Honestly, this dismissive comment helped me formulate a thing in my mind.
So, as a Black American, I do believe it's important to hear from the voices of people who are suffering.
That being said, I find that, unfortunately, that market-in-books tends to really lean into the suffering, and I say it's important to consider the extent to which that might weigh down the writing and the reading experience.
This is the primary reason I bristle at the idea of "getting away from e.g. white male writers." There, of course, is nothing inherently better about them; but our unfortunate social / cultural / historical filters have made it so that (easily findable) writing that is free from certain kinds of suffering comes from them -- and sometimes you need that too.
One detail that struck me in Le Guin's Dispossessed was when her anarchist-from-an-anarchist-society protagonist visits the neighbouring planet and discovers (a little to his dismay? or is it just puzzling?) that compared with his other physics colleagues there, he admires the franchise of the aristocrat the most.
An ostinato themes in Dispo is cycles vs lines; today I'm not so surprised to reencounter Ms Thompson*, but was pleasantly surprised by the following cycle:
now time for me to listen to The Meters, and get some prehistory? (then again, a basic problem is once you hit New Orleans, everyone has influenced everyone)
So, as a Black American, I do believe it's important to hear from the voices of people who are suffering.
That being said, I find that, unfortunately, that market-in-books tends to really lean into the suffering, and I say it's important to consider the extent to which that might weigh down the writing and the reading experience.
This is the primary reason I bristle at the idea of "getting away from e.g. white male writers." There, of course, is nothing inherently better about them; but our unfortunate social / cultural / historical filters have made it so that (easily findable) writing that is free from certain kinds of suffering comes from them -- and sometimes you need that too.