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I’ve never seen 12 Years a Slave, and I’m never going to. I’m sure it’s a fine movie. It’s won many accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Picture and near universal praise, so perhaps it’s more than fine. But I’m never going to see it because I don’t think that story is for me.
When I say it’s not for me, I don’t mean the me that is a generalized notion of a Black person living in America. I mean the specific me—Nicola Yoon, Black woman, mother, wife, author, publisher. Because I no longer want to watch fictionalized accounts of Black people being abused and killed.
The question I keep coming back to is: How many stories that center Black pain can America make and consume? There are so many of them. And what do these stories hope to achieve?
A not-so-charitable part of me thinks movies like this exist to make people feel good about themselves. I imagine an internal dialogue that goes something like: I watched that movie and witnessed the brutality and cruelty perpetrated against Black people. I empathized with slaves and their struggle, and therefore I cannot be racist. Sometimes I think movies like these are a salve on the open wound that is racism in America.
The more charitable part of me hopes that maybe there’s something else these movies are trying to do. To illuminate history, perhaps? To persuade, maybe? Still though, I don’t need to be persuaded that slavery and racism are evil. I don’t need its trauma illuminated. I am a Black woman in America. I promise you, I promise you, I already know.
I want different stories about Black people. Or rather, I want more stories about Black people. I want stories that are not only about pain.
I want joy.
I need it.
I think you do too.
When I was growing up, I loved romantic comedies and romance novels. I had so many favorites: When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride, Before Sunrise, Say Anything, Moonstruck, Notting Hill, not to mention an unreasonable number of Harlequin romance books. But as much as I loved those titles, they always left me with nagging questions: Where were the girls who looked like me? Didn’t Black girls ever fall in love?
As a writer for young people (my next book Instructions for Dancing is out June 1), I happily get to go on a lot of school visits. As part of my visit, I generally give a presentation, which usually includes a slideshow depicting my journey to becoming writer, details on my writing process, and some advice for overcoming writer’s block. I tell jokes. I talk about the surreal experience of having both of my books—Everything Everything and The Sun Is Also a Star—adapted into major motion pictures.
But the the last two slides are my favorite: issue books vs. non-issue books.
You know what an issue book is: It’s one where, for example, the main character is Black and the book centers on slavery or racism or police brutality. Or the main character is gay and the book is about coming out and the consequences, usually negative, of that action. Or the main character is a child of immigrants and the book is about the challenges of the immigrant experience.
In general, these books have a lot of pain in them, and you can find them in the Black Interest or LGBTQ+ shelves at your local bookstore or library. Sometimes they’re shelved in the general population as well but not often.
We live in an age where we need issue books. I will go so far as to say that issue books save lives. They tell oppressed and ostracized children that there are people out there like them and that life can get better. Again, issue books save lives.
But there’s another kind of life worth saving: the metaphysical one.
A non-issue book is one where, for example, the main character is Black, but the book does not center on the pain of racism. Or the main character is gay, but the book is about something other than the struggle of coming out. These books say to that young Black girl or gay boy, you can be the hero. You can be the one the world has been waiting for. You possess just as much magic as anyone else. You—yes, you—can save the world.
And yet, there are so few of them.
Why aren’t there more swoony love stories starring Black girls or Asian boys? Where are the stories of queer or disabled or gender-nonconforming kids experiencing pure, unadulterated joy? Where are their happily-ever-afters?
We need marginalized people to know that there is joy in this world and that they are deserving of it. We need to afford marginalized people the full measure of their humanity. There is more to them (and their lives) than the painful, heavy issues imposed upon them by society. There is also joy.
I want the meet-cutes, the breakups, the makeups, and the final chase scene followed by the big speech where one person declares their love for the other. I want stories where Black girls are depicted as smart and beautiful and witty and vulnerable. I want them bantering with the cute boy. I want them philosophizing about life and love, beyond issues of racism and poverty and struggle. I want my happily-ever-afters. I need them.
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