Dear Suzanne Brockmann and J.D. Robb,
Please do not call the eyes of people of Asian descent "exotic." "Exotic" means foreign and unfamiliar, and in your present-day and near-future American settings, people of Asian descent are neither.
Very truly yours,
A reader
For those unfamiliar, Brockmann writes the Troubleshooters romantic suspense series (booklog); Robb (a.k.a. Nora Roberts) writes the near-future In Death mystery series (booklog). Both are obviously committed to having a diverse cast of characters (particularly Brockmann). I absolutely believe they did not have any racist intent in writing their character descriptions.
And yet Brockmann describes a character in Into the Fire as having "eyes that revealed his part-Vietnamese heritage with their exotically graceful shape," and Robb repeatedly describes a recurring character as having "exotic almond eyes" (to quote the website excerpt of the forthcoming book (PDF)). And every time I see those references, I think to myself, "No, neither I nor my eyes are foreign, thankyouverymuch."
Good intentions are important. But they aren't sufficient.
(Brockmann uses "exotic" about other characters too, ones thoroughly white, at least; I think Robb tends to keep it for foreign things.)
