Fiction is the creating and taking on of any number of characters, why should there be an ethnic or gender limit? Creation is what fiction is.
13
A spurious empiricism is the disease of reason.
There is no human language that can't be translated into any other. It's the business of the artist to undertake that translation with imagination and chutzpah, for the benefit of humanity as a whole.
Anyone forbidding such work on the bone-headed pretext that "cultural appropriation is always oppressive" is acquainted neither with culture nor humanity.
Let's not fail to recognize that there is a new and coercive philistinism on the political left, and this is it.
There is no human language that can't be translated into any other. It's the business of the artist to undertake that translation with imagination and chutzpah, for the benefit of humanity as a whole.
Anyone forbidding such work on the bone-headed pretext that "cultural appropriation is always oppressive" is acquainted neither with culture nor humanity.
Let's not fail to recognize that there is a new and coercive philistinism on the political left, and this is it.
19
Whew. I predict that in a hundred years or less, everybody will be the same color and the same gender.
What, then, will we fight about? Something, I'm sure.
What, then, will we fight about? Something, I'm sure.
9
Yes, artists should be free to write however they choose. But the consumer is also free to not choose works they deem inauthentic. While the left has gotten pricklier and in some cases over sensitive, the pushback attitude of "We're taking your stuff, too bad, get over it" is no more appealing.
15
Have to say I agree with Lionel Shriver's position. With Donald in our faces we have lost touch with one of the keys to being wise, i.e., empathy, and the very basic right of every democracy, i.e., freedom of expression. We would not know many painful stories to learn and/or to take action, if it weren't for empathetic artists of all types expressing them Lionel Shriver was spot on. It is silly. Should we say the white European, framework of our Constitution cannot be appropriated? It is an area where you can't draw a line and society would be worse off for not allowing free expression whether using 'cultural appropriation' or not. "Little Bee" touched me with the plight of the refugee with nothing. I became even more of a refuge supporter. I don't know whether the author captured the true experience of a black female in this position (infinitely more horrible), but he did capture the empathy he had. Stop the bullying on both sides. This is a non-issue. We have bigger things on our plates.
16
1
A publishing guide to cultural appropriation in 2016: If you're a white WASP, write about WASP-y, East Coast things (wealth, boredom). If you're black, write only about African-American things (anger, poverty). If you're Asian-American, write only about Asian-American things (material things, greed). Etc. Note: don't include characters not from your racial/religious background that can be independently vetted. Please put your characters in the appropriate settings. Don't write fantasy or science fiction unless all your characters are non-human forms. Please stay within stereotypes that are easily digestible and fit within the appropriate cultural mold garnered by television and movies so that you meet the expectations of people under the age of 25 since they are the future of economic purchasing power. Thank you for your cooperation.
19
It's funny, I wanted to portray people of color in my writing precisely because I didn't want to be exclusionary and didn't want a monochromatic cast of characters. That's not my experience in real life, and that's not the world I want to live in. But I was afraid of being accused of cultural appropriation, and now this article has confirmed that fear. In fact, I am paralyzed with fear as I write this comment, wondering if I am somehow being insensitive in some way. So now instead of having a person of color take center stage, that character has to be white because I am white, which just feeds the vicious circle of people of color being underrepresented in literature. Instead of making us more tolerant and open, it seems extreme political correctness is sending us back to our respective segregated corners of the world once again.
28
The regressive PC Police are constantly whining about under representation of minorities, women and LGBT in video games, books, movies TV etc. Now they want to police and ban "cultural appropriation" of the same "marginalized" groups they want to see included MORE often in entertainment. Seems very contradictory
19
Anyone who has read Orwell understands the entire "cultural appropriation" hysteria fomented by identity politics left is ultimately about power.
If, through my manufactured outrage, I can deny you the right to portray characters of my race then this area of fiction becomes mine to patrol.
Over time, various fiefdoms arise--only people of color may write about people of color. But among people of color, only dark-skinned artists may write, about the dark-skinned. Among women, only lesbians may write about lesbians. Only the out transgender may write about the transgender.
Around these fiefdoms protectors must be hired to review texts, control academic hiring and vet prize nominees.
The fiefdoms employ social media to shout down and shame any and all who dare step outside their "correct" limitations within their own race, gender, sexual orientation and class.
And the saddest part? Soft-hearted but also soft-headed moderates get guilted into supporting this claptrap because they've not just lost the courage of the their convictions as liberals but they've forgotten (or more likely never understood) how much more important those convictions are than the trumped-up up "feelings" are of those who seek to shame them.
Whining about marginalization shouldn't provide cover for these sorts of dangerous attacks on the critical liberal values of freedom of thought & expression. They're not just a threat to the arts, they pave the road to the next Nazi Germany or Rwanda.
If, through my manufactured outrage, I can deny you the right to portray characters of my race then this area of fiction becomes mine to patrol.
Over time, various fiefdoms arise--only people of color may write about people of color. But among people of color, only dark-skinned artists may write, about the dark-skinned. Among women, only lesbians may write about lesbians. Only the out transgender may write about the transgender.
Around these fiefdoms protectors must be hired to review texts, control academic hiring and vet prize nominees.
The fiefdoms employ social media to shout down and shame any and all who dare step outside their "correct" limitations within their own race, gender, sexual orientation and class.
And the saddest part? Soft-hearted but also soft-headed moderates get guilted into supporting this claptrap because they've not just lost the courage of the their convictions as liberals but they've forgotten (or more likely never understood) how much more important those convictions are than the trumped-up up "feelings" are of those who seek to shame them.
Whining about marginalization shouldn't provide cover for these sorts of dangerous attacks on the critical liberal values of freedom of thought & expression. They're not just a threat to the arts, they pave the road to the next Nazi Germany or Rwanda.
25
Well shoot....
Now I'm going to feel non-progressive the next time I watch "The Good, The Bad, and The Weird"... :(
Now I'm going to feel non-progressive the next time I watch "The Good, The Bad, and The Weird"... :(
2
The whole issue of cultural appropriation is basically a one-sided argument thrown - for the most part - at whites. It's absurd. Black Rastafarians do not have exclusive ownership of the dreadlock hairstyle, nor did they invent it. Dreadlocks were en vogue thousands of years ago in "white" cultures such as Greece and ancient Britain/Ireland. So perhaps Rastas are the ones who are doing the appropriation? Or one could argue that African Americans have appropriated basketball, which was invented and originally played by whites. Or Soccer? Or Crickett? Much of the early (and later) Islamic architecture was based on the Greek and Roman structures that came before. How many cultures around the world today consume and re-distribute elements of other cultures in some shape or form? The notion or idea of a pure culture is a fallacy. Shriver doesn't need anyone or any group's permission to deal with topics that interest her. The "accuracy" of her portrayals are certainly then open to questioning and criticism; it's her right to wright what she wants, and it's the right of others to tell her that she sucks - or not. But this notion of "thou shall not" is dangerous and intellectually dishonest.
36
For those, who like myself, are curious about the opposing perspective, this is the only rebuttal that I found (not from the festival). Scroll down for it. It is from someone who apparently reviewed Shriver's latest book and accused her of racism. I was overall not impressed, but some context about Bowdoin college was helpful.
http://www.vox.com/2016/9/14/12904942/lionel-shriver-identity-politics-s...
http://www.vox.com/2016/9/14/12904942/lionel-shriver-identity-politics-s...
3
Oh, and we are not being paranoid. They do want to tell us what to eat, read, buy and wear.
7
A lot of commenters have made reference to Shriver's use of the sombrero while delivering her remarks. I'd really encourage everyone to seek out the full text of the speech. The sombrero is no mere act of provocation - it's a device used to simply and elegantly frame her arguments:
"The moral of the sombrero scandals is clear: you’re not supposed to try on other people’s hats. Yet that’s what we’re paid to do, isn’t it? Step into other people’s shoes, and try on their hats."
"The moral of the sombrero scandals is clear: you’re not supposed to try on other people’s hats. Yet that’s what we’re paid to do, isn’t it? Step into other people’s shoes, and try on their hats."
27
Listen. This is dangerous. Yes, white supremacy is potent & damaging. And artists should be asked to consider that. But saying that a fiction writer of one identity group cannot create characters of another, and thus explore through representation all the complexities and ramifications of this world is profoundly troubling censorship. Since Junot Diaz was quick to jump on this. Let's use him as an example. Should he be only asked to write characters that are male, given that he so clearly has such little grasp on the complexities of being female? Should he not write characters of ethnicities he doesn't have direct experience of / access to (of which there are many which he does write about, even stereotyping through his narrator's descriptions)? Would that serve art? Us? There also seems a problematic assumption within identity politics that presumes being from a group means you can or should speak on behalf of that entire group; does anyone have omniscience on the black experience? On the Korean? on the female? No. Of course not. So as Adichie says, we should strive to have more and more stories. Not delimit the kinds of stories that can or should be told. How are we to navigate the difficult grappling with the messed up nature of our current world because of Patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativity, and neoliberal capitalism without such representations?
17
Nothing wrong with Mexican sombreros...It is a gift of Mexico to the world.
14
Maybe it's time to revisit our past - William Styron's harrowing experience after the publication of his '68 Pulitzer prize The Confessions of Nat Turner --- after publication and initial public acceptance of this powerful story, the year's tragedy seemed to spawn a new literary empowerment in which black intellectuals criticized Styron's depiction of blacks - via dialect and the slavery setting. The same black intellectuals apologized years later but the sting of their criticism never left Styron Styron - Darkness Visible his memoir on depression references the hurtful impact of this criticism. Styron had been accepted by a group (he had been raised to eye with suspicion) after coming to an important understanding of blacks and more-so an understanding of himself. Isn't this the purpose of literature - to pave a road of acceptance and understanding? This is a ball of yarn that needs to be untangles one strand at a time.
7
Ms. Shriver is on point. SIgned, a non-white feminist
14
Bam! There goes Madam Butterfly...
Bam! There goes The Color Purple movie because Spielberg directed it...
Bam! There go all representations of trans people played by CIS people even though the representations of trans people by said CIS people have helped trans awareness significantly...
It's lazy to reduce an author's creation of a character of a different ethnicity as appropriation. It's downright insulting to call it a caricature unless it absolutely is one. It's intellectually criminal to call people of various ethnicities different "races" because there are not multiple human races. Laziness from the left, right, top or bottom is still laziness.
Bam! There goes The Color Purple movie because Spielberg directed it...
Bam! There go all representations of trans people played by CIS people even though the representations of trans people by said CIS people have helped trans awareness significantly...
It's lazy to reduce an author's creation of a character of a different ethnicity as appropriation. It's downright insulting to call it a caricature unless it absolutely is one. It's intellectually criminal to call people of various ethnicities different "races" because there are not multiple human races. Laziness from the left, right, top or bottom is still laziness.
17
"Bam! There goes Madam Butterfly..."
I've never cared much for Madame Butterfly. When I first heard it, I wondered why this young Japanese woman was willing to give up her child to her white husband and his new white bride and then kill herself instead of fighting. Imagine my delight years later in seeing the same point made in M. Butterfly, whose screenplay was written by David Henry Hwang. The white diplomat's belief in Orientalist stereotypes literally brings about his doom.
Madame Butterfly has a plot that is pleasing to whites: a disposable Asian woman used for sex gives up everything and kills herself at the end. It's tragic, but how noble of her to make the ultimate sacrifice!
You're going to have to try to imagine that an Asian, or at least a person with a less imperialist mentality and belief in white superiority, would have handled that story differently. You're going to have to look at certain classics with different eyes.
I've never cared much for Madame Butterfly. When I first heard it, I wondered why this young Japanese woman was willing to give up her child to her white husband and his new white bride and then kill herself instead of fighting. Imagine my delight years later in seeing the same point made in M. Butterfly, whose screenplay was written by David Henry Hwang. The white diplomat's belief in Orientalist stereotypes literally brings about his doom.
Madame Butterfly has a plot that is pleasing to whites: a disposable Asian woman used for sex gives up everything and kills herself at the end. It's tragic, but how noble of her to make the ultimate sacrifice!
You're going to have to try to imagine that an Asian, or at least a person with a less imperialist mentality and belief in white superiority, would have handled that story differently. You're going to have to look at certain classics with different eyes.
8
It would seem to me that one of the greatest challenges for a creative artist is to enter the mind of another person who differs from the artist in race, ethnicity, philosophical and moral stance, economic circumstance, or any combination of these and ways. If Toni Morrison wishes to write about a white man, I want her to do so. If William Faulkner wanted to write about a black woman, he would do so and I am glad he did. I want to see gays writing about straight people and straight people writing about gays. The author should be judged not by material but by accomplishment. And sometimes the outsider’s perspective can shine new light on something. I think of all the travel journals of Europeans through the early Americas. I think of Paul Theroux’s “Deep South,” which gets some facts wrong but still provides a persuasive portrait of my region. I am glad that William Shakespeare gave us a Caliban and an Othello. I am glad that John Irving is interested in transgendered people. I’m glad Stephen Sondheim gave us “Pacific Overtures.” It pleases me that cooks from other cultures can bring their talents to bear on local produce. Give me more fusion, not less.
20
There's at least one elephant in the room, from my perspective. White folks authoritatively writing about the very people who have been and continue to be horribly exploited by them and their ancestors is what is painful. And wrong. First, level the playing field, eliminate the economic and racial disparities, and then, write on.
5
@R E Clark: Yes, let's put a gag on everyone, suppress all free expression, and weaponize the thought police until all economic and racial disparity is wiped from the face of the earth.
But tell me, by what authority do you presume to write about the very elephant in the room that you decry. That's what is so painful to the elephant. And wrong. Let's cleanse the earth of all disparity between elephants and non-elephants first, and then, speak on.
But tell me, by what authority do you presume to write about the very elephant in the room that you decry. That's what is so painful to the elephant. And wrong. Let's cleanse the earth of all disparity between elephants and non-elephants first, and then, speak on.
12
There will never be agreement on the moment that the playing fields become level. Victim culture is too deeply embedded in American society to go away.
10
Is Joe Christmas from Light in August cultural appropriation because William Faulkner was certainly not a biracial man. Likewise did Jeffrey Eugenides use cultural appropriate in Middlesex? If so, do we forgive it as long as the book is, like, really good, or should we be condemning these (and I'm sure countless other) novels?
Should we be consistent in our condemnations?
In general I think people (myself included) are choosy in identifying and criticizing cultural appropriation, which makes it much harder to be politically correct (which I think we should try our best to be).
Should we be consistent in our condemnations?
In general I think people (myself included) are choosy in identifying and criticizing cultural appropriation, which makes it much harder to be politically correct (which I think we should try our best to be).
4
We live side by side with people of different races.
If a writer is striving for realism does she or he avoid it because 30 to 40 percent of the population does not want to be depicted by white writers?
Would we have David Simon's 'The Wire'?
Can we depict minorities in an opera?
If not we lose Gershwin's 'Porgy and Bess'?
This is entirely ridiculous. Fragility of such proportions requires a trip to the psychiatrist not a forum.
If a writer is striving for realism does she or he avoid it because 30 to 40 percent of the population does not want to be depicted by white writers?
Would we have David Simon's 'The Wire'?
Can we depict minorities in an opera?
If not we lose Gershwin's 'Porgy and Bess'?
This is entirely ridiculous. Fragility of such proportions requires a trip to the psychiatrist not a forum.
15
I get tired head with people talking about left and right. This has everything to do with authors and their right to create. It would be impossible to write fiction if all you could write about was yourself and your day to day activities.
For those authors who only want to write about their own people, their own culture, fine. But allow the rest of the writers to research, interview, communicate and connect to people in other cultures so they can tell their story. Very few people can be good writers, allow them to speak for others.
For those authors who only want to write about their own people, their own culture, fine. But allow the rest of the writers to research, interview, communicate and connect to people in other cultures so they can tell their story. Very few people can be good writers, allow them to speak for others.
17
Without Tennessee Williams, we would have no Maggie the Cat, no Blanche DuBois, no Amanda or Laura Wingfield, no Alexandra Del Lago. Kudos to Ms. Shriver for speaking her mind in this ever compartmentalized culture of ours. The old adage of "write what you know" has been robbed of its original meaning: yes, "write what you know," but that does not mean write about yourself and your friends and pets and writing room, or there would be no literature of merit. "Write what you know" means write what you understand yourself to be in other people, what you understand yourself to be in other cultures, in other circumstances, just as Mr. Williams did, just as Ms. Shriver does.
Let us not nitpick ourselves out of the existence of art. After all, Van Gogh was not a flower nor did Tom Robbins have an oversized thumb (I haven't examined his thumbs in person, I'm guessing on this one).
Cultures must encourage artists, not peck them to death.
Let us not nitpick ourselves out of the existence of art. After all, Van Gogh was not a flower nor did Tom Robbins have an oversized thumb (I haven't examined his thumbs in person, I'm guessing on this one).
Cultures must encourage artists, not peck them to death.
17
Clearly the festival directors don't have a firm grasp of irony by censoring a speech that excoriated censorship.
23
BRAV0, MS. SHRIVER!!! If this keeps up the Toxic Left will absolutely destroy democracy. I don't need permission from left wing fascists in order to eat or make a taco (I'm not Mexican) or sing along to Ray Charles (I'm not black) or dance the samba (I'm not Brazilian) or write a novel where the protagonist is from Peru (I'm not Peruvian.) or from Mars (I'm not a Martian.) My thoughts belong to me and not to you.
Every 34 minutes somewhere in America, someone is murdered. And I'm supposed to worry about this PC garbage? FORGET IT!
Every 34 minutes somewhere in America, someone is murdered. And I'm supposed to worry about this PC garbage? FORGET IT!
