Cultural Appropriation: How It Applies to Fiction Writing

[broncofan]

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...her?CMP=twt_gu

I don't want to express too strong an opinion at the beginning except to say that I disagree with the premises of this piece's author. I am not dogmatic about this issue, it's just my sense that while some people are in a better position to write about issues that are personal to them, they should not have a monopoly on doing so.

Furthermore, I believe the article implies that one person telling a story about another culture crowds out the more authentic voices. I think part of literary culture is that people comment on traditions and experiences that they have not practiced or lived and that others with more personal experience to draw from can also provide contributions. As long as the purpose of the work is not demonization, stereotyping, or attack, the skill of the author will determine the value such stories offer.

I might not be able to respond for a while...I hope my viewpoint does not seem insensitive to others...I welcome dissent because I did not connect with the reasons provided by this article's author.

[broncofan]

I think in the paragraph accusing Shriver of having an attitude of racial supremacy, we see some of the reasons Shriver probably saw fit to talk about identity politics. While many groups have been marginalized more than others and been victims of colonialism and dehumanizing forms of discrimination, the remedy cannot be to tell someone who is thought to be from an oppressor group that they can only comment on certain domains believed to be within their cultural ken. Such a view makes a mockery of personal responsibility.

Who would I rather listen to speak about the evils of anti-semitism? A German Christian who opposed Nazism with every sinew of his being or a Jewish person who was a Kapo because it increased his odds of survival? It is worth considering power dynamics and how they affect oppressed groups and it is also worth understanding that one cannot always intellectualize things they haven't experienced, but authors should have the right to speak freely about things foreign to them as long as they earnestly try to understand them. I think the attacks on authors who write books about other cultures are misguided.

[broncofan]

I just want to draw a connection to politics so that we don't have to move this thread. The broader point I think is to ask whether there should be domains of inquiry individuals should be disqualified from on account of their privileged background? What role should a writer or speaker's background play in evaluating the merit of their ideas?

[sukumvit boy]

Thanks for bringing his interesting author (L. Schriver) to my attention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Shriver

Also found a good New Yorker piece on her from 2013 :

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...he-counterlife

I wholeheartedly agree with the points you mentioned and would tend to take issue with the author of The Guardian piece rather than with Schriver. It would probably be worthwhile reading the actual transcript of Schriver's address .
Also ,it would seem that given Schriver's reputation for being a bit of a maverick the conference organizers expected her to cause a bit of a stir , and Schriver felt obliged to comply.

[trish]

Culture is all about appropriating each other’s experiences and making something new of them. Music, art and literature, at their best, are confluences of turbulent styles, covers and appropriations.

I just finished reading Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country. For those might be unaware, H.P. Lovecraft was - not only a popular writer of gothic horror - but a notorious bigot (just google his On the Creation of Niggers). Lovecraft Country takes the perspective of African-American family in the Jim Crow era. It too is a gothic horror story, but one the flips Jim Crow on it’s head. It’s not a great book, but it is informative as well as entertaining. Young readers might learn for the first time about The Negro Motorist Green Book, or the Tulsa Riots, or Redlining.

I admit, I don’t really know Matt Ruff’s family background. I tried to google a bit to no avail. His picture is unhelpful. Most people, I think, would take him as white. If so, Lovecraft Country isn’t his story - at least not according to Yassmin Abdel-Magied (if I understand her). It is an appropriation of somebody else’s identity!

If that’s the case, shouldn’t we smash all Chet Baker’s records since he appropriated the Jazz idiom? And shouldn't we smash all Lois Armstrong’s records since he appropriated an European instrument? The thing is, both appropriations gave voice to the artist's own unique expression and reinforced the interconnections between a myriad of listeners.

[fred41]

Let's not even mention chefs.
Anyway, it's fiction...when I read a book I usually read about the author to see what their background is...especially if there are some technical or historical references made. Other than that it's all about the story.

[hippifried]

Culture's all about the petri dish.

[Stavros]

Cultural Appropriation is a misnomer, as it does not exist. The ridicule or caricature of one people by another exists, and is mostly offensive, but is not cultural appropriation.
What exists, is the resentment of those who believe that only a Black person can write about Black people, that only a gay man can write about being a gay man, who resent any attempt by 'outsiders' to enter their realm. From the ghetto, to the ghetto and only in the ghetto. This is therefore cultural fascism. Charles Dickens writes about the French Revolution in A Tale of Two Cities. What is important is not the 'cultural appropriation' of French revolutionary culture by an English conservative, but the language and the imagination that Dickens uses to condemn it. Why did the French Revolution cause such an upset in Europe? Well, Dickens is a good place to start. Indeed, it is one of the points of interest when analyzing the story whatever one thinks of it, just as the Zionism that George Eliot imparts to Daniel Deronda has been a matter of controversy (in the cases of FR Leavis and Edward Said), not because of her 'cultural appropriation' of a Jewish concept, but because of the broader issue of how Zionism was being viewed in Britain at a time when it was emerging from obscurity to become a political movement.

To put limits on the human imagination is a registration of despair with the imagination, a rejection of art, and a replacement of art and imagination with monotonous political braying. The odd thing is, donkeys are lovable creatures.

[buttslinger]

There's a Big Beautiful God waiting for all of us at the end of our paths, ......so what, we got a business to run here. But is it all personal business...or FAMILY business?????
"the hustle never ends" -Tony Soprano

[martin48]

There's a Big Beautiful God waiting for all of us at the end of our paths,

There certainly is