“…I think the first step is to stop thinking about those people as The Other. Because they’re not. I mean, okay, they may not be a lot like you? But they’re also people, and if you can question your own cultural assumptions about what people ought to be like, and also the stereotypes you’ve probably assimilated without knowing it, you can hopefully write people who are not just like you.

“They’re not Those People. They’re people. People are us.”

This is from sci-fi writer Elizabeth Bear, via a link shamelessly stolen from the blog of my pal Jane Irwin, who follows up that link with a bunch of related links spun out from that post and then applies the things she’s learned to her own work. And then follows all that up with more related links. So be sure to read those too.