Cultural Appropriation Prize

Great Debates
1

In the controversial article by Hal Niedzviecki suggesting that a Cultural Appropriation Prize be offered “for best book by an author who writes about people who aren’t even remotely like her or him”, he says that "Anyone, anywhere, should be encouraged to imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities.” He believes that white, middle-class writers are hesitant to explore any stories that aren’t about white, middle-class characters for fear of accusations of insensitivity and cultural appropriation.

This article quotes writer Scaachi Koul’s response: “No one, in the history of writing books, has ever suggested that white people are not allowed to write thoughtful portrayals of Indigenous people or people of colour, namely in fiction. Frankly, we encourage it.”

Is that really the case? I mean, I think Niedzviecki’s approach was obtuse and tactless and absolutely not the way to encourage cultural diversity in literature, but I think Koul may be off base as well.

Do you think that the reception to a work by a white author about a culture he has no personal connection to would be without criticism? Do you think it’s a loss if white writers avoid exploring other cultures?

2

My objection to (some) white (or, really, non-Asian) authors writing about Asian things has nothing to do with cultural appropriation; it’s that it is often is bad, or misleading, or riddled with inaccuracies or misconceptions. Like having Chinese characters quoting Chinese proverbs all the time (Chinese people don’t talk like that; just like Americans don’t go around quoting Poor Richard’s Almanack,) or sometimes reading like a tourist guide or facts taken out of a tourist encyclopedia or having people “thinking Western.”

But many other white authors write marvelous works on this topic, better than Eastern writers themselves, and I think Niedzviecki has a valid idea/proposal.

3

And if it’s OK for POC to write about white topics, then it’s OK the other way around too.

4

I am here to award this year’s Rachel Dolezal Cultural Appropriation Award, for fiction written about a group by an author who has had no contact with that group.

And the winner is - everything ever written on the SDMB about Trump supporters!

muted applause

Regards,
Shodan

5

Everyone should write about everything. While my instinct is to support the idea of any award I might have a chance to actually win, I’m not sure if such an award would be appropriate.

6

This is threadshitting. If you don’t have anything to add related to the thread topic, then don’t.

[/moderating]

7

My apologies then - if the topic was only cross-racial appropriation, then I misjudged.

Regards,
Shodan

8

Are there any well known books from the past that would qualify for such a prize?

9

The first and, until now, only place I’d heard about the incident was when John Scalzi addressed it in his blog, and I appreciated his take on it.

A few quotes:

[QUOTE=John Scalzi]
He tried to be clever about it, too, and the failure mode of “clever” is “asshole.”
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=John Scalzi]
the easy conflation of “diversity of characters” with “appropriation.” Very basically, the former says “I as a writer acknowledge there’s more to the world than me and people like me and I will strive to represent that as best I can,” and the latter says “The imaginary version of people I’m not like, that I have created in my head, is as valid as the lived experience of the actual people I claim to represent in my writing.”
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=John Scalzi]
while I think it’s useful for me to have diverse characters in my writing, I also think it’s even more useful for publishing to have diverse writers.
[/QUOTE]

10

This is yet another case of an incredibly white writer not understanding (or caring) about cultural appropriation, and deciding that the best way to do things is to take the piss. I’m very much with The Star on this one:

It isn’t whether one writer has the right to craft a single story; it’s that there have been decades, if not centuries, of a pattern by which a white mainstream has gotten to not only speak, but speak for others, too. The tension over cultural appropriation is thus a struggle over representation, and whether a variety of people can see nuanced, complex depictions of their views and cultures.

It is also for that reason the faux “Appropriation Prize” rightly drew so much ire. While many involved apologized both Whyte and Coyne were careful to repeat simple, obvious ideas about free expression and the necessity of contentious debate. Neither engaged the offence caused by their celebration of an idea that implicitly mocked the concerns of First Nations and minority writers — and this despite well-publicized discussions of those reactions on BuzzFeed, the Globe and Mail, and a moving interview with Jesse Wente on the CBC.

It is a fitting metaphor that shows why there is still a reluctant preference for members of a culture to tell their own stories. It is not because anyone wants to suppress speech or put up walls around culture; but because even in the face of the most heartfelt and thoughtful expressions on a topic, some will choose to ignore you anyway, and claim that they alone possess the one, true way of seeing the world.

Bolding mine.

If it’s okay for POC to make a movie about a group of murderous white racists, then it’s okay for white people to make a movie about a group of murderous black racists. Like, say, maybe it’s about a beleaguered group of white tourists trying to escape from a gang of murderous black thugs in a Dakar slum, who want to kill them because they’re white.

Those are about the same, right?

…Right?

…Yeah, not so much. It turns out that structures of power can change the context.

