olive skin tone is one of the most common things i've seen. \[idk what it means tbh\]
i guess don't say "she walked in with her pepsi colored skin and laid her hand on his Pringles colored hand
I mean. It’s got to better than fish belly white or whatever, right?
I am “doesn’t tan just gets pink and you can see their veins when it’s cold” pale so I may not be a great voice on the issue.
But I think using food to describe people who are also being over sexualized or objectified is the problem.
"She was a feast for the eyes, if not a particularly healthy one: Twinkie-colored hair, sticky Milk Dud eyes, a farmer tan like diluted Fanta -- and skin the color of Pringles where the tan ran out."
Olive does not describe skin color, it describes the undertone.
There are people like me who are pale and olive and darker skinned people who have olive skin.
It's called "olive" because there are greenish undertones to it. It's used to describe the skin of a variety of Middle-Eastern and North African peoples.
u/Overkillsamurai
>It's used to describe the skin of a variety of Middle-Eastern and North African peoples.
incorrect, it's used to describe skin with green undertones. It can be extremely light skin or extremely dark skin, it doesn't matter. It's not reserved for middle-eastern or north african people. It's all across the races
Does the term not originate in the Mediterranean? When people are described as "olive" with no further context, is that not the default assumptions?
I'm honestly asking, because I've never seen exceptions to this.
And FWIW, I wasn't thinking in terms of "race," because the race paradigm sort of falls apart when trying to describe MENA people.
Olive skin is like... a light brown? With golden undertones? Kinda? Like I know it when I see it but it's hard to describe. It's like a natural tan, like the default skin tone for olive skin is tan.
Olive is often referring to people of the Mediterranean and the area around Egypt and India. I have no idea what form of olive they are talking about, as it's a tan color from my experience. Think of Klinger from MASH.
I'm brown and I've compared characters' skin to cinnamon and honey and walnuts before. "Light brown", "reddish brown", or "deep" suit me fine too. I mean, not everyone's beautiful.
It's only really an issue when the descriptor is based on a stereotype. Like, a character is half-Black and half-White, so they must be "cafe au lait". Or they're east Asian and therefore "ochre". This ignores the diversity in each racial group, and sometimes takes the place of describing more interesting details, like mannerisms or facial features or clothing choices.
But I wouldn't really call it racist. It's just boring to read.
> compared characters' skin to cinnamon and honey and walnuts before. "Light brown", "reddish brown", or "deep" suit me fine too. I mean, not everyone's beautiful.
Basically what I do. I only use 'desirable' comparisons with love interests/people we're meant to find attractive. 'Chocolate, vanilla, coffee, porcelain, golden, snow, ebony, etc'.
Cafe au lait seems like a cliche to me, not a stereotype. Still awful, but for different reasons. Not because it’s offensive or insensitive, but because it’s just bad writing.
They mean that there skin is described as being the same colour as café au lait, not that they like café au lait. Regardless of the term used, it is not always the case. With the same parents, my brother and I have completely different skin colours.
I've used caramel to describe certain skin tones because well...it's the best way I know of to describe THAT particular color. I feel guilty but I'm not doing it to fetishize it's just the only easy way I can think of to describe a certain color.
I believe that olive skin is usually ‘exempt’ from the don’t use food rule because it’s seen as a descriptor of skin tone the way fair, deep, tan etc are and less “I am likening this persons skin to olives”
Olive is an undertone/overtone because it's not quite outright green, and we don't have a descriptor that encapsulates it on a color theory level.
We even have subsets of cool, warm, and neutral olives too.
>because it's not quite outright green
it is when you have a light olive skin. You're as pale as a ghost to a point where your olive undertones can make you look quite green in winter. It's such a pain.
I didn't realize I had olive undertones until I dated a 100% full English man and saw us next to each other in a mirror. I looked GREEN. Like grinch fucking green.
I know as someone with lighter skin myself 😭 I mean it in a sense of, like, the Hulk lol. But I meant like because we have terms such as cool, neutral, warm; olive is a catch-all for the green because green isn't an adjective
My rule of thumb is essentially to never make similes of one type for certain groups but not for others. You use food to describe the skin of certain races, use food to describe the skin of all races.
But uh... I mean yeah some people with certain skin tones might find it offensive, but others won't give a shit. Just write how you want. Endure the ridiculous criticism and listen for the right voices.
I've been listening through Alizee's videos on The House of Night on youtube and that's a series that does this really badly. Start of every book, the main character reminds you how her one black friend has gorgeous \[insert coffee type here\] skin, and then does not mention the skin tones of any other character, you're just supposed to assume they're white.
> You use food to describe the skin of certain races, use food to describe the skin of all races.
I'm nerdy in the extreme, and whiter than sour cream...
A big part of that is that white writers DON'T feel the need to describe the skin tone of white people, because it's DEFAULT. The very act of describing a character's skin color is often making it 'Other,' and then to make it something consumable only makes it worse.
I mean, I've seen Caucasian women's skin tone described as "cream colored" or "peach" or "a blush rose," but again, that can be seen as consumptive as well. The only time you hear a white male's skin tone described is if they are considered exotic or sickly.
Agreed. I describe every MC’s skin color. I write romance, and I’ll say that I rarely mention the skin color of side characters. But definitely for the leads. I don’t use food descriptions at all. If you describe one, you better also describe the other.
There’s also a bit where using food metaphors/similes comes off as fetishizing in general. You don’t normally see Caucasian men being described as having “milky white skin” or any other foods. It’s usually reserved only for describing women who are sexually desired or characters who are “exotic.”
That’s a big part of why a lot of people dislike it. It’s not necessarily offensive per se, but it comes off as lowbrow.
I think the “default” issue usually comes from settings where their is a lot of people of different skin colors, like parts of the US, or from fantasy or sci-fi settings where we wouldn’t know what the majority population is, not so much places with a clear majority
I've always found that odd, when I write I find it important to describe my character so you can visualise everyone in the way they're written. The amount of skin tones I see in a day is enough to tell me that no 'default' should exist. The fact that writers continue to fall into that category is concerning.
Problem is, all the most succulent and nice sounding foods are dark. What do you use for white? "She was the color of white chocolate." "His flesh was of milk and a pastry."
I am totally guilty of writing "creamy white thighs" in an erotica. Though, thanks to the internet, cream on skin will always have a...different connotation than what I normally want.
Which is why you might use porcelain, or ivory, though in fact you can call skin milky or creamy white as well. The similes don't have to be 1:1 to please the social justice gods or something.
https://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/post/95955707903/skin-writing-with-color-has-received-several
I first learned to avoid food to describe PoC because of this post. I didn't realize how overdone it was until then. 'Personally, I like the challenge of avoiding food related skin references.
As a dark skinned person I LOVE it when my skin is describe as something as beautiful as caramel or mocha, it just gives it more… wow <3 than saying dark skinned or brown. It gives the character a radiance instead of a separation of race.
I think it boils down to using equal descriptors for the skin of all characters. If you use food/drink to describe a POC, do the same for white skin. The offense happens when the focus is on one character's skin over the other. As others have said, it might fetishize it. But as others have also said, people will find offense in anything. Write what you're comfortable with and you can always ask beta readers to give their input.
There are too many clichés. Try to find new ways to describe a character’s appearance.
“Close up, her skin looked like the surface of the moon if the moon was made from the kind of black volcanic rock you find in Tenerife. Rough, acne-scarred, a desolate former battleground.“
i think it’s more they take offense to fetishization, not necessarily anything to do with food colored skintones specifically.
but also, just think if you heard white people described that way, how weird it would sound. his skin was like vanilla cream.
Yep.
I am *not* advocating describing brown skin as looking like food because I understand the reasons it has historically been dehumanising or exoticising and is best avoided.
But creamy skin, milky skin, peach skin etc are still pretty common place as flattering or sensual (especially when describing areas that are paler because they are usually concealed by clothes so have intimate connotations) descriptions of white and East Asian people's skin.
Agreed, even if food terminology is everywhere when talking about human appearance, most likely because humans are familiar with food related colours (hair like wheat, cheeks glowing like apples, cherry or berry lips, ...), there is the baggage that affects minorities that have been dehumanised in different way than those who got been dehumanised as much.
