[Support] Does it make more sense to have white MCs? (Asking as a POC writer)
I know this question might sound like a troll, so I just wanted to preface that I am a queer, POC, male writer and asking from a genuine--but conflicted--place. I'm not looking to ragebait or cause any controversy, I just want to get out of this publishing limbo.
I'm formerly agented, been querying a book, and noticed the only agents that have expressed interest are non-white agents, particularly when they know what I look like (more on that later). Even then, they've passed with market concerns. I know this manuscript is high-concept, and I can't help but wonder if maybe it's the characters' ethnicities that drew agents back? For context, I'm writing in a pretty trendy, cross-genre space that isn't "oversaturated" at the moment.
There's also the fact that my first name is very "white-passing" and my last name is ethnically ambiguous (also some of my background might be stereotyped as white, such as the university I went to for undergrad has a very "elite" association that's basically wealthy, white-male-coded).
I know agents claim they want BIPOC voices and many of them do a lot of work in conveying and proving that, but at this point, I just want a book to sell. I've had enough "great prose, but market" comments in the trenches and (previously, with another book) on submission to make me not care if I just have to write a book with white leads to make it to the publication line.
I will say this was *not* an issue querying-wise with my last manuscript that got me an agent (my former agent was white), so idk if it's just a combination of an increasingly "risk-averse" market leading to subconscious preferences on the basis of race (white leads are I guess more popular and arguably a more likely/"safer" sell in the market), and the way I seem to present in queries (name, credentials, etc.). I know POC writers have had to write white leads in the past to get published (not always, especially if the story had to deal with race, which mine don't really), so idk if that sort of decision-making is having a comeback.
TL;DR: Would it be okay as a POC writer to write a book with white leads? Would it make marketable sense? Would I face any controversy for doing so?
Throwaway, but long-time lurker.
ETA: typo