What Exactly is Forced Diversity?

Writing Desk Archive
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I used to agree that forced diversity was a thing we should be concerned about. I used to buy into it. However, the more I think about it, the less sense it seems to make.

Maybe I’m just mistaken when it comes to what it means to certain people. Maybe I just need some people with open minds to have a discussion with me. I just don’t really see it anymore. Let me explain why.

The Meaning of Forced Diversity

I would be fully on board with it as a definition if we were talking about people who feel like they are forced or pressured into making their stories diverse. That would make sense to me. I would hate it if people were running around the internet (or anywhere for that matter) demanding that writers represent every single minority group out there.

I have already expressed the fact that I hate when authors treat diversity like a shopping list. It is completely dehumanising to all of the minority people out there. It reduces them to props or ingredients that you need to add to make a “woke” story, which really isn’t the point at all. Having POCs and other minorities pushed to the background doesn’t do any good for any movement.

But that’s not what people mean by “forced diversity” often. As far as I understand it, they often mean diversity that has no rhyme or reason for being there. That’s when I take issue with it. That makes no sense to me. Imagine telling a person their diversity is forced because their character has no reason for being black? They have no reason for being white either! What the hell are you trying to say?

Why I Don’t Buy Into “Forced Diversity”

The problem I have with the term is that it kinda treats minorities like they’re additions to a story. Like you need to “add” a skin colour or sexuality over the top of the usual straight, white character. The “default” character. I don’t buy into that. I think it’s extremely old-fashioned, regressive and even bordering on racist to act like white people are the default state of being. How can someone even justify that?

So when I watch people talking about media having forced diversity, it makes me feel a little bit sick. Take the new Star Wars trilogy, for example. I’m sure it has its issues. I won’t argue that it might have issues with its diversity! I haven’t seen it, so I can’t make that call.

However, there was a ridiculous number of people who were saying that the diversity was forced simply because it was about a white woman and a black man. What is inherently wrong with a film about a white woman and a black man? Nothing, unless you’re a racist! And expanding the Star Wars universe to include other characters isn’t a big deal!

If you aren’t a racist piece of trash and you think about some of these arguments for more than a few seconds, you’ll see that a great deal of them fall apart at the seams! And I know that most of the people talking about diversity aren’t actually racist. The racists just tend to scream louder.

There is no single minority group that needs to justify their existence in the media. It’s as simple as that. I don’t need an excuse to make my main character brown any more than I need an excuse to be brown. Anyone who claims that’s forced diversity is either not thinking hard enough or racist.

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I always thought forced diversity means having diversity in a story although it’s not realistic. For example if I write about a small village in Austria and have a person from every minority group I can think of, it would be really unrealistic.

But the way you explained it makes a bit more sense :sweat_smile:

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That’s a really good point and I think I need to expand on that.

That is definitely a big problem! Unrealistic representation sucks and does nothing but make the movement trying to diversify the media seem stupid. However, when people bring that up, I say that diversity isn’t a shopping list. There are loads of kinds of diversity that might show up in a small village in Austria that don’t seem unrealistic! Like gay characters! I’m not going to force people to make their story full of all the minority groups out there, but thinking about diversity in a small homogenous community doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing if done right! It just has to be realistic!

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Exactly! I once read a story where the MC was a POC but his family wasn’t and I asked for the reason and the author attacked me for criticizing his diversity and he said he just wanted to have one POC so nobody can complain

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That’s that shopping list mentality again and it makes me so mad. My identity is not an ingredient in your damn woke story recipe. Make the characters make sense or GTFO

But people need to be really careful to make sure that that kind of attitude doesn’t bleed into trying to make every minority justify their very existence when there’s no need

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Excellent post like all of your posts are @ShanniiWrites! I totally agree with you on this but I will write a longer reply on this later since I experienced something that relates to this!