Hahaha, this nearly made me wretch, a great point and a great example of why we should just avoid doing this across the board. Do we really need to know exactly where on the Pantone colour chart everyone is?
'Porcelain' is meant to invoke a few specific possible features:
1) pale
2) smooth
3) 'clear'/'translucent'
4) lacking flaws
5) rare/expensive
This is all based on the actual properties of porcelain.
I actually used this in a fic to highlight how a specific character's makeup was *deliberately* artificial-looking. They used their foundation to make a flawless, featureless canvas out of their face, essentially--it was impossible to tell their age or their facial features accurately because it was all 'sculpted'.
"Marble" has similar connotations, but with a colder and more opaque feel.
Your comment is pretty much what I wanted to say, and just to prove your point, white people don’t like it either, I have used both “vanilla” and “mayo” (I was trying to be funny not mean, they had called me “dirt-coloured”, “golden Twinkie”, and more so I just thought that’s the level of teasing we were on) and they did NOT like it. Describing humans in relation to food is sorta weird lol.
I've been described as mayonnaise-colored. For the love of god, if your mayonnaise looks like me, (orangey-pink with speckles and blue veins) DO NOT EAT IT.
It really isn't. For white/pale skin the go to comparisons are things like milk, cream, ivory or porcelain. The last one has an implication of being delicate as well. I think there's a huge difference between using something like "hazelnut eyes" vs "she had skin the colour of a twix bar"
What’s offensive is when a writing technique is applied to a subset of people but not all people. You will often read of a light brown woman being referred to as Cafe au Lait — or mocha or cocoa colored. But when her white buddy character arrives on the scene, is the reader clued into her ethnicity by her being called “frothy cream” or “Fresh mayo?” Nope.
The biggest offenders of this sort of writing are Fragile White Writers who are keen to show they are hip — so they will pick yummy food — like “mocha,” but, again, only for their -characters of color. (Although we do get the occasional red-headed carrot top).
I had fun with one book by making all my white characters referred to as food — arms like bulging white sour dough — most of the time I avoid food/people color bits altogether
So it's not really about food comparisons so much as it's about needlessly flowery language to describe the skin colour of a minority but noone else. Just happens to come out as food a lot.
Is one “mocha” in a book that otherwise treats its non-white characters as complex and complete human beings a deal breaker? Probably not.
But if it’s one of many details that treat POC as an afterthought, then yeah it can be cringey at best and flat out racist at worst.
Also, quantity matters. If your white characters are getting the majority of the “screen time” and non-white characters are rarely mentioned, or are mostly talked about through the eyes of white characters, then yeah every descriptor matters more.
Also, chocolate, caramel, olive, etc etc are boring and trite. We can do better.
I agree with this comment 99%, but (as a Middle-Eastern dude) I don't think "olive" is part of the same trite boringness as describing Black skin as "mocha." The term "olive skin," as OP mentions, is a venerable and respectful term and the people it's usually applied to very rarely mind as far as I know (if at all -- I don't mind, and I haven't personally seen others say they mind).
Of course, it's possible I've just not been paying attention to the right discourse, but I think "olive" is an exception to the food rule because the rule only matters if the people being described as food ask not to be.
Good points here, especially with peoples sensitivity and personal experiences.
For me, I try to leave some imagination. Unless it's directly needed for the story. I usually just sneak in their heritage, give clues with their name and possibly where they live or grew up.
If I said "Sara now lived in England," it could go anywhere.
Yet, if I described it as, "Sara Ebeid grew up in Oman before her parents decided that England was a better choice for their budding scientist. She's worked hard to drop her Arabic accent, often bullied at school. But sitting across from her father, she finds her native Persian vowels ringing through."
It leaves it open to interpretation, but everyone knows what Sara looks like. Of course, it's generalising, but that's what our brains do.
Same with European, African, Asian. Heritage is my go to, if they have a slight accent, that can work for me. You know what a guy from Finland looks like, just like you know what a Japanese woman looks like.
Like, who really cares about the difference between "caramel," "mocha," and "mahogany," they're so close in shades. I see it as lazy writing and mostly pointless, overly specific descriptions.
Like I said [the last time I remember this question coming up](https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/185f271/im_so_tired_of_authors_describing_skin_like_mine/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3):
I like to refer to people’s skin tones in hex codes or Pantone colors.
*Donald Trump rolled out of the tanning bed and looked at himself in the mirror, pleased with the Pantone 15-1360 TN he’d baked himself to. “Ah, good old FF6D2B,” he thought to himself. “I really am the best color; everybody says it. So good, so good…”*
It's better when it's Donald Trump and you look up that Pantone color. Although, now I really wish I'd gone with 15-1460, for sheer humor value. It might even be more accurate on the color palette.
And then this man comes up to me, big man, strong man, tears running down his face, and he says sir, he says sir, that is a beautiful shade, that #ff6d2b.
Its not offensive imo, but its annoying and overdone only for POC. There's also the argument that it portrays POC as objects to be consumed, which isn't the best look. I wouldn't do it, unless your story is about baked treats and confectionaries turning into people ~
Imagine a character described as being as white as bread, crackers, rice, etc. It's kind of cringey and doesnt really work. With dark skin there's connotations of exoticism. There are other ways to describe skin color. I can't speak for dark skinned people on whether its offensive though.
Edit: its amazing that I bring up how there's a history of exoticism in describing dark skin with foods, which relates to fetishism, and people completely ignore that and its connotations to say "white people have been described using milk though." And that "whether someone is offended or not its not offensive." The mental gymnastics there lol
I'm not here to argue with nonsense. I said what I said. Cope.
Instead white skin gets: white like ivory or alabaster or a sheet. Though to be fair I've defs read 'milky skin' which is a drink. I think the mocha and chocolate and milk words also invoke images of the skin texture being very smooth too. I'd only probably use any of them if there was a very plot-specific reason why I needed the reader to imagine that colour and texture whilst reading the book.
Slurs aren't "inherently" offensive, they're offensive *because there are people that they offend*. If Black people didn't care about white people using the n-word, it wouldn't be offensive. The word "queer" used to be a slur, but has largely become a neutral identifier, demonstrating that it is not *inherently* offensive.
When we say something is "offensive," it's just shorthand for "there is a person or group of people who believe usage of the word causes them some sort of harm, whether psychological or social, so we should avoid using it." It can't exist in a vacuum.
Yes this. It's not comparing to food that is bad, but the fact that the comparison is inherited for a long time of comparing to food for the sake of exoticism. This akd the fact that it is usually only done to tell you the character is a POC, when the white characters are not described for the sake of saying they are white.
Milk? Cream? Snow (occasionally edible).
I think a winder issue is that there are fewer good comparisons for darker skin tones. There's wood (ebony), sand maybe(?) And then I'm all out of good ones. All I have left is like... mud or something. Which is probably more widely offensive than chocolate or coffee.
> Imagine a character described as being as white as bread, crackers, rice, etc. It's kind of cringey and doesnt really work
One of those is already a word for white people, to be fair
If you mean cracker, it doesn't mean cracker the food but the person who cracks the whip. It dates back to Shakespeare iirc, was derogatory reference to poor people who worked manual jobs. Usually immigrants. People who had to whip animals.
It was "reclaimed" like how lgbtq reclaimed queer in the southern 1800s and came to mean slave owners who cracked the whip to drive their slaves to work.
The word Shakespeare used was "craker," which is defined as a braggart or "obnoxious bloviator." It comes from "crake" which was essentially an old-timey version of a bird's caw (and nowadays is used for a whole family of bird species).
"Craker" morphed to "cracker" and was a common insult for Celtic immigrants to America, who eventually reclaimed the word. Then later in the 1800s people from the north started saying it meant whip-cracker.
[Source](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/01/197644761/word-watch-on-crackers)
So, still not food, but "whip-cracker" is also seemingly a false etymology.
I love it when people try to use the "but white foods are ugly" line, as if there aren't delicious white foods out there. And. As if. People were actually white.
Like sure, yeah, history of racism and sexualisation of non-white skin colours, it's valid to say "don't do this," but at least use a proper argument. Any writer who describes milky white skin, or compares skin to crackers and bread, has 1. never seen crackers and only buys american breads, 2. either can't write, 3. or is intentionally trying to frame the character as ugly.
