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Troy you bring up an interesting point. A writer who wants to sell books is naturally going to think about his or her audience. She may start off writing her book the way she sees fit. Who knows what that initial draft looks like -- it could be filled with character roles that challenge stereotypes. But by the time she's on her third round of edits, for example, she may start changing things to meet what she anticipates are the demands of the audience. She may anticipate such demands by looking at her competition; reading other books that are out there in connection with her subject matter. Before you know it, she is tweaking this, adjusting that, and the book is totally different than how it started...all because she wants people to be comfortable with it; to accept it. When looking at it this way, it becomes easy to see how books filled with stereotypes continue to be produced. The writer is looking at "what sells" and may even be afraid to go against the status quo. Unfortunately, the status quo is "busting" at the seams with stereotypes. Racism and American go hand in hand. For a new writer, and I guess even the veterans, stepping outside of the box may sound good theoretically, but when you're trying to get picked up by an agent or land a big deal with a publisher, the brutal reality of where we stand with each other sets in. So what do you do? Take one for the team and tell it like it is - keeping in mind that your intepretation may very well differ from other people's? Or focus on your personal survival, by writing what is safe and acceptable ("believable") to mainstream America, thereby making that money? p.s. I keep putting "believable" in quotations because (as Troy said --- I think that was Troy who said it...), whether or not something is believable is subjective. So already, we as people are in trouble in terms of trying to relate to one another. What may be believable to one person, is nonsense to another. To that end, going back to my original response to this post, if I, as a black reader, come across a book about black ppl that I find to be totally off the mark & stocked full of "unbelievable" characters, I'm going to call that book crap. If I find out that the writer is white, AND cashed in big time on the book, then yeah, I am going to have something negative to say. Real talk. I will NOT be happy about it and I will NOT pretend to support it because at that point, it's all over the big screen showing a story with characters that I don't think would have really acted like that (putting *ish* in a pie? seriously? We had way more dignity than that! --- or did we? How would I know...I wasn't there...maybe I'm wrong, but that's my story & I'm sticking to it: again, subjective). And yet, as opinionated as I am about this whole "The Help" issue, there are ten people to my one that love the movie and find it to be a fascinating true-to-life portrayal of great black women and mean old evil white ones in a time period from back in the day. (Btw, I haven't thought about how I personally would feel if a black person was the creative genius in that same scenario....let me watch a Wayans brother movie tonight and then maybe I'll come back tomorrow and let you know how that went.)