Scrolling for Thought

Late last week, I was relaxing at home, scrolling through my Facebook feed. As I scrolled lackadaisically,  I came across a post from one of my favorite groups, Black Girl Writers. The post read “Normalize giving fantasy creatures extremely black names.” The example given was “Behold, the great and powerful Dontrell!” I kind of chuckled when I first read it but later it came back to mind in a big way. Why are there never any fantasy characters that celebrate both the genre and the culture? Even in my own books I never named any of the characters Tyrone or Jamal. All of my character names center around the origin of the Fae, Celtic/Irish. It never even occurred to me. I think it’s that thought specifically that hangs in my head. Why is my own culture the furthest thing from my mind when I write? I am a firm believer that you cannot separate the author from the words, but am I leaving out a pivotal part of who I am by neglecting to include things that are traditionally African American? The more I think about this the more questions that come from it. Does it mean I am perpetuating the idea that fantasy isn’t a “black” genre? If I write a book and all the characters are named like us, act like us, dress like us, am I trying too hard to create a space at the table for us? I think at the end of the day, I have to write about what inspires me. That’s not to say African American culture isn’t inspiring because even without the many, many struggles of our people, we are and will always be an inspiration. We will see how that plays out as I grow my catalog.