To Change My MC's Race, or Not to Change It?

I'm about halfway through my current WIP and I'm contemplating changing my MMC's race. I based the character around my dad, who was white, so the character has always been white in my head. However, I've been reading so many articles about the lack of diversity that have really saddened me. Especially this one. I typically just write characters as they appear in my head, but the noticeable lack of diversity has me wanting to be more intentional.

This story is told from two POVs. The FMC is mixed (Mexican/Cherokee/German). The MMC has a best friend who is white and an older mentor type character who is black who plays a very important role. There are other diverse characters (a doctor is black, an investigator is Korean, friends of the FMC are of different races). That's how they all appeared in my head. Lately, I've felt compelled to make the MMC black as well. This article on CNN popped up on my Google homepage today and caught my attention. What stood out was this:

Black man in pain is a story rarely told.
Hip-hop is considered a safe and powerful space to tell black men's stories. Yet Eminem is the rapper best known for narratives about suicide, addiction and emotional pain.
It's easy to imagine someone who looks like Eminem, Kurt Cobain or Alexander McQueen as suffering from depression. But Lee Thompson Young?Not so much.
There's no quintessential cult movie -- a "Black Boy, Interrupted" so to speak -- where we see a black man who struggles with depression or distress. There are even fewer examples of black men seeking help. "The Bob Newhart Show," "M*A*S*H," "Frasier," "In Treatment" and "The Sopranos" are all shows involving men in or providing therapy. They are all white.

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I'd already been considering it, then I read that article and it pushed me to make the switch. The MMC is 18 and has cancer, he's depressed, he goes through a swell of emotions and internal struggles and conflict. It shouldn't be a complicated question, I should be able to just change his race if I want.

Except a critical part of the plot is that the MMC is a thief. He robs banks, albeit for a "good" reason, but he's still a criminal, and "black guy criminal" is not a stereotype I want to fall into. I don't want this character to get pigeon-holed, you know? I also can't change this aspect of the plot. It is the plot. The story is kid who robs banks who happens to have cancer.

I'm torn. I want to promote diversity, and like I said, I do have diverse characters. I guess I just feel like it's not enough. I don't want to perpetuate this myth of the criminal black male, but I would love for a conflicted, emotional, weak, yet strong, black main character to carry this story. What do y'all think? Am I over-thinking this? Should I just write what I feel I should write? Or am I right to stop and question this?

Thank you both for your thoughts! I love the raisin analogy too. It makes a good point. It doesn't take much to be inclusive, and the lack of diversity is only going to change if writers start changing it. I'm going to think about the biracial idea. It's not a big change story-wise, but it could be a big change for readers who are looking for MCs who are more representative of them.

Thanks, guys! I really appreciate it. I have a lot to think about. Maybe this it isn't right for this book.

Don't worry, if I do decide to make the change, I know it's not a simple matter of changing the word. I'm white, but I grew up in the middle of a mostly black neighborhood in the south and my mom taught and coached basketball at a 99% black school, so I'm familiar with the cultural differences that would have to shift, and I can straight up sit down with my friends and discuss any issues I might not have thought about.

If I do make this change, it's not just diversity for diversity's sake; it's because I think it would make the story better, and because there are entire groups of people who are underrepresented in literature and this will only change if writers change it. A lot of my secondary characters are diverse because the people I grew up around are diverse. For better or worse, though, I write a lot of myself and my family into my MCs, and since we're all white, my MCs tend to default to white (not all, like my FMC, but most). I have to be intentional about changing that, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

Thanks again for all your help. Like some of you suggested, if it doesn't work for this story then I can make it work for the next from the outset.