Wait, what?
What?
I'm a genre writer too, and we are
not streets ahead, we are
not less terrible, and
elves are not diversity.
Or have you not noticed that all the elves are white?
Genre has enormous problems. Did you miss Racefail 2009? Did you miss the blowup about the SFWA bulletin in 2013? Did you miss the racist, misogynistic assholes who've been trying to take over the Hugos the past three years? And those are just the biggest ones; SFF has new ragemaking stuff happen every month or so like clockwork. How/what we write intersects hugely with our own world and our own life experiences -- yes, even in genre -- and critical analysis of the cultures created in SFF worlds shows there is a lot lacking before we can make the least claim of being
less terrible.
We write societies based on medieval Europe with all white people, and then claim historical accuracy (false, and also, DRAGONS?!).
We write societies with white elves and white dwarves and white halflings and then there's that one exotic barbaric land across the mountains with the dark-skinned humans.
We make up imaginary societies with no queer beings, no disabled beings, and monolithic cultural values with no in-story explanation; the only reason being that we're bringing our own real-world biases.
We write stories that are all white men (or white elves, or white dwarves, or male aliens) and only a sprinkling of women or POC, in societies that are supposed to be equal. We give those women and POC terrible, stereotypical roles.
We assume Western cultural mores and don't conceive that
even within our own real world there are cultures with value systems of varying priorities in ways that are just as valid, so we portray anything that doesn't fit into Western values as new, exotic, alien,
inhuman.
Want to learn?
Start with this essay, and then google. There are many people in SFF talking about this. MANY. We have huge problems in genre, and we are not
less terrible for including elves, ffs.