15
Adam Johnson is not white. He's Native American. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/15/entertainment/la-ca-adam-johnson...
2
Wicked – –
Your comment appears to be deliberately misleading.
Why did you choose to label the writer Adam Johnson as "Native American" with no qualification? The article you reference clearly states that Johnson "is of mixed Northern European and Native American extraction."
What was your reason for omitting the Northern European part of Johnson's heritage?
Your comment appears to be deliberately misleading.
Why did you choose to label the writer Adam Johnson as "Native American" with no qualification? The article you reference clearly states that Johnson "is of mixed Northern European and Native American extraction."
What was your reason for omitting the Northern European part of Johnson's heritage?
7
If no one can write about anything or anyone other than those like themselves, all writing and art lose.
Questions about whether a person is a good X (insert characteristic here) artist or writer rather than simply a good artist or writer will be the good old days.
And descriptions will become a farce. "As an (age), (race), (nationality), (religion), (gender), X raises important questions," etc.
Questions about whether a person is a good X (insert characteristic here) artist or writer rather than simply a good artist or writer will be the good old days.
And descriptions will become a farce. "As an (age), (race), (nationality), (religion), (gender), X raises important questions," etc.
3
Thank you, Ms. Shriver, for courageously exercising your fundamental human right to free expression. Please continue to do so!
You were invited to be the keynote speaker because of who you are. If the organizations had wanted a parrot who would spout their party line they should have found one. No doubt there are may who would be eager for the chance.
You were invited to be the keynote speaker because of who you are. If the organizations had wanted a parrot who would spout their party line they should have found one. No doubt there are may who would be eager for the chance.
14
Fauxgressives look upon their creations and despair.
7
I just read the transcript of her speech. She's 100% correct and these little monsters need to pushed back on. I swear tomorrow I'm buying a sombrero.
15
I agree with her 110% (and she has quite a way with words), but calling the opponents of your perspective monsters is only perpetuating the culture of intolerance. Many of us who commented on this article are guilty of that.
5
Miriam, don't waste your breath – – you're addressing Stu from Houston. This is the most calm and empathic of his comments on this board. Some of the others make me wish I were not generally in agreement with his underlying position.
4
Fiction by definition involves cultural appropriation. Without it the author is left with strictly memoir. In order for fiction to continue as a creative art, no group of authors can have an exclusive "right" to one type of character - race, gender, sexual orientation, social status - but all authors can and should join the dialogue around whether they admire or dislike, agree or disagree with how such characters are portrayed in each other's work.
12
What a great - and humorous/thoughtful talk by Ms. Shriver. And what a silly reaction.
It is ironic that the anti-expression reaction came at a so-called "writer's conference".
By the logic of the critics, no writer is actually free to write fantasy, or reference or represent a culture other than his/her own, or use imagination unless it is proscribed to be racially, ethnically, gender, and political correct.
That would eliminate a lot of books, movies.
The critics are the same Orwellian-like anti-intellectuals that hounded Salma Rushdie for writing a fantasy account of Mohammed. At least the Aussies haven't threatened to kill Ms. Shriver yet or put a secular "fatwa" on her head.
It is ironic that the anti-expression reaction came at a so-called "writer's conference".
By the logic of the critics, no writer is actually free to write fantasy, or reference or represent a culture other than his/her own, or use imagination unless it is proscribed to be racially, ethnically, gender, and political correct.
That would eliminate a lot of books, movies.
The critics are the same Orwellian-like anti-intellectuals that hounded Salma Rushdie for writing a fantasy account of Mohammed. At least the Aussies haven't threatened to kill Ms. Shriver yet or put a secular "fatwa" on her head.
17
The most significant and essential creation of every human culture is its language.
Is there anything more absurdly self-righteous than the appropriation and exploitation of Indo-European languages, especially English, by descendants of other language families, who then abuse our language to try to guilt-trip us for appropriating far less significant aspects of their cultures?
If these priggish exponents of exclusive cultural property rights want to carp at the apprehensions of elements of their cultures in English, doesn’t elementary moral coherence require at least that they do so in their own languages? And then see how much less clearly their ideas can be expressed and how much more limited an audience they attract?
Is there anything more absurdly self-righteous than the appropriation and exploitation of Indo-European languages, especially English, by descendants of other language families, who then abuse our language to try to guilt-trip us for appropriating far less significant aspects of their cultures?
If these priggish exponents of exclusive cultural property rights want to carp at the apprehensions of elements of their cultures in English, doesn’t elementary moral coherence require at least that they do so in their own languages? And then see how much less clearly their ideas can be expressed and how much more limited an audience they attract?
19
Oh, so American slaves chose not to speak in their native African tongues in favor of English? How dare they appropriate & exploit such a glorious means of communication by whining about mistreatment by those they learned it from!
Thanks, I'm glad you set me on the path of moral coherence :-)
Thanks, I'm glad you set me on the path of moral coherence :-)
3
The logical conclusion to be drawn from the "politically correct" argument can only be that artists must strictly limit themselves to the autobiographical. Unless and until little green men and dragons show up to complain, that leaves science fiction and fantasy as the only avenues for traditional artistic expression.
23
Lionel Shriver's speech can be found at this link from The Telegraph UK, who had the courage to print her speech in its entirety: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/13/lionel-shriver-on-dangerous-f...
What she has to say is excellent and worth reading. I think I will now head straight to Amazon and buy some of her books. To be honest, I had never heard of Lionel Shriver before reading this NYT article. If her critics wanted to silence her, maybe they shouldn't have made such a to-do over the speech.
What she has to say is excellent and worth reading. I think I will now head straight to Amazon and buy some of her books. To be honest, I had never heard of Lionel Shriver before reading this NYT article. If her critics wanted to silence her, maybe they shouldn't have made such a to-do over the speech.
26
Thank you so much for posting the link.
3
As a native of New Orleans, I can understand it when one feels that a work of fiction misrepresents the reality of what you know and live. Otoh, I don't think that entitles you to censure and prevent artists from creating new work. Re:NOLA, almost every tv show that I have seen where the story is based there deviates so far from reality and into tourist stereotypes (most recently, NCIS New Orleans), that they are too ludicrous/painful to watch. My only explanation for the popularity of these shows is that the rest of the country believes the stereotype and finds the reality boring.
The only tv depiction of NOLA that has ever rung true, imho, was a short/lived show titled "Frank's Place" (1987-1988) starring Tim Reid. It was a mostly black cast where Frank (Tim Reid) inherited a restaurant that was pretty obviously (to me) modeled on Dooky Chase. That show was authentic from A to Z, which is probably why it got cancelled after one season. Do I hate it when fictional representations are inaccurate and inauthentic? Yes. Should they be stopped? No.
The only tv depiction of NOLA that has ever rung true, imho, was a short/lived show titled "Frank's Place" (1987-1988) starring Tim Reid. It was a mostly black cast where Frank (Tim Reid) inherited a restaurant that was pretty obviously (to me) modeled on Dooky Chase. That show was authentic from A to Z, which is probably why it got cancelled after one season. Do I hate it when fictional representations are inaccurate and inauthentic? Yes. Should they be stopped? No.
16
Frank's Place was an incredible show. It was one of the few shows I've ever seen that showed Black people being Black people. I agree that people are more comfortable with the stereotype.
2
I sympathize.
But if you think NOLA is misrepresented, try being from New York City. :)
But if you think NOLA is misrepresented, try being from New York City. :)
5
I was with her until I learned she made her remarks wearing a sombrero.
7
Would you believe in the right of free political expression only until seeing a flag-burning?
Both that and the sombrero-wearing are symbolic acts meant to underscore a point.
(And, by the way, only recently did anti-cultural-appropriationists decide, on behalf of Mexicans, that sombreros could be worn only by Mexicans and not by others.)
Both that and the sombrero-wearing are symbolic acts meant to underscore a point.
(And, by the way, only recently did anti-cultural-appropriationists decide, on behalf of Mexicans, that sombreros could be worn only by Mexicans and not by others.)
9
Mike: Sombreros came from Spain and were appropriated by the indigenous people of Mexico...
9
Just as Americans of all stripes are starting to smell the rat that lies mired in such cozy and protective ideas such as 'safe zones', 'trigger words', cultural compartmentalization and the stifling of controversial speakers by some on the hyper-left, I have faith that the stench will eventually start to set on Australia. Hopefully then they'll wake up and smell the odious stench of censorious intentions driven by a bankrupt dogma that seeks to bridle original and often controversial ideas.
15
I don't want to pick on this one comment, but it displays in 2 sentences how many commentators are reacting:
"I thought I was a liberal, but this new "liberalism" seems foreign to me.
Political correctness and all this being sensitive and thin skinned is getting a bit bananas."
Personally, I'm getting sick of people crying political correctness. It's a way of shutting down dialogue, without having any meaningful discourse. It's not PC, it's wanting people to be respectful and more mindful of how one writes about and talks about other cultures. Years ago it was supposedly entertaining to have Jolson wearing blackface, or years ago it was okay in some parts of Europe to mistreat Jews, and just 20ish yrs ago to acceptable in some parts to perpetuate hate crimes against the LGBT community. Would we cry PC gone wild looking back at these instances if anyone deplored black face, protected Jews, or defended a gay person?
My point is that as a global community we're always evolving, yet kicking and screaming some will go into the 21st century as things change. Now there are more people of color in positions of leadership, academia and power who will not stand quietly aside with a strained smile when someone makes a bad joke or tries to speak on another culture's behalf.
"I thought I was a liberal, but this new "liberalism" seems foreign to me.
Political correctness and all this being sensitive and thin skinned is getting a bit bananas."
Personally, I'm getting sick of people crying political correctness. It's a way of shutting down dialogue, without having any meaningful discourse. It's not PC, it's wanting people to be respectful and more mindful of how one writes about and talks about other cultures. Years ago it was supposedly entertaining to have Jolson wearing blackface, or years ago it was okay in some parts of Europe to mistreat Jews, and just 20ish yrs ago to acceptable in some parts to perpetuate hate crimes against the LGBT community. Would we cry PC gone wild looking back at these instances if anyone deplored black face, protected Jews, or defended a gay person?
My point is that as a global community we're always evolving, yet kicking and screaming some will go into the 21st century as things change. Now there are more people of color in positions of leadership, academia and power who will not stand quietly aside with a strained smile when someone makes a bad joke or tries to speak on another culture's behalf.
14
On the contrary, what "shuts down dialogue" are implicit rules about who can or cannot speak or write or create. That is the source of dialogue inhibition. See, e.g., the writing festival's decision to shut down links to Shiver's talk based on objections to the views she expressed.
So let's all feel free to speak and write and create as we wish. Then let's talk about it.
If expression offends you, engage the speaker. If that doesn't help, tune it out and focus on other expressions.
What offends you may not offend another. Let the marketplace of ideas sort it out over time. I am optimistic that things will continue, in fits and starts, to move in a generally positive direction.
You mention blackface. When was the last time you saw a movie featuring blackface? Progress may seem slow at times, but it continues.
The best remedy for bad ideas is more ideas.
So let's all feel free to speak and write and create as we wish. Then let's talk about it.
If expression offends you, engage the speaker. If that doesn't help, tune it out and focus on other expressions.
What offends you may not offend another. Let the marketplace of ideas sort it out over time. I am optimistic that things will continue, in fits and starts, to move in a generally positive direction.
You mention blackface. When was the last time you saw a movie featuring blackface? Progress may seem slow at times, but it continues.
The best remedy for bad ideas is more ideas.
28
No, just 20ish years ago it was not acceptable to perpetuate hate crimes against the LGBT community or mistreat Jews. And to compare anti-semitism to Al Jolson is beyond absurd. Deplore it all you want, but blackface performance is a deep, dark tangled part of American history, as revealed in Nick Tosches' classic "Where Dead Voices Gather." No, its not PC but it is real.
As for "shutting down dialogue" that appears to be the purpose of many SJW's - certainly the managers of the "Brisbane Writers Festival."
As for "shutting down dialogue" that appears to be the purpose of many SJW's - certainly the managers of the "Brisbane Writers Festival."
14
Sorry but PC is all about shutting down dialog; that's it's intended purpose.
Let's start with this: "I'm wearing a sombrero, who are you to tell me otherwise?"
This obsession with "culture" is evidence of supreme self centeredness and a total lack of empath for others. It's a view that the universe completely revolves around you. Guess what, it doesn't.
Let's start with this: "I'm wearing a sombrero, who are you to tell me otherwise?"
This obsession with "culture" is evidence of supreme self centeredness and a total lack of empath for others. It's a view that the universe completely revolves around you. Guess what, it doesn't.
10
She's "write," of course.
It's nobody's business what an artist chooses to do - only how well she does it.
Shriver's career is full of writings about things she seems to have no reason to know anything about: being male, being a pro tennis player, a musician, a pro snooker player, a mother. Whether she pulls it off is for the reader to decide.
This is common sense; sensible readers would know this. That the organizers of a "writer's festival" don't get it doesn't say much about writer's festivals.
It's nobody's business what an artist chooses to do - only how well she does it.
Shriver's career is full of writings about things she seems to have no reason to know anything about: being male, being a pro tennis player, a musician, a pro snooker player, a mother. Whether she pulls it off is for the reader to decide.
This is common sense; sensible readers would know this. That the organizers of a "writer's festival" don't get it doesn't say much about writer's festivals.
28
I support Shriver's views. Ms. Abdel-Magied may wish to be restricted to writing about Egyptian, Sudanese and Australian people but fiction allows writers to fly out of their own experiential zone.
22
I can't help but think of all those great 19th century white male novelists who wrote about women with such empathy and perception. Thomas Hardy in Tess of the D'Ubervilles. Tolstoy in Anna Karenina. Flaubert in Madame Bovary. Henry James in Portrait of a Lady. Not perfect depictions, maybe, and they weren't writers without their flaws, but the way they wrote female characters was evidence of insight and sympathy for the "other" that I find pretty remarkable. I'm not exactly sure what that has to teach us about the present moment (a lot, maybe), only that I'm glad they wrote their books and I feel a greater sense of connection with some of their female characters than I do with the depiction of the female life and mind as depicted by Elizabeth Gilbert and Jennifer Weiner.
24
Books concerning the historical past should be banned - it is another form of cultural appropriation that is inappropriate and needs to stop. Only the folks in the historical past should be allowed to write about themselves. Another form of cultural appropriation is writing about animals - even more harmful as they are not in a position to defend themselves from this pernicious practice.
26
Somebody better start removing all those bowler hats from those nervy appropriating Bolivians.
Oh--South Asians better stop eating aloo ghosht and making tomato-chili chutney. Those vegetables are, you know, South American...
How far do you want to go with this nonsense? I can play this all night...
Oh--South Asians better stop eating aloo ghosht and making tomato-chili chutney. Those vegetables are, you know, South American...
How far do you want to go with this nonsense? I can play this all night...
25
I wish you would!
1
Kids in New Delhi and Mumbai better stop wearing jeans...
6
I actually resent cultural appropriation unless its done by someone who can do the authentic people of a place or time better than they can do themselves, which is very rare.
5
there isn't any logic to the argument that shaming white authors away from writing minority fiction helps minority writers to do the job instead.
we have the test example in hollywood financed film, in which some of the most widely distributed stories about the black or american indian experience are written, filmed or directed by white talent, while the films most enjoyed by black audiences are films that do get wide circulation but that white audiences rarely choose to see.
indeed, independent artists of all stripes have the same complaints about access and visibility that minority artists make on cultural or racist grounds. in both cases it's the audiences and box office that decide: the larger the audience, the more creative clout you can wield.
an objective look at the evidence might come to an opposing and more troubling conclusion: minority creative artists cannot get outside their own culture and imagine the human experience of a majority or foreign culture because the minority culture is limiting and oppressive.
artists are artists, not cultural implements.
we have the test example in hollywood financed film, in which some of the most widely distributed stories about the black or american indian experience are written, filmed or directed by white talent, while the films most enjoyed by black audiences are films that do get wide circulation but that white audiences rarely choose to see.
indeed, independent artists of all stripes have the same complaints about access and visibility that minority artists make on cultural or racist grounds. in both cases it's the audiences and box office that decide: the larger the audience, the more creative clout you can wield.
an objective look at the evidence might come to an opposing and more troubling conclusion: minority creative artists cannot get outside their own culture and imagine the human experience of a majority or foreign culture because the minority culture is limiting and oppressive.
artists are artists, not cultural implements.
19
I just read both Ms. Shriver’s speech and Ms. Abdel-Magied’s criticisms in The Guardian and I still felt Ms. Shriver is completely right.
I think cultural appropiation is one of the most silly concepts out there. I understand Ms. Abdel-Magied worries about minorieties fighting for being heard but the idea that it’s white artists the ones to blame for they being silenced is actually counterproductive and self-damaging . Someone here mentioned Elvis and yes, he took African-American music and made millions of it but thanks that him made it popular is that people around the world knew about a lot of black artists who were ignored by the mainstream until then.
She accused Ms. Shriver of ignoring history which I think it’s ironic because the concept of cultural appropiation is an ahistorical concept. It ignores that all human history is a history of cultures appopiating each other. If cultures were completely pure we weren’t speaking most of our languages or eating what we are eating or yes, reading the books we are reading. It’s also a dangerous concept. Like Keanan Malick once explained it’s not a new idea, in the 18th-century, the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder created the idea of “volksgeist”, the spirit of the people or the nation. The concept celebrated the essense and the authenticity in cultures. It soon become a tool for racists.
