Shortly after I posted about how hard it is to write fiction that includes people with different ethnicities, the fiction writer Lionel Shriver gave a speech about this exact same thing!
You can read (or watch) her speech here. Not surprisingly, she offended a few people. I don't think there's anything a person can do any more that won't offend someone.
Unlike my humble blog post, Shriver focuses on cultural appropriation, which I think is tough. On the one hand, I would be angry, too, if I felt my culture was being mocked (oh, wait-- that's exactly what the Book of Mormon musical does!), but at the same time, I'm all for getting to share one's culture with others so that we all get to enjoy wonderful things together. (Because really, more pad Thai for everyone probably would get us all closer to world peace. And I stand by that statement.) Even this kind of playground concept of playing nice is problematic, though, because who gets to decide whether or not any given cultural exchange is being done respectfully or mockingly?
And, honestly, the idea of cultural appropriation is already problematic because 1) there's not really any way to stop it and 2) even if you could, how far back would one be willing to go? Can there possibly be a statute of limitations on cultural appropriation?
Does anyone else feel like our world is getting weirder and more complicated by the minute...?
2 comments:
I'll be honest, a white person saying the idea of cultural appropriation should go away doesn't get a lot of sympathy from me. It basically reads as "boo hoo, I'm now being expected to take care with how I represent the cultures mine has historically oppressed and erased when I write about them and that's hard! *pouty face*".
Of course things feel complicated for white people generally, because we're so used to being able to take whatever we want from any culture we encounter and twist it however we need for our own ends and profit. We often don't even realize we're doing it and don't always have horrible intentions. When we're called out on that after being steeped in it for generations it feels hard to navigate and exhausting and confusing. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do better. Will we be 100% successful? Likely not. But, personally, I'm going to do my darndest to improve. And that means listening when others tell me I've messed up.
Some examples are obvious. If you want to display art from a particular culture, make darn sure you purchase art by an artist native to that culture. If you want moccasins for your baby, purchase them from a Native American craftsperson. In a summer band I suddenly found myself sight-reading a piece entitled "Indian War Dance". Clearly not written by a Native American, clearly based on colonialist perceptions of Native American music and stereotypes. There are points in the music where the band is called upon to "shout like an Indian". For a historic recording, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFn0e-UvCRk. If the thought of a bunch of white people performing this piece in 2016 isn't horrifying to you, consider the fact that the sidebar on youtube for the piece is essentially "if you like this piece you might want to suscribe to the racist music channel" (full of "coon songs" and other similar pieces). If you want to play Native American music, put in the minimal effort required to find some Native American composers and perform their works rather than highlighting colonialist ideas of Native American music.
It was easy to deal with this particular piece, harder to come to grips with the problematic aspects of beloved works like Dvorak's New World Symphony or Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. A recent example is J.K. Rowling and her Magic in North America. This is one that it feels difficult for me to sum up concisely, so I'll just include several links from Native American scholars/writers that I feel make the issues clear: http://nativeappropriations.com/2015/06/dear-jk-rowling-im-concerned-about-the-american-wizarding-school.html
http://nativeappropriations.com/2016/03/magic-in-north-america-part-1-ugh.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160311-history-of-magic-in-north-america-jk-rowling-native-american-stereotypes/
http://nativesinamerica.com/2016/07/dear-jk-rowling-were-still-here/
This doesn't mean you can't write about cultures or experiences you personally don't have. I think several of the above links say the opposite - people want their culture included and written about! It just means that it's imperative that you spend a great deal of time on research and talking to people from those cultures/with those experiences. And some of them might tell you it's not your place to write about them and profit off of them. And that's okay for them to say that, and you should think long and hard if they do say that. Don't resort to stereotypical tropes, don't further the erasure and trivialization of others. And you absolutely need to consider the wider impact your writing will have on the living, breathing people from those cultures, especially if your writing is likely to leave formative impressions of said culture on many readers.
Just came across this article that addresses Shriver's speech more specifically: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/who-gets-to-write-what.html
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