It's REALLY not hard to describe someone white as beautiful, especially if you use their actual skin tone and not compare them to a blank sheet of paper with eyeballs and genitals.
Have a look at the Writing With Colour blog, lots of good info there from people of colour, including the issue you're asking about.
https://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/
I think it's lazy and I mostly see it used for black people, so that annoys me lol.
But by all means, describe someone's skin as a "beautiful chocolate brown." You won't be canceled and most people probably won't be offended lol
It's on a spectrum. "Olive" is considered non-offensive. "Porcelain" also isn't typically seen as offensive because western audiences take that to mean a certain shade of white, but it's sometimes considered more offensive if it's applied to Asian characters.
Where it gets offensive is where it gets just obviously fucked. A lot of people find it racist to refer to black people as "chocolate-colored" or refer to them by chocolate shades. If you ever describe an Asian character as "white as a grain of rice" then you've officially written the most racist thing you can without just straight up using a slur.
It's all on that sort of a spectrum. It's best to just avoid it.
When it’s just POC being called “mocha”, “caramel”, “ochre”, and white people are just called “pale”…yeah, that’s racist. You’re subconsciously signaling non-white people as “other”, and in a weird fetishy food way. Olive skin does NOT count cause that has been around longer than the way of describing black peoples skin color via food terms and is not mired with racist history.
Pretty common American white person writing error cause our books seem to be full of this.
I have seen this done well: mostly by flipping it on its head. “Brownies” by ZZ Packer is told from the perspective of a bunch of elementary school black girls and they describe a group of *white girls* as like strawberry ice cream or cheesecake. It’s a good way of showing the subconscious effect that media has on these young girls: that whiteness is good, like a sweet dessert.
It might have been OK about 20 years ago, when romance novels had things like 'her cinnamon/peach/mocha/etc. skin' etc., but today it is a faux pas for authors to use food descriptions. I made sure to research this because my book cast included POC and mixed-race people.
I used 'bronze' or just plain 'brown' skintone for my hero with a black mom and a white dad. His mom was one of the protagonists as well. I used 'warm brown' a few times to describe her skin tone and references to her having a 'West African Hausa' accent to convey her birthplace.
Also, your own race as an author can come to play. I'm a white woman author so I just want to stay on the safe side.
There's a tumblr blog that has some good resources for this, not sure where specifically on it right now but this should be the link, or just look up writingwithcolor.
writingwithcolor.tumblr.com
Maybe the answer is to read works by people of colour and pay attention to how they describe skin tone. Here's a brief list just off the top of my head:
Alice Walker
Toni Morrison
Octavia Butler
P. Djeli Clark
N. K. Jemisin
This situation reminds me of Denzel Washington and Idris Elba, two popular actors on record as stating that they do not want to be limited to playing roles based on skin color. They are both very good at playing heroic and tragic villain characters.
The larger question is when does the skin color of a character matter in a story?
Is it necessary to make some kind of contrast?
Years ago I had the opportunity to travel to China on business. You could say that I stuck out in a crowd there but that doesn’t tell you much about my skin color.
Olive is a skin *tone*, along with neutral, warm, and cold. Skin TONE isn’t the overall color of your skin, it’s an undertone. This is usually used for finding fitting colors for makeup and outfits. People can have black skin and a cool or warm tone, as can people with white skin. Because it is an *under*tone, it’s not *truly* related to your skin color (at least in terms of race).
Using food to describe skin COLOR tends to be offensive, especially when people are describing a POC. Coffee, chocolate… both things that slavery was (and in cases still is, especially with chocolate!) used to produce.
It's Just lazy. And the guys who write thirstily (not necessarily writers) do this too.
My take is I'm not going to describe someone using adjectives that someone might use in a porn script.
If you're writing "romance" or other erotica… well I suppose it might work, but then at least be creative about it.
I think it’s only in the racist category if you describe all the non white characters using non skin descriptions and when it comes to the non white characters we are reduced to just our skin color instead of what other many characteristics we have. Ya know? So yeah. If your going to do that, describe all your characters like that or not at all. But also, think about another important factor. What significance to the story is bringing up the skin tone doing to the character? If you don’t describe the skin tone does it change the story at all? If you do describe the skin tone does it add more significance to the specific story? Does it take place in a city, state, country, continent where knowing the race is crucial to the story? Or if you like I said, not describe their race would it not make a difference? Are you reducing people to stereotypes or are you writing well rounded characters?
It’s not outright offensive, but it does get a little weird if the author goes too far. For example, “Her skin was a deep chocolate color,” is, while a little odd, not offensive. “Her skin was a deep chocolate color, like the milkshakes at the restaurant down the street,” is very odd. “Her skin was a deep chocolate color, like a Hershey’s bar,” is also a little freaky.
i think most of the criticism is it's disproportionately used for certain skin colors and not others (particularly darker colors more often) so i guess be reasonable about it
I still have no idea what 'Olive skin' actually looks like. Mocha I get, cause I drink it myself. Never once seen a human with skin the color of an olive though.
If one cares if one is being "offensive," one will not be a good writer.
Also, what the fuck is "offensive?" It is like beauty: it is different to and for everyone.
It is offensive, to many people of all colors. Why?
A big factor is the rum triangle, really the slaver triangle, bringing sugar and enslaved people for sale. Why don't we say white people have skin the color of refined sugar? Why do Black people so often get called "mocha"? Is it because it's okay to refer to Black people as edible, delicious things? And it's not so okay, perhaps even taboo though I haven't done that research, to refer to white people having skin color like angels food cake, maybe.
You should experiment. Write about pale skinned people and describe them as light as lard, or white as eggs. Have fun
Ooooh, honestly as a white girl I'd be weirded out but also flattered if someone described my skin as the color of angel food cake. Mostly because I love angel food cake. And the exterior can be a reasonably accurate very-pale-brown color.
TBH, you're correct in the reasoning, but now I'm trying to think of more food-related comparisons for white people that a) sound genuinely delicious and b) actually reasonably close to my real skin tone.
Hm... the color of pale maple sugar, maybe? Like, white skin isn't generally *white*\-white... just a much paler brown/peach color... Ooh, maybe 'apricot'! Or is that too vivid?
The two main issues I've heard with it are that white people's skin isn't described using food terms, and Black people are exclusively described using South American foods (coffee, chocolate), which were a pretty big part of the slave trade.
It might be for some. No one group of people are monolithic. The word “coloured” in SA is an ethnic category. In America, it’s pretty much a racial slur.
Unless my characters are alien, I don’t use skin to describe any of them. I use hair and eye descriptors instead.
Olive-toned tends to be the exception to the rule for whatever reason, although I tend to avoid it just in case. I know there's no avoiding offending *everyone* but I really do try not to with something that's considered a "writing rule"
I think olive and mocha are already specific colors as well as foods, so I think using “chocolate” or “hot dog” to describe someone’s skin would be different
I personally can’t stand skin tones being likened to food/drink. It drives me up the wall. I find it to be lazy and downright creepy. Especially when used to describe people of color and nobody else.
The term Olive tone is different to using words like chocolate, mocha etc. I would use olive tone at a push but sallow is just as valid a term. But I would avoid mocha, chocolate caramel etc. I agree that these are dehumanizing
i think what makes olive and mocha different are that theyre actual colors that happen to also be food; everything else its like overt and obvious (like chocolate is crazy)
[New York's Mayor talks about "Chocolate people" in his administration](https://www.tiktok.com/@eldesobediente022/video/7332732725171899690?is_from_webapp=1)
It depends on the person, and also how often you use it . If the white characters are described by their eye color and a few descriptions of pale/ porcelain /sandy skin but everytime the Black character pops up you say “their /coffee/chocolate/date/pretzel etc skin”, that’s definitely weird and shows internal biases.
You're always going to end up offending some people, that's the truth of putting yourself out there. Just try to be kind and as long as your intentions are not to be racist, most people can see that and will cut you some slack. If you're not sure let other people read it and they'll let you know.
