Considering that your book may get it wrong is tantamount to admitting that your view of the world and other cultures in it is inherently biased in ways you've never had to face because it's never been broadly challenged.
Cultural Appropriation and Celebration of Failure to Read the Screen
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Considering that your book may get it wrong is tantamount to admitting that your view of the world and other cultures in it is inherently biased in ways you've never had to face because it's never been broadly challenged.
Unfortunately for some, yes. Whether they make lots of money or whether their works are continually panned by critics and audience is well, up to the audience.
True, which is why taking the time to get it right it worthwhile. If a novel has enough glaring problems, that will affect sales. Stereotypes or other bad cultural representations aren't the only issues that can cause that. Others include plot holes, bad characterizations, inaccurate science in sci-fi, dull descriptions, and boring exposition.
Rushing novels out in an attempt to make more money can backfire in all kinds of ways, and the subject of this thread is only one of them. The difference with this one is that it has the potential cause deeper harm that just being a dull novel, if it leads readers to believe falsehoods about other people.
So I'm jumping into this way late, because I am still learning to forum, and I hadn't ever clicked on this subforum yet & didn't realize how interesting it is. On reflection, I think my best chance of saying something useful at this point might be to share my own journey with questions of representation as a writer.
Short version: I am an evangelical Christian. I write Holocaust novels. Which are published by a CBA (Christian) publisher.
This isn't a "white person writing PoC" issue, but it's an issue. Very much so. Given the role of European Christians during the Holocaust (majority looking the other way or participating, very tiny minority helping people escape it), the long tradition of Christian-based anti-Semitism in Europe before that, and the fact that it all happened in a culture where Hitler found it politically expedient (or even necessary) to pretend to Christianity… yeah. It's an issue.
I started the series somewhat naively. It was co-authored with my mother, based on the true story (local to us where we lived during my teen years) of the French town of Le Chambon which sheltered thousands of Jews, mostly with the leadership of the local Protestant pastor & church. My mom did all the research, I was just there to make sure the story read well. It had a French Protestant boy as main POV and two Jewish teens as minor ones. I did feel a little uncomfortable about the fact that I didn't know nearly as much about Austrian Jews as I did about French Protestants, but not enough to go and do all that much of my own research. So I ran into trouble.
The book was mostly well-received, but I got a handful of negative responses that surprised me. Some were clearly wrong (made provably wrong assumptions, for instance) but some put their finger on a true problem. The two-star review on this page sums it up (though there's a wrong assumption re: Christians "making" Jews go to church--a Jewish character was in church once for his own reason which accidentally got cut during tightening for length.) I also had a similar convo with a Jewish friend-of-a-friend who very nicely told me that my Jewish characters were kind of generic and she couldn't really tell their background or what kind of Jews they were. She didn't say “they sound like Christians minus Jesus and pork, with a couple Hebrew phrases tacked on.” It was nice of her. They did sound like that. They sounded like they were written by a person who had read the Old Testament section of a Christian Bible and went “OK, so that's what this whole Judaism thing is about.” Which is what happens when you're an American Christian, mostly.
And which wasn't right, because I was telling their story. As this lady obliquely pointed out to me, if I'd stuck with the Protestant kid's story, I would have been on firmer ground. But I had attempted to tell a Jewish story without understanding what it's like to be Jewish—without even doing due diligence on research—and set in that time. I did not understand, then, just how profoundly sensitive this was. I'm truly lucky I did not put my foot in it worse.
I was slated to write the third book in the series on my own. The second book had no Jewish POVs, because it was written with a single POV in first person, so I had a long time to mull it over and start researching. And I did. When I started in on the third book, which I'm polishing now, I first went to a forum and asked a bunch of questions about Judaism, had a long threaded conversation as I tried to understand things. I read the websites people pointed me to, and came back to the forum many times to double-check the Jewish character I was building. I tried to immerse myself as much as I could (with limited resources in the middle of nowhere), reading Jewish fiction and Jewish web stuff, just normal stuff, essays and advice columns or whatever. (I would have, maybe should have, consulted a rabbi but I'm so shy about cold-contacting strangers, and I live in the rural midwest.) I built a character who was really religious, really committed to her faith, an amazing person in some ways, and very flawed. Because she's so religious, I learned a lot of law. As I conversed with the people I'd met on the forum, I came to understand a lot more deeply why Christian Holocaust fiction feels like such a questionable thing. For instance, stories about kids sheltered during the Holocaust by Christians… and forced to convert. Stuff like that. Sometime during this time I found out about For Such A Time by Kate Breslin (the “inspirational Nazi-Jewish romance” that sparked viral outrage a few years ago) and absolutely binge-read all the internet commentary about it. That gave me a better feel for people's feelings about all this as well.
