I feel like I’m late to the blog party but better late than never!

I’ve been eavesdropping on a lot of conversations lately about the whitewashing of book covers. As a full-fledged member of an ethnic minority I guess I have every reason to complain, but somehow I can’t.

I can actually understand the reasons why a publisher would want to ‘lighten’ the characters on the cover. Maybe because it’s the same reason I wanted to lighten my skin when I was a kid.

I loved to draw before I loved to write and I learned early on that when you coloured in your face brown, you couldn’t see the eyes real well.

So when I drew myself as a princess, I gave myself light skin.

How can I cry foul now, when publishers are basically doing the same thing?

There’s lots of talk about how publishers need to change the marketplace and change people’s perceptions of what’s beautiful.

Nuh, uh. It goes the other way around. Maybe things are finally changing where with this very public hue and cry, the people are saying we’re changing and we’re ready to see brown folks on covers and not just as sidekicks or expendable characters that are the first to get blown up or eaten in movies like Predator and Alien.

Did you ever notice the black guys always catch it the first? My son did. He boasted that of all the movies only Dawn of the Dead, a zombie flick, actually made the black guy win.

I don’t feel like watching Dawn of the Dead, so I’ll take his word for it. But I do feel like reading literature featuring characters of all colours, shapes and hues.

Heck, maybe I’m even ready to get in on the act!

I’m ready for my close up Mr. DeMille!