Quote

White writers in many cases choose not to populate their fiction with people of color. A lot of what I'm doing is trying to write against that, not about race but against the avoidance of race that's such a dominant model in white literary discourse.

The object is very clear in the fight against racism; you have reasons why you're opposed to it. But when you're writing a novel, you don't want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that.

I try to think of the social function of fiction as drawing the individual toward larger social and political questions. But I'm also very comfortable in saying that my novel - any novel - doesn't matter as much as larger questions of how we can see justice done.

It infuriates me that the work of white American writers can be universal and lay claim to classic texts, while black and female authors are ghetto-ized as 'other.'

There's so much material out there that's unnecessarily racist. It takes a shot at what is 'urban' or demonstrates blackness with some sassy, neck-jiving character that's not even relevant to the plot. I see it time and time again, and it doesn't move the story forward. It just kind of cryogenically freezes us in this old racial paradigm.

I read 'The Conspiracy Against the Human Race' and found it incredibly powerful writing. For me as a reader, it was less impactful as philosophy than as one writer's ultimate confessional: an absolute horror story, where the self is the monster.

In a culture defined by shades of gray, I think the absolute black and white choices in dark young adult novels are incredibly satisfying for readers.

Somehow, I realized I could write books about black characters who reflected my own experiences or otherworldly experiences - not just stories of history, poverty and oppression.

Stereotypes, they're sensual, cultural weapons. That's the way that we attack people. At an artistic level, stereotypes are terrible writing.

I always crave to see more stories about and by people of color, particularly new work by young black writers.