I incorporated the things I was learning into the book. It's again with this French Protestant boy as major POV and this German Jewish girl, my new character, as minor POV. He falls in love with her, tries to shut up about it, almost succeeds. She makes it clear to him that though she likes him a lot, there is no way. I incorporated into that scene my new understanding of what it must mean to her to be dependent for her very life on people she initially didn't know if she could trust to respect her deeply-held faith, had my Protestant character realize how naive he'd been about this. I also was able to incorporate a true fact about the people of Le Chambon: they did in fact respect their Jewish friends' faith, did not try to convert them, provided a space for them to worship, etc. (Yeah—I know, that sounds risky! I don't know the details, there's not a ton in the literature about that last part.) I'm trying to help others think through this too. I recently wrote a blog post about Christian participation in the Holocaust. Stuff like that.
I put my foot into a much deeper and trickier pool than I had any idea of, initally. But I am going ahead, because I believe in this book. I am going ahead having done the work and listened to the voices and continuing to do so. I am going ahead in the awareness of whose story this is. I imagine there will be pushback. Perhaps more from people among the Christian-fiction readership who may feel you don't really care about a person if you don't try to save their soul. But there's also plenty of scope on the other side. You could argue that I'm whitewashing how Christians treated Jews. (I try to make it clear how exceptional Le Chambon was, but very few scenes take place outside the town.) And there are those who feel that a Christian Holocaust novel is wrong in and of itself. I am going ahead, because I believe that those people feel that way because they have a certain notion of what a Christian Holocaust novel is bound to be, and my book is not that. And also because I believe that Christians need an example of how to do right by their neighbors and by people different from them and persecuted.
And yes, I've had my moments of frustration, especially over the assumptions people make about Christians and Christian fiction, and knowing that if I “out” myself as a Christian author in, say, a forum, a certain number of people will likely conclude that very moment that I am terrible. (At least in a forum you can't see it on people's faces.) TBH, I was pretty grateful for people's responses here when I put my toe in. But when it's about writing about that period of history, it is not about me. It is about respect for the dead, and respect for still-living people for whom that period is remembered as the time when most of their extended family was wiped out. That respect is not negotiable and is not to be set against a sense of unfairness in people's attitudes, as if the two could ever be compared.
It's not that you can never tell someone else's story. It's not that you have to make them look like saints. But if I can't go into it with an attitude of humility and respect and willingness to hear them and to learn, I have no business doing it. It's hard to get criticized. I'm lucky I didn't get a big backlash, like Ann Rinaldi for My Heart Is On The Ground, which I think she also went into naively and without understanding. But criticism doesn't compare with genuine oppression, with massacres, with children and parents taken from each other—nor with the memory of these things, which is far more powerful than those of us without that memory imagine.
It's not about PC. “Politically correct” is, to be frank, one of the most ridiculous terms I've ever heard. It's about respect for actual people, for what they've been through, for their stories.
That's all.
Short version: I am an evangelical Christian. I write Holocaust novels. Which are published by a CBA (Christian) publisher.
This isn't a "white person writing PoC" issue, but it's an issue. Very much so. Given the role of European Christians during the Holocaust (majority looking the other way or participating, very tiny minority helping people escape it), the long tradition of Christian-based anti-Semitism in Europe before that, and the fact that it all happened in a culture where Hitler found it politically expedient (or even necessary) to pretend to Christianity… yeah. It's an issue.
I started the series somewhat naively. It was co-authored with my mother, based on the true story (local to us where we lived during my teen years) of the French town of Le Chambon which sheltered thousands of Jews, mostly with the leadership of the local Protestant pastor & church. My mom did all the research, I was just there to make sure the story read well. It had a French Protestant boy as main POV and two Jewish teens as minor ones. I did feel a little uncomfortable about the fact that I didn't know nearly as much about Austrian Jews as I did about French Protestants, but not enough to go and do all that much of my own research. So I ran into trouble.
The book was mostly well-received, but I got a handful of negative responses that surprised me. Some were clearly wrong (made provably wrong assumptions, for instance) but some put their finger on a true problem. The two-star review on this page sums it up (though there's a wrong assumption re: Christians "making" Jews go to church--a Jewish character was in church once for his own reason which accidentally got cut during tightening for length.) I also had a similar convo with a Jewish friend-of-a-friend who very nicely told me that my Jewish characters were kind of generic and she couldn't really tell their background or what kind of Jews they were. She didn't say “they sound like Christians minus Jesus and pork, with a couple Hebrew phrases tacked on.” It was nice of her. They did sound like that. They sounded like they were written by a person who had read the Old Testament section of a Christian Bible and went “OK, so that's what this whole Judaism thing is about.” Which is what happens when you're an American Christian, mostly.