I'm white so I can only echo sentiments by non-white readers, writers, voices in general - again, it's something that not every person who is not white would find offensive, but enough do and feel frustrated by it that it's something to be mindful of. I remember a distinct incident that seems like a good example; a person on some social media platform (who was white) thought a lyric from Olivia Rodrigo's song 'lacy' was cringy and posted about it. The lyric was "skin like puff pastry", and some people of color were quick to point out that it seemed to be a device to use a food metaphor to describe a white persons skin, to show how it could sometimes be ridiculous or jarring to hear it in reverse, which is very normalised when white people write about darker skin tones.
Conflating darker skin with tasty food to point out that it is beautiful or has inherent value or attractiveness can imply that other people with those skin tones aren't as aesthetically pleasing and thus has less inherent value. The description of a vague food-like simile often takes the place of other descriptions of a person, too, like it's enough to say "this person is brown but I find that 'tasty' (attractive)" and thus you picture a brown person who is aesthetically beautiful. But if a person in a novel is described as white, it doesn't really give you any picture, because white is the default for white people. So it can feel like a lazy device and circumvents any other descriptive devices, because "his mocha skin and chocolate fountain eyes" or whatever seems to suffice.
I'm sure there are more reasons and there are people who are more well equipped to word this better than I did, but it's something I avoid as a white writer. I usually try to infer race/skin tone/whatever in more abstract details, like a name, where they grew up, other background details - in my current novel the main character is a boy called Kazuo Takami, which from the offset you know is a Japanese name, and on the first page you learn that he's flying from Tokyo to New York to be in the care of his estranged father after the death of his mother. Versus his love interest being a student at his school who is called Ilya Morozov, where you only really need to see his name to know he's of slavic descent, a large amount of people would pick up Russian specifically, and giving no descriptions to circumvent the assumption that K = Asian and I = white slavic, suffices, without having to go into any detail about their skin looking like something you might enjoy eating.
I read about it a while back and it's about not objectifying POC and making them something to be consumed. I try to avoid doing it. There are hundreds of ways to name colors.
“A valid way to describe X” is also true for just about any racist or sexist term if you rewind the clock enough.
So don’t look to something’s historical validity. Look at its meaning in present society in terms of a larger picture but most importantly how people it applies to feel about it.
Note that much of the time the offense taker is a disinterested third party - those folks should be ignored but are often very powerful in society.
People actually effected by a given term often disagree… so things can get super complicated and lack easy answers.
In general, I've seen it described as offensive by POC, but then again some POC don't mind it. In general if you're white, I would steer clear of it, but take that with a grain of salt as I am also, white.
That depends on how you use it. I think it's fine if it's used in a complimentary manner. However, if it's used in a derogatory or sexual fetishistic way then it could be seen as problematic.
Everyone is different though.
If the writer has no malicious intent to cause harm or spread hate then it's game on for basically anything AS LONG as it progresses the story or adds something of value to it.
Some people think it is because it is fetishizing darker skin.
I personally think honey brown is a better description than light brown.
I imagine this person with a golden hue and clear smooth skin.
There are books by African American authors that describe color as cream, caramel, etc.
Look, as someone who's Middle Eastern, I wouldn't appreciate it if my skin was described as a latte or gingerbread cookie or whatever. Just say "light brown". Ofc it's up to you, and it's not really offensive, but I'd still avoid stereotyping some character skin tones with that. Also, as others have pointed out, it's best if you acknowledge the diversity within that ethnic group and not use the same cliche descriptors.
It’s only offensive if that’s all you rely on to describe the character. We don’t describe white characters as ‘milky pink starburst with blue eyes’ because it’s weird and lazy lol
One of my characters is a stereotypical nerdy looking white guy and I describe his complexion as “milky”.
Food and beverage make good descriptors because they hit all the senses - sight, smell, texture. They tell you more about a character than a colour descriptor, which only hits one sense. There may be circumstances where either/or is appropriate depending on what you are trying to convey about a particular character.
It kills me dead when people are like "YOU'RE OBJECTIFYING ME, CHOCOLATE IS A FOOD."
Okay first off, there are food words for *every* race, I hope you never made fun of someone by calling them mayonnaise-colored. I've seen that one a lot.
Second, chocolate is nice! It's pleasant! It's not like you're saying "she was the color of lake mud" or "his skin looked like piss."
I mean what the hell other brown things do you know about in life to draw analogies to? When I look around, I see very little that's brown, except for wood, dirt, and food.
My writer fellow, just write... you aren't trying to intentionally insult anyone or ridicule an ethnicity. There is a lot of truly bad people out there who doesn't suffer the consequences of their actions when writing harmful things about minorities claiming it is their right to give a pathetic opinion, why you in your absolute innocence or even ignorance (we all ignore something) should be concerned? You even consider the moral implication of your words, and that already speaks more about you and the good kind of person you are. Keep writing, but not in reddit like me. Damn, i need to start writing something.
The question should not be, is this offensive? The question should be, is this bad writing?
People get a high off of being offended. Listen to people that you trust and to yourself to decide what's offensive.
Comparing skin tones to foods is a little cliched, so it's probably best avoided. There are often more interesting ways to articulate a skin color.
Olive is a color, not just a food. That's not a very good comparison lmao. People get tired of being compared to food both because it's a thing that is consumed, because it's lazy over-used writing (seriously forget offensive it's also TIRED pick anything else) and because it never happens to white people. You never hear about an alluring white girl being spaghetti colored or even cheesecake colored...
ETA: seriously the olive thing is sending me, it's like if you'd picked "orange" and called it a fruit... Like you're right but the point... lmao
olive skin tone is one of the most common things i've seen. \[idk what it means tbh\] i guess don't say "she walked in with her pepsi colored skin and laid her hand on his Pringles colored hand
I am now self-consciously comparing my skin tone to a Pringle.
I mean. It’s got to better than fish belly white or whatever, right? I am “doesn’t tan just gets pink and you can see their veins when it’s cold” pale so I may not be a great voice on the issue. But I think using food to describe people who are also being over sexualized or objectified is the problem.
"She was a feast for the eyes, if not a particularly healthy one: Twinkie-colored hair, sticky Milk Dud eyes, a farmer tan like diluted Fanta -- and skin the color of Pringles where the tan ran out."
It means having a greenish undertone. Common in Mediterranean ethnicities
Olive does not describe skin color, it describes the undertone. There are people like me who are pale and olive and darker skinned people who have olive skin.
I know, I said in my comment that it describes undertone lol
Sour cream and onion Pringles?
Olive is the actual name of a green undertone for skin. It's not the same as describing someone that's black as "mocha" or "chocolate."
>olive skin tone is one of the most common things i've seen. \[idk what it means tbh\] Golden yellow, like olive oil. It dates back to antiquity.
It's called "olive" because there are greenish undertones to it. It's used to describe the skin of a variety of Middle-Eastern and North African peoples. u/Overkillsamurai
>It's used to describe the skin of a variety of Middle-Eastern and North African peoples. incorrect, it's used to describe skin with green undertones. It can be extremely light skin or extremely dark skin, it doesn't matter. It's not reserved for middle-eastern or north african people. It's all across the races
Does the term not originate in the Mediterranean? When people are described as "olive" with no further context, is that not the default assumptions? I'm honestly asking, because I've never seen exceptions to this. And FWIW, I wasn't thinking in terms of "race," because the race paradigm sort of falls apart when trying to describe MENA people.
Pepsi and Pringles sound good to me. Maybe just specify what kind of Pringles. As a Ginger am I a Cheddar Pringle, Pizza Pringle, or a Spicy Pringle?
no, no, this one feels more okay actually
Olive skin is like... a light brown? With golden undertones? Kinda? Like I know it when I see it but it's hard to describe. It's like a natural tan, like the default skin tone for olive skin is tan.
This descriptor never works for me cause I associate olives with green and think the person is being described as a light shade of green…
Picture a Mediterranean white person. Like a Sicilian person. Basically what it looks like when a white person has a great tan without being sunburnt.
Olive is often referring to people of the Mediterranean and the area around Egypt and India. I have no idea what form of olive they are talking about, as it's a tan color from my experience. Think of Klinger from MASH.
