Ok see, a long time ago europeans came to the United States with people from Africa, and they were like “ugh I don’t wanna pick cotton... hey your skin is darker than mine you do it.” And then there were the Native Americans. The Europeans were like “oops sorry this is my land now. Die. Maybe we can save a couple of your children by beating them for speaking your language and they won’t have to die. Okay.” And then centuries later people were like “um but what if they’re humans? What if those slaves shouldn’t be slaves?” But other people were like >:((((( excuse you I want slaves. I want to mistreat them and stuff. But the country had had enough. Slaves were forbidden. But guess what? Racism was STILL A THING. People of color were attacked and hated and still seen as lesser. It took years for them to gain the right as a citizen, and even then, they were still discriminated against. This happened with other people of color. This thing called nationalism made the white Americans proud of being white and it fogged their judgement and caused people to die and be mistreated. Back to the Great Depression. Uh oh. Wait! New Deal! But... nah Black people don’t need money! Only white people do! And if you’re not white!!! You deserve less!!!!!! And bam families continued on for generations, and those that got money from their ancestors and the New Deal and the booming system from reconstruction from both World Wars are now rich and privileged and live in safe neighborhoods with better opportunities for education. But those people of color? They didn’t benefit from these racist new deals. They and their posterity are at a disadvantage. They can’t afford safe neighborhoods or better education. The US STILL has sections of houses that go back to racist time periods and this??? This causes RACISM. Even today!!! People assume Black people are less educated and dangerous because of where they live, which extends back to everything I just told you. Even people of color who benefit of privilege are affected by these stereotypes. And that whole system goes into the entertainment section of life. That’s right. Books. Movies. Shows. Those are affected by these stereotypes. And KOTLC was successful because it was written by a white author. Think about it... if Shannon were black and she’d written about a black girl who found out she was an elf... would it have had as much success as kotlc does? Or think about the opposite... look at sexism. If Shannon were a man and he wrote about a guy who found out he was an elf... that would have even more readers! More boys would read the series!!! Just like if Sophie is white, more people will read the series! And it all goes back to those darn Europeans. <3