I think cultural appropiation is one of the most silly concepts out there. I understand Ms. Abdel-Magied worries about minorieties fighting for being heard but the idea that it’s white artists the ones to blame for they being silenced is actually counterproductive and self-damaging . Someone here mentioned Elvis and yes, he took African-American music and made millions of it but thanks that him made it popular is that people around the world knew about a lot of black artists who were ignored by the mainstream until then.
She accused Ms. Shriver of ignoring history which I think it’s ironic because the concept of cultural appropiation is an ahistorical concept. It ignores that all human history is a history of cultures appopiating each other. If cultures were completely pure we weren’t speaking most of our languages or eating what we are eating or yes, reading the books we are reading. It’s also a dangerous concept. Like Keanan Malick once explained it’s not a new idea, in the 18th-century, the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder created the idea of “volksgeist”, the spirit of the people or the nation. The concept celebrated the essense and the authenticity in cultures. It soon become a tool for racists.
19
For over 20 years, I've been wanting to write a science fiction book in a world dominated by females. For over 20 years.... My personal largest stumbling block is the realization that, as a heterosexual male, how can I really write female dialog and think like a female outside of pure logic or science. I would want my female readership to be able to identify with my female characters and not be dismissive with them thinking "That's not something a woman would do/say." Yet, what am I to do? Write a book with only characters who are male? Maybe if I was writing a novel about a submarine, but ... So, I have to appropriate "female culture", so to speak. Really, every good writer has to do is make each of their characters as a realistically-seeming members of whatever groups they belong....
6
Unbelievable cowardice and stupidity on the part of the Brisbane Writers Festival. I am on the left but am utterly nauseated by the reactionary stance of these leftist intellectual apparatchiks who's belief system seems to be: "We believe in the right of free expression - until it conflicts with our own ideas."
From the article: "Ms. Beveridge wrote on the festival’s website, after links to Ms. Shriver’s speech were taken down, “As a festival of writers and thinkers, we take seriously the role we play in providing a platform for meaningful exchange and debate.”"
George Orwell couldn't have written a better sentence.
From the article: "Ms. Beveridge wrote on the festival’s website, after links to Ms. Shriver’s speech were taken down, “As a festival of writers and thinkers, we take seriously the role we play in providing a platform for meaningful exchange and debate.”"
George Orwell couldn't have written a better sentence.
36
Using this logic, William Shakespeare should not have written Julius Caesar or The Merchant of Venice and Mark Twain should not have written Huckleberry Finn. These attendees are ridiculous.
23
I've skimmed through many of the comments, and one thing is clear: Lionel Shriver sold a lot of books today to New York Times readers sympathetic to her pro-free-expression stance and angry at efforts to stifle her and writers in general.
15
Officials in charge of a writer's festival should be the first ones to champion freedom of expression and open debate, not act the role of censors.
I guess we should just be glad they didn't make a bonfire of Ms. Shrivers novels.
What petty, ignorant people these officials must be...
I guess we should just be glad they didn't make a bonfire of Ms. Shrivers novels.
What petty, ignorant people these officials must be...
15
Sincere question:
Could a reader or readers of Mexican background discuss whether the sombrero is an offensive symbol? I've never been to Mexico, there is no one of Mexican background in my current circle of acquaintance, and I honestly don't know.
Could a reader or readers of Mexican background discuss whether the sombrero is an offensive symbol? I've never been to Mexico, there is no one of Mexican background in my current circle of acquaintance, and I honestly don't know.
6
It's mind boggling to even begin imagining where the human race would be without "cultural appropriation". Cultural attributes belong to whoever takes a fancy to them and almost without exception, through history both groups benefit. The Chinese invented the water wheel; some Babylonian invented zero; an Englishman made use of the question mark fashionable...some neolithic tribesman probably invented trousers...the Greeks deified tragedy...so what? It's there for all to enjoy and benefit from. Why not be flattered by it? People need to stop entrenching behind imagined propriety and learn to revel in the wider joys of shared humanity.
12
we're all part of the human culture. . .this is complete nonsense.
16
Who comes up with this nonsense, cultural appropriations? Writing or any form of storytelling, placing restrictions on the creative license of the writer is poppycock, utter nonsense and should be ignored, as a society we'll be at a great loss.
9
The tyranny of political correctness is paradoxically invisible to those who try and use it to correct any previous injustice that they perceive. Thus, what should foster an honest means of reconciling perceptions or inaccuracies, becomes instead just another point of contention, accomplishing nothing.
In the context of this Festival, which apparently ended up being anything but festive, put the situation in reverse: are minority writers not supposed to write anything about white people and the majority culture, lest they be accused of betraying their own culture and group? If we're all going to become so insular, we might as well all go home now and forget about any myth of common humanity.
In the context of this Festival, which apparently ended up being anything but festive, put the situation in reverse: are minority writers not supposed to write anything about white people and the majority culture, lest they be accused of betraying their own culture and group? If we're all going to become so insular, we might as well all go home now and forget about any myth of common humanity.
9
Shakespeare should not have written about the Italians or the Danes and Milton had no business writing about Paradise which he had never visited. Dickens should have ignored the orphans because he misrepresented them. Etc. Ms. Kim complains about another author who has written a better book without spending time in North Korea. It's called imagination, Ms. Kim. You should try it.
15
Well, I guess we wouldn't have any Spaghetti Westerns if the cultural appropriation fanatics had their way. Sometimes, the only way one can truly see a culture is as a outsider.
10
To those of you insisting that this a "serious" issue, it is not. Not in any sense. If you think it is, you are fooling yourself. This is a luxury issue that only an affluent nation with too much wealth and security deals with.
Go ahead and talk to a third world farmer or Syrian refugee about the injustice of cultural appropriation, and note exactly how big of a problem they would perceive it to be.
Also, I am uncertain how any person can immigrate into another nation, appropriate their economy, market, land, and culture, and then turn around and insist that the natives should not appropriate his or her culture. African Americans would be the exception here, as their immigration was not voluntary.
Go ahead and talk to a third world farmer or Syrian refugee about the injustice of cultural appropriation, and note exactly how big of a problem they would perceive it to be.
Also, I am uncertain how any person can immigrate into another nation, appropriate their economy, market, land, and culture, and then turn around and insist that the natives should not appropriate his or her culture. African Americans would be the exception here, as their immigration was not voluntary.
9
For me, this is a non-issue. After the dust settles, books are read, not authors. Cultural appropriation does not bother me because I seldom have the facts to determine if it occurs. Caricatures, bungled characterization, stereotype promulgation, cloddish premises and a host of other offenses put authors on my black list, but I seldom know whether they are the result of cultural misappropriation, simple malice, or general stupidity. Offenses are still offenses. If the book is not offensive and I don't know the author, how can the faults of the author matter to me?
1
"La fanciulla del West"
An opera by Giacomo Puccini
"La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the West) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Guelfo Civinini (it) and Carlo Zangarini, based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco...
La fanciulla del West was commissioned by, and first performed at, the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 10 December 1910 with Met stars Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn for whom Puccini created the leading roles of "Dick Johnson" and "Minnie"...
Act 1
Inside the Polka Saloon
A group of Gold Rush miners enter the "Polka" saloon after a day working at the mine ("Hello! Hello! Alla 'Polka'"). After a song by traveling minstrel Jake Wallace one of the miners, Jim Larkens, is homesick and the miners collect enough money for his fare home ("Jim, perchè piangi?").
A Wells Fargo agent, Ashby, enters and announces that he is chasing the bandit Ramerrez and his gang of Mexicans. Rance toasts Minnie, the girl who owns the saloon, as his future wife, which makes Sonora jealous. The two men begin to fight. Rance draws his revolver but at that moment, a shot rings out and Minnie stands next to the bar with a rifle in her hands ("Hello, Minnie!"). She gives the miners a reading lesson from the Bible ("Dove eravamo?")."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_fanciulla_del_West
A shameless example of "Cultural Appropriation" if there ever was one --
An opera by Giacomo Puccini
"La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the West) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Guelfo Civinini (it) and Carlo Zangarini, based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco...
La fanciulla del West was commissioned by, and first performed at, the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 10 December 1910 with Met stars Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn for whom Puccini created the leading roles of "Dick Johnson" and "Minnie"...
Act 1
Inside the Polka Saloon
A group of Gold Rush miners enter the "Polka" saloon after a day working at the mine ("Hello! Hello! Alla 'Polka'"). After a song by traveling minstrel Jake Wallace one of the miners, Jim Larkens, is homesick and the miners collect enough money for his fare home ("Jim, perchè piangi?").
A Wells Fargo agent, Ashby, enters and announces that he is chasing the bandit Ramerrez and his gang of Mexicans. Rance toasts Minnie, the girl who owns the saloon, as his future wife, which makes Sonora jealous. The two men begin to fight. Rance draws his revolver but at that moment, a shot rings out and Minnie stands next to the bar with a rifle in her hands ("Hello, Minnie!"). She gives the miners a reading lesson from the Bible ("Dove eravamo?")."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_fanciulla_del_West
A shameless example of "Cultural Appropriation" if there ever was one --
7
Anyone see the move "As Good as it Gets" with Jack Nicholson? The horror!!
6
Perhaps we should have cultural appropriation commissars at every restaurant. They could insure that no Caucasian restaurant serves Mexican dishes, as that would be worse than wearing a sombrero. Perhaps there should also be an ethnic check before people of a different ethnicity eat at an ethnic restaurant- or at least an extra charge.
21
I sure would miss Anna Kerenina and Grapes of Wrath if Tolstoy and Steinbeck had realized how improper it was, Tolstoy not being a woman and Steinbeck not being an impoverished Oklahoman, that they should dare appropriate a voice not their own.
And what would we all have lost had Harriet Beecher Stowe not opened eyes to the plight of slaves not of her race?
And what would we all have lost had Harriet Beecher Stowe not opened eyes to the plight of slaves not of her race?
16
"And what would we all have lost had Harriet Beecher Stowe not opened eyes to the plight of slaves not of her race?"
You do know the origin of the term "Uncle Tom," which is one of the most reviled epithets you can direct at a black person?
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was written in 1852. In some states, black slaves were not permitted to learn to read or write by law, punishable by death. Stowe wrote for the literally powerless and voiceless. She genuinely cared and did her part. But it's 2016 now. A white writer with her overblown style and condescending attitude writing today would be laughed out of the room.
You do know the origin of the term "Uncle Tom," which is one of the most reviled epithets you can direct at a black person?
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was written in 1852. In some states, black slaves were not permitted to learn to read or write by law, punishable by death. Stowe wrote for the literally powerless and voiceless. She genuinely cared and did her part. But it's 2016 now. A white writer with her overblown style and condescending attitude writing today would be laughed out of the room.
2
Uncle Tom's Cabin helped ignite the Civil War. Changed history, yes she did. Even Abe Lincoln acknowledged her and gave her credit.
1862 really wasn't that long ago.
1862 really wasn't that long ago.
3
Lifelong --
I don't think that anyone is arguing that UTC is a good novel by today's standards or an insightful look into the heart, soul and life of an enslaved African-American. I think the point is that the novel catalyzed a movement to end an engrained system of evil, changing the lives of countless dispossessed, victimized people for the better (albeit gradually). And this seismically important novel of slave life was written by a Northern white woman of privilege who had never set foot in the South!
Uncle Tom's Cabin: Exhibit A in the defense of a writer's right to imagine him or herself into the situation of The Other.
I don't think that anyone is arguing that UTC is a good novel by today's standards or an insightful look into the heart, soul and life of an enslaved African-American. I think the point is that the novel catalyzed a movement to end an engrained system of evil, changing the lives of countless dispossessed, victimized people for the better (albeit gradually). And this seismically important novel of slave life was written by a Northern white woman of privilege who had never set foot in the South!
Uncle Tom's Cabin: Exhibit A in the defense of a writer's right to imagine him or herself into the situation of The Other.
5
Read/Write recidivism. Questions, questions, questions: Only Blacks should write about Blacks? Only Women should write about Women? Only LBGTQs can write about LBGTQ? What's next? Only Whites should read about Whites? Only Jews should read about Jews? Burn the books of those who dare to do otherwise?!? Have we really receded that far into the dark past?
20
If you and other readers actually think that's what critics of cultural appropriation are proposing you're not reading very carefully. Or you're creating straw men and raising red herrings because you can't meet the actual argument presented.
5
What about those of us who are descendants of people from several different cultures? Can we appropriate only a half of this or an eighth of that? Clearly there need to be some rules and regulations around cultural appropriation. Hopefully the anti-cultural appropriators (they need a better name by the way) can get this organized pretty quickly so we dont offend even by accident.
5
Did you read the article? I'd expect a "Lifelong Reader" to have better reading comprehension.
4
The whole issue is so absurd, so laughable that I've already expended more words than it merits. Please, dear God, please do not allow these assaults on the freedom of artists (I am one), creativity and open-mindedness prevail. The right to offend should be at least as precious as the right to own a gun.
19
What a bubble these folks live in. Who cares who writes what? If a book is accurate and well written who cares what color the author is? Does this nutty obsession with "cultural appropriation" mean that a writer can't write about the life of one who is of another sex, sexual orientation, or how about a 30 year old writing about an elderly person's experience?
What a stupid set of artificial obstacles to creativity. Get over it, folks. Just because you come from a specific background does not mean you own that culture exclusively. This is a ridiculous premise. Shriver is absolutely right.
Oh, I am speaking as a socialist who is left of Gandhi. This isn't a left or right issue. It's just common sense. You can just guess at my color, cultural orientation and blah, blah, blah. It is irrelevant.
What a stupid set of artificial obstacles to creativity. Get over it, folks. Just because you come from a specific background does not mean you own that culture exclusively. This is a ridiculous premise. Shriver is absolutely right.
Oh, I am speaking as a socialist who is left of Gandhi. This isn't a left or right issue. It's just common sense. You can just guess at my color, cultural orientation and blah, blah, blah. It is irrelevant.
20
Why stop at writing? Let's extend this line of thinking to other fields: only Chinese cooks can cook Chinese food, and only ethnic Austrians can play Mozart, and only Texans can wear Stetson hats. Only Christians can design cathedrals, only Moslems mosques, only Jews synagogues. No one can write about babies, because they can't write, and it's wrong to appropriate their voices. Only the poor can write about poverty, and only the rich about wealth. How can anyone take this seriously?
20
Cultural misappropriation claims about "ethnic" foods served in college dining halls have been rocking campuses for two or three years now. See, for example, the controversy that roiled Oberlin last year when alumna Lena Dunham joined students in attacking the authenticity of a sushi dish on the menu.
5
Mark Twain, the shameless exploiter of African Americans (Huck Finn's friend Jim), should be ashamed. How did Jack London justify pretending to be a dog (Call of the Wild)? Charlotte's Web? Don't get me started.
18
These leftists, and the spineless apologists that continually accommodate them like Ms. Beveridge, live in a world completely of their own making. They appear so foolish that they cannot possibly spend much time outside their own insulated cliques.
Should we burn the works of Robert Lewis Stephenson because he wasn't actually a pirate? Rudyard Kipling because he wasn't raised in the jungle? Arthur Conan Doyle because he wasn't actually a detective?
And I'm sorry but, to Suki Kim, the reason you lost out to others is because they're better writers. The truth hurts, but you're not good enough and just because you're more familiar culturally doesn't mean you're better at your craft. You're probably actually worse because you're too close to the subject.
I had a girlfriend in college that was continually upset because her roommate (both Journalism majors) kept winning awards while she didn't, and she knew she should have. I read articles by both and the roommate was far superior. Sorry babe.
Liberalism is going to destroy free society if not checked, and soon. These little despots need to grow up.
Should we burn the works of Robert Lewis Stephenson because he wasn't actually a pirate? Rudyard Kipling because he wasn't raised in the jungle? Arthur Conan Doyle because he wasn't actually a detective?
And I'm sorry but, to Suki Kim, the reason you lost out to others is because they're better writers. The truth hurts, but you're not good enough and just because you're more familiar culturally doesn't mean you're better at your craft. You're probably actually worse because you're too close to the subject.
I had a girlfriend in college that was continually upset because her roommate (both Journalism majors) kept winning awards while she didn't, and she knew she should have. I read articles by both and the roommate was far superior. Sorry babe.
Liberalism is going to destroy free society if not checked, and soon. These little despots need to grow up.
13
Can we assume that you have read the books by Ms. Kim and both of the competitors mentioned? I certainly hope so, given your confident pronouncements. If not, then you have no business making quality comparison.
"Sorry babe [sic.]"
"Sorry babe [sic.]"
1
Leftists? Liberalism? I think you have it backwards. A true "liberal" would agree with Shriver.
11
I suppose any extremist view, no matter how absurd, can find adherents even in the most intelligent & culturally advanced populations. One wonders, however if the support for such arrant nonsense as "cultural appropriation" by a group of writers is anything more than a ploy to garner attention for otherwise undistinguished work by lesser talents. Then again, at least they have a recognizable agenda
More puzzling and shameful is the gutless response of the festival "officials" who not only condoned this exercise in victimology but literally censored Ms. Shriver's speech by pulling it from their website thus denying the rest of us the opportunity to form our own opinion on it.
More puzzling and shameful is the gutless response of the festival "officials" who not only condoned this exercise in victimology but literally censored Ms. Shriver's speech by pulling it from their website thus denying the rest of us the opportunity to form our own opinion on it.
13
"Links to Ms. Shriver’s speech were removed from the festival website. Links to the rebuttal remained active."
Groupthink at its most pernicious, and at a literary festival no less. Deplorable.
Groupthink at its most pernicious, and at a literary festival no less. Deplorable.
