To kick off the second week of “About the Girls” guest posts, Brandy Colbert is here to talk about friendship in YA. More specifically, she’s here to talk about how important it is to see diverse, intersectional friendships in YA between and among girls.
Brandy Colbert is the author of Pointe, which was named a best book of 2014 by Publishers Weekly, BuzzFeed, Book Riot, the Chicago Public Library, and the Los Angeles Public Library. Her second novel, Little & Lion, is forthcoming from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. She lives and writes in Los Angeles, and you can find her on Tumblr, Twitter, and brandycolbert.com.
When I was in first grade, I was part of a trio of friends that included two girls we’ll call S and K. They were both small and white and blond, and K was born with two fingers on one of her hands. We’d all hold hands as we walked around the school and playground, as little kids do, but I remember the first time I noticed K’s hand. I went home that day and asked my parents about it. At the time, she was one of the first people I’d ever met with a physical disability, and especially who happened to be my age. Without missing a beat, they calmly informed me that K’s hand didn’t define her, that we’re all different in some way, and to never believe I’m better than (or not as good as) anyone else because of those differences.
That talk has stuck with me nearly thirty years later, and it was incredibly timely in my childhood. The next year our family moved across town where as a second-grader, I was one of only a handful of black kids in my entire elementary school. I grew up in a town that was predominantly white and only 3 percent black, but the school I’d attended with K and S was quite racially diverse, all things considered. Suddenly I knew what it was like to be the one who was “different.”
I lost track of K over the years, but I’ve always wondered if she dealt with similar issues I had growing up: Namely, always having to explain myself. For me, it was: Why does your hair look/feel/stick out like that? Can you actually get sunburned? Would I be able to see it if you blushed? And then there were the not-so-subtle looks (and sometimes pointed questions) during the slavery discussions in history class. And let’s not forget the girl who, at my part-time job, pulled me aside to ask if both of my parents were black…and only admitted she broached the topic because of the way I speak after I prompted her.
Despite how exhausting and demoralizing it can be to not only have to explain your differences and feel like the spokesperson for black America before the age of ten, part of me appreciates those questions, looking back. Plenty were mean-spirited, meant only to remind me of how I’d never truly fit in among my peers. But some were thoughtful; some people truly wanted to learn, and if I could help them understand why and how a person different than them might go through a separate set of challenges and experiences in their lives, it was worth my time and effort.
Because of where I grew up, the majority of my friends were white until I moved away from southwest Missouri. Which meant these conversations took place anywhere and any time, but most often with my white female friends. I spent the most time with them, after all—at the dance studio after school and on weekends, at sleepovers, on the dance team in high school, talking on the phone for hours upon hours. I still have several white women friends as an adult, and I was surprised I didn’t know the term intersectional feminism until embarrassingly recently. I can’t remember where I first heard it, but social media came into play. I knew that I didn’t always feel like the feminism my white friends talked about and promoted was totally inclusive, but to hear there was an actual term for it felt so validating. What I’d been thinking and going through all these years wasn’t in my head.
The concept of intersectional feminism has been around and discussed for many decades, but law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, a black woman, is credited as being the first person to coin the term in 1989, which is loosely defined as recognizing that women experience different layers of oppression, including race, class, gender, ethnicity, and ability.
So, in other words, the reasons my white female friends didn’t seem to quite get what I was going through was because most of their experiences were colored through the experience of being a white woman. Full stop. Race and ethnicity weren’t an issue for them, and typically class and ability weren’t, either.
I remember sitting in my therapist’s office in Chicago several years ago when she asked, “How do you define yourself?” I looked at her, confused, and she said, “If someone asked you to define all the things you are, what would you say and in what order?” It didn’t take long for me to reply: “Black. Woman. Writer.” To me, I am all of those equally, but I know society doesn’t always see or treat me that way.
My childhood friends and I were avid readers, trading paperbacks and poring over the Scholastic catalog together. Now, even in 2015, children’s publishing has a diversity problem. But this was back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and so nearly 100 percent of the books I read were about white, straight, able-bodied kids. I didn’t think to question it; I yearned to read about kids who looked like me, but if I hadn’t read the books that were out there, I wouldn’t have read anything at all. I started writing fiction when I was seven years old, and even my own books at the time featured exclusively white characters because I just assumed people didn’t publish contemporary books about black kids.
One thing I’d like to see more of in children’s literature—particularly young adult fiction—is friendships between girls from different backgrounds. I want to see white, middle-class girls who have friends other than other white, middle-class girls. I want books where marginalized people aren’t presented as token best friends or love interests, but rather fully fleshed-out characters with their own stories and hopes and desires. I want to see books that show microaggressions and how those can build up and eat away at a person over time, how telling someone “It’s just a joke” isn’t helpful when those “jokes” are thrown at them day in and day out. I want to see characters who are black and Latina and Native American and Asian and biracial and white have friends with disabilities, and lesbian and bisexual and transgender friends. I want to see different combinations of those friendships and I’d especially like to see books where girls fit into more than one of these categories themselves.
I want to see these girls supporting and understanding each other’s differences—or listening and trying to understand if they don’t already. Because while I may have felt the time and effort of explaining myself to people in the past was worth it, all that explaining is exhausting the older you get. You still feel like the spokesperson for your group, even if you know you’re relaying a singular experience. And besides that, as an adult, you wonder why other adults aren’t seeking out other sources to educate themselves. Books are a wonderful way into different lives and worlds, so I can’t stress enough how much we need to see more novels published that focus on marginalized characters.
