Stephen King recently got flak for making a comment about literary excellence vs. diversity. Which struck me as odd (that he got flak for it) because to me that’s the point — you write to create a work of art, not to check off some SJW points. Besides which, POC can write amazing fiction. Zora Neale Hurston, V.S. Naipal and Gabriel Garcia Marquez come to mind.

As far as the descriptions of skin tone… in romance novels I’ve seen the heroine’s skin described as porcelain or chocolate or olive. Sometimes it’s crudely done but the reason the author does it is to help the reader create a mental picture.