not individuals.
But when writing, and trying to be socially conscious in our writing, we all have groups that we feel ishy writing about, not necessarily because we don't want to write them, but because we're scared to get it wrong.
As a kid I was afraid to write people of color--a pretty common fear among white kids, because after they teach you about slavery and genocide and Jim Crow laws in first grade the last thing you want to do is exacerbate that White Guilt everybody's always talking about, and you certainly don't want anyone to think you're racist or, even worse, to find out that you are, in fact, a racist.
The only way to keep yourself safe and cozy is not to bother, and say things like "I'll leave it to them to write themselves into a story." As a little kid that feels very valid, especially when you grow up in an environment where racism isn't something you notice in your day-to-day life, and is instead subliminally flashed into your brain as you watch your all-white-with-maybe-a-token-PoC cartoons.
Sadly, leaving it to a marginalized group doesn't always work--how often do you see black authors being lauded? For a book that isn't exclusively about white people? When was the last time a female author got big in something that wasn't YA or Romance? Do you even know of any books written by someone with a disability? I guarantee you it's not from lack of talent or trying--unfortunately, the system is still heavily weighted in such a way that it's exponentially more difficult for a marginalized individual to make it big--or make it at all--than for a white abled cishetero male of the same or lesser talents, and the exponent tends to multiply if the author-of-marginalized-origins writes about characters who are also not white cishetero males.
Sometimes, when you're at a party and things are loud and crowded, the only way to get people to listen to the guest of honor is for the host to jump out with a microphone and shut 'em up.
I didn't know all that when I was little. I just knew I wanted to write about superheroes and dragons and magic and weird science.
The funny thing is though, unlike a lot of people I've spoken to over the years, I wrote about people with higher melanin counts before I became afraid. In part it was actually because I wrote about them that I became afraid.
I should probably explain: My uncle is very, very racist. I hate him. I don't just hate him because he's racist, I have a lot of reasons to hate him, but this has certainly always been a point of contention between us. I didn't always hate him of course, because when I was younger I was small and naive and thought that shared blood meant shared love. Probably should've realized sooner how bullshit that was.
I was a creative little kid, and after finishing my second novel at age eleven, I wanted to tell everyone about it. As I was going through the first edit, I stumbled upon something that didn't make sense and asked his opinion--in order to do this I had to explain the concept to him--four types of shape-shifters live on an island and fight amongst themselves, sort of Animorphs meets Warriors meets gorn-tastic political intrigue/adventure-fantasy.
Instead of helping, my uncle, being as uncouth as he is, decided to ask me which group were the "n" words--I was repulsed by the language, but was all at once struck by the realization that not only could the division between the shifter-types be construed allegorically as a division between the races, but that I had written people of color into my story--I hadn't thought about it as I wrote, I just sort of correlated fur color to human skin color, so shapeshifters with darker fur ended up with darker skin, and shapeshifters with lighter fur had lighter skin; it wasn't like any group was composed all of one human race or another, they were completely mixed-color societies, but I was still afraid.
I didn't go back and white-wash my draft, what was done was done, but I wouldn't write people of color into my drafts for a long time afterward because I was afraid of doing it wrong. I don't exactly know now what I thought the "right" way was, but that was the only way I wanted it done; I was a conscientious child and didn't want to offend anyone, and since I was only just getting the hang of the internet I had no idea that there were places where writers gathered in bulk to discuss such things.
My resolve to write only about white cishetero abled rich men and women--or, even better, aliens and robots and monsters, oh my!--lasted until I discovered Tumblr as a thirteen-year-old.
I know, I know, Tumblr has a mixed bag of a reputation among the liberal crowd, but for a white girl in a town of 1,000 people, 98% of whom are white, and most of whom are also hetero and cissexual, middle-ish class, able-bodied, and neurotypical, Tumblr was the best place for me to break into a world that was, up to then, largely unavailable to me. Today it's known as a toxic wasteland, and some parts are, but it was an important part of my development as both a writer and a liberal (in case you couldn't already tell which way I lean).
Within a year I was writing stories with "othered" individuals again--people of color, people with disabilities, people of a multitude of genders, sexualities, religions, you name it. Through Tumblr, and the many websites it introduced me to, I'd found out there were tons of resources on how to write this group and that group and the other group, and I learned that it was okay to trust my own real-life experiences and those of my family and friends; every experience was valid. And though there are going to be different characterizations and complications with each new type of character you create, it was freeing to find out that everything truly boiled down to something I'd known all along--people are people. Nothing more, nothing less.
That's what it all comes down to. People are people--we all have wants, needs, feelings, we all have things we care about, we are all our own. What makes me different from someone of a different race has less to do with race itself than with upbringing and societal pressure and our personal likes and dislikes.
Fear can be good--I think, in my case, fear was good, because it drove (and still drives) me to seek out the information I need to avoid creating a caricature or a stereotype in place of a human being; fear led me to ask questions and make sure that I did (and do) everything in my power to not just keep from offending people, but to keep myself from harming myself and others with poor portrayals of certain out-groups, and to make sure that I use my privilege as a white person not for accolades and the like but to assist and teach, to encourage others to hear the voices of those whose voices aren't being heard, and to normalize what should already be, but is not yet seen as, normal.
Fear can also stop us in our tracks--and if you write marginalized characters, you're going to end up being criticized for it, even if you are yourself part of the group you're writing about! But you can't please everyone; every time I write a sensitive male character, someone tells me he's not realistic even though I know for a fact that everything the character does is nothing I haven't seen my brothers and my male friends do, and every time I write a female character I risk being called out on her promiscuity or her aloofness or her hatred of babies because no matter how hard you work to go against a stereotype or humanize someone, even yourself, someone is always going to get pissy about it; that's how life works.
So yes, it's important for people without privilege to speak up and have their stories heard, and their voices are going to ring the most true and should hold more weight.
A story written by someone with absolutely every privilege there is probably won't be authentic, of course, but it's important for people with privilege to speak up as well--not to drown out the voices of your downtrodden kin (as some are, unfortunately, wont to do), but to help raise awareness and compassion and facilitate love and understanding and conversation in ways that some, through the horrors of a discriminatory society, are unable to do.
So write. Whoever you are, whatever you want to write, write it; try to include marginalized characters when you can, because the sad truth is that there's not a lot out there, and even less of it is well-written. Be careful, don't be too afraid--just don't be a dick, either.
And when you think you're finished with that manuscript; stop, wait a minute, fill that cup put some liquor in it--now pour it out, take a deep breath, and go look for some critique partners and beta readers that know what's what in whatever subject you've chosen, because no matter how well you think you know something, if you're writing from a place of privilege you're bound to make mistakes
The fewer mistakes make it out into the real world, the better it'll be for everybody.
And even if you're writing from a point of diminished privilege yourself, it never hurts to have extra eyes on the ground. No two experiences are ever exactly alike, and you may not be as enlightened as you think--I like to think of myself as having cleansed myself of my internalized sexism, but on occasion I still catch myself mentally criticizing a woman for doing something I wouldn't think twice about a man doing, or using the phrase "like a little girl" in a derogatory fashion.
When we write only from our own experiences, we're also at risk of making every character's experience practically the same, which serves to homogenize the group and sometimes creates a new stereotype. I don't think we need any more stereotypes than we already have.
TL;DR: Don't be afraid to write marginalized characters, no matter how privileged you are; just remember to treat everyone as human beings, do your research, ask questions, and seek out the opinions of people with first hand experience before you go tell the world about how great you are (for writing something that may actually be offensive).