And which wasn't right, because I was telling their story. As this lady obliquely pointed out to me, if I'd stuck with the Protestant kid's story, I would have been on firmer ground. But I had attempted to tell a Jewish story without understanding what it's like to be Jewish—without even doing due diligence on research—and set in that time. I did not understand, then, just how profoundly sensitive this was. I'm truly lucky I did not put my foot in it worse.
I was slated to write the third book in the series on my own. The second book had no Jewish POVs, because it was written with a single POV in first person, so I had a long time to mull it over and start researching. And I did. When I started in on the third book, which I'm polishing now, I first went to a forum and asked a bunch of questions about Judaism, had a long threaded conversation as I tried to understand things. I read the websites people pointed me to, and came back to the forum many times to double-check the Jewish character I was building. I tried to immerse myself as much as I could (with limited resources in the middle of nowhere), reading Jewish fiction and Jewish web stuff, just normal stuff, essays and advice columns or whatever. (I would have, maybe should have, consulted a rabbi but I'm so shy about cold-contacting strangers, and I live in the rural midwest.) I built a character who was really religious, really committed to her faith, an amazing person in some ways, and very flawed. Because she's so religious, I learned a lot of law. As I conversed with the people I'd met on the forum, I came to understand a lot more deeply why Christian Holocaust fiction feels like such a questionable thing. For instance, stories about kids sheltered during the Holocaust by Christians… and forced to convert. Stuff like that. Sometime during this time I found out about For Such A Time by Kate Breslin (the “inspirational Nazi-Jewish romance” that sparked viral outrage a few years ago) and absolutely binge-read all the internet commentary about it. That gave me a better feel for people's feelings about all this as well.
I incorporated the things I was learning into the book. It's again with this French Protestant boy as major POV and this German Jewish girl, my new character, as minor POV. He falls in love with her, tries to shut up about it, almost succeeds. She makes it clear to him that though she likes him a lot, there is no way. I incorporated into that scene my new understanding of what it must mean to her to be dependent for her very life on people she initially didn't know if she could trust to respect her deeply-held faith, had my Protestant character realize how naive he'd been about this. I also was able to incorporate a true fact about the people of Le Chambon: they did in fact respect their Jewish friends' faith, did not try to convert them, provided a space for them to worship, etc. (Yeah—I know, that sounds risky! I don't know the details, there's not a ton in the literature about that last part.) I'm trying to help others think through this too. I recently wrote a blog post about Christian participation in the Holocaust. Stuff like that.
I put my foot into a much deeper and trickier pool than I had any idea of, initally. But I am going ahead, because I believe in this book. I am going ahead having done the work and listened to the voices and continuing to do so. I am going ahead in the awareness of whose story this is. I imagine there will be pushback. Perhaps more from people among the Christian-fiction readership who may feel you don't really care about a person if you don't try to save their soul. But there's also plenty of scope on the other side. You could argue that I'm whitewashing how Christians treated Jews. (I try to make it clear how exceptional Le Chambon was, but very few scenes take place outside the town.) And there are those who feel that a Christian Holocaust novel is wrong in and of itself. I am going ahead, because I believe that those people feel that way because they have a certain notion of what a Christian Holocaust novel is bound to be, and my book is not that. And also because I believe that Christians need an example of how to do right by their neighbors and by people different from them and persecuted.
And yes, I've had my moments of frustration, especially over the assumptions people make about Christians and Christian fiction, and knowing that if I “out” myself as a Christian author in, say, a forum, a certain number of people will likely conclude that very moment that I am terrible. (At least in a forum you can't see it on people's faces.) TBH, I was pretty grateful for people's responses here when I put my toe in. But when it's about writing about that period of history, it is not about me. It is about respect for the dead, and respect for still-living people for whom that period is remembered as the time when most of their extended family was wiped out. That respect is not negotiable and is not to be set against a sense of unfairness in people's attitudes, as if the two could ever be compared.
It's not that you can never tell someone else's story. It's not that you have to make them look like saints. But if I can't go into it with an attitude of humility and respect and willingness to hear them and to learn, I have no business doing it. It's hard to get criticized. I'm lucky I didn't get a big backlash, like Ann Rinaldi for My Heart Is On The Ground, which I think she also went into naively and without understanding. But criticism doesn't compare with genuine oppression, with massacres, with children and parents taken from each other—nor with the memory of these things, which is far more powerful than those of us without that memory imagine.
It's not about PC. “Politically correct” is, to be frank, one of the most ridiculous terms I've ever heard. It's about respect for actual people, for what they've been through, for their stories.
