Wednesday 7 May 2014

We need Diverse Books

Posted by Unknown at 15:41







If you have been stalking on twitter, you'll notice that there's been a campaign to raise awareness of diversity in literature. You can stalk #WeNeedDiverseBooks to see what people has to say about it, and this tumblr blog here: We Need Diverse Books for further information about the campaign, and also a list of diverse books to read.

As an Asian chick and part of the ethnic minority, I understand that diversity is important. It brings out awareness to others. It gives readers new flavours of different cultures and experiences of a challenging environment, and struggles of multicultural characters. The media is full of stereotypes. Eg: Muslims are terrorists. They're the most violent religion, and it's a religion of rape.
It's utter bulls*** if you ask me. It's unfair how all Muslims are defined as terrorists because of extremists pricks who decided to terrorize the entire world because of anger, discrimination or whatevs (it's definitely not religion. Heck, Islam isn't even about that). You don't blame the Germans to be Nazis because Hitler was German. You can't judge the entire population due to a group's behaviour.

But that's how the world works. They see the bad things in the media and they assume everybody is like that. The world is a big fat circle of prejudice.

So it's why I feel it's very important to raise awareness of diverse books. It's important for Muslims to write about their experiences as Muslims to combat prejudice.

I also feel that there should be more books like 12 Years of Slave. Malorie Blackman and Maya Angelou did a great job at portraying the life of black people. Now we just need more Muslim authors to portray Islam. Most people are aware of black history and slavery, but knowing facts and experiencing it is a completely different thing. When you read, in that short moment, you are that character. You are the one suffering from a horrible fate. Books makes you feel. It gives you empathy. The world isn't made of white, but of various colours.

Why live with one colour when you can experience a freaking rainbow?

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