RE. Your Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation In Writing?

You're right. I see now why my post about how overzealous political correctness is ultimately damaging to said causes is irrelevant in this thread about a form of overzealous political correctness and its efficacy. I apologise.

It's gibberish, yeah. I'll try to keep my posts as coherent as yours in the future.

[Druidic]

And what of the musical world? Whites should stop playing blues and ragtime, blacks should never dream of playing Classical music or singing Sinatra ballads, world music--whatever that is--should come to a grinding halt.

We went through this nonsense in the 60's. Whites shouldn't play black music, that sort of thing. Interestingly, few black musicians felt that way. The guys with integrity--Dylan, Clapton and others-- revered the source music and gave credit where due. Black musicians like B.B., Albert King and others benefited, getting better record contracts and a larger fan base, a base comprised mostly of young white blues enthusiasts. Even Sonny Boy Williamson recorded with the Animals, a white band. (Sonny was as good with wit though as he was with a blade; he remarked in the early 60's that "the English wanted to play blues so bad and they play it so bad.")

With the release of Graceland in the 80's Paul Simon got hammered by some 'purist' critics. What rot.

[qcrisp]

The answer to all this is simple and long overdue. Writers simply need to make it known, through the right kind of activism, that they are an oppressed and misunderstood group, whose very identity requires that they imagine situations involving people dissimilar to them. We just need to get our slice of the intersectional pie. We have plenty to work with on this. Look, we're twice as likely as other people to commit suicide FFS:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...uicide/263833/

We're victims, too, dammit, and I've had enough of people taking our vulnerabilities lightly. Those people who accuse us of cultural appropriation - they are punching down.

Quote Originally Posted by With Strength I Burn

I'm still looking forward to reading your short stories because I think you're an intelligent, creative person. I'm not going to look at it with the lens of either a "liberal or conservative".

I don't consider myself either. Libertarian socialist would be the most accurate appellation, although my aversion to modernity and materialism mean I have certain sympathies with cultural traditionalism – even if economically it seems wasteful and illogical.

At some point depression and the urge to die or rage to destroy become so overpowering that it's hard to care how fairly each tortured sack of meat is stacked up in comparative position to to each tortured sack of meat. I don't care any more.

[Druidic]

If you don't have a black character(s) in your fiction, you're a racist; if you do you're guilty of a cultural crime. Just what we needed a new crime! As if the old ones weren't good enough.
Who says the game is rigged?

[Gnosticangel]

I appreciate this discussion and everyone's comments.

Qcrisp's post about writers as an oppressed group made me laugh out loud!, "We're victims, too, dammit, and I've had enough of people taking our vulnerabilities lightly. Those people who accuse us of cultural appropriation - they are punching down."

Prince James, I'd love to see some of your stories without anyone having any agency. Isn't Life usually like that anyway? And if so, could we call your stories "realism?"

[Comrade Tulayev]

Quote Originally Posted by With Strength I Burn

I believe in freedom of speech. For example, I consider Frank Miller's 300 to be racist caricatural nonsense. It is very disrespectful, but I'd rather it stay without being censored one bit. People can write whatever they want. This is a very good aspect of contemporary Western culture. It doesn't matter if the artwork is an accurate representation of the culture or not. As long as the work is not directly calling for the assassination of any living person, then it ought to remain. Nothing should be off-limits so long as only that one rule is followed.

Speaking of writing whatever you want... this remarkable occurrence takes things to a whole new level... of cultural appropriation? I actually don't know what to call this. I did read this book... thought it was meh... but the back story behind the author makes things more interesting than the book itself...

I think this book was originally marketed as non-fiction biographical... but is now considered complete fiction...

Beyond this article... google "Education of Little Tree" and see what you find. I think I would have had a different impression of the book had I not known about its controversy...

Best Seller Is a Fake, Professor Asserts - NYTimes.com

[Druidic]

Books that claim to be "based on a true story" are always complete lies. Movies even more so--if that were possible. And as Borges reminds us, all autobiographies are works of fiction.

I don't worry about cultural appropriation much at all. Anything produced by any culture can conceivably be enjoyed by anobody of any other culture.

I think it's a question of homage vs stereotype. Take Quentin's incorporation of literary techniques and themes found in Japanese literature vs weaboos reducing Japan to anime, Pocky, and saying "desu", "kawaii", "baka", and "sugoi" at random.