It Matters What You Write

I’m talking about myself, here.

Last week I wrote about cultural appropriation.  Badly.  I called the piece “Cultural Misappropriation” because I thought there was a difference.  I thought I was being clever, and I thought I had enough information to write intelligently.

I was wrong on all three counts.

I’ve had several conversations and read a number of essays, and while I by no means can speak with authority, I think I can speak without embarrassing myself again. It is entirely possible I am wrong about that, so I welcome your comments, positive or negative.

Let me state right up front that I was writing (had been writing for some time) from a place of resentment. It would appear that this is common among white people (coupled with ignorance, often willful, as in my case), and I understand how that is frustrating to people of color and other marginalized people who have a much more clear understanding of white privilege than I did.  I read a very informative post by Lori Lakin Hutcherson about that, and along with some patient and sage advice from Tessa Gratton (@tessagratton) a switch flipped somewhere in the depths of my lizard brain and I got a glimpse of clarity.

Here’s what I now believe: White privilege is not a form of blame, any more than you can blame someone for being young or tall.  I think the blame, if any, comes from a white person failing to understand that they are in a position of privilege and as a result of that failure harming a person who does not enjoy that privilege.

Before that switch flipped I resented being called out for writing what I wanted, not having taken the time to understand that what I had written was insensitive, belittling, and putting myself above my critics. I read comments along the lines of: white people who complain about being told they can’t write what they want just hate being told “no.” That they resent it due to white privilege. And when I read that I didn’t understand it, because I felt like I was being accused of having white privilege. But I believe now that isn’t really what’s happening.

I think it goes something like this: White people who complain about being told they can’t write what they want fail to recognize their own place of privilege. In this case it’s the privilege of living a life without being constantly questioned because of the color of our skin. So when a white person is called out on their writing by a person of color, I think it can be perceived as a new experience – being questioned by someone different than ourselves. Some people respond to this by making an effort to understand what they did wrong and making an adjustment. Others – myself among them – deny our own ignorance and make things worse by continuing to speak without taking the time to understand. I’m hoping to switch groups.

I got a lot of feedback on my post about cultural appropriation, last week.  The feedback from people of color was swift and sharp and to the point.  They were direct, spoke with absolute conviction, and within a few hours had moved on. I was just another white person who didn’t get it, in a long line. And that’s fine, because it’s nobody’s responsibility to educate others about this.

But the feedback I got on my post from white people went on and on for days and was mostly less helpful, because virtually all of it came from a position of privilege.  It was actually quite illuminating if for no other reason than it gave me the chance try out the nascent understanding I was coming to grips with. Where people of color had pointed out I was whining about criticism and conflating it with censorship (I was), white people mostly wanted to reinforce their right to write whatever they wanted and felt any criticism was unjustified.  I attempted to clarify my poorly-made point from my new perspective, and was met with anger.  Who was I to tell an “artist” their work should be anything other than “pure?” My response: But if it is about marginalized people and also wrong and hurtful, those people have the right to point that out.  Oh, yeah? Shouldn’t I be offended then when Hispanics speak English poorly? Isn’t that them appropriating my culture?  And are you saying I’m not allowed to complain about Liberals?  Me: So this is what people of color have to deal with every day.  My white privilege became pretty obvious. I still have a lot of learning – and unlearning – to do, but I think I can see it, now.

Look, nobody is telling anybody not to write whatever you want or about whomever you want – it’s just being perceived by people in privilege that this is what they are being told.  All anyone asks is that you do it well.  And be prepared to receive criticism from the people you write about if you get it wrong.  Because nobody is above criticism.  You’re a writer; do your research.  Tessa Gratton said it best during one of our conversations:

All marginalized people ask is that people with privilege do no harm, and do everything in our power not to erase their experiences.

Cultural appropriation really is a thing. But there’s nothing wrong with creating art from or with cultures outside your own, as long as doing so does no harm – does not insult, degrade, stereotype, or nullify the living people from that culture.  Ignorance is not an excuse, nor is a desire to remain “pure.”  What does that even mean?  I think you mean “raw” and that’s not a recipe for good writing.  If you have questions, seek out a sensitivity reader.  And above all, be open to feedback.  You’re a writer, nobody should have to tell you that.

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Cultural Misappropriation

AUTHOR’S NOTE: After posting this I received many comments pointing out several ways this piece undercuts the point was clumsily trying to make (It’s OK to create art using material from other cultures, as long as the results do no harm). I learned that am guilty of tone policing, straw man arguments, centering white authors, and conflating critique with censorship.  I encourage you to please read my follow-up piece, which is an effort to correct these mistakes.  Thank you.

Svetlana Mintcheva nailed this topic in Salon on Monday.  In case you missed it, the current conversation around the writers’ water cooler is about Lionel Shriver’s address at the Brisbane Writers Festival, about “cultural appropriation” on September 8.  And in case you missed that, here’s some of what she said:

The author of Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law, Susan Scafidi, a law professor at Fordham University who for the record is white, defines cultural appropriation as “taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else’s culture without permission. This can include unauthorized use of another culture’s dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc.”

What strikes me about that definition is that “without permission” bit. However are we fiction writers to seek “permission” to use a character from another race or culture, or to employ the vernacular of a group to which we don’t belong? Do we set up a stand on the corner and approach passers-by with a clipboard, getting signatures that grant limited rights to employ an Indonesian character in Chapter Twelve, the way political volunteers get a candidate on the ballot?