26
Interesting - I guess then that the following book will now be off the reading list at high schools
- 1. To Kill a Mockingbird - by Harper Lee
- 1. To Kill a Mockingbird - by Harper Lee
13
I am from a minority, and I get offended when my culture is depicted in an insulting or inaccurate way, and more so when it is done so by people outside of my culture. I think these depictions should be criticized strongly. However, I also think that this criticism should be under the rubric of art criticism, and not a general condemnation stemming from some concept of political correctness that says nobody outside of a culture is entitled to represent it. There are also works by outsiders who represent my culture beautifully and with sensitivity. I am happy those works exist. I love when outsiders appreciate the richness of my cultural heritage to the point where they want to share it with others.
17
This keynote reads as if Shriver feels that it is okay for her to wear a sombrero for the purpose of making a point. Why not black face and a scarf, or makeup to make her look Chinese and bound her feet for true affect? Why not? Is this allowed because she is a writer? In this keynote she appears to believe she deserves to have the world open to her to do whatever she wants when writing. If she is that good, she shouldn’t need to wear the sombrero to make her point. And it sounds as if she doesn’t care that it can hurt someone when you appropriate. Misconceptions, stereotypes and caricatures by whites of other cultures are not new. It has been done for centuries and on more than one continent. Her choice to wear a sombrero shows how little she cares how those students felt. And she still wants it to be okay to write about their culture. But now, people of color and writers of color are saying: No you won’t. You will not get away with that. We won’t be silent. You will not appropriate in fiction while in fact you ignore the real pain people in these cultures feel. Writers should be careful when taking on a cultural voice that is not their own. And they should believe that others don’t see the world like them. Sombreros are meant to protect from the harsh rays of the sun, not a prop at a college party that they could never get into. Take off the sombrero, learn how to write in an authentic voice of another culture with honesty and respect. Even fiction exists within a context.
6
Poppy cock. Your comment reflects a superficial reading of the article. What matters is an author's accuracy and talent. We don't own cultures.
3
The point of the the demonstration was to highlight her freedom to express herself however she wishes, even if her chosen form of expression might offend some. It's exactly the same kind of exercise we see when the American flag is burned (a constitutionally protected form of expression).
On another point, until the Halloween dustup at Yale last year, I had not even realized that sombreros were an offensive symbol -- I just assumed they were an ordinary type of Mexican sunhat. Now that I understand that they offend people of Mexican origin, I certainly wouldn't wear one in Mexico or anywhere. I'm not actively seeking opportunities to annoy others. But I do firmly believe that free expression is a critical value, and I accept that sometimes its exercise will in fact annoy others.
On another point, until the Halloween dustup at Yale last year, I had not even realized that sombreros were an offensive symbol -- I just assumed they were an ordinary type of Mexican sunhat. Now that I understand that they offend people of Mexican origin, I certainly wouldn't wear one in Mexico or anywhere. I'm not actively seeking opportunities to annoy others. But I do firmly believe that free expression is a critical value, and I accept that sometimes its exercise will in fact annoy others.
2
Blackface is a poignant part of American history. It's not comparable to white people wearing sombreros AT ALL. Those Latin American students who were attacked by racists deserved justice but white people wearing sombreros is not a racist attack. Banning them of wearing them is not justice for victims is just ignoring the real problem with frivolous things. Also the writer is British so maybe she wasn't thinking in the American incident in the link but when a Mexican restaurant was banned from handing out sombreros during a student fair in the UK last year.
1
If "an Australian writer of Sudanese and Egyptian origin" writes a novel in English, is that cultural appropriation?
Is Charley Pride appropriating culture when he sings?
Etc.
Is Charley Pride appropriating culture when he sings?
Etc.
10
Without having heard the speech to gauge how condescending Ms. Shriver may or may not have been, I nevertheless have to ask: is she not right? As a white male, I would certainly never say to a black author, "you can't write about white people or use aspects of white culture." Such a demand would be absurd, and it would surely be met with a far greater backlash.
The spread of one's culture to other people of any ethnicity is a sign of success, not theft. I'm somewhat confused by the goals of the anti-appropriation movement. Is their purpose to ensure that minority cultures remain isolated and marginalized, rather than accepted as mainstream?
Perhaps writers appropriating ideas from cultures unfamiliar to them would write very poor and inaccurate works, but their poor work should then be judged on that lack of merit, not on the mere fact they wrote about a race different from their own. I think it's important not to police writers on the principle of their race, but rather on the quality of their finished work. If the very first thing we ask about an author is, "what is her race?" is that really progress?
The spread of one's culture to other people of any ethnicity is a sign of success, not theft. I'm somewhat confused by the goals of the anti-appropriation movement. Is their purpose to ensure that minority cultures remain isolated and marginalized, rather than accepted as mainstream?
Perhaps writers appropriating ideas from cultures unfamiliar to them would write very poor and inaccurate works, but their poor work should then be judged on that lack of merit, not on the mere fact they wrote about a race different from their own. I think it's important not to police writers on the principle of their race, but rather on the quality of their finished work. If the very first thing we ask about an author is, "what is her race?" is that really progress?
12
Let's see...No more Andre Dubus, Jr. No more Zadie Smith. No more Monique Truong. No more Kathryn Harrison. No more Ann Patchett. All are contemporary authors with the temerity to write about men or women of races, genders, or existences (I'm sure I'm using the wrong terminology here. Pillory me, as you have poor Ms. Shriver.) different from their own, allowing us, their readers, to find ourselves in another's shoes. Isn't that what great fiction does? Allow us to experiences the lives of others and thus, perhaps, better understand one another? No? Did I get this wrong?
8
"No more Kathryn Harrison"?
Finally, an argument that tempts me to join the anti-free-expressionists!
Finally, an argument that tempts me to join the anti-free-expressionists!
4
Should Shakespeare not have written Othello? or The Merchant of Venice? Should we be deprived of Porgy and Bess? Madama Butterfly? And if a writer is forbidden seeing the world empathetically through the lens of another culture, what about gender? Toss in As You Like It, Hedda Gabler, Sister Carrie, Age of Innocence, Three Sisters, Adam Bede, A Passage to India, and just about everything by Tennessee Williams. Where do you stop, once you've started this mad literal-mindedness? Whatever social utopia you may be approaching, you are definitely moving away from art.
14
You can't win with those people. If you make a novel with all white protagonists you will be accused of being racist that hates diversity. You write about minorities or people from other ethnicities you will be accused of cultural appropriation.
The only thing that would satisfy them is those white writers stopping creating new novels and removing their old ones from the market. Maybe that's the point? They can't compete with those writers in prose, so they think the only way to success is to get rid of competition?
The only thing that would satisfy them is those white writers stopping creating new novels and removing their old ones from the market. Maybe that's the point? They can't compete with those writers in prose, so they think the only way to success is to get rid of competition?
18
Excellent point. Nowhere was there a discussion of whether the white writer who wrote about North Korea wrote a better work than the Korean who was so offended.
7
What about Spike Lee films portrayal of white characters? No one lines up protesting about those stereotypes. Imagine a culture that only allowed people to speak about what they have personally experienced. Where are we when it becomes PC to censor art and literature? Are we moving forward? Is that ever progress? All societies that moved toward censorship of the arts and literature moved away from freedom and democracy.
16
Utter madness.
11
Thank you, Ms. Shriver.
14
I am dismayed by the self righteous attitude of Ms Abdel Magied and read her atrocious prose in Medium.com. Lionel Shriver is a fiction writer. It is her job to be others, to express experiences she, herself, has not lived. I am a Mexican and can't be bothered by the sombrero. What really bothers me is the racial bias in Trump's campaign. Politically correct attitudes are necessary IN POLITICS, not in art. Flaubert was Madame Bovary, Shakespeare was Shylock. There is so much truth in those works that nowadays most of us sympathize with Shylock and dislike the pompous and. yes, righteous, Antonio.
The arena for political correctness should be legal and politic. Art is, by definition, moving. It moves us, displaces us from our comfort zone. Oh, please.
The arena for political correctness should be legal and politic. Art is, by definition, moving. It moves us, displaces us from our comfort zone. Oh, please.
8
Yes, thanks for the reminder, Veronica:
Flaubert said, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi."
And Tennessee Williams said, "Blanche DuBois, c'est moi."
Flaubert said, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi."
And Tennessee Williams said, "Blanche DuBois, c'est moi."
2
This is interesting. I just finished a novel in which all the characters are white except two. I've been worried that the Army of Political Correctness (APC) might come to my house and take me hostage for not including more minorities in the story. Now that I know I'm not allowed to write about anyone but others exactly like me, I'm relieved. Lucky for Tolkein that he lived in a different era . If he wrote now, the APC would take him hostage on behalf of the Hobbits.
2
I note that Ms. Abdel-Magied graduated from a University with a mechanical engineering degree. The University is a western originated institution from the Medieval Period. It seems to me that Ms. Abdel-Magied is guilty of the same social crime of which she accuses Ms. Shriver.
Note that on her wikipedia page, Ms. Abdel-Magied is wearing pants. Pants on a female strike me as a fairly new Western fashion statement - appropriation of western cultures, Ms. Abdel-Magied?
Also, what's with the hyphenated last name - appropriation of western cultural norms, Ms. Abdel-Magied?
Note that on her wikipedia page, Ms. Abdel-Magied is wearing pants. Pants on a female strike me as a fairly new Western fashion statement - appropriation of western cultures, Ms. Abdel-Magied?
Also, what's with the hyphenated last name - appropriation of western cultural norms, Ms. Abdel-Magied?
3
So a woman can't have a male character in her novel? You have to be all things to write about anything? I guess Tolstoi was Napoleon at some point in his life.
2
Am I allowed to say "Oy, veh" in response to the backlash against Ms. Shriver? As a white atheist lefty but oldie, and occasional writer, I find the whole business of "cultural appropriation" to be overwrought, overblown, and downright irritating. Get some rest. The very concept of "culture" is slippery to begin with. It consists of so many variables packed into a two syllable word that threading it out, and assigning what has been inappropriately "appropriated" within an expression of it, is itself impossible. Let's face it, this boils down to matters of taste on one hand and pointless resentment on the other. Can't we just approriate some Latin, and remember that de gustibus non est disputandum?
8
I support Shiver 100%. The festival should be ashamed of itself for removing links to Shriver's speech. I hope nobody attends next year in protest so that the festival is forced to close it doors on account of it's cowardice and capitulation to political correctness.
4
There is no such thing as Cultural Appropriation.... either that or Everything is Cultural Appropriation.
Truly we cannot express a single original thought (even assuming such a unicorn of a beast was possible) without engaging in a thousand different kinds of so-called appropriation: evident in our word choice, our approach, our language, our perspective, the forum in which the thought is expressed, the media which carry the expression, the POV of the audience who perceives it.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and the world is full to bursting with imitation. For any micro-segment of our current population to draw a circle about a particular thought, thing, behavior, or notion and say, "No -- this one you can't use because we 'own' it's most recent cultural expression rights." is insane. And parochial and narrow-minded and obtuse.
Most children are taught early on to let others play with 'their' toys -- but some people evidently never grow up.
Truly we cannot express a single original thought (even assuming such a unicorn of a beast was possible) without engaging in a thousand different kinds of so-called appropriation: evident in our word choice, our approach, our language, our perspective, the forum in which the thought is expressed, the media which carry the expression, the POV of the audience who perceives it.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and the world is full to bursting with imitation. For any micro-segment of our current population to draw a circle about a particular thought, thing, behavior, or notion and say, "No -- this one you can't use because we 'own' it's most recent cultural expression rights." is insane. And parochial and narrow-minded and obtuse.
Most children are taught early on to let others play with 'their' toys -- but some people evidently never grow up.
3
Seems the cultural appropriation movement has been alive down under for some time, at least within the Aussies Kiwi neighbors. Years ago an artist in Houston, Texas was making simulated Maori tattooed shrunken heads. These heads, were quite popular with collectors with turn of the century England. They are of course simply the flesh of the face, and scalp after the victim's skull was removed and were Maori war trophies, similar to Aboriginal Americans taking a scalp. What was odd was the Maori community attacked her for exploitation of their culture and received death threats. I am not sure whether they were upset because of cultural appropriation or whether a white woman found a way to make a buck off of their cultural history when they hadn't. When it comes down to it, I think that is what this issue boils down to: MONEY. I used to work in South American out in the jungle, and would return to the city after a month or so in the bush. I would check into the hotel and get hateful stairs from the well to do locals, as if to say, "What are you doing here gringo, making money off of our people, that is OUR job." I would think the anti-cultural appropriation movement would fail under common law, which deems he who makes the best use of something, whether it be land, a resource, or cultures history or trappings, should be entitled to do it.
4
Wow. First it's all about inclusion, equality and acceptance. Now when they actually have that and people realize minority groups have really cool cultures, they respond with "How dare you try to participate in MY culture". Sounds like what you really want is to participate in the dominant culture but not let anyone participate in yours. It's a two way street. Sorry but I just can't get behind this mentality at all, and she is spot on with her assessment of the response. Censorious and totalitarian. When people are so tolerant of views other than their own that they tell them to shut up and sit down because they're offended and can't fathom someone disagreeing with them and don't know how to handle it...
6
My neighbors magnificent heirloom apple tree has heavily laden branches that reach over the fence and drop wonderful fruit in my yard. May I praise the tree and share with you a piece of apple pie?
3
What a lovely allusion. Now where can we appropriate some hand-cranked French vanilla ice cream to top that earthly delight?
2
"Ms. Kim complained that books by white male writers on North Korea were better received in some quarters than books like her own."
Perhaps Ms. Kim is not as good a writer as she believes she is.
One way to tell, of course, would be to publish one of her books again, but with a different title, and under a pseudonym that "sounds like" a white male writer - say, Clem Cadiddlehopper. If the newly published book is wildly successful, then her theory might have some validity.
Perhaps Ms. Kim is not as good a writer as she believes she is.
One way to tell, of course, would be to publish one of her books again, but with a different title, and under a pseudonym that "sounds like" a white male writer - say, Clem Cadiddlehopper. If the newly published book is wildly successful, then her theory might have some validity.
7
I watch the leftist Marxist committee with detached amusement but also often horror. It would be easier to just be amused if they didn't wield so much power these days and have swept along a lot of the left who are eager to do good and make up for past wrongs. The left has become a cult and many usually very intelligent and rational people seem swept up in this paradigm.
According to this paradigm the more "oppressed" you are the least you can be contradicted and the more protection you need. People who are in no way, shape or form actually oppressed are labelled such because they belong to a group that is sometimes discriminated against or thought of negatively, which let's face it, is everyone. As a white hetrosexual woman Ms. Shriver had free rein to criticize white males, even hate speech would have been fine. But she had no right to make any criticism, no matter how mild, of people of non-European decent or non-Western religions. This is exactly how modern Marxist liberalism works. It requires submissiveness to people who are deemed (solely based on race, religion, gender, nationality, etc) more oppressed then you. It has been badly exploited by opportunists who have used it mightly to punish people for any uppityness towards them.
According to this paradigm the more "oppressed" you are the least you can be contradicted and the more protection you need. People who are in no way, shape or form actually oppressed are labelled such because they belong to a group that is sometimes discriminated against or thought of negatively, which let's face it, is everyone. As a white hetrosexual woman Ms. Shriver had free rein to criticize white males, even hate speech would have been fine. But she had no right to make any criticism, no matter how mild, of people of non-European decent or non-Western religions. This is exactly how modern Marxist liberalism works. It requires submissiveness to people who are deemed (solely based on race, religion, gender, nationality, etc) more oppressed then you. It has been badly exploited by opportunists who have used it mightly to punish people for any uppityness towards them.
3
Damn you, William Shakespeare, writing about Italian teenagers killing themselves for "love". What a poser! I bet Shakespeare never was a wifee-mailing, jealous Moor. Better check his birth records, because I am certain he was never a Scottish Lord driven to political assassination by ambition. He could very possibly have been a hunchbacked king defeated by "the forces of right" for the lack of a horse, so I shall give him the "right to write" Richard the Third.
If anyone, not ethnically a gypsy, writes another word about my heritage, or has a "gypsy" character in one of their culturally appropriated "works of art", then I shall be forced to put a curse upon them and all their descendants unto the the third generation. Now go and write your pablum for your self-absorbed, politically correct "readership".
If anyone, not ethnically a gypsy, writes another word about my heritage, or has a "gypsy" character in one of their culturally appropriated "works of art", then I shall be forced to put a curse upon them and all their descendants unto the the third generation. Now go and write your pablum for your self-absorbed, politically correct "readership".
6
Please overlook my coal-fired Kindle's tendency to censor my written submissions. In my first post, the auto-censor obviously found "wife-killer" inappropriate and substituted "wifee-mailer" or some such non-ethnic gibberish. Mea culpa.
How are they doing down there with all those Aboriginal authors?
"Scratch an Australian to find a racist. It’s easy to use racist terms without meaning to.Racism exists at all levels of Australian society but Australians are in denial."
So no non-English may perform Shakespeare anymore?
What a waste of energy.
They invited her. She should be listened to no matter whats on her mind.
"Scratch an Australian to find a racist. It’s easy to use racist terms without meaning to.Racism exists at all levels of Australian society but Australians are in denial."
So no non-English may perform Shakespeare anymore?
What a waste of energy.
They invited her. She should be listened to no matter whats on her mind.
3
Of course the author's whole speech is needed here for full evaluation. Yet this feels like a kind of politically correct policing that has been going on for a long, long time, and is now having another moment in the sun. Just check out Joan Didion's wonderful "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," about the Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love. In one interaction Didion witnessed, white leftists (Diggers, I think) got so angry at a black man for saying that Chuck Berry's music belonged to everyone -- the Diggers had been trying to lecture him about cultural appropriation -- they wound up ridiculing him and calling him "black boy." The passage is a beautiful/horrible moment exposing the intolerance, zealotry, and authoritarian impulses often found in far-left circles, including on many campuses and I suppose even book festivals.