But while I was thinking of this magical wish list, it occurred to me that perhaps I missed an opportunity to delve into intersectional feminism in my own book.
In Pointe, the protagonist, Theo, is black American and grows up in a place not unlike my own hometown, in that it is suburban and almost entirely white. She’s known Ruthie, one of her oldest and closest friends at her dance studio, since they were toddlers, and they are both on the professional ballet track, ready to audition for summer intensives. Throughout the book, Theo and Ruthie speak honestly about their lives, but looking back, I wonder if their friendship could have been even more realistic if I’d included a conversation about the struggles of black ballet dancers. Theo herself acknowledges how difficult the journey could be for her, what with the lack of black dancers in the professional ballet world. And on some level, she is aware that Ruthie likely stands a greater chance of success than her—even though they are equally talented—simply based on her skin color. Would the book have been improved with a scene where they acknowledged these differences? I don’t know. Writers are always thinking, and I don’t believe we’re necessarily ready to write about what we’re currently pondering. But I’d like to think I’ll be more conscious of portraying certain experiences from here on out, and work to include even more examples that are authentic to my main characters’ worlds.
Naturally this whole topic got me thinking about what’s already out there in YA fiction in terms of portraying female best friends with different backgrounds. Not surprisingly, I came up short in what I’ve read that fits the bill. Although, how I loved the friendship in Sarah McCarry’s gorgeous novel Dirty Wings, between Maia, who’s Vietnamese and adopted by a white family, and her best friend, Cass, who is white. In Nina LaCour’s Everything Leads to You, Emi, the protagonist, is a lesbian; I can’t recall if the sexuality of her best friend, Charlotte, was ever mentioned, and don’t want to assume that she is straight because of that. But this novel was one of the first that I’d read with a lesbian protagonist in which her sexuality was not an issue, yet we still saw Emi’s romantic struggles with girls, and the easy way she was able to confide in Charlotte.
One of the most wonderfully diverse books I’ve read in some time is Maurene Goo’s Since You Asked…, whose main character, Holly, is of Korean-American descent, and whose best girl friends, Elizabeth and Carrie, are Persian and white. Not only was it so refreshing to read about how they celebrate and share in the varying aspects of their cultures, but Goo managed to effortlessly encapsulate the racially and ethnically blended lives of Southern California teens.
I’m very much looking forward to Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee, which was just released in March and features a Chinese girl and a black girl making their way West on the Oregon Trail. And when I asked my lovely host Kelly for more books I might have missed, she suggested Swati Avasthi’s Chasing Shadows and Hannah Moskowitz’s Not Otherwise Specified—neither of which I’ve yet read, but both have been on my radar.
The truth is, it’s really damn hard to be a girl in this world, and I’m grateful for the ones who’ve taken the time to understand me, who listen when I speak about challenges they may never face. I’m thankful to have met someone so early in life, my old friend K, who helped me recognize the struggles someone different from me is dealing with. I’m here for girls of all kind, and I hope young adult fiction starts to reflect more of that idea in the future.
Do you have more suggestions for books that fit my wish list? Leave them in the comments or tweet me @brandycolbert!
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Pointe is available now.
YES to all of this. I really loved reading this, and though my daughter is only 7.5 and a ways away from reading YA, I fervently wish that she will have a wide array of books like the ones you list near the end of your post. Even the dismal range of some of the early chapter books she is now able to read herself has opened my eyes fairly quickly about a major "lack" in books, particularly for girls. I am so glad that I clicked through when I saw this come through via someone I follow on Twitter.
I agree with you, Brandy, but you already knew that. My daughter's friendships are very much like the ones you describe, and it would be nice to see that reflected in her fiction.
Great post, and great list of books 🙂 I grew up in a super diverse city, and I've always found it… a little creepy… to read YA fiction where everyone is straight/white/blonde/middle class, OR the single 'diverse' character in the book seems to be more of a lesson/token, or to use your words, the 'spokesperson', rather than a 3dimensional character unto themselves, which always feels really condescending to me (as a reader).
I am seriously looking forward to reading your book now 🙂 Thank you!
After reading this post, I've put a hold on Since You Asked through my library! May have to read some of the others you mention, too. Have you read Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan? It's got some great girl friendships between people of different backgrounds and different orientations.
I enjoyed Pointe, and can't wait to hear more about Little & Lion!
Team Human, by by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan. It's a really lovely, funny, and poetic riff on Twilight that's really about two best friends—a Chinese-American girl and her white best friend—coming to terms with the fact that they're different people but that's okay. It's all about friendship and agency. It's AMAZING.
One of the best female friendships I've ever seen is in Marc Secchia's 'Aranya'. The main character Aranya and her friend Zuziana come from two entirely different cultures, two entirely different races and start out as enemies but become friends under extreme circumstances. They then set out to change the very world that they live in. Aranya and Zuziana go through so much together and theirs is one of the most real and strong friendships I've ever encountered in YA.
It's a self-published novel but Marc Secchia is such an amazing writer that you'd never know if I didn't mention that here in the comment! His editing is flawless and he writes some of the most diverse fantasy out there. He's a South African author living in Ethiopia and I think African mythology and legends has really influenced his writing. He creates such unique fantasy worlds.