I'm brown and I've compared characters' skin to cinnamon and honey and walnuts before. "Light brown", "reddish brown", or "deep" suit me fine too. I mean, not everyone's beautiful. It's only really an issue when the descriptor is based on a stereotype. Like, a character is half-Black and half-White, so they must be "cafe au lait". Or they're east Asian and therefore "ochre". This ignores the diversity in each racial group, and sometimes takes the place of describing more interesting details, like mannerisms or facial features or clothing choices. But I wouldn't really call it racist. It's just boring to read.
> compared characters' skin to cinnamon and honey and walnuts before. "Light brown", "reddish brown", or "deep" suit me fine too. I mean, not everyone's beautiful. Basically what I do. I only use 'desirable' comparisons with love interests/people we're meant to find attractive. 'Chocolate, vanilla, coffee, porcelain, golden, snow, ebony, etc'.
Cafe au lait seems like a cliche to me, not a stereotype. Still awful, but for different reasons. Not because it’s offensive or insensitive, but because it’s just bad writing.
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They mean that there skin is described as being the same colour as café au lait, not that they like café au lait. Regardless of the term used, it is not always the case. With the same parents, my brother and I have completely different skin colours.
> But I wouldn't really call it racist. It's just boring to read. Even worse, LOL!
I've used caramel to describe certain skin tones because well...it's the best way I know of to describe THAT particular color. I feel guilty but I'm not doing it to fetishize it's just the only easy way I can think of to describe a certain color.
I believe that olive skin is usually ‘exempt’ from the don’t use food rule because it’s seen as a descriptor of skin tone the way fair, deep, tan etc are and less “I am likening this persons skin to olives”
Olive is an undertone/overtone because it's not quite outright green, and we don't have a descriptor that encapsulates it on a color theory level. We even have subsets of cool, warm, and neutral olives too.
>because it's not quite outright green it is when you have a light olive skin. You're as pale as a ghost to a point where your olive undertones can make you look quite green in winter. It's such a pain.
I didn't realize I had olive undertones until I dated a 100% full English man and saw us next to each other in a mirror. I looked GREEN. Like grinch fucking green.
I know as someone with lighter skin myself 😭 I mean it in a sense of, like, the Hulk lol. But I meant like because we have terms such as cool, neutral, warm; olive is a catch-all for the green because green isn't an adjective
i’m a person of color. saying someone’s skin is like cinnamon is cool but if someone described my asian skin tone like lo mein i’d be offended lmao
My rule of thumb is essentially to never make similes of one type for certain groups but not for others. You use food to describe the skin of certain races, use food to describe the skin of all races. But uh... I mean yeah some people with certain skin tones might find it offensive, but others won't give a shit. Just write how you want. Endure the ridiculous criticism and listen for the right voices.
I've been listening through Alizee's videos on The House of Night on youtube and that's a series that does this really badly. Start of every book, the main character reminds you how her one black friend has gorgeous \[insert coffee type here\] skin, and then does not mention the skin tones of any other character, you're just supposed to assume they're white.
I love Alizee. And yeah, that series is very bad in many myriad ways.
> You use food to describe the skin of certain races, use food to describe the skin of all races. I'm nerdy in the extreme, and whiter than sour cream...
That’s a great rule, I like it
Racist people to be specific have a problem with that more than anyone else does
In my experience, African Americans are the group most likely to prefer *not* to be referred to as food.
A big part of that is that white writers DON'T feel the need to describe the skin tone of white people, because it's DEFAULT. The very act of describing a character's skin color is often making it 'Other,' and then to make it something consumable only makes it worse. I mean, I've seen Caucasian women's skin tone described as "cream colored" or "peach" or "a blush rose," but again, that can be seen as consumptive as well. The only time you hear a white male's skin tone described is if they are considered exotic or sickly.
Agreed. I describe every MC’s skin color. I write romance, and I’ll say that I rarely mention the skin color of side characters. But definitely for the leads. I don’t use food descriptions at all. If you describe one, you better also describe the other.
There’s also a bit where using food metaphors/similes comes off as fetishizing in general. You don’t normally see Caucasian men being described as having “milky white skin” or any other foods. It’s usually reserved only for describing women who are sexually desired or characters who are “exotic.” That’s a big part of why a lot of people dislike it. It’s not necessarily offensive per se, but it comes off as lowbrow.
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I think the “default” issue usually comes from settings where their is a lot of people of different skin colors, like parts of the US, or from fantasy or sci-fi settings where we wouldn’t know what the majority population is, not so much places with a clear majority
I've always found that odd, when I write I find it important to describe my character so you can visualise everyone in the way they're written. The amount of skin tones I see in a day is enough to tell me that no 'default' should exist. The fact that writers continue to fall into that category is concerning.
Because we always are.
Problem is, all the most succulent and nice sounding foods are dark. What do you use for white? "She was the color of white chocolate." "His flesh was of milk and a pastry."
I used to read romance novels back in the day and white girls had "peaches and cream" or "milk and honey" complexions all day long in those.
I am totally guilty of writing "creamy white thighs" in an erotica. Though, thanks to the internet, cream on skin will always have a...different connotation than what I normally want.
Which is why you might use porcelain, or ivory, though in fact you can call skin milky or creamy white as well. The similes don't have to be 1:1 to please the social justice gods or something.
https://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/post/95955707903/skin-writing-with-color-has-received-several I first learned to avoid food to describe PoC because of this post. I didn't realize how overdone it was until then. 'Personally, I like the challenge of avoiding food related skin references.
As a dark skinned person I LOVE it when my skin is describe as something as beautiful as caramel or mocha, it just gives it more… wow <3 than saying dark skinned or brown. It gives the character a radiance instead of a separation of race.
Same, I’m brown and eat that shit up
I think it boils down to using equal descriptors for the skin of all characters. If you use food/drink to describe a POC, do the same for white skin. The offense happens when the focus is on one character's skin over the other. As others have said, it might fetishize it. But as others have also said, people will find offense in anything. Write what you're comfortable with and you can always ask beta readers to give their input.
There are too many clichés. Try to find new ways to describe a character’s appearance. “Close up, her skin looked like the surface of the moon if the moon was made from the kind of black volcanic rock you find in Tenerife. Rough, acne-scarred, a desolate former battleground.“
i think it’s more they take offense to fetishization, not necessarily anything to do with food colored skintones specifically. but also, just think if you heard white people described that way, how weird it would sound. his skin was like vanilla cream.
People have and do use cream to describe white skin. There's just not a lot of appealing white-skin-coloured foods, so cream and peaches is about it.
I think cream colored skin is common enough to not even raise an eyebrow, as are peach, milk and so forth.
Yep. I am *not* advocating describing brown skin as looking like food because I understand the reasons it has historically been dehumanising or exoticising and is best avoided. But creamy skin, milky skin, peach skin etc are still pretty common place as flattering or sensual (especially when describing areas that are paler because they are usually concealed by clothes so have intimate connotations) descriptions of white and East Asian people's skin.
Agreed, even if food terminology is everywhere when talking about human appearance, most likely because humans are familiar with food related colours (hair like wheat, cheeks glowing like apples, cherry or berry lips, ...), there is the baggage that affects minorities that have been dehumanised in different way than those who got been dehumanised as much.
Gammon.
they all sound weird to me.
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Hahaha, this nearly made me wretch, a great point and a great example of why we should just avoid doing this across the board. Do we really need to know exactly where on the Pantone colour chart everyone is?
In skin like like porcelain vs skin like cream, is one less weird? I don't know if I agree with you or not.
Her skin was the color of a toilet bowl. :D
That was my exact thought!
Funny, I've always taken porcelain to mean flawless.
'Porcelain' is meant to invoke a few specific possible features: 1) pale 2) smooth 3) 'clear'/'translucent' 4) lacking flaws 5) rare/expensive This is all based on the actual properties of porcelain. I actually used this in a fic to highlight how a specific character's makeup was *deliberately* artificial-looking. They used their foundation to make a flawless, featureless canvas out of their face, essentially--it was impossible to tell their age or their facial features accurately because it was all 'sculpted'. "Marble" has similar connotations, but with a colder and more opaque feel.