7
Do I have to burn my copy of Sophie's Choice, because some southern WASP wrote about the plight of a polish jew with two kids? C'mon people. Didn't we already do this? James Baldwin defended Styron's depiction of Nat Turner, saying an author/artist has license to depict whatever they want. People are getting upset about fictional issues. (could not resist) If the pie were big enough and everybody got rich writing/got tenure, nobody would be mad.
9
This is the second comment I've read here referencing Sophie's Choice. Sophie was a Polish Catholic, not a Jew. It's interesting that no one seems to remember that part.
5
"If the pie were big enough…"
Pie? What pie?
Next to NOBODY gets rich or gets tenure through writing any more.
"Gets rich" indeed – – only a tiny percentage of writers can even make the rent on a garret through their writing. As for university tenure, most academic PhD's today would be happy to get ANY non-adjunct job today.
If you are motivated to write to make your fortune or to get tenure, wake up and do something else with your life while there's still time.
Pie? What pie?
Next to NOBODY gets rich or gets tenure through writing any more.
"Gets rich" indeed – – only a tiny percentage of writers can even make the rent on a garret through their writing. As for university tenure, most academic PhD's today would be happy to get ANY non-adjunct job today.
If you are motivated to write to make your fortune or to get tenure, wake up and do something else with your life while there's still time.
4
So is it "Cultural Appropriation " when an African-American shows up in a suit and tie for an interview at my company? If a white man wears dreadlocks its cultural appropriation. A woman wears men's clothing and she is showing her true identity. A white woman srites a FICTIONAL story about a African and it is cultural appropriation??
How is someone writing a book set 200 years in the future or two hundred years (think Roots) in the past any different than someone writting a book about someone who is a different race than they are?
How is someone writing a book set 200 years in the future or two hundred years (think Roots) in the past any different than someone writting a book about someone who is a different race than they are?
5
Good for Ms. Shriver.
There's no place for knee-jerk oversensitive political correctness in art.
If you think there is, you're not an artist, and I feel sorry for you because you'll never have the open mind required to appreciate all art has to offer.
There's no place for knee-jerk oversensitive political correctness in art.
If you think there is, you're not an artist, and I feel sorry for you because you'll never have the open mind required to appreciate all art has to offer.
8
It does not seem that many of the readers have read the actual transcript of what Ms Shriver actually said. The Guardian has published it. Pls read it and then comments. So many knee jerk reactions here.
2
"Knee-jerk reactions" - - because commenters have not undertaken an extraneous research project before offering reactions to and perspectives on the article? I don't think you understand how comment boards work.
5
Black, left-leaning independent here and I must be misunderstanding something about "cultural appropriation." Are protestors saying that I, as a black man, would not be able to write a fictional narrative story about, say, a Japanese soldier in World War II without committing some kind of offense?
For that matter, having been born and raised in the U.S., do I have the "right" to author something from the fictional perspective of an African? I may share their ancestry, but there is no doubt in my mind that there are many writers of other races/ethnicities who could do a much better and accurate job writing such a story than I could. The value of a literary work is in its content and not in the credentials, yes? If I found out Crime and Punishment was ghost written by Ernest Hemingway, would the book suddenly go from masterpiece to drivel simply because a non-Russian had depicted a Russian character?
It seems to me that provided an author/actor/whomever is not simply mocking other cultures, there's nothing to complain about.
For that matter, having been born and raised in the U.S., do I have the "right" to author something from the fictional perspective of an African? I may share their ancestry, but there is no doubt in my mind that there are many writers of other races/ethnicities who could do a much better and accurate job writing such a story than I could. The value of a literary work is in its content and not in the credentials, yes? If I found out Crime and Punishment was ghost written by Ernest Hemingway, would the book suddenly go from masterpiece to drivel simply because a non-Russian had depicted a Russian character?
It seems to me that provided an author/actor/whomever is not simply mocking other cultures, there's nothing to complain about.
25
I feel that the term "cultural appropriation" reflects an error in understanding and is thus misleading as a metaphor. "Appropriation" refers to property or money. But I reject the idea that anyone "owns" cultural forms. Culture is not intellectual property that can be copyrighted or patented. Cultural forms range free in the great ecology of ideas. Cultures grow and change by adopting practices and forms from other cultures. No one owns my hair or has the right to tell me how to wear it. Just as no owns the novel or the five-act play or classical music or ballet, no one owns rap music or braids or yoga. These rigid attempts to police the human imagination are either a form of hypersensitivity or bullying. Or both. In either case, they are misguided and should be denounced, as Ms. Trilling has so courageously done.
1
The game of golf was invented in Scotland. If a American plays a round of golf is he guilty of cultural appropriation? American football evolved from the English game of rugby. If a pro football player is a minority isn't his participation a use of the custom or culture by others who do not belong to the group who created it?
3
Based on the "cultural appropriation" logic, as a Jew, I should refrain from participating in a choral group that performs Bach's B minor Mass because I am obviously misrepresenting and doing damange to Catholics and Catholicism.
5
Bach was Lutheran.
2
Well, you are misrepresenting Bach. He was Lutheran.
3
It was originally composed for the Catholic court of Dresden.
1
Can someone explain whether it is cultural appropriation when Andre Watts performs Beethoven, or when Sayaka Shoji is brilliant playing the Brahms, or Misty Copeland dances Swan Lake?? I could go on, but you get my drift.
6
Enormously wealthy muggle J.K. Rowling made millions of dollars from the appropriation of the magical world of wizards and witches. Rowling owes the Potters and the Weasleys a lot of galleons!
1
Doesn't the doctrine of cultural appropriation actually express disrespect towards some cultures by implying that non-white cultures are less universal than white culture and therefore cannot be understood by all human beings?
6
How left am I? Far enough that I'd like to see Swedish-Danish social democracy here. But not so far as to live in the crazed, Orwellian world the PC totalitarians seem to seek.
Keep on appropriating. It's the way art is made. Were progress in the arts left to this criteria, there would be little or none.
Keep on appropriating. It's the way art is made. Were progress in the arts left to this criteria, there would be little or none.
6
So, no novel can contain characters of differing ethnicities beyond those directly in the author's lineage?
End result would seem to be dull, monotoned novels, or novels by committee. I don't think either would be worth reading.
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn into the trash?
Is there something wrong with judging a piece of writing by its quality, not by the ethnic heritage of the author?
Am I missing something?
End result would seem to be dull, monotoned novels, or novels by committee. I don't think either would be worth reading.
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn into the trash?
Is there something wrong with judging a piece of writing by its quality, not by the ethnic heritage of the author?
Am I missing something?
3
This is wonderful that a writer is willing to speak their truth, in this day and age. I have already purchased her book to show my support.
3
What is Misty Copeland doing with the ABT then?
So much nonsense.
So much nonsense.
3
Does anti-cultural appropriation go only one way because it should go two, which means there are a LOT of people in the world who haven't invented anything (even left wing Snopes admits to "black invention myths" - look it up) who need to stop using cell phones, taking any kind of life saving medicine, and enjoying the health and aesthetic benefits of indoor plumbing because it's appropriating culture from Western whites. Does the left realize that this sort of thing is exactly the sort of thing that will get Donald Trump elected? Lay off.
1
To leap over the wall of self...and land wherever imagination and the language might take you. Good for Ms. Shriver.
2
When uproars like this happen I think of the writer Junot Diaz who proclaimed that in America you could say anything except criticize Israel in which a movement exerted pressure to silence you through job loss, boycotts, taking away awards, harassment, etc.
The irony is Mr Diaz has himself has instigated the above action on several occasions including orchestrating an attempt to get PEN not to give an award to the surviving Charlie Hebdo cartoonists after the massacre.
The left is blind to it's own hypocrisy. And those on the left who are so quick to show solidarity to the alleged perps when there are accusations about anti-Semitism are the first to throw the Lionel Shriver's of the world under a bus.
I am just confused when people like Ms. Shriver think you can have a dialogue with the far left. I have seen other's make similar attempts to explain how this stringency hurts progressive causes and they are bullied into silence. I am an artist and I stay away from those fanatics. Let them drown in their own bile. People like this are in some ways more dangerous than the far right because they cloak their fanaticism and fascism in leftist mantras such as "fighting racism" which everyone agrees is a good thing. And those who blindly follow this thinking they are doing good reminds me of that cliché "the road to hell is paved in good intentions".
The irony is Mr Diaz has himself has instigated the above action on several occasions including orchestrating an attempt to get PEN not to give an award to the surviving Charlie Hebdo cartoonists after the massacre.
The left is blind to it's own hypocrisy. And those on the left who are so quick to show solidarity to the alleged perps when there are accusations about anti-Semitism are the first to throw the Lionel Shriver's of the world under a bus.
I am just confused when people like Ms. Shriver think you can have a dialogue with the far left. I have seen other's make similar attempts to explain how this stringency hurts progressive causes and they are bullied into silence. I am an artist and I stay away from those fanatics. Let them drown in their own bile. People like this are in some ways more dangerous than the far right because they cloak their fanaticism and fascism in leftist mantras such as "fighting racism" which everyone agrees is a good thing. And those who blindly follow this thinking they are doing good reminds me of that cliché "the road to hell is paved in good intentions".
5
Good heavens! Have those who cry about "cultural appropriation" ever heard of negative capability and something called the imagination?
It is not a good sign when identity politics becomes a form of identity-politics-nationalism.
Will these victims of "cultural appropriation" deny a show such as 'The Wire' its socio-political and dramatic triumphs because it was made by David Simon?
These are sad times.
It is not a good sign when identity politics becomes a form of identity-politics-nationalism.
Will these victims of "cultural appropriation" deny a show such as 'The Wire' its socio-political and dramatic triumphs because it was made by David Simon?
These are sad times.
1
Growing up in the less complicated 1950's The Merchant of Venice was among Shakespeare's greatest hits that our school class attended. We were about 30% Jewish. Nobody left in tears or outrage over the Jew Shylock and his pound of flesh. We knew it was an unquestionably false stereotype and the issue ended there. It might well have been discussed but it wasn't. Personally, as a young Jewish girl, I was far more angered by The Taming of the Shrew.
At home the current evils and injustices of antisemitism were discussed, the recent Holocaust, my father's difficulty finding employment in corporate America. We were taught to move forwards, excel, and live the fullest lives we could.
I do believe that the foulest ideas should be brought forward for debate, even racist theories that some groups are inferior. It is through ideas, not censorship, that they will be defeated.
At home the current evils and injustices of antisemitism were discussed, the recent Holocaust, my father's difficulty finding employment in corporate America. We were taught to move forwards, excel, and live the fullest lives we could.
I do believe that the foulest ideas should be brought forward for debate, even racist theories that some groups are inferior. It is through ideas, not censorship, that they will be defeated.
6
The conversation about who has the "right" to write about what is fascinating, and the answers are necessarily nuanced and complex. A person who lives in the midst of another culture for decades may not have the imaginative empathy of someone who has never been there at all--that is where art comes in. But politics does play a role. It is exciting and welcome that people who haven't been heard from before in their own voices are now speaking; and one of the things being said is, don't speak for me, I can speak for myself. That is legit. It doesn't mean artists in the dominant culture of a country can't write about people other than themselves. It does mean that they would be responsible to their art and to the society by doing some serious discernment about their standing vis a vis subject matter and culture. As a woman I got exhausted a really long time ago reading about women characters via many male writers--not all. Some actually write about women, not about how women figure in their world. I would put Shakespeare in that category. No one likes to feel used. No one should use others. Yes, it isn't clear as of now how to what is fair and what is exploitive. But the conversation is crucial. Too bad the festival shut it down so fast.
2
And we wonder why we have Trump when the Left acts with as much intolerance as the Right.
My life was changed (for the better) through books where the author spoke through characters of a gender or race that was not their own. Thank you for standing up to the nonsense, Ms Shriver and thank you to authors everywhere for taking risks with your work.
My life was changed (for the better) through books where the author spoke through characters of a gender or race that was not their own. Thank you for standing up to the nonsense, Ms Shriver and thank you to authors everywhere for taking risks with your work.
7
I think the backlash to the assumptions embedded in Mr. Norland's story are at least as interesting. Clearly, the Times editorial board accept the notion that cultural assimilation is an ill that must be punished.
1
You and I must have read two different articles.
2
Writing is difficult enough without the imposition of such petty restraints. I'm a liberal, and I think writers should address any subject matter from any point of view they choose. This controversy exists only in the hothouse of literary academia. The rest of us, who live and work in the real world, are free to do what we like.
4
If Ms Shriver truly wanted to address cultural appropriation, she should excoriate big-name publishing houses that give book deals to "writers" such as Mr Donald Trump and Governor Sarah Palin, who didn't even write their own books, while ignoring non-white authors writing in the English language who truly are struggling to get even a modest book deal.
Using her perch as the keynote speaker to categorically attack the entire concept of cultural appropriation is not productive.
Using her perch as the keynote speaker to categorically attack the entire concept of cultural appropriation is not productive.
1
Wrong.
1
Those who were critical of Ms. Shriver's Brisbane Writers Festival address remind me of graduate students I knew at history conferences in the 1960s. Shortly after I returned from four years of study in Germany I was asked to present a paper. I was not in tune with the local academic culture yet and based my talk on what I had researched and written at the University of Munich. It was as though I were on a different planet. And so it seems to me that many who criticize Ms. Shriver fear outside ideas that do not conform to their tribe or local culture.
I think political correctness on U.S. college campuses has gone to the extreme so that people who present contrary ideas are condemned. I am surprised that there haven't been any public book burnings yet. Isn't this a little like the cultural environment that obtained in Calvin's Geneva in the 16th century?
And if readers are so concerned about successful authors, they might question the publishing editors and agents that select their manuscripts for serious consideration and publication. It seems to me that in the U.S. the publishing/editorial business is run predominantly by educated white women. This may be changing but in publishing there are also cultural biases that determine who gets into print and who doesn't.
I think political correctness on U.S. college campuses has gone to the extreme so that people who present contrary ideas are condemned. I am surprised that there haven't been any public book burnings yet. Isn't this a little like the cultural environment that obtained in Calvin's Geneva in the 16th century?
And if readers are so concerned about successful authors, they might question the publishing editors and agents that select their manuscripts for serious consideration and publication. It seems to me that in the U.S. the publishing/editorial business is run predominantly by educated white women. This may be changing but in publishing there are also cultural biases that determine who gets into print and who doesn't.
5
I remember way back in the late 1960's my feelings as a college student sitting through a presentation by William Styron shortly after his "Sophie's Choice" had been published. As a Jew, I felt very uncomfortable both with the book (which turns on the experience of a Jewish woman survivor's experiences in a death camp) and with Styron. This was a couple of generations before "political correctness" and the idea of "cultural appropriation." It just didn't sit well with me that this white southern, non-Jewish man was portraying, and making judgments about, the deepest moral and emotional issues faced by a Holocaust survivor. I couldn't shake my feelings that there was something insufferably arrogant about both Styron and his creative choices. So I don't come to this issue as a complete stranger to the feelings of its advocates. But I'm sorry. For a group of creative artists -- writers, no less -- to be this censorious is beyond the pale. Enough is enough. "Lionel Shriver, by her own admission, did not speak to her brief,” said the conference chairperson censoriously -- sounding a lot like the Queen's chamberlain in Alice in Wonderland. Give me a break. A brief. There is no "brief" among creative artists, except the limits of their imagination.
"Ms. Shriver said she was disturbed by how many of those on the political left had become ... censorious and totalitarian in their treatment of artists with whom they disagreed." Exactly.
"Ms. Shriver said she was disturbed by how many of those on the political left had become ... censorious and totalitarian in their treatment of artists with whom they disagreed." Exactly.
6
I agree with much of what you say.
By the way, those I know who were well acquainted with Bill Styron agree with your impression of his personality: he was apparently an arrogant jerk much of the time.
By the way, those I know who were well acquainted with Bill Styron agree with your impression of his personality: he was apparently an arrogant jerk much of the time.
1
Sophie's Choice was published in 1979, so ten years after what you're remembering. And secondly, Sophie's Choice is NOT about a Jewish woman but a Polish Catholic survivor who has a relationship with a Jewish man in New York.
2
Sophie's Choice was published in 1979. Sophie is a Polish Catholic survivor of Auschwitz.
3
It is precisely because I so strongly disagree with Ms. Abdel-Magied's perspective that I thought I should read what she had to say (and to see whether she is, in my opinion, a good writer). That's when I found that the NY Times article was not accurate, at least not as of today. Many of us were particularly flabbergasted at the following statement in the article.
"She the [festival organizer] could not be reached on Monday to ask why links to Ms. Shriver’s speech were removed from the festival website. Links to the rebuttal remained active."
I searched the website -- there are no links to either the speech or the rebuttal. Ms. Beveridge action in taking down both contradicts her declaration that “As a festival of writers and thinkers, we take seriously the role we play in providing a platform for meaningful exchange and debate.” But at least she is not absurd enough to take down Ms. Shriver’s address but to keep the rebuttal to that address.
"She the [festival organizer] could not be reached on Monday to ask why links to Ms. Shriver’s speech were removed from the festival website. Links to the rebuttal remained active."
I searched the website -- there are no links to either the speech or the rebuttal. Ms. Beveridge action in taking down both contradicts her declaration that “As a festival of writers and thinkers, we take seriously the role we play in providing a platform for meaningful exchange and debate.” But at least she is not absurd enough to take down Ms. Shriver’s address but to keep the rebuttal to that address.
4
Has anyone been able to access the speech or the rebuttal?
