Black Characters and Blushing
entropyalarm said: When describing embarrassment, blushing is typically used as an indicator. I’m white, but I recognize that darker skin tones shouldn’t show blush the same way as lighter tones. My friend, with medium skin, told me it only shows in her nose and ears, felt more as intense heat radiating from her cheeks than a visible color change. What is your insight on handling blushing? I feel this is especially important for proper portrayal of PoCs in romantic situations.
Anonymous said: You’ve written some great advice for describing black characters, but I was wondering whether you have any advice for describing a black character blushing? I have face blindness, so I’m having a lot of trouble with this. (otherwise I could just look up pictures and describe those) So sorry to bother you!
I’m glad you’ve asked. It bothers me how often I’ve heard “Black people don’t blush” which only seems to be another way to dehumanize Black people (and defeminize Black women) for not possessing this base human reaction, even if it’s not always notably visible.
Everybody blushes. Or rather, can blush. It’s the physical act of blood rushing to the face, ears, and other areas of the body; how visible the output doesn’t dictate whether one blushes or not.
While fairness has its part, I think blushing and how visible it is has a lot to do with the individual (some folks have better blood flow) + the undertones within their skin.
I’m going to steal my undertones chart from the Skin Tone Guide here:
As shown above cool skin colors have undertones that mostly fall under red/pink shades.
I’ve seen dark cool-skinned people with naturally rosy cheeks. I can only imagine when they blush, those reddish undertones are emphasized or brightened.
On the other hand, warm skin is usually in the golden, orange spectrum. Not so much reds. Still that doesn’t mean red coloring doesn’t appear on dark warm skin tones.
I have warm medium skin with golden orange undertones, and I definitely get flushed from extrinsic factors, such as if I exercise hard (I turn a berry-red coloring), plus the winter cold pinkens my nose like Rudolph.
I’ve also had friends call me out on blushing, but I can’t tell you exactly how that looks for I’ve never checked a mirror at the time, though I imagine it’s like a slight tinting or an enrichment of the undertones in the skin, brightening them, paired with a “coral to dark red” reddening.
In general, though, it can be redundant to constantly refer to blushing to show shyness or embarrassment with characters of any skin tone. It seems blushing is one of those things that happen more often in stories than daily life. Kinda like green eyes.
For variety, also consider these indicators:
~Pages from the Emotion Thesaurus, seriously every writer should buy this book 10/10 would recommend.~
To reiterate; dark (cool) skin with red/pink undertones might show blushing more notably than warm skin, as an enhancement of those reddish undertones.
Dark (warm) skin without red undertones, more “richening” of the undertones with pink to dark reddish coloring as an influence, likely depending on how harshly they’re blushing.
In any case; if you’re describing the blushing from the character’s perspective, it makes more sense to focus on heat and sensation.
Followers, any personal experiences or thoughts?
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