That's all.
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I don't think it should, no. However, I can't help notice that many of the threads about cultural appropriation and representation of cultures not the author's own seem to center on whether or not people from the majority/dominant culture, gender, orientation, or race are "allowed" to write stories about people from other backgrounds. Also, there's often a focus on whether or not publishers will be interested in their work, and about whether they will garner negative criticism and anger.
It's refreshing when someone starts a thread about these issues that doesn't sound defensive to start out, and where the poster says something like, "I have this story I want to tell, but I don't want to do damage to people or cultures, and I don't want to spread misinformation," rather than focusing on whether or not they're "allowed" to write a given story or arguing about so-called political correctness, or worrying about people being "mad" at them.
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Yep, I agree. There's so much noise out there, and it's easy to get the wrong idea about subjects like this. The messages that come through that noise are just as you say—that they might not be published, that they'll make people mad and get bad reviews from "that liberal PC crowd." Noise.
We want to reach our fellow writers who got distracted by that noise, we want them to understand what it means to earn their readers' trust, to not perpetuate misinformation—to make sure they get it right and not cause harm to people of other cultures. That it's about personal integrity and about respect for those we write about: their cultures, their sexuality, their religious beliefs. It's about respect for our readers. It's about writing true.
So I ask questions to find out the depth and breadth of those wrong ideas and to solicit other voices to combat the noise . . . as I hope we're doing here.
.
Also, thank you for your story, SwallowFeather. It's important that we learn where and how we're going wrong and then correct our course, just as you did. The whole idea behind our discussions here in Roundtable is to help each other as best we can to avoid the pitfalls and get it right. To be the best writers we can be and realize our writing dreams.
I don't know if it's been mentioned yet in this long thread (too long for me to read it all), but an example is William Styron, who received a lot of nasty criticism for his novel The Confessions of Nat Turner. Styron pretty much shrugged it off, and he is now regarded as one of the greatest American novelists of the 20th century, with that particular novel being a major one in his canon. A lot of the "cultural appropriation" commentary strikes me as an ad hominem charge. We all should pay more attention to what is said, than to who said it.
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This is reading a lot like "Ignore the criticism, just write whatever you want!"
I find this discussion so tiring, especially because there continues to be people dropping by, without having read the actual thread, and then repeating the "write whatever the hell you want to write" line.
Tiresome.
Maybe it all boils down to Ari's question:
Those who say YES are the ones who believe in "Ignore the concerns of minorities! Write whatever you want!" and their concerns always revolve around THEIR well-being ("Will my book get picked up by a publisher? Will it get bad reviews?") and there is not a thought spared to actual communities they might be harming. Everything else, to them, is just "noise". And I guess I can't really argue with them, because we disagree on such a fundamental level that it's a waste of time trying to discuss any issue that stems from that very basic starting point.
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So...I posted about this on my Facebook page, and it sort of blew up. My Facebook page is usually a pretty boring place, but I got a zillion comments for this. Some good, some extremely depressing, like the, "It's just one person's opinion that it's racist!" sentiment. Yeah, just reading the blurb makes it sound problematic, starting with the word "exotic" to describe a person. And lots of other people have read the excerpt on Amazon and agreed it was racist. And I can't imagine the reviewer is flat-out lying about the events in the book. I could hardly sleep on Friday night because I had all sorts of replies running through my head. Saturday, it was a bunch of WoC romance writers sympathizing with me on Twitter...
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Yes, it is wearying. Can we say, though, that it's always about disagreement? Might it not be in large part a lack of understanding of the difference between cultural exchange and cultural appropriation? That exchange is mutually agreed upon—by invitation? That appropriation is taking? Are we explaining that less coherently than we could? Are there better ways to conceptualize for those who are open to understanding?
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Hmm, it feels to me like for many, it's not a lack of understanding, but a belief? I'm basing this on the things I've seen people who subscribe to this belief say. They seem to be aware of the harm done to marginalized groups, but at the end of the day, they believe "my need to attain publishing success trumps everything else". And belief is much harder to address than lack of understanding. I think my standpoint is also a belief, in that "I believe my need for publishing success does NOT trump everything else", and it would be a tough time for anyone trying to make me understand that my belief is wrong.
I think when someone comes in with a defensive and entitled attitude, it's impossible to change their mind. But when it comes to someone who is open to understanding, I think it's just a matter of showing them the context and letting them decide for themselves.