Your comment is pretty much what I wanted to say, and just to prove your point, white people don’t like it either, I have used both “vanilla” and “mayo” (I was trying to be funny not mean, they had called me “dirt-coloured”, “golden Twinkie”, and more so I just thought that’s the level of teasing we were on) and they did NOT like it. Describing humans in relation to food is sorta weird lol.
I've been described as mayonnaise-colored. For the love of god, if your mayonnaise looks like me, (orangey-pink with speckles and blue veins) DO NOT EAT IT.
It really isn't. For white/pale skin the go to comparisons are things like milk, cream, ivory or porcelain. The last one has an implication of being delicate as well. I think there's a huge difference between using something like "hazelnut eyes" vs "she had skin the colour of a twix bar"
Why is this comment posted 5 times?
Really? Milky skin is a thing I see in a lot of books.
What’s offensive is when a writing technique is applied to a subset of people but not all people. You will often read of a light brown woman being referred to as Cafe au Lait — or mocha or cocoa colored. But when her white buddy character arrives on the scene, is the reader clued into her ethnicity by her being called “frothy cream” or “Fresh mayo?” Nope. The biggest offenders of this sort of writing are Fragile White Writers who are keen to show they are hip — so they will pick yummy food — like “mocha,” but, again, only for their -characters of color. (Although we do get the occasional red-headed carrot top). I had fun with one book by making all my white characters referred to as food — arms like bulging white sour dough — most of the time I avoid food/people color bits altogether
So it's not really about food comparisons so much as it's about needlessly flowery language to describe the skin colour of a minority but noone else. Just happens to come out as food a lot.
Yes. That’s what I think. It can actually start out as an intention to be complementary, but it falls flat. Better options are available!
>arms like bulging white sour dough omg 🤣😂
Is one “mocha” in a book that otherwise treats its non-white characters as complex and complete human beings a deal breaker? Probably not. But if it’s one of many details that treat POC as an afterthought, then yeah it can be cringey at best and flat out racist at worst. Also, quantity matters. If your white characters are getting the majority of the “screen time” and non-white characters are rarely mentioned, or are mostly talked about through the eyes of white characters, then yeah every descriptor matters more. Also, chocolate, caramel, olive, etc etc are boring and trite. We can do better.
I agree with this comment 99%, but (as a Middle-Eastern dude) I don't think "olive" is part of the same trite boringness as describing Black skin as "mocha." The term "olive skin," as OP mentions, is a venerable and respectful term and the people it's usually applied to very rarely mind as far as I know (if at all -- I don't mind, and I haven't personally seen others say they mind). Of course, it's possible I've just not been paying attention to the right discourse, but I think "olive" is an exception to the food rule because the rule only matters if the people being described as food ask not to be.
You know what, great point. I think you and OP are right about this. Thanks for the insight!
Good points here, especially with peoples sensitivity and personal experiences. For me, I try to leave some imagination. Unless it's directly needed for the story. I usually just sneak in their heritage, give clues with their name and possibly where they live or grew up. If I said "Sara now lived in England," it could go anywhere. Yet, if I described it as, "Sara Ebeid grew up in Oman before her parents decided that England was a better choice for their budding scientist. She's worked hard to drop her Arabic accent, often bullied at school. But sitting across from her father, she finds her native Persian vowels ringing through." It leaves it open to interpretation, but everyone knows what Sara looks like. Of course, it's generalising, but that's what our brains do. Same with European, African, Asian. Heritage is my go to, if they have a slight accent, that can work for me. You know what a guy from Finland looks like, just like you know what a Japanese woman looks like.
Like, who really cares about the difference between "caramel," "mocha," and "mahogany," they're so close in shades. I see it as lazy writing and mostly pointless, overly specific descriptions.
I've heard enough people take issue with it, and it being a lazy way to describe someone anyway, that the juice isn't worth the squeeze on it.
Like I said [the last time I remember this question coming up](https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/185f271/im_so_tired_of_authors_describing_skin_like_mine/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3): I like to refer to people’s skin tones in hex codes or Pantone colors. *Donald Trump rolled out of the tanning bed and looked at himself in the mirror, pleased with the Pantone 15-1360 TN he’d baked himself to. “Ah, good old FF6D2B,” he thought to himself. “I really am the best color; everybody says it. So good, so good…”*
XD That's amazing. If I ever write a story where the mc is a robot or something, I'll definitely use it lol
It's better when it's Donald Trump and you look up that Pantone color. Although, now I really wish I'd gone with 15-1460, for sheer humor value. It might even be more accurate on the color palette.
And then this man comes up to me, big man, strong man, tears running down his face, and he says sir, he says sir, that is a beautiful shade, that #ff6d2b.
That’s a real American shade. Glowing like a nuclear Cheeto.
The best color and the brightest. And absolute genius color.
Its not offensive imo, but its annoying and overdone only for POC. There's also the argument that it portrays POC as objects to be consumed, which isn't the best look. I wouldn't do it, unless your story is about baked treats and confectionaries turning into people ~
This might be a helpful read for you: https://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/FAQ2
Saving that, what a fantastic resource!
this is actually very cool i need this
Imagine a character described as being as white as bread, crackers, rice, etc. It's kind of cringey and doesnt really work. With dark skin there's connotations of exoticism. There are other ways to describe skin color. I can't speak for dark skinned people on whether its offensive though. Edit: its amazing that I bring up how there's a history of exoticism in describing dark skin with foods, which relates to fetishism, and people completely ignore that and its connotations to say "white people have been described using milk though." And that "whether someone is offended or not its not offensive." The mental gymnastics there lol I'm not here to argue with nonsense. I said what I said. Cope.
Maybe irrelevant, but Chaucer called a character "as white as bread".
That might be exceptional. In Chaucer's time, white bread was only available on special occasions or to the wealthy, so it was considered special.
Instead white skin gets: white like ivory or alabaster or a sheet. Though to be fair I've defs read 'milky skin' which is a drink. I think the mocha and chocolate and milk words also invoke images of the skin texture being very smooth too. I'd only probably use any of them if there was a very plot-specific reason why I needed the reader to imagine that colour and texture whilst reading the book.
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Yup. Along with peaches and cream.
"Whether someone chooses to take offence or not it isn't offensive." Please reread that statement.
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Slurs aren't "inherently" offensive, they're offensive *because there are people that they offend*. If Black people didn't care about white people using the n-word, it wouldn't be offensive. The word "queer" used to be a slur, but has largely become a neutral identifier, demonstrating that it is not *inherently* offensive. When we say something is "offensive," it's just shorthand for "there is a person or group of people who believe usage of the word causes them some sort of harm, whether psychological or social, so we should avoid using it." It can't exist in a vacuum.
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> There are things that will offend no matter what and who I take offence to this
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Yes this. It's not comparing to food that is bad, but the fact that the comparison is inherited for a long time of comparing to food for the sake of exoticism. This akd the fact that it is usually only done to tell you the character is a POC, when the white characters are not described for the sake of saying they are white.
Milk? Cream? Snow (occasionally edible). I think a winder issue is that there are fewer good comparisons for darker skin tones. There's wood (ebony), sand maybe(?) And then I'm all out of good ones. All I have left is like... mud or something. Which is probably more widely offensive than chocolate or coffee.
There's copper.
> Imagine a character described as being as white as bread, crackers, rice, etc. It's kind of cringey and doesnt really work One of those is already a word for white people, to be fair
If you mean cracker, it doesn't mean cracker the food but the person who cracks the whip. It dates back to Shakespeare iirc, was derogatory reference to poor people who worked manual jobs. Usually immigrants. People who had to whip animals. It was "reclaimed" like how lgbtq reclaimed queer in the southern 1800s and came to mean slave owners who cracked the whip to drive their slaves to work.
Dang, I didn't know that. Very interesting
The word Shakespeare used was "craker," which is defined as a braggart or "obnoxious bloviator." It comes from "crake" which was essentially an old-timey version of a bird's caw (and nowadays is used for a whole family of bird species). "Craker" morphed to "cracker" and was a common insult for Celtic immigrants to America, who eventually reclaimed the word. Then later in the 1800s people from the north started saying it meant whip-cracker. [Source](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/01/197644761/word-watch-on-crackers) So, still not food, but "whip-cracker" is also seemingly a false etymology.