Fiction as a whole is filled with stereotypical characters of every background and in real life there are some people who fill the shoes of a stereotype. People should vote with their wallet and not try to impose creative censorship through peer or any other pressure. If you think a book or a movie characterizes people incorrectly and in an insulting way then don't spend your money on it. Keep in mind though that you might be letting your prejudice blind you. Watch an episode of Blackish with its Black cast, writers and producers and if someone told you it was produced and written by White people you, and most everyone watching this successful show, would take offense because of stereotyping. Fresh Off the Boat is another TV show that is filled with stereotypes and in its same form would be considered offensive if written and produced by White people.
In real life many celebrities covering the full spectrum of humankind almost seem to make an effort to live up to everyone's worst expectations of someone from their background. So, stereotype or just real?
The problem with any group defending its right to censor or silence someone they don't agree with is that you never know which side of the issue you will be on. In the 1930s the Nazis banned all modern art as Degenerate and punished artists.
Living in a free society and having the right to free speech means extending these rights to everyone so unless you believe two wrongs make a right then you have to be more open minded.
In real life many celebrities covering the full spectrum of humankind almost seem to make an effort to live up to everyone's worst expectations of someone from their background. So, stereotype or just real?
The problem with any group defending its right to censor or silence someone they don't agree with is that you never know which side of the issue you will be on. In the 1930s the Nazis banned all modern art as Degenerate and punished artists.
Living in a free society and having the right to free speech means extending these rights to everyone so unless you believe two wrongs make a right then you have to be more open minded.
1
The whole point of writing is to get into the entire being of "the other."
It's safe to say that most murder mystery writers haven't killed anyone. That Ruth Rendell wasn't transgender, though she successfully wrote about male protagonists--killers and killer-catchers alike.
One of my favorite authors--dead white guy Richard Hughes--wrote exquisitely about children and young women. He never was a young German female slowly going blind, but that character he created remains indelible, many decades after I read her story. That amoral young girl he created in "The Innocent Voyage" remains a terrifyingly believable portrait. As a woman--who once was a girl--I envy his ability to have done that.
But the, I have criminal tendencies myself. I write in the voice of women, and men, and girl children, and boy children, and some of my characters are of ethnicities other than my own. I shall continue to transgress, and hope all serious writers will, too.
It's safe to say that most murder mystery writers haven't killed anyone. That Ruth Rendell wasn't transgender, though she successfully wrote about male protagonists--killers and killer-catchers alike.
One of my favorite authors--dead white guy Richard Hughes--wrote exquisitely about children and young women. He never was a young German female slowly going blind, but that character he created remains indelible, many decades after I read her story. That amoral young girl he created in "The Innocent Voyage" remains a terrifyingly believable portrait. As a woman--who once was a girl--I envy his ability to have done that.
But the, I have criminal tendencies myself. I write in the voice of women, and men, and girl children, and boy children, and some of my characters are of ethnicities other than my own. I shall continue to transgress, and hope all serious writers will, too.
2
I recall when Paul Simon's "Graceland" album was subjected to the same kind of "cultural appropriation" criticism. I doubt most of us would ever have heard of, or enjoyed Ladysmith Black Mambazo but for Simon's work. The cultural appropriation concept is repressive, senseless and a violation of artistic freedom.
9
At the time, I recall wondering why it was acceptable for white progressives like me to tell Ladysmith Black Mambazo whom they could or could not collaborate with.
1
Yes we of a dominant group must understand and stand up for members of a group the reparation and status of them being the definers and writers of their culture and lived lives! If we the non members tread into those waters it must first follow a lifetime of living close to the ribs of the lives of members of those groups and learning from THEM what their realities are as defined by THEM not us. If and only if we do this should we feel humbly entitled to carefully tread there in our writing speaking and treatment of people in other groups. This true humility and caring and involvement is what learning about cultural appropriation teaches us, about how to know it, to repair it, and to lead to a fairer more equal and just word.
This author shows her extreme ignorance, prejudices, entitlement and failure to understand other people that comes with growing up entitled.
This author shows her extreme ignorance, prejudices, entitlement and failure to understand other people that comes with growing up entitled.
2
"Growing up entitled"...what you really mean is growing up white. Guess what? A very large number of us have had an excruciating time getting to where we are, and have family that are still economically and socially broken.
1
Am I proud that I am white? No.
Am I ashamed that I am white? Also no.
I will not stifle myself because I am white.
I refuse to believe that I was born already guilty of a crime -- a status crime beyond expiation, no less.
I will seek to recognize unfairness, and I will work for fairness for all, but I will not feign shame for sins I had no part in. It is how to make the now better that concerns me.
I will not feel lessened by my biology or ancestry any more than you or anyone should.
Am I ashamed that I am white? Also no.
I will not stifle myself because I am white.
I refuse to believe that I was born already guilty of a crime -- a status crime beyond expiation, no less.
I will seek to recognize unfairness, and I will work for fairness for all, but I will not feign shame for sins I had no part in. It is how to make the now better that concerns me.
I will not feel lessened by my biology or ancestry any more than you or anyone should.
As a writer, I wonder if people really understand what writing is. We appropriate everything, always.
In my non-fiction, I write about famous Americans from history as well as people I know, of a variety of colors and cultures, and with every sentence I write, I interpret their lives. I am sure if they read what I wrote about them they would disagree. I can hear George Washington or Harriet Tubman saying: "This guy doesn't know me, he has no idea what it was like to betray and then fight against my homeland Britain or to run away from my master, breaking the law and then helping others do it, often with violence."
I am American but I live in Berlin and write in Germany about Germans. My German serial killers and cops are often based historical personalities or taken from newspapers. Though Germans are not minorities, that is still cultural appropriation, yet I fully expect Germans to engage with my writing based on my observations of German society and not based on my nationality (which they do – with some exceptions).
For a white American today to write only about white Americans, like John Updike did, the result is stilted and false, it becomes a portrait of a tiny piece of America, but not about the global society we actually live in. Not writing about minorities – closing them out completely – is also a form of racism.
A writer must write about people and cultures he does not know; every novel, every book of fiction is a work of cultural appropriation.
In my non-fiction, I write about famous Americans from history as well as people I know, of a variety of colors and cultures, and with every sentence I write, I interpret their lives. I am sure if they read what I wrote about them they would disagree. I can hear George Washington or Harriet Tubman saying: "This guy doesn't know me, he has no idea what it was like to betray and then fight against my homeland Britain or to run away from my master, breaking the law and then helping others do it, often with violence."
I am American but I live in Berlin and write in Germany about Germans. My German serial killers and cops are often based historical personalities or taken from newspapers. Though Germans are not minorities, that is still cultural appropriation, yet I fully expect Germans to engage with my writing based on my observations of German society and not based on my nationality (which they do – with some exceptions).
For a white American today to write only about white Americans, like John Updike did, the result is stilted and false, it becomes a portrait of a tiny piece of America, but not about the global society we actually live in. Not writing about minorities – closing them out completely – is also a form of racism.
A writer must write about people and cultures he does not know; every novel, every book of fiction is a work of cultural appropriation.
3
I agree that John Updike was not much good at imagining a self unlike his own. He couldn't even imagine a realistic, fully-fleshed female character within his own demographic. He was a wonderful writer with stark limitations of vision.
I think one could say the same thing about Philip Roth, whom I admire greatly, and whose work I have read in its entirety more than once.
Not to mention Hemingway – – perhaps the greatest fiction writer in the clueless-on-women category. (In the nonfiction contest, the statue goes to Sigmund Freud, of course).
I think one could say the same thing about Philip Roth, whom I admire greatly, and whose work I have read in its entirety more than once.
Not to mention Hemingway – – perhaps the greatest fiction writer in the clueless-on-women category. (In the nonfiction contest, the statue goes to Sigmund Freud, of course).
1
"When the left becomes to politically correct - or worse - it becomes the intolerant extremist itself."
Correction: Please make that "When ANYONE becomes too 'politically correct'...."
Many of us leftists fully agree with Ms.Shriver. It is inaccurate to indicate only and all lefties criticize her courageous and important stance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/books/lionel-shriver-cultural-appropri...
Correction: Please make that "When ANYONE becomes too 'politically correct'...."
Many of us leftists fully agree with Ms.Shriver. It is inaccurate to indicate only and all lefties criticize her courageous and important stance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/books/lionel-shriver-cultural-appropri...
5
The world is filled with very earnest people who have no artistic talent. To be a good writer--not just a financially successful one, but a good one--is a rare and magical gift. It requires being able to enter fully into the being of "the other" no matter who or what that "other" may be.
Take a look at what I consider DuBose Heyward's finest achievement. No, I don't mean the novel "Porgy," which his wife adapted into the play "Porgy and Bess" and which subsequently was the basis for the widely-known musical.
I mean "The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes." Alchemy--pure enduring magic. I'm sure Heyward was never a female rabbit, but you'd never guess. And that children's book remains an exceptional but non-didactic exploration of racism, sexism and the devaluing of the humble. But I guess we better burn that one too.
Take a look at what I consider DuBose Heyward's finest achievement. No, I don't mean the novel "Porgy," which his wife adapted into the play "Porgy and Bess" and which subsequently was the basis for the widely-known musical.
I mean "The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes." Alchemy--pure enduring magic. I'm sure Heyward was never a female rabbit, but you'd never guess. And that children's book remains an exceptional but non-didactic exploration of racism, sexism and the devaluing of the humble. But I guess we better burn that one too.
1
Stuff and nonsense. The talk of cultural appropriation suggests to me that the accusers have far far too much time on their hands. That and the fact that they support the culture of complaining about trivialities tells me that they are marginal talents at best.
Shame on anyone that gives them oxygen.
Shame on anyone that gives them oxygen.
6
Four cheers for Lionel Shriver!
3
Nah, honest and true? What about Antigone, A Doll's House, Miss Julie, Wolf Hall, and Cloud Atlas?
Creating a great character requires artistry, empathy, and research. No perfect background match required; it's literature, not an organ transplant.
Creating a great character requires artistry, empathy, and research. No perfect background match required; it's literature, not an organ transplant.
6
Did Jimmy Hendrix' white part culturally appropriate the blues? Did his black part culturally appropriate flashy bluegrass riffs? We're going to have to reexamine everything now...
14
Washington DC has a fantastic Saint Patrick's Day Parade on the Mall. This being DC, by far, most participants are African American. The most common outfit they wear are variations on bright green leprechaun suits.
Great fun is had by all.
Wait a minute! Don't those African Americans realize that Irish men were pulled off the boat and put in a blue Union uniform and sent south to fight as soon as they landed in America? And millions of Irish starved to death because of British oppression? Wearing the leprechaun outfits is just an outrageous appropriation! It makes fun of the Irish experience.
Just kidding. They are costumes! That two distinguished Yale professors and other high ranking university officials have left their jobs in the past year over things that started with the subject of holiday costumes, tells us a lot about priorities in academe.
Great fun is had by all.
Wait a minute! Don't those African Americans realize that Irish men were pulled off the boat and put in a blue Union uniform and sent south to fight as soon as they landed in America? And millions of Irish starved to death because of British oppression? Wearing the leprechaun outfits is just an outrageous appropriation! It makes fun of the Irish experience.
Just kidding. They are costumes! That two distinguished Yale professors and other high ranking university officials have left their jobs in the past year over things that started with the subject of holiday costumes, tells us a lot about priorities in academe.
15
I'm black. I grew up listening to The Clancy Brothers, I love and own the works of many Irish writers, including Frank McCourt, some family members have been to Ireland and we are all Celtophiles.
The Irish invited us into their culture. But they're the only ones that have profited financially from the interest, and we don't think we're Irish. If I chose to write from the p.o.v. of an Irish person I'd have to think very carefully, do great research, and would expect to be criticized if I did a poor job.
The Irish invited us into their culture. But they're the only ones that have profited financially from the interest, and we don't think we're Irish. If I chose to write from the p.o.v. of an Irish person I'd have to think very carefully, do great research, and would expect to be criticized if I did a poor job.
1
I totally support Ms. Shriver. This backlash against her is just another example of regressive leftists against free speech. It is beyond obvious.
What we really need is for the rest of the world to start "culturally appropriating" true liberal Western culture. This would cut down on tyranny, kleptocracy, homophobia, misogyny, religious fundamentalism, Islamism, the combination of Church and State and other illiberal ideas awash in the non-Western world.
What we really need is for the rest of the world to start "culturally appropriating" true liberal Western culture. This would cut down on tyranny, kleptocracy, homophobia, misogyny, religious fundamentalism, Islamism, the combination of Church and State and other illiberal ideas awash in the non-Western world.
8
One thing that the controversy is ignoring is that the writer is a filter, and is writing for a particular audience. A writer from the same background as the reader has a better chance of knowing what the reader's cultural assumptions are, and so can describe or explain another kind of experience from this starting point. The essential role of the audience is being left out of this discussion.
3
The view of writers as product producers looking to tailor their output to a certain demographic is strange to me. Perhaps you are referring to writers of niche or genre fiction, not to literary writers. And even if so, you may still be wrong. Nobody writes funny, lighthearted chick-centric beach reads better than Paul Rudnick, for example. (Uh, I buy them for my daughter, but I just happened to pick one up recently when nothing else was at hand....)
1
One of the best books on slavery in the US is "The Confessions of Nat Turner," by William Styron, a white Southern male. James Baldwin said that Styron had "begun to write the common history...ours." It also unleashed a storm of criticism from black intellectuals and the book was not read on college campuses for two generations. As a white male, and a classically trained musician interpreting works from other cultures, as well as composing work influenced by my travels and studies, I know how this anti-appropriation argument goes. Where do artists go to do their best work? Who can tell them they are "stealing" from another culture because they have fallen in love with another's art form? Every culture is a hybrid of sorts. Are Africans not permitted to perform European classical music? Should white Americans not play the blues? Are white Criollos not allowed to use Amerindian elements in their paintings? After awhile the argument against "appropriation" becomes moot. Every great artist borrows/steals from each other, or else there is bland, one dimensional culture that satisfies no one.
19
I am guessing that there are other second generation Americans who have experienced what I have, namely an absence of a defining culture, i.e., feeling not totally part of the ethnic culture of origin or the middle American culture in which we came of age. Are we not permitted to write about either culture or only a little about each? Is a genetic Korean adopted into a white American family considered capable of writing about life in Seoul? I am a die hard left wing liberal who considers it neither progressive nor liberal to dictate to another artist what his or her qualifications are artistically,
6
Removing. Ms. Shriver's speech like it never occurred....I don't know if Mr. Orwell is laughing or crying.
10
The whole concept is just ridiculous by exalting the idea that all should remain in their own sealed boxes and that no sharing of anything worldwide should occur. Surely not a path to peace and understanding. Just add to the list with trigger warnings, safe spaces and other juvenile and dead-end ideas.
5
White men (and a few women) have been writing about non-white people for centuries in a very racist and condescending way. Just read Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, Lewis Carroll, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O'Connor, HP Lovecraft, and the list goes on. If non-white people are sensitive about about white writers depicting non-white characters, who can blame them (us?). And when white writers write about non-white people, it's almost always in relation to white people, because of course white people are the center of the universe! Maybe consider a world where Asians or Africans or Native Americans can tell their own stories without the presence of white people/culture. Of course, most white people would probably never read those stories, and since they're the ones who mostly buy books, no publisher in Western countries would be eager to publish that. Also, the best writers write about what they know, so unless white writers have immersed themselves in the lives on non-white people to a sufficient extent that they can write honestly about them, their non-white characters may come across as inauthentic.
5
sfdenizen: Try reading Kipling's "Without Benefit of Clergy" and then come back and tell me what you think of him them.
I really wonder if you've actually read these books, or if you just read some outraged commentary on the same. A central tenant of "Kim", for instance, is that characters who dismiss the power and value of other cultures are themselves valueless.
Even if your central premise is true (which I don't concede), you are talking of penalizing white people for liking and enjoying the work of white people. Nobody is stopping other races from enjoying works from whomever they prefer--and in this day of easy access media distribution, the barriers for entry into the marketplace have never been lower.
Even if your central premise is true (which I don't concede), you are talking of penalizing white people for liking and enjoying the work of white people. Nobody is stopping other races from enjoying works from whomever they prefer--and in this day of easy access media distribution, the barriers for entry into the marketplace have never been lower.
1
That story is definitely in vein of the White Savior coming to rescue of poor downtrodden brown people, where ultimately an Anglo-Muslim romantic relationship is destined for misery and failure. How is this not part of the grand Western imperialist tradition?
The way things go, i.e. the ruling elites imposing still tighter control on the rest of us, using many tools, including the ever-present dictate of political correctness the so-called "cultural appropriation" is becoming one of the block of the New World Order view that generations of our college students are being indoctrinated in. Very soon it will became a "must" and normalized, expected view as the rest of political correctness.
I am glad that there are artists like her with the guts to standup to the censors and critics bent on making us all depressingly sensitive and polite... She should get an award for making a stand
10
I am a high school English teacher and I found Ms. Shriver's speech interesting, thought provoking, and important enough to use with my high school students. Now that she has felt this backlash for speaking sense, I think I might go out an buy all of her books too!
Does the world want us to live in our boxes? Aren't some of the best novels ones in which the authors try to give a voice to the voiceless? Aren't those novels the ones that provoked publishers into publishing minority writers so they could finally be heard?
Does the world want us to live in our boxes? Aren't some of the best novels ones in which the authors try to give a voice to the voiceless? Aren't those novels the ones that provoked publishers into publishing minority writers so they could finally be heard?
5
As with "micro aggressions" and "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" and restrictions on free speech, "cultural appropriation" is complete nonsense. It's a "power play" by minorities, i.e. "you can't play with my toy."
