mistakes can happen and if youre not poc you might not see the way you describe poc as harmful or insulting, which is why im making this smallish psa. now before we start this is NOT an exhaustive list of things that people need to be aware of.
please, please, PLEASE put the same effort into describing brown eyes as you do blue and green. i have literally seen people with charas that have blue / green eyes go ON AND ON about how they are like sapphires / emeralds etc and then turn around and describe brown eyes simply as “dark”. why can you suddenly not be poetic with brown eyes ? are they not as beautiful and worthy of attention and effort ? there are LOTS of ways to describe brown eyes ( note: there are some food words here, which i will get to in my next point. i am in no way saying EVERY word on this list is great, but there are a lot of good descriptors. ) they can be a feeling, a place, a memory– they can also be gemstones believe it or not. ( brown / black stones exist ?!?! wild ! )
do not ONLY romanticize light brown eyes. some people have black eyes, and they are just as beautiful. brown eyes are not only lovely when they have gold in them, or when the sun shines on them. black eyes are beautiful in every lighting, not just when they look lighter.
another thing i see people do that needs to STOP is describing poc skin tones with food. now, i know a lot of people are like ‘???? how is that insulting’ but you can read a good reason why not to do that HERE. not all poc feel this way, but if you are not poc it is important to consider this perspective and how people feel. HERE and HERE you can also find other ways to describe skin tones.
lastly, if you are going to describe poc skin tones you also need to acknowledge when a character is white. when you only describe darker skinned poc, you are feeding the tired ass pattern of a character is white unless described otherwise. assume we know nothing, cant see your icon/fc. also, a lot of us here are writing books and this happens in novels a lot– it needs to stop. if you are going to describe skin color, it cant just been when someone has dark skin.
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