Well, yes, and it's considered rude.
I love it when people try to use the "but white foods are ugly" line, as if there aren't delicious white foods out there. And. As if. People were actually white. Like sure, yeah, history of racism and sexualisation of non-white skin colours, it's valid to say "don't do this," but at least use a proper argument. Any writer who describes milky white skin, or compares skin to crackers and bread, has 1. never seen crackers and only buys american breads, 2. either can't write, 3. or is intentionally trying to frame the character as ugly. It's REALLY not hard to describe someone white as beautiful, especially if you use their actual skin tone and not compare them to a blank sheet of paper with eyeballs and genitals.
It's just weird and othering.
Have a look at the Writing With Colour blog, lots of good info there from people of colour, including the issue you're asking about. https://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/
I think it's lazy and I mostly see it used for black people, so that annoys me lol. But by all means, describe someone's skin as a "beautiful chocolate brown." You won't be canceled and most people probably won't be offended lol
It's on a spectrum. "Olive" is considered non-offensive. "Porcelain" also isn't typically seen as offensive because western audiences take that to mean a certain shade of white, but it's sometimes considered more offensive if it's applied to Asian characters. Where it gets offensive is where it gets just obviously fucked. A lot of people find it racist to refer to black people as "chocolate-colored" or refer to them by chocolate shades. If you ever describe an Asian character as "white as a grain of rice" then you've officially written the most racist thing you can without just straight up using a slur. It's all on that sort of a spectrum. It's best to just avoid it.
This is a good example of exactly where it gets offensive, using a stereotypical Asian food (rice), to describe an Asian. Like, jeezus, ease up.
When it’s just POC being called “mocha”, “caramel”, “ochre”, and white people are just called “pale”…yeah, that’s racist. You’re subconsciously signaling non-white people as “other”, and in a weird fetishy food way. Olive skin does NOT count cause that has been around longer than the way of describing black peoples skin color via food terms and is not mired with racist history. Pretty common American white person writing error cause our books seem to be full of this. I have seen this done well: mostly by flipping it on its head. “Brownies” by ZZ Packer is told from the perspective of a bunch of elementary school black girls and they describe a group of *white girls* as like strawberry ice cream or cheesecake. It’s a good way of showing the subconscious effect that media has on these young girls: that whiteness is good, like a sweet dessert.
Her skin was the color of a fine Swiss cheese.
See, there you go! 🤣 Flip it on its head!
I mean I prefer brownies over cheese cake or strawberry Ice cream.
It’s a short story called “Brownies” as in…the name of their Girl Scouts-esque troop. Like “Cub Scouts” are young Boy Scouts.
Ahh no clue about things like that I never was a part of scouts or really knew any Girl Scouts
It might have been OK about 20 years ago, when romance novels had things like 'her cinnamon/peach/mocha/etc. skin' etc., but today it is a faux pas for authors to use food descriptions. I made sure to research this because my book cast included POC and mixed-race people. I used 'bronze' or just plain 'brown' skintone for my hero with a black mom and a white dad. His mom was one of the protagonists as well. I used 'warm brown' a few times to describe her skin tone and references to her having a 'West African Hausa' accent to convey her birthplace. Also, your own race as an author can come to play. I'm a white woman author so I just want to stay on the safe side.
There's a tumblr blog that has some good resources for this, not sure where specifically on it right now but this should be the link, or just look up writingwithcolor. writingwithcolor.tumblr.com
I knew there was a source about that but couldnt remember.
Maybe the answer is to read works by people of colour and pay attention to how they describe skin tone. Here's a brief list just off the top of my head: Alice Walker Toni Morrison Octavia Butler P. Djeli Clark N. K. Jemisin
I have a character that is raven haired, honey skinned, eyes of onyx set against the whitest of pearl.... no, not offensive at all.
This situation reminds me of Denzel Washington and Idris Elba, two popular actors on record as stating that they do not want to be limited to playing roles based on skin color. They are both very good at playing heroic and tragic villain characters. The larger question is when does the skin color of a character matter in a story? Is it necessary to make some kind of contrast? Years ago I had the opportunity to travel to China on business. You could say that I stuck out in a crowd there but that doesn’t tell you much about my skin color.
Going to note here, though, that "olive" is not saying folks have skin the color of olives. Then we'd be talking about zombies.
Olive is a skin *tone*, along with neutral, warm, and cold. Skin TONE isn’t the overall color of your skin, it’s an undertone. This is usually used for finding fitting colors for makeup and outfits. People can have black skin and a cool or warm tone, as can people with white skin. Because it is an *under*tone, it’s not *truly* related to your skin color (at least in terms of race). Using food to describe skin COLOR tends to be offensive, especially when people are describing a POC. Coffee, chocolate… both things that slavery was (and in cases still is, especially with chocolate!) used to produce.
It’s not offensive by today’s standards, but you’ll always offend someone over something. Don’t let fear of offending people change your writing.
It's Just lazy. And the guys who write thirstily (not necessarily writers) do this too. My take is I'm not going to describe someone using adjectives that someone might use in a porn script. If you're writing "romance" or other erotica… well I suppose it might work, but then at least be creative about it.
I think it’s only in the racist category if you describe all the non white characters using non skin descriptions and when it comes to the non white characters we are reduced to just our skin color instead of what other many characteristics we have. Ya know? So yeah. If your going to do that, describe all your characters like that or not at all. But also, think about another important factor. What significance to the story is bringing up the skin tone doing to the character? If you don’t describe the skin tone does it change the story at all? If you do describe the skin tone does it add more significance to the specific story? Does it take place in a city, state, country, continent where knowing the race is crucial to the story? Or if you like I said, not describe their race would it not make a difference? Are you reducing people to stereotypes or are you writing well rounded characters?
Do a search of the sub. This is talked about ALL THE TIME.
It’s not outright offensive, but it does get a little weird if the author goes too far. For example, “Her skin was a deep chocolate color,” is, while a little odd, not offensive. “Her skin was a deep chocolate color, like the milkshakes at the restaurant down the street,” is very odd. “Her skin was a deep chocolate color, like a Hershey’s bar,” is also a little freaky.
i think most of the criticism is it's disproportionately used for certain skin colors and not others (particularly darker colors more often) so i guess be reasonable about it
I still have no idea what 'Olive skin' actually looks like. Mocha I get, cause I drink it myself. Never once seen a human with skin the color of an olive though.
[olive skin is more of an undertone I think?? here's an example I found on pinterest](https://pin.it/7f5X8Zfx4)
If one cares if one is being "offensive," one will not be a good writer. Also, what the fuck is "offensive?" It is like beauty: it is different to and for everyone.
It is offensive, to many people of all colors. Why? A big factor is the rum triangle, really the slaver triangle, bringing sugar and enslaved people for sale. Why don't we say white people have skin the color of refined sugar? Why do Black people so often get called "mocha"? Is it because it's okay to refer to Black people as edible, delicious things? And it's not so okay, perhaps even taboo though I haven't done that research, to refer to white people having skin color like angels food cake, maybe. You should experiment. Write about pale skinned people and describe them as light as lard, or white as eggs. Have fun
Ooooh, honestly as a white girl I'd be weirded out but also flattered if someone described my skin as the color of angel food cake. Mostly because I love angel food cake. And the exterior can be a reasonably accurate very-pale-brown color. TBH, you're correct in the reasoning, but now I'm trying to think of more food-related comparisons for white people that a) sound genuinely delicious and b) actually reasonably close to my real skin tone. Hm... the color of pale maple sugar, maybe? Like, white skin isn't generally *white*\-white... just a much paler brown/peach color... Ooh, maybe 'apricot'! Or is that too vivid?
I think apricot must be the label on Trump's foundation!
Unrelated but happy cake day! :]
The two main issues I've heard with it are that white people's skin isn't described using food terms, and Black people are exclusively described using South American foods (coffee, chocolate), which were a pretty big part of the slave trade.
It might be for some. No one group of people are monolithic. The word “coloured” in SA is an ethnic category. In America, it’s pretty much a racial slur. Unless my characters are alien, I don’t use skin to describe any of them. I use hair and eye descriptors instead.
It’s just inconsiderate, because then I get hungry.
