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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41593
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41593
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

My answer is somewhat similar to the ones already given, even from a slightly different perspective.

> I had forgotten about their races because it wasn't important to me and I had not noticed while I was writing, because the story isn't about their racial backgrounds

You already got the hang of it. If it's not important to you as you're writing it, if it's not the focus, it ought not be important at all.

Your job as a writer is to make your audience care for your characters, showing their personality and their struggles. Racial and ethnic labels aren't needed, and in fact they might even be detrimental.

Think of it from the opposite point of view: do you want your book to be liked by hispanic people because the MC is hispanic? Do you want black people to root for the three blacks in your cast?

Or do you want this to happen because they are well-rounded, interesting characters, caught up in a compelling plot?

The **_real offensive thing_** nowadays is the underlying assumption, in many medias, that the audience won't be able to empathize _unless_ given a token character of the same demographic. We're humans before being black or white.

Original score: 16