I actually recently had this discussion with mr. Putt. He's completely out of the loop wrt cultural appropriation and didn't even know the term. I told him the context, the long history of cultural appropriation, how white writers writing PoC characters are more likely to be picked up than PoC writers writing PoC characters, how so many books on PoC are poorly researched and end up harming the very people they're about, and so on and so forth. At the end of which he said, "Okay, it seems obvious that there is a problem, but...actually, I think the problem lies with the PUBLISHERS. Writers are gonna write whatever they want to write, and if they get published, yay, they've done their job and earned some money for their families. But the publishers are the ones with the power. They're the ones who decide what gets published...so shouldn't the responsibility lie with them? They're the ones who actually get to affect change."
I thought it was an interesting way of looking at it, although I am of the belief that it's everyone's responsibility to avoid harm.
Yes, it is exhausting. Every time someone posts a flyby post without reading the whole thread, I find it cheapens the debate and reduces it to that post saying "we don't care about your concerns, so stop voicing them". It's disrespectful and dismissive. One of the major reasons I've not bothered to respond much in this thread.
While I get that people do want to write what they want, I also understand how devastating it is when the same type of people ignore the concerns of the marginalised, the minorities. It's a basic case of "me first; if I get what I want, who cares if other people get hurt".
I don't know about anyone else, but I find that attitude hideous, selfish, and uncaring. Doesn't matter to me how accomplished someone is, or how much they contribute elsewhere, that type of sentiment gets no respect from me. In fact, such a post makes it to my ignore list.
For example, a few years back, the media highlighted the plight of Filipinas and Indonesian domestic helpers in Hong Kong. They are the larger of the marginalised cultures and peoples here. The media painted a very bleak picture, but amongst that sensationalism, there were plenty of facts and evidence: first-hand accounts, face to face interviews, court cases, factually-related stories. Research was clearly evident. And yet, the media did not tell these people's stories; instead they provided a platform for these individuals to tell their own stories.
Did the media to a really good job of it? I don't know; I just know that the media provided a tool for these people's voices to be heard.
The stories were devastatingly horrendous. Anyone with an ounce of compassion and self-respect would have been appalled and outraged. However, the fact remained: these people told their own stories.
I guess that's one of the cases which really brought home to me about whether or not I should tell various stories. Not because I can't, or don't have the confidence or research to, but because the question is whether or not I should?
In the context of this thread: I've thought about writing about the marginalised cultures in Hong Kong (there are plenty more than just the two mentioned above). But, over the years, the more I've thought about it, the more I've realised that those stories are not mine to tell. Despite any research I might be able to do, how can I know what the individuals of these cultures face daily? Especially in a city that is hostile, amongst a culture that has -- historically -- closed itself off to any that does not speak or understand its language? Superficially, various individuals of these cultures come across as arrogant, rude, and uncouth. But what do I know? It may be a front. Or it's the norm for them, because in their native culture, their language, what they're saying and their attitude is in fact respectful.
For example, in another thread, there were call-outs regarding a child's rudeness, that there was no obvious Western-style gratitude expressed for a service rendered. However, culturally, the expressed gratitude would not be Western-style; it would be in that culture's style. Without actually understanding the non-native culture, how can one impose one's culture on a non-native one?
This also goes back to the blanket analogy up-thread: The blanket is a symbol of what's being passed down. To revere the object itself is incorrect and is an outsider's viewpoint, not the insider's.
Greatly (grossly so?) simplified: worship of an object is very materialistic and reflects a Western sentiment, vs. reverence of the meaning behind the representative object that does not reflect a Western sentiment.
Ergo, I can't know. At the very least, I can only guess at the actual meaning behind the symbolism. And I also know myself well enough to know that even if I were arrogant enough to attempt to tell these stories, my own prejudices and subconscious racism would get in the way, despite my best efforts.
Not everything translates universally from one culture to the next.
An example from another side of the debate, from another thread: One flyby post in an old discussion basically issued an ultimatum to writers to stop writing about a certain culture because the writers would always get it wrong, guaranteed, due to the misinformation available. That attitude irked and infuriated me. Not because I disagreed with not writing about a certain culture, but because it was a flyby post and an ultimatum that assumed all writers were arrogant and would write about that culture regardless of whether or not permission was sought or research was done. That attitude did its best to shut down even those writers who wanted to understand further as to why the misinformation was so widespread. But there was no opportunity, because it was a flyby post and the writer of it never returned.
In the same way, the "write what you want, ignore the PC 'noise'", irks, and infuriates: It shuts down those writers who want to understand more about the non-native culture.
