“A few years ago, I was speaking to a fellow black horror writer and she told me that she didn’t write characters of color in her work. She didn’t think it was important, even as a black writer, for her to write black characters (and descriptions of characters with dark hair and brown eyes was enough). It was more important for her to write for her chosen audience, who she perceived as white and she didn’t want to in anyway alienate them.

“This is how badly issues of race have infected and confused some people.”

Also: A report from the Octavia Butler symposium at the National Black Writers Conference, which includes a description of what sounds like Gregory Walker promoting his Zulu Mech 1 project at perhaps an inappropiate time.