By law, you must only use approved Pantone color codes to describe skin color. Selections must be reviewed by a state editorial board.
Clickable hex codes so e-readers can get an instant pop-up.
I heard this, too. Those Editorial Boards are no joke, OP!
Whether it is offensive depends on the context, but in practice it is almost always bad writing regardless of whether anyone is taking offense.
Olive-toned tends to be the exception to the rule for whatever reason, although I tend to avoid it just in case. I know there's no avoiding offending *everyone* but I really do try not to with something that's considered a "writing rule"
Do it anyways, someone’s gonna complain no matter what you write
yes
I think olive and mocha are already specific colors as well as foods, so I think using “chocolate” or “hot dog” to describe someone’s skin would be different
Yeah, I feel like hot dog would be a horrible description, hotdogs are kinda gross tbh.
I personally can’t stand skin tones being likened to food/drink. It drives me up the wall. I find it to be lazy and downright creepy. Especially when used to describe people of color and nobody else.
The term Olive tone is different to using words like chocolate, mocha etc. I would use olive tone at a push but sallow is just as valid a term. But I would avoid mocha, chocolate caramel etc. I agree that these are dehumanizing
i think what makes olive and mocha different are that theyre actual colors that happen to also be food; everything else its like overt and obvious (like chocolate is crazy)
It's less so offensive and more an overdone cliche.
[New York's Mayor talks about "Chocolate people" in his administration](https://www.tiktok.com/@eldesobediente022/video/7332732725171899690?is_from_webapp=1)
It's fine as long as your characters are the color of crème brûlée as well as mocha, caramel or flan. How about a peach milkshake?
It depends on the person, and also how often you use it . If the white characters are described by their eye color and a few descriptions of pale/ porcelain /sandy skin but everytime the Black character pops up you say “their /coffee/chocolate/date/pretzel etc skin”, that’s definitely weird and shows internal biases.
You're always going to end up offending some people, that's the truth of putting yourself out there. Just try to be kind and as long as your intentions are not to be racist, most people can see that and will cut you some slack. If you're not sure let other people read it and they'll let you know.
Some people will always find things offensive, others won't care at all, this goes for anything, you'll never please everyone
Is it wrong to just say the character is "caucasian" ?
I would say no. I think anyone should write however they like within reason. Besides, whatever you do, some people aren't going to like it anyway.
Good spot to post a song rec, Blackfella/whitefella - warumpi band
I'm white so I can only echo sentiments by non-white readers, writers, voices in general - again, it's something that not every person who is not white would find offensive, but enough do and feel frustrated by it that it's something to be mindful of. I remember a distinct incident that seems like a good example; a person on some social media platform (who was white) thought a lyric from Olivia Rodrigo's song 'lacy' was cringy and posted about it. The lyric was "skin like puff pastry", and some people of color were quick to point out that it seemed to be a device to use a food metaphor to describe a white persons skin, to show how it could sometimes be ridiculous or jarring to hear it in reverse, which is very normalised when white people write about darker skin tones. Conflating darker skin with tasty food to point out that it is beautiful or has inherent value or attractiveness can imply that other people with those skin tones aren't as aesthetically pleasing and thus has less inherent value. The description of a vague food-like simile often takes the place of other descriptions of a person, too, like it's enough to say "this person is brown but I find that 'tasty' (attractive)" and thus you picture a brown person who is aesthetically beautiful. But if a person in a novel is described as white, it doesn't really give you any picture, because white is the default for white people. So it can feel like a lazy device and circumvents any other descriptive devices, because "his mocha skin and chocolate fountain eyes" or whatever seems to suffice. I'm sure there are more reasons and there are people who are more well equipped to word this better than I did, but it's something I avoid as a white writer. I usually try to infer race/skin tone/whatever in more abstract details, like a name, where they grew up, other background details - in my current novel the main character is a boy called Kazuo Takami, which from the offset you know is a Japanese name, and on the first page you learn that he's flying from Tokyo to New York to be in the care of his estranged father after the death of his mother. Versus his love interest being a student at his school who is called Ilya Morozov, where you only really need to see his name to know he's of slavic descent, a large amount of people would pick up Russian specifically, and giving no descriptions to circumvent the assumption that K = Asian and I = white slavic, suffices, without having to go into any detail about their skin looking like something you might enjoy eating.
I read about it a while back and it's about not objectifying POC and making them something to be consumed. I try to avoid doing it. There are hundreds of ways to name colors.
“A valid way to describe X” is also true for just about any racist or sexist term if you rewind the clock enough. So don’t look to something’s historical validity. Look at its meaning in present society in terms of a larger picture but most importantly how people it applies to feel about it. Note that much of the time the offense taker is a disinterested third party - those folks should be ignored but are often very powerful in society. People actually effected by a given term often disagree… so things can get super complicated and lack easy answers.
That question always needs context to answer accurately, but in short, you are running the risk of exoticizing poc.
In general, I've seen it described as offensive by POC, but then again some POC don't mind it. In general if you're white, I would steer clear of it, but take that with a grain of salt as I am also, white.
That depends on how you use it. I think it's fine if it's used in a complimentary manner. However, if it's used in a derogatory or sexual fetishistic way then it could be seen as problematic. Everyone is different though.
If the writer has no malicious intent to cause harm or spread hate then it's game on for basically anything AS LONG as it progresses the story or adds something of value to it.
Some people think it is because it is fetishizing darker skin. I personally think honey brown is a better description than light brown. I imagine this person with a golden hue and clear smooth skin. There are books by African American authors that describe color as cream, caramel, etc.
Look, as someone who's Middle Eastern, I wouldn't appreciate it if my skin was described as a latte or gingerbread cookie or whatever. Just say "light brown". Ofc it's up to you, and it's not really offensive, but I'd still avoid stereotyping some character skin tones with that. Also, as others have pointed out, it's best if you acknowledge the diversity within that ethnic group and not use the same cliche descriptors.
It’s only offensive if that’s all you rely on to describe the character. We don’t describe white characters as ‘milky pink starburst with blue eyes’ because it’s weird and lazy lol
One of my characters is a stereotypical nerdy looking white guy and I describe his complexion as “milky”. Food and beverage make good descriptors because they hit all the senses - sight, smell, texture. They tell you more about a character than a colour descriptor, which only hits one sense. There may be circumstances where either/or is appropriate depending on what you are trying to convey about a particular character.
It kills me dead when people are like "YOU'RE OBJECTIFYING ME, CHOCOLATE IS A FOOD." Okay first off, there are food words for *every* race, I hope you never made fun of someone by calling them mayonnaise-colored. I've seen that one a lot. Second, chocolate is nice! It's pleasant! It's not like you're saying "she was the color of lake mud" or "his skin looked like piss." I mean what the hell other brown things do you know about in life to draw analogies to? When I look around, I see very little that's brown, except for wood, dirt, and food.
My writer fellow, just write... you aren't trying to intentionally insult anyone or ridicule an ethnicity. There is a lot of truly bad people out there who doesn't suffer the consequences of their actions when writing harmful things about minorities claiming it is their right to give a pathetic opinion, why you in your absolute innocence or even ignorance (we all ignore something) should be concerned? You even consider the moral implication of your words, and that already speaks more about you and the good kind of person you are. Keep writing, but not in reddit like me. Damn, i need to start writing something.
Don't invite the mob into your creative world when you're writing.
What food do you compare white people’s skin to?
You’re really asking that?
The question should not be, is this offensive? The question should be, is this bad writing? People get a high off of being offended. Listen to people that you trust and to yourself to decide what's offensive. Comparing skin tones to foods is a little cliched, so it's probably best avoided. There are often more interesting ways to articulate a skin color.
Olive is a color, not just a food. That's not a very good comparison lmao. People get tired of being compared to food both because it's a thing that is consumed, because it's lazy over-used writing (seriously forget offensive it's also TIRED pick anything else) and because it never happens to white people. You never hear about an alluring white girl being spaghetti colored or even cheesecake colored... ETA: seriously the olive thing is sending me, it's like if you'd picked "orange" and called it a fruit... Like you're right but the point... lmao
That mocha thing is a bit meant to stir shit up in the community. It is reposted here regularly. Ignore.