This post is about race: I thought about putting a “warning” behind it, but realized it defeats the whole purpose of this post. Because, until anyone mentions race other than “white,” it is met with controversy. My race should not have to come with a trigger warning: I am a black woman and a BIPOC writer. Terms that have to be entered or applied in a world where the default function is set to “white.” The Default Argument, in programming language, is a function that when a value is not specified, results will return to the values initially specified in the parameters. This is why when you search for a term in images (depending on your location), the images you get will always be of the standard default (white) unless specified otherwise. ![]() Growing up, I never realized (or paid attention to) the defaults of the world. From a young age we were conditioned to associate the “default” with “white.” There is the idea that, unless a book character’s race is explicitly stated, then he or she is “white” (check out White As Default). Most recently when receiving feedback on my manuscript, a beta suggested I describe my main character’s description in chapter 1 so that they (singular “they”) could visualize her from the beginning. I sprinkled in a few key details throughout the first three chapters, stating that her mother was a black woman in the very first chapter, and detailing her physical features in chapter 2 and 3. “Aminat is not the typical Eurocentric heroine, just as Rivercross is not the typical Medieval-Renaissance-esque town. You should make that clear from the beginning,” said the Beta. Good feedback. However, you have the Janet Watson Chronicles, a retelling of Sherlock Holmes starring a queer black woman living in a dystopian society, where the author takes Every. Single. Opportunity. to hammer in that this character is black in the most stereotypical ways possible (from stares whenever she walks into a room, the “don't touch my hair” quips, the afro, people clutching their belongings when she walks by). Then you have the reverse: Book covers primarily featuring/favoring white characters regardless of their in-book description such as the case in the Liar controversy. I first came across this story in my first year of public librarianship researching displays. The story has been around since the book’s 2009 publication but has been popping up as a prime example in visibility (or lack thereof) when it comes to book covers and minorities, most recently mentioned in The Sistah Girl Next Door. ![]() “Default” once again resurfaced in library school where we learned that, when it comes to programming technology, black and brown faces are primarily kept out of the algorithms, leading things like automatic faucets not to recognize black and brown hands, and even facial recognition software to struggle. Generative AI technology needs specific descriptors to generate characters, or else it will automatically default to giving “white” results. You would never have to type “White woman reading” in Midjourney or other text-based generative AI applications. the cover photo for this post compares the results to “Woman reading” on Canva. Canva generates 4 results each iteration. All four results to this text for every iteration yielded the default white woman reading. Minorities must type “[insert race] woman reading." This is the same for stock photos. Nappy.co An ad on my newsfeed inspired this dive into “defaults”. Nappy.co states, “I love Unsplash, Pexels, and Shot Stash, but one of the things I’ve noticed is that all of their content could use a little more diversity. As an influencer mgmt agency for black and brown creators, we’re very intentional about cultural representation in the work that we do. And because of that, we aren’t always able to find the photos we need from those sites.” The site is simple: it provides diverse stock photos as a default. From hiking, families, office spaces, the people in the stock photos are of BIPOC. It eliminates the need to have to type in "black_____" to yield results. As an amateur photo manipulator (Gimp and Canva), when I illustrate my characters, the pool just got a whole lot broader with Nappy.co. Further Reading:
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