Ask whoever it is that makes sombreros whether he'd like for 100-million non-Mexicans to buy & wear his product.
Most of what has been invented in the last 200 years, at least, was created by white people. (Spare me your histrionics; the truth hurts). Are non-whites engaging in cultural appropriation by availing themselves of, well, pretty much *everything*? You can't it both ways.
Ask whoever it is that makes sombreros whether he'd like for 100-million non-Mexicans to buy & wear his product.
Most of what has been invented in the last 200 years, at least, was created by white people. (Spare me your histrionics; the truth hurts). Are non-whites engaging in cultural appropriation by availing themselves of, well, pretty much *everything*? You can't it both ways.
7
"Most of what has been invented in the last 200 years, at least, was created by white people. (Spare me your histrionics; the truth hurts). "
That's straight-up racism. Yes, the truth hurts.
That's straight-up racism. Yes, the truth hurts.
1
I for one am deeply disturbed by the cultural appropriation of the English language. It is deeply disturbing to read works in English produced by non-Anglo-Saxons authors. What do they think they are doing?
5
Tell that to the Native Americans, who were shipped off to Indian Boarding Schools, deliberately placed with the students from other tribes so they could not speak in their first language and forced to learn English.
That's not appropriation, that's assimilation, and every non-English-speaking minority or immigrant group has some experience of it.
That's not appropriation, that's assimilation, and every non-English-speaking minority or immigrant group has some experience of it.
1
Uhhh does 'tongue in cheek' mean anything to you?
What a relief to see that the majority here resist the brainwashing efforts of the radical left. After reading the Times's article on Ms. Shriver's address I was afraid that we might have reached the end of the road for artistic free-expression. After reading these posts I am reassured that most of us still prefer thinking to joining the charge of the lemmings over the cliff.
34
All cultures appropriate, that's how they evolve. Should the Christians feel bad about using a Christmas tree, because the practice was stolen from pagans? Should we all stop using the number zero because we stole the concept from the Muslims? Oh, and I guess I can't put female characters into my novels now.
Without cultural appropriation, there's no culture. There's a zoo frozen in time.
And no fiction, only autobiography.
Without cultural appropriation, there's no culture. There's a zoo frozen in time.
And no fiction, only autobiography.
6
All that Shriver is guilty of is exposing the silly things said by silly people - who, in response, act even sillier.
8
Good writing should speak for itself.
3
Now, It seems the 'politically correctness' has been pushed to a new limit. We all know that sort of logic gets you from A to B, but only imagination takes you Everywhere (as Einstein? said it) Art is not formulaic, it is not predictable, it does not follow rules. If you are offended by a novel just don't read it. if an art work offends you don't look at it. if a performance offends you do not attend it. But, censorship is suppression of ideas and it is not acceptable in our free societies.
6
Insanity. Anyone can write anything about anyone. People can judge for themselves whether the product is worth reading. This is plain and simple intolerance. How sad that public discourse has become such a minefield.
10
Thank you Ms. Shriver. I'm just writing as yet another bleeding-heart progressive-liberal who agrees with you completely, as is clearly the case with so many other readers.
8
Cultural appropriation, in its newest form and most virulent form, strikes close to home. I am the grandson of Eastern European Jews, who left Czarist Russia before the First World War. Nevertheless, I have spent more than 40 years studying, researching, writing about, and teaching a culture not my own. I'm glad I'm close to retirement; in the present campus climate, I probably would have chosen a different, "more appropriate" subject.
2
I'm a Hispanic writer and I completely agree with Ms. Shriver. Cultural appropriation is political correctness run amok and its proponents, like all zealots, have turned into what they are supposedly against. Taken to its absurd conclusion cultural appropriation would mean that an Asian American couldn't act in a Shakespeare play, that African Americans shouldn't play European Classical music and White Americans shouldn't teach a yoga class.
Cultural appropriation is PRECISELY the cure for racism and racial exclusivity; it is by adopting aspects of other cultures that we become a tolerant multicultural society. Notice that this movement comes from academia; the case of Ms. Kim complaining that Johnson's book was more popular because as a white male he is part of the "establishment", is telling.
Ironically, hers is the very same "purity" mindset that university faculties use to keep minority writers off college course reading lists if they don't fit the strict, tight narrative they are selling. In other words, minority writers are expected to write only about the colorful living of the old country and its post-colonial woes, find their proper place in the caste of writers and not question the institutional wisdom of the exalted class of academia. Cultural appropriation is manipulative tool for power and it inevitably turns into a Cronos that devours its own offspring.
Cultural appropriation is PRECISELY the cure for racism and racial exclusivity; it is by adopting aspects of other cultures that we become a tolerant multicultural society. Notice that this movement comes from academia; the case of Ms. Kim complaining that Johnson's book was more popular because as a white male he is part of the "establishment", is telling.
Ironically, hers is the very same "purity" mindset that university faculties use to keep minority writers off college course reading lists if they don't fit the strict, tight narrative they are selling. In other words, minority writers are expected to write only about the colorful living of the old country and its post-colonial woes, find their proper place in the caste of writers and not question the institutional wisdom of the exalted class of academia. Cultural appropriation is manipulative tool for power and it inevitably turns into a Cronos that devours its own offspring.
8
does this mean that the next time I see a black man in preppy clothes I am allowed to yell at him for appropriating my culture? If I see a Hispanic person in jeans can I belittle him for stealing my culture? What about when rappers mention white people in songs?
6
As Diva wrote:
"For those folks shouting "reverse appropriation" when minorities in Hamilton play Caucasian founding fathers, please remember that minorities and people of color in the US actually straddle two cultures: the one they were born into, and the one they have assimilated into and walk around in every day. By that measure, there has been no cultural appropriation as the general culture IS our culture, along with our ethnic/racial/sexual orientation culture."
Black people built our country's universities and prep schools before they were allowed to attend them and Latinos (the preferred term, and yes, it matters) have worked in factories producing "American" clothes for decades.
"For those folks shouting "reverse appropriation" when minorities in Hamilton play Caucasian founding fathers, please remember that minorities and people of color in the US actually straddle two cultures: the one they were born into, and the one they have assimilated into and walk around in every day. By that measure, there has been no cultural appropriation as the general culture IS our culture, along with our ethnic/racial/sexual orientation culture."
Black people built our country's universities and prep schools before they were allowed to attend them and Latinos (the preferred term, and yes, it matters) have worked in factories producing "American" clothes for decades.
4
I'm Latino and I prefer Hispanic. You or some radical group don't get to speak for all of us.
And I also think cultural appropriation to the level that Lionel Shriver described is nonsense. My cultural and ethnic heritage doesn't give me the right to request approval from other people to write about it. I have the right to not like the work, not to censor it. That is, in essence, what you and people like Diva are promoting.
And I also think cultural appropriation to the level that Lionel Shriver described is nonsense. My cultural and ethnic heritage doesn't give me the right to request approval from other people to write about it. I have the right to not like the work, not to censor it. That is, in essence, what you and people like Diva are promoting.
As a Jew I am very aware of the very select and well, racist, sensitivities pandered to by the crowd that decries cultural appropriation and other perceived racial slights. A most minor perceived insensitivity towards some groups leads to uproar while actual hate speech towards others in defended. And of course, the outcry varies considerably depending on whether the perceived offender is a white hetrosexual male or a black Muslim lesbian.
Having said that, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. Everyone is supposed to be inclusive and diverse which means centering the attention on the lefts favored groups. But any misstep leads to condemnation and permadent reputation ruin.
I will stick to writing about people of similar cultural background as myself. I am interested in being a vehicle for peoples issues or a target or the "you're not doing it right" crowd. People complaining about Eurocentrism but will find the constant harping on whites who step out of line will increase the number who do not venture out of their own cultural group. Since whites the majority it will just further Eurocentrism or white supremacy as it is often dishonestly called. It is amusing how self defeating the cultural leftists can be.
Having said that, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. Everyone is supposed to be inclusive and diverse which means centering the attention on the lefts favored groups. But any misstep leads to condemnation and permadent reputation ruin.
I will stick to writing about people of similar cultural background as myself. I am interested in being a vehicle for peoples issues or a target or the "you're not doing it right" crowd. People complaining about Eurocentrism but will find the constant harping on whites who step out of line will increase the number who do not venture out of their own cultural group. Since whites the majority it will just further Eurocentrism or white supremacy as it is often dishonestly called. It is amusing how self defeating the cultural leftists can be.
1
I bought Ms. Kim's book about North Korea when it first came out, and I thought it was excellent. I later bought another copy to give as a gift.
I am so disappointed to read that Ms. Kim has been whining about competition from two Caucasian male writers' books on North Korea. Her problem seems to be with the ethnicity and gender of the writers of these books rather than with the books' merits.
Is there a limit on the number of books about North Korea that should circulate? Should we impanel a Ministry of Culture to decide who gets to write about North Korea?
Those ideas, I think, would play better in North Korea than here.
I am so disappointed to read that Ms. Kim has been whining about competition from two Caucasian male writers' books on North Korea. Her problem seems to be with the ethnicity and gender of the writers of these books rather than with the books' merits.
Is there a limit on the number of books about North Korea that should circulate? Should we impanel a Ministry of Culture to decide who gets to write about North Korea?
Those ideas, I think, would play better in North Korea than here.
14
Wise thinkers tell us that there is no such thing as "race," because there are no such boundaries within our genome, because there are no boundaries to our colors, because there are no boundaries to all our permutations. And if there is no such thing as "race" then how can we thoughtfully accept that that there are immutable stereotypes of "culture?" There may be features to a community, but there are no boundaries; there is endless blending and elision. And there is an endless continuum of cultures within a region, a community, within a neighborhood, and sometimes from one room to another in each of our homes.
So the idea of "cultural appropriation" is not only a wormhole of anti-intellectual conceit, it also, ironically, perpetuates the terrible notion that "race" and "culture" can be stereotyped and thus "owned" by someone.
So the idea of "cultural appropriation" is not only a wormhole of anti-intellectual conceit, it also, ironically, perpetuates the terrible notion that "race" and "culture" can be stereotyped and thus "owned" by someone.
1
For those folks shouting "reverse appropriation" when minorities in Hamilton play Caucasian founding fathers, please remember that minorities and people of color in the US actually straddle two cultures: the one they were born into, and the one they have assimilated into and walk around in every day. By that measure, there has been no cultural appropriation as the general culture IS our culture, along with our ethnic/racial/sexual orientation culture.
7
The rule given by our elites, via political correctness, is clear: Minorities can get away with what whites would be pilloried for by PC.
Thus also they can "protest" (burn city blocks), while anyone else would be quickly and rightly arrested for vandalism.
Thus also they can "protest" (burn city blocks), while anyone else would be quickly and rightly arrested for vandalism.
3
The general culture includes (to use music as a cultural metaphor) blues, rock, country, gospel, jazz, musical theater, bluegrass, surf music, Chicano music, zydeco, Texas swing, cowboy ballads, Nat King Cole, Ruben Blades, opera, Copeland, Aretha, Dylan, Kanye, Wynton Marsalis, Yo Yo Ma, Johnny Cash, and Frank Sinatra. We all straddle all of it, appropriate all of it, and any separations are an illusion, if not a limitation. Eminem grew up in a poor mostly black Detroit neighborhood and Kanye West grew up middle class with an English professor mother and also lived in China. Who is appropriating what?
1
My god we're getting increasingly thin skinned in all the worst places.
I confess to not having read either of the books about North Korea but that will not stop me from putting this out there, perhaps in spite of his white maleness Adam Johnson is a better writer? Authenticity is not the sole prerequisite for an author, and often an outsider provides that "other" prespective that might be more all encompassing. I think there's room on the shelf for all worthy books just as there ought to be more room in our minds for all worthy thoughts.
I confess to not having read either of the books about North Korea but that will not stop me from putting this out there, perhaps in spite of his white maleness Adam Johnson is a better writer? Authenticity is not the sole prerequisite for an author, and often an outsider provides that "other" prespective that might be more all encompassing. I think there's room on the shelf for all worthy books just as there ought to be more room in our minds for all worthy thoughts.
15
And neither author is North Korean.
Adam Johnson and Robert Olsen, both white, both winning Pulitzer Prizes--are their works really better than all the Asian American works that have come out? In large part I agree that we shouldn't censor, but to completely abandon any discussion on race and ethnicity and appropriation is idiotic.
1
How about recognition and respect. Recognition that there are some cultures or circumstances in which a particular group have been so abused, so maligned, so exploited that it behoves us to recognise that that is the case, and to recognise our own group membership, and how that group has and continues to contribute to that inequity. In Australia the most obvious and salient example of this is the relationship between white and Indigenous Australians. The idea of a non-indigenous Australian creating art representing an Indigenous perspective without discussion with an elder of a clan being referred to fails both with regard to recognition or respect.
Yet I can see that it may not always be clear where 'permission' is needed, or how it might be garnered. If a gay white male was to write/create a character that was a Nigerian girl who has been raped, you might hope the author is doing serious research such that they are making contact with those who can speak to this (being Nigerian, being a girl, being raped). A certain sensitivity would, one hopes, make it known whether or not ‘permission’ had been garnered in the process.
Recognition and respect requires a certain humility, humanity and sense. Shriver’s speech demonstrates none of these qualities. Her throw-away derision of recent gay characters in American TV as a product of ‘fashion’ is, for me, the most indicative moment in which her insensitivity, lack of recognition and lack of respect, is at its most palpable.
Yet I can see that it may not always be clear where 'permission' is needed, or how it might be garnered. If a gay white male was to write/create a character that was a Nigerian girl who has been raped, you might hope the author is doing serious research such that they are making contact with those who can speak to this (being Nigerian, being a girl, being raped). A certain sensitivity would, one hopes, make it known whether or not ‘permission’ had been garnered in the process.
Recognition and respect requires a certain humility, humanity and sense. Shriver’s speech demonstrates none of these qualities. Her throw-away derision of recent gay characters in American TV as a product of ‘fashion’ is, for me, the most indicative moment in which her insensitivity, lack of recognition and lack of respect, is at its most palpable.
5
After decades of all kinds of accommodation, restitution, etc. etc. do your Aborigines (their "activists") feel that some good were done? Why it is not and - in their agenda never will be - enough?
Recognition and respect has, and continues to make, a huge difference. White Australia's record has been, right up to the 70s and beyond, truly appalling. Things have come a long way undoubtedly. And undoubtedly, there's still a long way to go.
Well put. I'd add that both author and reader must decide what social action that text is advocating. This is where the critique of appropriation hits hard- the most powerful agents of social change and meaning are not outsiders to that group, it is those indigenous to that group. If powerful, privileged outsiders are representing the serious issues of a culture, they co-opt the rightful voices of that culture.
What I don't understand is why these appropriation apologists write about themselves grappling with us natives as do here?
What I don't understand is why these appropriation apologists write about themselves grappling with us natives as do here?
1
I've never read any of this author's books. After reading this article, I felt compelled to order her new book from Amazon. I hope I'm not the only one.
44
We are ordering 3 of Ms. Shriver's books for 3 out of our six children and will intensively promote and recommend her books to our friends and acquaintances and on social networks as she not only writes well but is also brave person.
2
The Mandibles is a truly wonderful piece of literary dystopian fiction.
1
You aren't. I read the book this past summer and it is brilliant.
So white guys shouldn't play jazz? Can non-whites write in iambic pentameter? This is all so ridiculous. Some nut can stand on the street corner and scream racist crap and nothing happens to him but you write a book about characters not of your own background and you get excoriated? This makes no sense to me.
21
Very well made points.
Yet PC is such ever-present tyranny that "cultural appropriation" swindle is being taught to and accepted by entire generation of college students, etc.
Yet PC is such ever-present tyranny that "cultural appropriation" swindle is being taught to and accepted by entire generation of college students, etc.
1
‘Cultural appropriation’ seems to have started out as a protest against base exploitation and profiteering from caricaturing minorities, like wearing ethnic Halloween costumes or using cultural symbols for your sports team. The groups that called it out raised awareness and received a lot of support from the public. But at some point the idea morphed so that no one could create or use anything unless they’re a member of the community being represented. That public support is going to evaporate if they insist on that position.
12
I agree regarding the demeaning cartoons of Native Americans that sports teams have used to build "team spirit" and make fortunes. But Halloween costumes? The origin of costuming for Halloween is so old and crosses many cultures. So many can lay claim to it. If a costume is thought out, and the culture is correctly and respectfully represented, why can't my child be a Cambodian Apsara dancer (Cambodians she has known all her life helped with the costume) for Halloween? Can't we tell if a costume is insulting, or if it is educational and fun? My Cambodian godchild wanted to be a "Chinese girl" her first Halloween in the US. I explained that her American classmates would not know the difference, so we had a laugh, and she picked a ghost.
And can we stop complaining that 19th century white men wrote about persons other than 19th century white men in a stereotypical and insulting manner? That is yesterday's news. We can learn from their stupidity. If we are allowed only write exactly who we are, how boring novels will become.
And can we stop complaining that 19th century white men wrote about persons other than 19th century white men in a stereotypical and insulting manner? That is yesterday's news. We can learn from their stupidity. If we are allowed only write exactly who we are, how boring novels will become.
Geez seriously. I guess we better dump Shakespeare now.
And more painfully--all of sci-fi. Since most of it is a variation on Homer's "The Odyssey."
Guess "The Remains of the Day" shouldn't have been published. What does a Japanese guy know about the sad lives of the British serving class?
Maybe we'd better burn "Make Way for Ducklings," which offends on so many levels. Don't even get me started on "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."
A writer can write about anything. Read it, or don't. Buy it, or don't. Critique it on its merits as a story, or shut up and go home.