So, assuming I was going to tell the stories that aren't mine to tell, if I can't present such stories with objectivity and empathy, without prejudice and racism, then I'm doing more harm than good, regardless of intentions and confidence in my research. Instead, I would consider myself being disrespectful and incompetent. Therefore, in this case, the best thing I can do is simply not to tell those stories. I guess my go-to mantra for such situations is "not my story to tell". Granted, this may be an extreme way of seeing things; a reason to stay in my comfort zone. Then again, maybe this is my way of being respectful and understanding that, just because I did the research, just because I know lots of things about a minority culture, it doesn't mean I should tell that story for publication's sake. And also especially if a member of the non-native culture states that certain cultural elements are sacred, and even insiders are privileged to know the details of those elements, therefore outsiders should not write about those elements, then that is more than a good enough reason to not write about those elements, or maybe even that culture.
On the other hand, I (still) hope that others can extend this type of consideration and courtesy to my culture, other minority communities, marginalised cultures, all cultures: Just because one has done the research does not mean one should write that story because publication.
But I am tired of all the entitled posts that advocate "write what you want, ignore the PC 'noise'". Mainly because I'm not sure these types of writers will, or even want, to consider what "PC 'noise'" really says, especially when it comes to cultural appropriation.
I'm of the opinion that the part of the problem lies in the wording: "exchange" vs "appropriation". While I think we can all agree that "exchange" means a give and take of (hopefully) equal parts, "appropriation" seems to be more vague, not as to the point. Personally, I believe it'd be better to use the term "theft" in place of "appropriation"; at least, perhaps, we might all get closer to agreeing that some writers steal from other cultures. And "steal" or "theft" means exactly that: "the taking of something that doesn't belong to oneself", and by that extension, the exploitation, "abuse" of such "stolen property".
For me, cultural theft is literally(?) someone coming over to me and taking my mobile phone then selling it to another without my permission or acknowledging that I own my phone. Perhaps that's a clearer way of looking at it? Or maybe, if that doesn't work for some, it's a bully coming over to shove one out of the way so that the bully can steal one's lunch. Or, mayhap, plagiarism on a cultural scale: one takes another's work, and passes it off as one's own, aka, one takes another's culture, and passes if off as one's own. With all the exploitation and abuse that any of these ideas imply.
It is a different perspective. And interesting? Yes? Maybe.
Going back to the statistics linked in another thread, I wonder if those stats still hold true today (since the study was done a few years back, two, perhaps)? The majority of professionals in the publishing houses, according to the study, were/are white. This could explain the predominance of white writers being published more than PoC writers, regardless of the books' subject matters. Again, I think it's about comfort zones here, and the unwillingness to be risky in an already fickle market.
Publishers are a business, after all. So, it's expected that they're going to go with whatever sells. And as businesses, I understand being risk averse. Yet, if no risks are taken, then the publishers can't grow, and staying in one spot begs stagnation, which leads to a slow death. So, while profit and risk need to be balanced, it seems to me, that many of the professionals within the publishing houses default to non-risky ventures that, seemingly skew the balance to "profit first, risk later (if at all)", and seemingly inevitably, throttle the market. This blocks new voices, and ultimately PoC voices, from being read.
So, while publishing professionals have power to effect change, I don't believe that all of the power rests with them. Writers also have that power: Consciously (and eventually) respecting all other writers, especially PoCs, and allowing everyone to write their own stories, without stealing or exploiting for selfish gain, would help start the movement. And -- maybe I'm being idealistic -- at some point in the future, such mutual respect will push the publishers to publish everyone (regardless of ethnicity) equally. Of course, writing has to be up to standard. But, wouldn't that be also a benefit of this type of rounded mutual respect and mutual support? And at this point, might be a hope that we wouldn't have to deal with "cultural appropriation" and that discussions like this have become "classical references"? (Yes, I'm definitely being idealistic at this point, but I can hope.)
(Apologies for the novel.)
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It was good to see. Thank you for sharing your journey.
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This thread has covered most of the main difficulties with cultural appropriation. There's one I'd like to focus in on for a moment.
People who appropriate from cultures don't usually pay attention to their own cultural biases. The act of appropriation itself gives a false sense of objectivity to the appropriator. And yet there is a clear bias in the very fact of the argument for cultural appropriation.
The people who make the argument for cultural appropriation are rarely in favor of having their own work appropriated. Indeed, they are likely to raise copyright complaints.
Some may say that having their personal intellectual property stolen is different, and some may say there is no person who owns a culture.
But the idea of personal property as sacrosanct and the idea that one's work is intellectual property are not inherent concepts. The idea of personal property underlying these law are part of the European/American culture. The people advocating for appropriation from works shared within a culture are using their own cultural constructs as justifications for cross-cultural actions.
Another example of this cultural imposition can be seen in SwallowFeather's post.
I don't mean to pick on SwallowFeather. I found that post illuminating in many ways. But as a person raised Jewish, I flinched several times while reading it. I had to refrain from shouting each time Judaism was referred to as a "faith."
