god, as long as you don’t pull the same shit you’re doing with pride month. make sure it’s black creators making black comics, not white creators with a poc mc
Well... Create space for black voices on the platform for a start. You’ve done it for LGBTQ and BL/GL. Creation of perhaps a BIPOC “genre” may also be a good step, or encouraging writers who write from their own marginalised experiences to submit for featuring opportunities. Encourage use of tags more, perhaps, to indicate this kind of information and make the search work to actually pick this up properly.
There are interview spots that you guys sometimes do. Get some black voices on those, and yes, promote their work. But also move beyond that and speak to them about the issues that also are still faced in posting/creating/publishing work.
Encourage sensitive conversations around diversity, both on the forums and through content put out by Tapas itself. Educate your community.
Do a social media call that asks the black community what they want from Tapas. Just being real, there aren’t many on the forums because the forums aren’t that comfortable for many marginalised people. You’ll get a better response on Twitter/Insta/FB.
Dedicate lists on the front page to elevating black voices throughout the year. Black History Month aside, there’s also Africa Day, and other identities that can be pulled in and celebrated more in that way.
Hire someone who is able to look at your business model and assess where the bottlenecks are that are stopping black creators come forward.
Actively search for black and BIPOC voices to elevate, and if they’re not on Tapas yet, find out why and reach out to some creators to bring them on board.
Just some ideas.
What about something like "Creator Spotlight"? Ask black storytellers to give what they think about what's going on, how does it make them feel, and any other questions you would have, but most importantly, will they keep creating?
I belive the best way is too listen to what they need, what they been asking for, and let they be in charge as well, allow them to have agency in how their work can apear in the spotlight, create a spotlight section on the main page that is hard to miss and that everyone can see it.
Don't exclude black authors writing novels either. Not every artist is making comics, and I would appreciate being able to sift through novels written by black authors made easier. 
I just want to say thank you. That's all.
I stopped going on social media outlets for a bit and decided to retreat here to the tapas forums and focus on my comics as a form of escapism, and I just want to say the support on here really means a lot, and thank you for creating a safe space for so many different people here on this platform.
Yeah, novel promotion so far does seem to be a little behind comic promotions.
Also just to be clear is the requirement black creators specifically telling black stories. Or is this to share the stories of black creators? And some form of verification would be nice, since this is to genuinely uplift voice that normally might not be heard, This does lead to a question as to how verification would be done.
For example my actually name is Adeleke Kayode, so my initials are AK which is how you get Aykay as my username, it also fits easier on a book cover than my full name. Adeleke in Yoruba means "The crown of god"
I am Nigerian American. And that's true. But how do you know that's true? I'm personally on the fence about putting the link to my work because I feel like there are other people who have been members of Tapas much longer than me, who've definitely deserve and have earned the right to have their work promoted. But at the same time it feels like a bad move for me to not acknowledge an opportunity.
@ratique Do you have any suggestions? I really am conflicted here.
Both is fine!
That is a difficult question. We put a lot of trust into our community and believe that most creators would not lie to us regarding their skin color. I don't think that adding a step of verification would be a great move - where would we start? Where would we stop? Does every creator have to send a photo of themselves? That doesn't feel right.
I believe that adding any more hurdles than the ones that already exist is counter productive to what we're trying to do. If a creator says that they are a black storyteller, I have no reason to doubt them. Do you believe that I should?
It's very kind of you to think of others and wanting to ensure that you don't take anyone's spot - but, the more the merrier! We would love to see your work, please share it!
I could definitely see how it would be problematic to have a verification step. I don't know it's just a little weird for me since I joined Tapas in April and then joined the forums in May. And I've only participated in a handful of posts. So I guess I'm still not used to being here.
Here's my story.
It can be both, but come on there is more to us we're more than just what we've been experiencing. There's more to our tales than just the racism, discrimination and black experience. We can tell ALL kinds of tales, and THAT is what we need to be seen for. Not just the group with yet another label for the people to add, we can ascend in much better ways.
Take the opportunity, we've been fighting for too long and too hard.