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Yessss :clap::clap::clap:

I agree 100%

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It’s called diversity because the diverse group is smaller and different to the main group in a story. I’m not being racist here, just let me explain what I’m meaning.
If you are for example in the UK, about 1/40 in a typical high school will be black, LGBTQ or something else. Therefore the majority of characters WILL BE WHITE!!!
Don’t attack authors for being realistic with their diversity. :green_heart:

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To be honest, it really puts me off when I’m reading a review of a story where they give “scores” for diversity, and the story loses points just because it didn’t represent ONE particular minority group.
Like you said, people need to stop treating diversity like a shopping list!

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Just ask them “why not?” and see how they fail to find a good explanation :eyes::sparkles::smiley_cat::joy:
It’s sad that most people still think that characters that aren’t white and straight need to have a reason for being so, while you never have to explain why a character is straight and/or white :eyes::sparkles::unamused:

The only time when diversity is forced in my opinion is when you can clearly see that it doesn’t make any sense for a character to be there and that the author only added that character so they won’t get criticised for not having enough diversity :eyes::sparkles:

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I disagree a lot with what you said for many different reasons.

This is not true of the whole of the UK. In fact, in most of the major cities, you will find places where white people are the minority. And in London, classes are very diverse in terms of ethnicity, sexuality, religion and gender identity. You might say “well that’s just London”, but there are more people living in London than there are in the whole of Scotland.

Big cities matter when you’re factoring in these generalisations. Places like London, Glasgow, Leicester, Luton, Liverpool, Manchester… the list goes on. They have huge POC communities. The UK is a very diverse country. It’s just that the diversity is concentrated in particular areas. So it’s not fair to make that assumption about the whole of the UK. One experience of the UK doesn’t sum up how the UK “typically” is.

This isn’t what diversity means. Diversity just means “lots of different things”. You can have diversity in your wardrobe, and that means you wear loads of different styles or types of clothing. When we’re talking about people, though, diversity is about having loads of people from different groups - whether that be religious groups, ethnicity, sexuality, political views or even gender. That’s right. Having both men and women is a form of diversity in some cases.

A “diverse group” is a group of people who all have different backgrounds, beliefs and identities (among other things). That’s all it means.

I think what you’re talking about is minority groups. But they’re called “minorities” for a bunch of different reasons. Sure, in some cases, it’s because there are less of them in a society. However, women are also considered a minority! That’s because “minority” doesn’t just refer to population. It also refers to how represented they are (generally speaking) in the media and in lawmaking compared to men. Their voices are minority voices, even if they’re half of the population. Minority can mean a bunch of different things.

You said this like you can’t be white and LGBTQ. There are more intersex people in the world than there are gingers. And there are even more people who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual. They can be white people. In fact, a lot of LGBTQ people who feel safe enough to come out are white because they’re often in a position where they’re not likely to suffer violence or poverty. Whiteness and LGBTQ are not mutually exclusive.

Plus, even if there are very few of a certain minority group, it starts to add up when you add it all together.

No, the majority of people in the UK aren’t all of the following things all at once.

  1. Male
  2. Straight
  3. Cisgender
  4. Christian
  5. Middle-class
  6. White
  7. Young

And I didn’t even add everything to that list I could have.

With all of that in mind, there is nothing realistic about excluding minority people from media, especially in the UK, unless you’re specifically talking about ethnic or religious minorities in rural areas.

I think that diversity should be realistic, but you can’t make sweeping generalisations like that. Realism is about the specific area where your story is set! And I can’t force anyone to diversify their stories, but I hate when people say untruths about diversity

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I totally agree.

Diversity is something that we should embrace, not run away from and fear. Of course, I mean this metaphorically. Diversity isn’t a checklist, it’s just… Normal. Completely normal.

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I’m just going of personal experience :no_mouth:

I didn’t mean to offend anyone and I’m sorry if my not facts are wrong.

Re reading that I think I described a minority not diversity :woman_facepalming:t3:

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AMEN :raised_hands:t5:

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Also, realism works both ways. If you’re setting your story in a diverse place — say London today — and there are no minorities, that’s completely unrealistic and forced, too

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Large BUMP

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Added discussion, writing and diversity tags! Also this is really an informative thread!

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Bump…

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Having different characters with different backgrounds, personalities, looks etc

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*different

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