One may pull open a dictionary and see that "faith" is seen as a synonym for "religion" in Modern English. But that assertion of synonymy contains a Christian cultural bias: that religions are about faith.
In my upbringing and learning the principle characteristic of Judaism was observance. That is, what one did determined how good a Jew one was being. Belief was largely irrelevant. Indeed, there are atheist and agnostic observant Jews wherever there are Jews. Within this distinction of words lies a whole complex structure of differences between Judaism and Christianity on their views of life, the different Bibles, the law and its interpretations (rare is the Christian writer who has delved into the Talmud and its consequences), and even styles and purposes of argument.
This word usage showed me that SwallowFeather had likely not delved as deeply into the religion as might be necessary for the books under consideration.
One may think that one is appropriating respectfully (I thought the same for some of my early novels), but upon reflection one discovers all sorts of cultural biases that make the act itself difficult unless one has had others not from one's culture examine one's biases and offer suggestions for how to overcome them.
People who appropriate from cultures don't usually pay attention to their own cultural biases. The act of appropriation itself gives a false sense of objectivity to the appropriator. And yet there is a clear bias in the very fact of the argument for cultural appropriation.
The people who make the argument for cultural appropriation are rarely in favor of having their own work appropriated. Indeed, they are likely to raise copyright complaints.
Some may say that having their personal intellectual property stolen is different, and some may say there is no person who owns a culture.
But the idea of personal property as sacrosanct and the idea that one's work is intellectual property are not inherent concepts. The idea of personal property underlying these law are part of the European/American culture. The people advocating for appropriation from works shared within a culture are using their own cultural constructs as justifications for cross-cultural actions.
Another example of this cultural imposition can be seen in SwallowFeather's post.
I don't mean to pick on SwallowFeather. I found that post illuminating in many ways. But as a person raised Jewish, I flinched several times while reading it. I had to refrain from shouting each time Judaism was referred to as a "faith."
One may pull open a dictionary and see that "faith" is seen as a synonym for "religion" in Modern English. But that assertion of synonymy contains a Christian cultural bias: that religions are about faith.
In my upbringing and learning the principle characteristic of Judaism was observance. That is, what one did determined how good a Jew one was being. Belief was largely irrelevant. Indeed, there are atheist and agnostic observant Jews wherever there are Jews. Within this distinction of words lies a whole complex structure of differences between Judaism and Christianity on their views of life, the different Bibles, the law and its interpretations (rare is the Christian writer who has delved into the Talmud and its consequences), and even styles and purposes of argument.
This word usage showed me that SwallowFeather had likely not delved as deeply into the religion as might be necessary for the books under consideration.
One may think that one is appropriating respectfully (I thought the same for some of my early novels), but upon reflection one discovers all sorts of cultural biases that make the act itself difficult unless one has had others not from one's culture examine one's biases and offer suggestions for how to overcome them.
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I've been wondering whether we should talk about "harmful representation" more than "cultural appropriation" because the latter seems to hard for some people to wrap their heads around.
But...I'm not sure it matters. When it comes down to it, it appears there are a lot of white people who simply don't give a shit about PoC and how we feel. In fact, not only do they not give a shit, but they take pride in this. They don't want to listen to us, and they want to make these discussions all about them. After some of the crap I've seen in the romance community lately, there are some authors whose books I will never be buying...
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Doesn't this kind of then extend to everything? If someone hasn't had a mental illness, or physical disability, or had a relative murdered, or etc., how can they tell those stories? They're not those people's to tell, if they haven't experienced them. Every story is individual. I get there are obviously cultural or ethnic experiences, but there are also individuations within those just as much as anything else. The experience of someone from X race or culture growing up in one family, in one place, is not the same as a person of the same race and culture growing up in another place, with another family.
I get not being part of the culture, and being careful to understand the culture and your own limitations about not being part of it, but I also think there's a limit to understanding anyone's experience, and an othering that happens if we decide 'person of X culture/race' is defined by that, when that may not be the case at all is kind of just as problematic. I think it's just a lot mushier.
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I don't think snitchcat was suggesting defining person of X culture as *just* that. Race is one defining trait of many. I would actually define myself first and foremost as female (and a hippo), and then by my race, and then I guess by my age, and then by education, and then...hrummm economic stability or otherwise, and then...oh as a mom, and then...a wannabe writer, oh, and a wife, and...I dunno, whatever other defining factors there are. I would define you not just as a cereal flake, but also a good query writer, a thoughtful poster, my victim
, a snarky critter, and so on and so forth... It would be problematic if we were all only defined by ONE trait.As to the whether or not this extends to everything, I don't know. There's another thread about the same subject in the Activism forum, and someone wisely pointed out that turning to extremes ("ignore all the noise! Write whatever you want!" Or "you can't write any char outside of your own demographic!") is easier to understand. It's when you strive for a middle ground that things get murky, and we find that the lines are blurred and people from the same group sometimws disagree about where they are in the first place, because like you pointed out, individual experience plays a factor too.