I am hopeful that the concept of “cultural appropriation” is a passing fad: people with different backgrounds rubbing up against each other and exchanging ideas and practices is self-evidently one of the most productive, fascinating aspects of modern urban life.

But this latest and little absurd no-no is part of a larger climate of super-sensitivity, giving rise to proliferating prohibitions supposedly in the interest of social justice that constrain fiction writers and prospectively makes our work impossible.

Lionel Shriver spoke at length.  She cited a case at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where, during a private tequila party in a dorm room, some of the party-goers wore miniature sombreros.  When photos from the party circulated on social media campus-wide outrage ensued, the party-goers were placed on probation, and the party’s hosts were ejected from their dorm and impeached from the student government.  The hats were labeled “cultural appropriation” because people of color, especially those of Mexican heritage, felt their use created an environment where they did not feel safe.

Shriver talked about how this attitude has spread to every minority or disadvantaged group to the point where nobody else is allowed to touch any tradition, experience, costume or way of doing or saying anything — look but don’t touch.  The majority of her talk was about cultural appropriation in fiction.  She said:

The moral of the sombrero scandals is clear: you’re not supposed to try on other people’s hats. Yet that’s what we’re paid to do, isn’t it? Step into other people’s shoes, and try on their hats.

Look, there’s cultural appropriation and their’s cultural misappropriation.  One is insensitive, hurtful, unethical, and unfair, and the other is speculative fiction.  In this time when “We Need Diverse Books” is a huge movement, how are writers supposed to write about diverse characters if we can’t touch anything that might fall under the definition of “diverse”?  This begs a vision of the future when books must be written by committee, and when memoirs can only contain a single character.  Because what if a brunette is offended by a dark-haired character written by a blonde author?  The entire children’s market will evaporate until children learn to write novels.  And historical fiction will go the way of the dodo.

I understand why individuals and even entire swaths of society are offended by Amos and Andy or Sambo’s Restaurant or any of the thousands of other cases of cultural insensitivity created for the sole purpose of making a buck.  And I understand that when books misrepresent the details of a culture, it can perpetuate stereotypes.  I have great respect and high hopes for the “Own Voices” movement; share your culture with us so that we can learn the truth about it and have a proper perspective.  But….

There are a few voices out there who loudly oppose Shriver’s view.  As always, the backlash is not representative of the whole and those that lash out in anger often do so because they are truly, legitimately angry, fighting to be understood every day of their lives.  But like waves in a pool after a cannonball dive, one backlash leads to another in the opposite direction.  The conversations I am hearing now are non-marginalized writers asserting their right to write what they want. Kaitlyn Greenidge wrote eloquently about this.  True or not, some writers feel they are being told they should not color outside the box — not write about cultures or events outside their personal experience, because doing so is cultural appropriation.  And maybe it is, but my point here is that cultural appropriation is part of the whole fiction deal.  Yes, Virginia, a white writer can write about the Asian experience, because research.  But if it is done in an exploitative or hurtful or inaccurate way, then it becomes misappropriation.  I think there is a difference.

Suppressing writers — of any culture — is never a solution.  The notion that minority characters should only be written by minorities is a dangerous dead-end.  There are plenty of white writers who stereotype white people in their books.  Read pulp, read romance, read men’s adventure.  Who’s to say that when only black people are allowed to write about black people the stereotypes would stop?  I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest they wouldn’t.  Silencing writers won’t solve that problem.  Because who do you silence next?

I think a lot of the legitimate anger in the diversity movement stems from one very real fact: most of the time, a book about a cultural minority written by a white author will outsell a book written by a member of that culture.  It has happened time and time again.  If I was one of those authors I would be furious , too.  But the answer is not to suppress the white authors.  Most of the time when those white authors write a popular book about a minority group or specific cultural event, awareness and interest goes up which increases sales of other books on that subject – by any author.  No, instead I think real change in the industry must come from the publishers.  Awareness is growing slowly, but it could grow faster.  Publishers see marginalized voices as a risk, but I think it is a risk that could pay off.  The publishing industry is white-dominated, but if more people of color became part of the publishing industry, that would help, too.

I’m a write writer.  Not a damn thing I can do about that.  But I can take the time to see both sides of an issue — even if I will never quite have the perspective of the other side. I can try on the glass slipper, but it will never fit.  I won’t go into the issue of white privilege, other than to say unlearning is hard.  Maybe having that attitude is white privilege, too.

The primary and overarching message behind the diversity movement is clear: write what you want, but write it in a respectful and accurate way; in other words, do it well.  There are far more voices in the diversity conversation that are respectfully educating the writing community than those who shout their anger.  If you are yourself from a marginalized community, share it with us, raise awareness, be heard.  Feed the popularity.  If you are not, you can play, too. But remember — people from other cultures are gonna read your stuff, and if you misrepresent — misappropriate — the soul of their communities, they have every right and every reason to point it out.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: After posting this I received many comments pointing out several ways this piece undercuts the point was clumsily trying to make (It’s OK to create art using material from other cultures, as long as the results do no harm). I learned that am guilty of tone policing, straw man arguments, centering white authors, and conflating critique with censorship.  I encourage you to please read my follow-up piece, which is an effort to correct these mistakes.  Thank you.