Should they be able to? Heck yes. I have no doubt that people definitely have the capacity to write characters of other ethnicities or cultures.

But should everyone be writing people of color that they themselves are not?

Yes and no.

Firstly, I say yes because as a woman of color I have grown up reading novels upon novels and watching many movies and shows with protagonists which are so different from me, both culturally and racially.

Nothing would make me happier than to see characters that look like me, talk like me, deal with cultural problems like me. Indian-Americans, such as myself, have fought the daily struggle of deciding if you’re too Indian or too American, or just trying to convince your very Asian parents that just because you had fun yesterday doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have fun today.

I want, no, I demand, that writers take it upon themselves to branch out of the usual cookie cutter and please add in more culturally inclusive main characters. Not side characters or minor characters because you don’t want to do the research required. Main characters.

But I say this with a word of caution, which brings me to all the reasons I have to say no.

While I would love to see more cultures represented on T.V., I will NOT stand for misrepresentation. Like, please, please, please do your damn research.

I’m sorry, but not every Indian I know has a thick accent like Raj from Big Bang Theory. Not all of us do yoga on Saturday mornings or wear a bindi. Not every Asian is smart. Not all of us want to be doctors or engineers. No, I don’t speak “Indian” and I am not “a Hindi”.

Please figure out the difference between Hindi and Hindu. Understand the fact that Indian people don’t speak Indian. Rather they speak Hindi, English, Hinglish (a recent development), Tamil, Telugu, and so much more. Because your poor writing will show. And I promise you, it’s not only rude to the people you’re writing about but it’ll reflect the poor research on your part.

And maybe it’s more convenient for you to write characters which resemble yourself. I know it’s ten times easier for me to write an Indian-American character than a Vietnamese one. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t. What it does mean is that I’m going to buckle down, research the heck out of a nation’s history, interview close friends who may belong to particular groups, and figure out everything I need for my story to work.

So if you’re going to feed into stereotypes and promote biased, negative views of specific cultural or ethnic groups, hold off on writing people of color all together. But if you’re willing to do your research, understand the culture, come to know why certain things are the way they are, then by all means, please write a character from whatever group you want!

It’s funny. I probably shouldn’t even be posting this. But I think it’s time to move on.

This is the username that I first created when I joined Prose almost four years ago. I was a freshmen in highschool who had the biggest dreams of publishing a novel. I’d never thought to write poetry. Not once before this site. Poetry was the boring thing teachers made us do in class.

It wasn’t till my best friend and co-writer of the time, let’s call her Penny, shoved a phone in my face at lunch and started gushing about Prose. It was the perfect opportunity to branch into something new. A whole new style of writing that neither of us had ever done before.

I think this site played a key role in our friendship. Which is why when we had the argument that would end it, I stopped writing. I couldn’t lift a pencil or open a document to write without her face coming into view. I gave it all up because of her.

I didn’t log back into Prose till about two years later, towards the end of my Junior year. I was stressed and didn’t have any other release. Prose gave me that opportunity to bleed my emotions out in writing.

And now, as a senior in highschool, I don’t really write to get others to read my work anymore. I don’t seek praise or really care if others understand my words. I just write whatever comes to mind, whether it be a poem akin to disjointed thoughts or a rambling such as this one, I know that I’m writing things out for me.

And somehow this stage seems to be the final one of my journey on Prose. No, I’m not leaving but I’m not staying either.

I’ve changed as a person and a lot of the people who I connected with when I first started this site no longer write or post any longer. And that’s okay too. I get it. Life is busy. Life is hard.

I think @infiniteflame was a username that symbolized a lot of my past, particularly my highschool experiences. From the effort I put to giving my username a personal meaning to the fact that I made it alongside my ex-best friend in ninth grade, @infiniteflame holds a lot of meaning to me.

But this chapter is coming to a close. I’m no longer hiding behind pennames or hiding the fact that I write. I don’t obsess over novels anymore or have the time to write something I don’t want to.

My name is Shruti Pandey and I’m ready to move on. Maybe I didn’t need to make a such a long and dramatic post about my username and past but I’m dramatic person and it seems like what I want to do. So here it is. A new chapter. A new life.

Let’s do this.

Senioritis is literally the worse condition of them all. I mean what other disease can make an individual stop caring so much about their entire life despite knowing the importance of certain tasks?

I mean, don’t even get me started on how many assignments I have missing in the gradebook right now. Should I be worried about them? ABSOLUTELY. Even getting one math problem might move my gpa to tears.

Oh my poor, poor gpa. Once a shining 4.0 is now facing true demise in the social realm of nerds. (*gasp* Oh no! A 3.5?? Whatever shall she do??)

Like who knows what miracle is required to get me to pass Stats class even if I did try to make an effort at this time. Of course the better alternative is to just sit in my room and stare at the ceiling and complain how terrible high school is and lament the fact that I still have to go there for the next two months despite having been accepted to various institutions since basically December and committed to a university for almost three months now.

In all honesty, it’s pathetic. The fact that I must sit and suffer through a mythology class of busy work and sit unflinching through another stats course in which I basically don’t understand a word is sad. My high school refuses to let students have free periods. Not even seniors. Which if you think about it is absolute crap. I’ve had enough credits to graduate since my sophmore year. It’s not even like I would’ve failed out of school too because ya gurl had straight A’s and a plethora of AP classes.

Trust me, I have sucked the bone marrow out of the education I could have. And in all honesty, I’m exhausted. I’m tired of adults pointing fingers at me and telling me that I have so much more potential. Like even they know that their words are flimsy because I’m not going to get removed from my university now. Especially not when a surpass their average student by lightyears. I do not mean to brag, I simply mean to tell you of a wonderous mind that once resided in my head that managed to get me this far.

It’s not even like this mind has abandoned me. Instead, it rests in my skull day after day and achieves ultimate boredom. It cries to be used for something other than useless arithmetic.

But I will be honest, there are benefits to senioritis. Because I could not care enough about school at this point in my life, I’ve decided that it would be better to just find new passions. Now, I’m already a student of many interests from dance and violin to Model UN and HOSA. But I decided to try something entirely different.

I made a youtube channel. That’s right-- this nerd is a youtuber now. And an instagrammer. I’ve started my first business without having to invest any money (though I project it will be two years before I can make any profit from it).

All this wouldn’t exist without senioritis pushing me to look away from academics. And in fact, after years of thinking I would definitely pursue an academic career whether it be in law or medicine or engineering, I finally came to the conclusion that this like just ain’t it for this gal.

Yes, I dreamed for so long to publish my own novel. And maybe someday I’ll return to that dream. But for now I write for myself, even if it seems like gibberish or disjointed thoughts. I’m putting the lid on this box and putting it on the shelf.

It’s time to explore the world and achieve my non-academic dreams. I’m still going to university in the fall and will be surely dedicated to my collegiate studies more than my current highschool courses but I now know that despite everybody says, I’m not a scholar.

And honestly, maybe at my core, I never was. Maybe I’m not supposed to your stereotypical story of a highschool nerd rising to be the jock’s boss. Nah fam.

I’m gonna own an empire that the nerdiest nerds will beg to be a part of.

I believe in me. And you know what? Maybe I can’t stay on topic and ramble on and somehow take the conversation from senioritis to my future goals but whatever. I’m only 18. I don’t need to know my entire life now. I just need to make sure I’m choosing a good path.