Boy, when I wrote the original post I never dreamed it would generate 219 responses and counting.
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I don't think snitchcat was suggesting defining person of X culture as *just* that. Race is one defining trait of many. I would actually define myself first and foremost as female (and a hippo), and then by my race, and then I guess by my age, and then by education, and then...hrummm economic stability or otherwise, and then...oh as a mom, and then...a wannabe writer, oh, and a wife, and...I dunno, whatever other defining factors there are. I would define you not just as a cereal flake, but also a good query writer, a thoughtful poster, my victim
As to the whether or not this extends to everything, I don't know. There's another thread about the same subject in the Activism forum, and someone wisely pointed out that turning to extremes ("ignore all the noise! Write whatever you want!" Or "you can't write any char outside of your own demographic!") is easier to understand. It's when you strive for a middle ground that things get murky, and we find that the lines are blurred and people from the same group sometimws disagree about where they are in the first place, because like you pointed out, individual experience plays a factor too.
No, sorry, I don't think Snitch was saying that people should be defined as just culture or race/ethnicity, but someone saying they feel they can't write about people from different cultures, and that people misunderstood someone's lack of apology as it was cultural -- though I don't see a particular reason to presume it wasn't just rude, or a product of the moment and not culture -- seems to me to kind of be looking at things from that type of lens, primarily cultural. Which, obviously, some people do define primarily, or feel their experiences are primarily defined, but... yeah.
It also then just brings up the rest to me, because I don't see the difference so much -- though I see the issues in ingrained societal prejudice that are different -- between a cultural or racial difference and a mental illness, a disorder, being short, being divorced, practicing a particular profession, etc.
This is where sensitivity readers come in. You have someone with the background you're trying to portray who can go through and tell you where you've missed it or misspoken.
Small example. In one of my books, there's an infection that turns the afflicted's blood jet black. There were lines in that book with a character who had been exposed bemoaning how they couldn't go home with "black blood." That phrase, to me, was a literal representation of the condition. Someone else pointed out that the same phrase, in other contexts, is used to denigrate people with African American heritage (the "one drop" rule). It was easy to rephrase the character's dialogue and not lose an ounce of meaning, but I wouldn't have thought to do it without hearing from someone who had different experiences. And the point is that it needed to be done. It's not about vision or authorial authenticity. Yes, it's my story, but it's written for an audience that hopefully includes a large number of diverse readers, some of whom might have had very negative run-ins with that phrase in a hurtful context. Me declaring my intent isn't as important as the potential damage done to a kid who associates my words with someone who hurt them. It's a breech of trust.
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I wasn't suggesting I was on the 'write whatever and fuck 'em if they're offended' page. I'd be careful about things and wary, but I don't know that tilting entirely to people maybe shouldn't write anything outside of their own experiences, is a good idea either. I'm not sure where people are suggesting those lines are.
I know, but you had the post Maze Runner responded to. (I actually thought I'd grabbed both your posts as quote.)
I'm not sure there really are "lines," except at the extremes. There's a huge grey area populated by everything from ignorance to "best effort, but still fails massively."
On one hand you got "Save the Pearls," which literally translates into "Save the white people" given the book's set-up. This extreme comes with a side order of marketing-by-blackface on YouTube.
On the other, you've got your traditional Avatar / Ferngully / Pocahontas / Dances with Wolves / etc. "white savior" trope, where the guy is put there as the audience's insert character to "translate" between them and [insert non-white culture of choice]. It's condescending and ignorant, but in a different way from old Hollywood's "just put darker make-up on them" method of casting.
People with disabilities aren't "culture" in the traditional sense, but there is a culture built around them. "The noble sufferer" or the "magic child;" the one who's robbed of their own agency because they exist solely to enhance the story of the main character (who is not sick, but will be impacted mightily when the afflicted dies). Any family member of the sick person is meant to also bear-up nobly and be summarily reminded of how lucky they are to have the sick person in their lives if they should ever be so selfish as to mention how hard it is to care for someone ill.
I think this is why people reacted so wildly to The Fault in Our Stars. Here, the sickness wasn't the magic bullet to self-awareness for someone else. It was the main character.
The real "line" is a series of puppet strings, all held in the hands of the writer. The writer gets in trouble when they try to force those strings into trite, stereotypical motions rather than letting the puppet dance in the way more authentic to its story.
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