I know white authors have a habit of describing dark skin tones with food or beverages and I don’t want to do that.
Cocoa, caramel, coffee, etc. I’m not much of a fiction writer but I am running a dnd campaign with POC and don’t want to be a stereotype lol
Edit: various soil types is a promising contender added by my partner


I dunno, maybe I’m overthinking it, but I worry if this sort of comparison to historical figures might put expectations on Black people to live up to the greatness of their similes instead of just being themselves, as if “Virtue Is Stored In The Melanin”, you know. I guess it depends on the specifics of how the similes are used, though, since it’s pretty different to similize a fictional hero from a fantasy roleplay than a real person.