Wow! I didnt know Tapas was supporting black storytellers 
Thank you very much! 
I dont really have an idea but honestly just knowing you're with our cause makes me so happy.
Yes! This right here. There is no presentation of blackness you have to put on for your stories to be valid.
And that's always the danger, I think. As black creators, there are very specific times when the wider writing community shows out for you, but as soon as the experiences of black creators online aren't centered, the environment becomes just as hostile again. Allies can come and go as they please, we can't exactly get bored of being black and suddenly move through online spaces as if we aren't.
Because of that, I've become wary of setting up shop anywhere where the culture isn't openly moving towards being safer for black creators to exist openly, let alone thrive. Part of that positive cultural shift is creating an environment where black creators can thrive without narrowing their content to what people think we should write. Street Fic is the only genre where having a majority black cast isn't seen as a brave artistic choice or political statement, because everywhere else, representation is seen as deviance rather than diversity.
Then there's the actual labour of moving through artistic spaces where the majority of people aren't aware of what it means to be a black creator on there. From discussions about having to justify black characters, or awareness around problematic representation and the historical weight and weaponising of tropes like the 'Magical Negro' or the 'Noble Savage', to being tagged in threads by non-black creators who want to know if an idea for representation they had is acceptable (it's often laced with trauma and the labour to explain why is almost always met by people ready to belittle or contradict your points despite taking no time to research on the matter).
It's a lot. And frankly the black creators I know in online spaces like this only put up with it because they may want to see a community do better by them, or being openly black is the easiest way to find community with people they won't have to educate to feel comfortable around.
So that would be nice too, creating an environment where BIPOC and QPOC can openly congregate to create community, share ideas, network and provide refuge for each other.But that's forum specific.
On the main site, it's really hard to find works by other black creators. I usually rely on checking the libraries of the black creators I do know and making my way out from there because there's nothing to signal for their content in searches. Even then, many of the great works I do find are abandoned or posted elsewhere where they find traction offsite more easily.
Because the thing is... black stories aren't monolithic, so they absolutely can find an audience anywhere that offers that genre, but they may not be written with that entire genre in mind as a target audience. There's a good thread on twitter explaining how culture and history affects narrative voice in fiction and I'll link it below, and why a work can find an audience on tapas but not necessarily a dedicated, core following, because the people it was made for aren't given a pathway to finding it.
A dedicated highly visible feature list would probably be a start, but that also relies on black readers being shown that this is a space where they can find black voices and stories, and gaining the trust of an entire community like that is a long process. And if the spikes in engagement with the Black Lives Matter movement have shown anything in the past, it's that robust allyship on this scale is very temporary, and black people have learned to only trust the allies who stick around and put in the work after everyone else has literally gotten bored and thinks it's okay to no longer be as vocal.
thread on black vs non-black narrative voice:
https://twitter.com/ElleOnWords/status/126857836414469734512
This also speaks to some of the biases that make it difficult to create content where your readership doesn't have a strong, visible presence.
I want to recommend two friends of mine, but their comics are available in portuguese only for now:
https://tapas.io/series/Rei-de-la6
https://tapas.io/series/Istella4
Dani Bolim is an amazing comic artist, too:
Hey everyone! My name is Nic, and I'm a black artist. I make silly webcomics, and hope some of them can make you laugh during this not so great time!
Thank you, it'd be really great for people to read more stories from Black creators like myself. It's really nice to see that we are appreciated by people.
BLM
I will admit it's hard to find black stories and POC stories on this site lately. (Not sure if it's because creators are not using hashtags). when I find a story I usually go to their library to see what that author is reading. At my local library and an app they use there is a filter called African American Voices.
Anyways, I have a comic called Crystal Visions. I co-create it with my writer Brianna HS.
This is actually great point and a wonderful suggestion about a filter feature for African American creators/stories. Admittedly, I've been on Tapastic for a number of years and was unsure if it was either really difficult to find POC creators on the platform or if there weren't very many of us to begin with, as I'd only met a handful of other black creators until very recently.
