I'm working on the sequel to my first book, which was a vampire story that had abusive relationships as the theme. The way it goes is a young woman is basically forced to become a vampire by her abusive vampire boyfriend. And the story ends with her becoming a vampire.
Now I'm working on the follow-up, and I'm about halfway through when I noticed an unsettling theme going on: slavery. I was conscious of existence, but after writing a major scene recently, I realized that slavery is a big part of this vampire world. Their leaders engage in human trafficking so they could feed off of humans, one of the vampires was a slave in Haiti before being changed. And I just wrote about a new vampire who is a Nigerian immigrant from Canada who laments about being a sex slave to his maker. The MC, who is white, could be seen as a sex slave herself based on the sex scenes in the book. I mean, the reader could look back and think that way; she's being coerced.
Am I being racially insensitive to the issue of slavery? The reason why I chose to have that vampire be a Nigerian-Canadian is because I felt there weren't enough nonwhites in the story, and also he's a gay character from a conservative culture, and that's what lured him to the vampire world (my vampires are sexually fluid). I could've made him from Russia, but again, I wanted more diversity among the characters.
Should I switch the characters, like the one from Haiti and use a different character? Am I being insensitive? I didn't intend to have this as a theme. I just wrote that scene and it was like a lightbulb went on.
Now I'm working on the follow-up, and I'm about halfway through when I noticed an unsettling theme going on: slavery. I was conscious of existence, but after writing a major scene recently, I realized that slavery is a big part of this vampire world. Their leaders engage in human trafficking so they could feed off of humans, one of the vampires was a slave in Haiti before being changed. And I just wrote about a new vampire who is a Nigerian immigrant from Canada who laments about being a sex slave to his maker. The MC, who is white, could be seen as a sex slave herself based on the sex scenes in the book. I mean, the reader could look back and think that way; she's being coerced.
Am I being racially insensitive to the issue of slavery? The reason why I chose to have that vampire be a Nigerian-Canadian is because I felt there weren't enough nonwhites in the story, and also he's a gay character from a conservative culture, and that's what lured him to the vampire world (my vampires are sexually fluid). I could've made him from Russia, but again, I wanted more diversity among the characters.
Should I switch the characters, like the one from Haiti and use a different character? Am I being insensitive? I didn't intend to have this as a theme. I just wrote that scene and it was like a lightbulb went on.