That’s also kinda the problem with cultural appropriation. It’s not just “I’m going to talk about your culture”. It’s “I’m going to talk about your culture, and because I’m in a position of societal power, I will be heard, and you won’t.” It’s not just “I’m going to wear this piece of your cultural attire”, it’s “I’m going to wear this piece of your cultural attire which may be important to you as a joke, with no understanding of what it means”. It’s not even just “I’m going to treat this part of your culture like a joke or a casual thing I can pick up and put down later”, it’s “I’m going to do that, and also if you did the same thing it would come off in a very different way and people would likely respond negatively.”

And as you may have noticed, you can’t reverse any of those. It’s about social power dynamics. You might as well tell a black person to respond to someone calling them “nigger” by saying “cracker” - aww, that’s cute, get back to me when your racial slur has centuries of societal weight behind it. Or as I’m badly paraphrasing from an essay I read recently and now can’t find, “I sat there, wishing I could say anything to make that person feel the way they made me feel.”

11

hmmmm… Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote about a guy named Uncle Tom.
She should have been ashamed of herself!!! A rich white person talking about poor blacks!!!

If she tried to speak on a campus today, she’d be accused of being politically incorrect, and end up being escorted off campus under police protection…

12

I seem to recall some dude named Tolkien wrote a book about elves.

Hey, I don’t see the prize description saying anything about the “people who aren’t even remotely like her or him” being real.

13

Everyone should be able to write whatever they want to write about. And everyone who writes should be prepared for any and all criticism.

Personally, when I want to read a book that resonates with me as a black person, yeah, I’m probably going to look for a black writer before a non-black one. I’m currently devouring “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It’s the story of an Nigerian emigre trying to find her footing, given her own identity struggles and the struggles of the society she’s found herself in. Could a white American write a story like this one? Sure. But I don’t think it would be quite as spot-on. I think there is a difference in the writing that’s inspired by an experience you have personally lived (struggling with your blackness and your Africanness and your foreigness and your impoverishness and your youthfulness and your loneliness all at the same time) and the writing that is generated by imagining that experience through knowledge acquired second-hand and third-hand. I’m not saying it would be impossible for the writing to come out the exact same way. But I wouldn’t expect it to.

However, if I just want to read a book that resonates with me as a person who enjoys reading, then I have no hesitation reading a book with major characters who are black, written by a white person, as long as it seems realistic enough. Sue Monk Kidd’s “Invention of Wings” was enjoyable, even though about half of the story was told from a black person’s perspective. I also enjoyed “The Secret Life of Bees”, even though the black characters weren’t the kind you’d find in a Toni Morrison or Terry McMillan novel. I think someone like Kidd would only deserve an accusation like “cultural appropriator” if she proclaimed herself (or allowed herself to be proclaimed) a purveyor of African American culture.

14

I nominate Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. He wasn’t even there, the square. He atributes dialog to actual people conversing among themselves, and he wasn’t even there. Way overrated book.

“for best book by an author who writes about people who aren’t even remotely like her or him”

15

Writing about another culture is not appropriation.

Appropriation is when you take an aspect of somebody else’s culture and use it in a manner than disrespects its original context. If Japanese teenagers, for example, decided that Catholic vestments were cool and started organizing parties where everyone dressed up like nuns and bishops that would be appropriating an aspect of Western culture that many Western people hold great reverence for and it would be disrespectful to the sincere beliefs of those people.

A different form of appropriation is taking something from another culture and not acknowledging the source.

16

Like blue jeans?

17

Same here for what applies to my own culture(s). A character from my own culture, or a setting I know well, which is well described is a plus; the same that’s a misspelled stereotype can be enough reason to close the book.

18

Safe for work but still look over your shoulder to make sure no one sees you looking at this: anime nun - Google Search

Not safe for work.

I repeat.

Not safe for work.

hentai nun - Google Search

19

I sometimes get upset about cultural appropriation by whites, and have to calm down by listening to my soundtrack of “The Wiz”. :slight_smile:

Or worse, a southern white guy writing a book from the viewpoint of a rebelling slave (William Styron’s “The Confessions of Nat Turner”, which I recall as a very powerful book, which stirred its share of hostility):

“At public forums, young activists shouted Styron down when he tried to defend himself.”

Now that has a familiar ring to it. :dubious:

I find “cultural appropriation” objectionable when it involves people of one ethnic group/race employing negative and false stereotypes of another group/race for entertainment or political purposes. But making a good faith effort to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, or doing something in a musical/artistic style most commonly associated with another group*? Fine by me.

*this is not to be construed as an open-ended endorsement of Eric Clapton.

20

I agree, but sometimes I think it can be grey, as in this case of a woman’s art show being cancelled.