Please Hire Indigenous Sensitivity Readers

So I created an article that said, “Stop Using Slurs in Children's Stories” and one of the slurs I mentioned was the word “savage” and I used LJ Davies as an example of how many times someone can write that word in one book, let alone several books as a way to explain how this is a common slur used for a lot of writers. I also mentioned other authors, but after reading so many AI books, I decided to read LJ Davies's stand-alone book called “The Last Monster on Earth” which uses the word savage like it’s going out of style.

Everything was fine. I mentally sighed every time that word appeared, but I kept going. That was, until this word came out of nowhere and if you’re a part of the Algonquin-speaking tribes, you might already know why I stopped reading the moment it popped up...wendigo.

I shouldn’t have to explain why you shouldn’t use Wendigo’s as the “monsters” of your stories. I just want to talk about how you should really...please...for the love of all things holy, I’m on my knees, hire...indigenous...sensitivity...readers.

“The Last Monster on Earth” is a story about a human who gets turned into a “monster” (dragon) and is afraid of losing their humanity. That’s as far as I got, I don’t know what happens after chapter 3 because I stopped after the reveal of the Wendigo’s.

The trope of “turning into an animal and losing your humanity” is very old and was kind of founded on racism. People of colour were often considered monsters, animals, and barley even human. So when you create a story of turning into an animal where you’re losing your “humanity” or are afraid of losing it, it reinforces these negative stereotypes.

If you have a cool idea for a story it might be frustrating to hear someone like me to “ruin” it. But the thing is, I’m not trying to “ruin” anyone’s stories or prevent them from writing in the first place.

I want your story to be the best it can be, however, there are a lot of common writing tropes, myths, and monsters that come from Indigenous cultures and most of these tropes, myths, and monsters that you probably see today which are very common have deep-seated roots of racism.

Despite this article mentioning LJ Davies at the start, I want to make it clear I don’t think he’s a bad person just because he uses the word savage or wendigo in a story, but I do think it’s so common to see that word in media and to have wendigoes in horror stories where not a lot of people are aware of how harmful they are.

If you want to know more about them please seek out Algonquin-speaking tribes.

Is it frustrating to see these things pop up in everything? Yes, yes it is. However, I only think these things appear as often as they do because people are unaware of the harm or the history these words and monsters have.

A lot of this can be avoided by hiring one indigenous sensitivity reader, even if you don’t think you need it, there’s no harm in getting one. They can point things out to you and if you have questions they can help. Does your story need to use the word savage? Is there no other word you can think of to replace it? Does your story need to use a monster from a native culture? Can you not make up your own? What’s the significance of stealing from another’s culture and butchering it?

A post-apocalyptic story where humans have vanished and the main character gets turned into a dragon with no memory is fine. Making the main character afraid they’re no longer “human”, not so much. Using the word savage repeatedly is uncomfortable. Using a monster from a culture you’re not a part of and people from said culture have repeatedly told you not to use is problematic.

I’m 6 months in this year and only finished reading 3 books while having to put down 9 and it’s because (besides AI) the stories I’m reading (and no hate on the authors), just have a lot of problematic tropes or languages where it makes reading stories uncomfortable and I’m tired. I love reading, I love stories, I just want to read a story where I don’t have to be reminded of problematic elements and I have to do mental gymnastics to figure out if this was an accident or on purpose. Regardless it makes reading very exhausting and I feel like a lot of the problems I have could be solved if people just hire sensitivity readers.