And more painfully--all of sci-fi. Since most of it is a variation on Homer's "The Odyssey."
Guess "The Remains of the Day" shouldn't have been published. What does a Japanese guy know about the sad lives of the British serving class?
Maybe we'd better burn "Make Way for Ducklings," which offends on so many levels. Don't even get me started on "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."
A writer can write about anything. Read it, or don't. Buy it, or don't. Critique it on its merits as a story, or shut up and go home.
20
There's cultural exploration - and then there's cultural exploitation. We've had both for a long time. It is the reader's and [fearless, reflective] reviewer's job to identify which is which. Not the job of some self-appointed PC politburo. If I travel to a new country, or culture, can I not talk about what I have learned? I want others to, too.
There is an overlarge amount of praise and best-seller status and fat cash prizes for books written by well-off mainstream white guys -- and isn't it, honestly, time we got past that? And listened more often, and more closely, to the voices of the global majority: women, people of color, people who didn't go to Harvard (or the iowa writers workshop), people who don't look like the well-off mainstream white guys who run publishing, and Hollywood, and politics and finance? (I really am tired of the endless stream of novels by upper-echelon New Yorkers writing about upper-echelon New Yorkers.)
There does need to be far more attention paid to writers from non-white, non-elite backgrounds. But the path is not simply shouting down those who are white, and who in many cases (one commenter mentioned William Styron's 'Confessions of Nat Turner,' a brilliant example) are, by exploring parts of culture more distant from them, raising the consciousness and empathy of those in the dominant mainstream. This is good work, and the work of many writers. Let's not shut them down.
There is an overlarge amount of praise and best-seller status and fat cash prizes for books written by well-off mainstream white guys -- and isn't it, honestly, time we got past that? And listened more often, and more closely, to the voices of the global majority: women, people of color, people who didn't go to Harvard (or the iowa writers workshop), people who don't look like the well-off mainstream white guys who run publishing, and Hollywood, and politics and finance? (I really am tired of the endless stream of novels by upper-echelon New Yorkers writing about upper-echelon New Yorkers.)
There does need to be far more attention paid to writers from non-white, non-elite backgrounds. But the path is not simply shouting down those who are white, and who in many cases (one commenter mentioned William Styron's 'Confessions of Nat Turner,' a brilliant example) are, by exploring parts of culture more distant from them, raising the consciousness and empathy of those in the dominant mainstream. This is good work, and the work of many writers. Let's not shut them down.
5
I am bewildered.
On the one hand, cultural groups ask they be accepted and not set apart. The desire is to create an equal population where no single "type" of person is looked upon as different.
On the other hand, these same cultural groups ask that their customs, behaviors and practices be protected as proprietary, available only to themselves for their own purposes.
Of course the protection of culture doesn't apply to White European races because that would be seen as a racist movement. But truly, if cultural appropriation is not acceptable, shouldn't it apply to all cultures regardless?
I once asked a Native American Elder if he disliked White folk learning his peoples' ways. He wisely replied: "I don't mind Whites learning Indian ways, I DO mind when they think they can become an Indian." It's an important distinction.
On the one hand, cultural groups ask they be accepted and not set apart. The desire is to create an equal population where no single "type" of person is looked upon as different.
On the other hand, these same cultural groups ask that their customs, behaviors and practices be protected as proprietary, available only to themselves for their own purposes.
Of course the protection of culture doesn't apply to White European races because that would be seen as a racist movement. But truly, if cultural appropriation is not acceptable, shouldn't it apply to all cultures regardless?
I once asked a Native American Elder if he disliked White folk learning his peoples' ways. He wisely replied: "I don't mind Whites learning Indian ways, I DO mind when they think they can become an Indian." It's an important distinction.
8
“Hamilton” displays cultural appropriation; a mostly minority cast plays the Founding Fathers. Is this offensive? Cultural appropriation advocates would say no since the casting highlights the fact that minorities who helped build the nation are largely left out of historical narrative, but they’d be outraged if a new musical had a WASP cast playing minority characters in an historical portrayal of their struggle.
This double standard reflects cultural appropriation’s frozen hierarchy of a monolithic white European culture oppressing everyone else. It’s like a Monty Python skit without the humor. But cultural fluidity and sharing is more the reality, enriching the world by melding many cultures’ offerings into something new. Unfortunately, cultural appropriation throws creative borrowing into the bleak bin of racist caricature and theft.
“Hamilton” is incredible partly because of the cultural appropriation in its casting, which reverberates throughout the musical and gives an exciting spin to who tells your story. Such work can only spring from an atmosphere of creative freedom, not the infinite parsing of what’s appropriate to appropriate, which leads to paralysis.
Cultural appropriation dogma engenders segregation, intolerance, timidity, artistic sclerosis, and creative death. May it remain sequestered among academic hacks, and never taken seriously by those who want to grapple boldly with big issues and maybe invent something beautiful in the process.
This double standard reflects cultural appropriation’s frozen hierarchy of a monolithic white European culture oppressing everyone else. It’s like a Monty Python skit without the humor. But cultural fluidity and sharing is more the reality, enriching the world by melding many cultures’ offerings into something new. Unfortunately, cultural appropriation throws creative borrowing into the bleak bin of racist caricature and theft.
“Hamilton” is incredible partly because of the cultural appropriation in its casting, which reverberates throughout the musical and gives an exciting spin to who tells your story. Such work can only spring from an atmosphere of creative freedom, not the infinite parsing of what’s appropriate to appropriate, which leads to paralysis.
Cultural appropriation dogma engenders segregation, intolerance, timidity, artistic sclerosis, and creative death. May it remain sequestered among academic hacks, and never taken seriously by those who want to grapple boldly with big issues and maybe invent something beautiful in the process.
79
Well said. Thank you.
The Japanese culture is in real trouble, given the degree of borrowing from Chinese culture over millennia.
6
See also: microaggression(s), n.
5
I'm putting all of you on notice that only I can reference me.
6
The irony is Shriver's vocal critic -Abdel-Magied- whose posts I read prior to the Times article, is a minority, Muslim, female who is advocating censorship. Whatever discrimination and pain Abdel-Magied may have suffered in her life, censorship is not the answer. I hope someday she will realize this.
5
The small backlash is truly asinine. Writers get into all kinds of people's minds. It's what writers do. Imagine saying a meat-eater should not write about a vegetarian's life or vise versa.
5
I read Adam Johnson's novel "The Orphan Master's Son" and it piqued my interest in North Korea, . I read Ms Kim's book, nonfiction, a wonderful book. I think the novel pointed me to "Without You, There Is No Us". I'm grateful both books were published, and I'm sorry that Ms Kim's didn't receive the acclaim it deserved.
3
Perhaps the raw nerve underlying this discussion is named Privilege. Imperialists and Colonizers have always had the privilege to do whatever they want with their power. Why not see the Arts as more turf that's being dominated by modern Imperialists? How dare some people exploit their fortunate birth to travel the world, learning just enough to create stories and images of others (that may become stereotypes) out of their own narcissistic reflections?
In the 21st Century, most of us would agree that cultural diversity has some benefits socially as well as in the Arts. But maybe it's time we ban those at the top of the privilege pyramid from profiting by their status- let's say for 100 years- give everybody else a chance.
Could that possibly lead to Justice?
In the 21st Century, most of us would agree that cultural diversity has some benefits socially as well as in the Arts. But maybe it's time we ban those at the top of the privilege pyramid from profiting by their status- let's say for 100 years- give everybody else a chance.
Could that possibly lead to Justice?
As a person of two races and three cultures, I must tell you that is a very funny, immensely ignorant idea.
1
I said, "could" - because I don't believe there can ever be a "leveling of the playing field." There will be no Justice.
Yet, Justice is the underlying need.
This discussion is important but it has an internal, circular logic that can not be ignored. I shake my head at what's become of us.
Yet, Justice is the underlying need.
This discussion is important but it has an internal, circular logic that can not be ignored. I shake my head at what's become of us.
This is another thing that only white people can do wrong. It is another thing where white people are told they are not allowed to question it because they are white and do not get it. This is called racism.
8
I would expect no better of Shriver. She has to find some means of flogging her books, given that she can't write decently. But could somebody please explain to me why, as long as I avoid diminishing any cultural significance attached to it, am I not permitted to integrate something beautiful from strangers into my own life?
5
My guess is that Ms Shriver didn't care to couch her opinion in such as way as to seek common ground. She also chose to give a personal speech at a public conference. Like going to a vegetarian restaurant and being served up steak.
Aside from that, I see both sides in this. If, as a non dominant person, the only depictions of yourself commonly available in the culture are done by dominants, you have, in effect, no true models. Either as the creator or the creation. How do you find an accurate reflection of yourself, either your history or your future?
The solution isn't shutting down dominants' depictions of the entire world; it's becoming creators in your own right. For this to happen, the publishing world has to be open to hearing from a broader variety of voices. I'm leery of Amazon in general, but in this respect, I'm grateful that it has made the dissemination of all voices possible.
Aside from that, I see both sides in this. If, as a non dominant person, the only depictions of yourself commonly available in the culture are done by dominants, you have, in effect, no true models. Either as the creator or the creation. How do you find an accurate reflection of yourself, either your history or your future?
The solution isn't shutting down dominants' depictions of the entire world; it's becoming creators in your own right. For this to happen, the publishing world has to be open to hearing from a broader variety of voices. I'm leery of Amazon in general, but in this respect, I'm grateful that it has made the dissemination of all voices possible.
3
I'm going to have to side with Shriver on this one. Partly it's my ingrained aversion to censorship in any form. But there's also the possibility we could be missing out on the next masterpiece. I say put it all out there, and let the market decide. If it's a good book, people are going to read it, regardless of who wrote it.
1
No to censorship. Yes, to enduring imaginations who possess the capacity to empathize with all things outside themselves and tell their story; otherwise, their story might never be told. That said, off to finish my book about a frog before the frogs start burning books and tweeting hateful ribbit croaks.
I think people should remember that none of us just appeared on this earth yesterday. We all come with baggage and experiences that shape our perceptions.
Therefore before the concerns of women, gay people, minorities, people with disabilities are dismissed (wearing a sombrero during her speech, really?) derisively, try this:
Watch some old classic movies, but with a new eye. How are women treated? Gays (if they exist at all)? Black people? Asians? People with disabilities?
Remember your old textbooks. How and when did black people appear? Native Americans? What were you taught? Imagine being a black kid back then. Imagine being the only black kid in the classroom.
Uncle Ben's Rice. Aunt Jemima Pancakes. Shuffling perpetually scared, lazy, mumbling black "boys" in movies. Black, fat maids for comic relief. Noble savages. Asian dragon ladies. Eli Whitney and that damned cotton gin. Tragic mulattoes. Tragic gay people. Blackface. Amis and Andy radio show. Lazy, sleepy Mexicans.
John Wayne as Genghis Kahn. Really?
It's easy for the majority culture to collectively snort at such concerns. But try imagining growing up with those images.
I did.
What's up with white college students and the blackface themed, gangbanger themed, Mexican themed parties??? Come on, those parties aren't meant to honor anything. They are meant to mock.
A case could have been made for artististic license, but she chose to wear a Mexican sombrero and chose bad example in drunken parties.
Therefore before the concerns of women, gay people, minorities, people with disabilities are dismissed (wearing a sombrero during her speech, really?) derisively, try this:
Watch some old classic movies, but with a new eye. How are women treated? Gays (if they exist at all)? Black people? Asians? People with disabilities?
Remember your old textbooks. How and when did black people appear? Native Americans? What were you taught? Imagine being a black kid back then. Imagine being the only black kid in the classroom.
Uncle Ben's Rice. Aunt Jemima Pancakes. Shuffling perpetually scared, lazy, mumbling black "boys" in movies. Black, fat maids for comic relief. Noble savages. Asian dragon ladies. Eli Whitney and that damned cotton gin. Tragic mulattoes. Tragic gay people. Blackface. Amis and Andy radio show. Lazy, sleepy Mexicans.
John Wayne as Genghis Kahn. Really?
It's easy for the majority culture to collectively snort at such concerns. But try imagining growing up with those images.
I did.
What's up with white college students and the blackface themed, gangbanger themed, Mexican themed parties??? Come on, those parties aren't meant to honor anything. They are meant to mock.
A case could have been made for artististic license, but she chose to wear a Mexican sombrero and chose bad example in drunken parties.
74
I grew up with the same, often offensive images and portrayals. I think very few would defend them today. The good news is that both you and I seem to have grown past them as society has evolved and changed. Freedom of expression catalyzes opportunities for growth, both for individuals and for society.
2
And who do you suppose MAKES and SELLS those Mexican sombreros, if not Mexicans? I'm not a personal fan of tourist trade stuff, but probably a large portion of their business depends on sales to non-Mexicans. And without these sales, perhaps a traditional art of weaving with reeds and grasses would be lost. Is that what you would prefer? To put them out of business? To segregate ethnic arts and crafts into extinction?
As for drunken frat parties......they're idiots, but I never heard of Greek people freaking out about toga parties.
As for drunken frat parties......they're idiots, but I never heard of Greek people freaking out about toga parties.
1
I don't understand why wearing a Mexican sombrero is similar to gangbanger parties or blackface? Wouldn't be a better comparision to non-Irish Americans wearing green during Saint Patrick's day? Do Americans really think we venerate sombreros in Mexico like some kind of deity that must not be touched by white people? Mexicans sombreros are wear by Mexicans in silly parties and soccer games. They are wore ironically. The author was being ironic when she wore it, too. She wasn't mocking Mexicans. She was mocking people who feel offended by the "cultural appropriation" concept.
13
Every work has to be considered individually. There are certainly a lot of white, male writers who butcher the voices of people different from themselves. That doesn't mean those stories shouldn't be published, only that their failures should be acknowledged. I think this would be less of a sensitive topic if there was a greater demand for books in our culture and space for multiple perspectives. What depresses me is that people expect to read only one novel about North Korea (as an example) and that one novel better be from someone who had an authentic North Korean experience. It becomes tokenistic.
is a painter allowed to have a minority in a painting if they are not a minority? or a woman, if they're not? or a man if they're not? or a child? or a cow?
3
Good for her. Standing up against stupidity is often unpopular, but always necessary.
4
And we wonder why people like Trump are popular because the intellectual left is righteous and intolerant. I attended the U of C and had to write a neo-marxist leaning dissertation to please my director. I like the idea of the Ivory Tower-- but not when it becomes fascist idea state with little relationship to political and cultural realities.
The intellectual left did not give birth to Trump, but many of its stupider ideas do provide entertainment to a good number of his supporters.
2
I'm a gay man, and I invite anyone of any race, sex, religion, sexuality ability or other characteristic to create a gay character and explore his motivations and experience. If your character is not believable, I'll criticise, and if you stereotype I may damn you, but I am interested in your perspective. I want to know how you would see my world, and I want to experience it reflected back to me. Perhaps, after all, this is water, and I just can't see it.
5
i totally agree with the author. The melting pot of cultures is what i thought was the goal of our society and this movement to segregate cultures is very much against the mixing together.
Everyone is trying to sanitize everything and it is getting harder to even have an opinion on anything.
Very dangerous. Remember 1984
Everyone is trying to sanitize everything and it is getting harder to even have an opinion on anything.
Very dangerous. Remember 1984
1
The melting pot concept is so mid 20th century. Multiculturalism rules today. And when multiculturalist values conflict with conceptions of universal human rights, there are many who argue in favor of multiculturalist values. Like it or not, that's the Zeitgeist of 2016.
2
Why has some version of this debate been raging for the last 40 years? The answers are many and complex, but one is certainly frustration with continued discrimination, the uptick in nationalist fervor, the visibility of police misconduct against minorities in the U.S. Let's address these concerns and allow writers to use their imaginations to probe human experience, all of it.
1
Cultural Appropriation means: White people should never play the blues or jazz, or rap, black people shouldn't play classical music or sing opera, country or dance ballet. When that's happened, disasters result, like Elvis, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Dylan, Bix Beiderbecke, Bill Evans, Chet Baker, Art Pepper, Charlie Haden, Lennie Tristano, Brötzmann, Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, Barbara Hendricks, Lawrence Brownlee, Charley Pride, George Walker, Anthony Braxton, Scott Joplin, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Awadagin Pratt, Andre Watts, Misty Copeland, Olivia Boisson, Precious Adams, and many others. SACRE BLEU!!! And what about the fields of literature, painting, sculpture, photography (Gordon Parks, how dared you?!), etc., etc. So many cultural sins and sinners, how can we wash them away???
7
Great comments!
Stop "cultural appropriation" hoax poisoning generations of our college students and population at large.
Thus also: Don't vote for Hillary as she promotes these kinds of things in order to get some votes.
Stop "cultural appropriation" hoax poisoning generations of our college students and population at large.
Thus also: Don't vote for Hillary as she promotes these kinds of things in order to get some votes.
Thanks for your kind words; however, your assertion that Hillary Clinton "promotes these kinds of things" is way off base. I'm with her, enthusiastically.
A lot of these comments are from white people who have never seen or experienced their culture appropriated by someone outside of it, and watched that person gain fame, riches and accolades for exposing a culture that they have no relationship to. Or even worse, showing the culture inaccurately or without true love or understanding of its history and mores. It's not that writers shouldn't use their imagination, or write outside of their world. The objection is that these writers take on a culture from which they do not belong, cannot realistically represent, and reap benefits from that venture. It's like Elvis appropriating the blues and getting credit for rock and roll! The blues existed way before he did but because of his white male status, people became interested in the music. It's galling to see a person bring attention to something and make money off of it, while those of the culture struggle to be heard and remain in the dark because they don't have the financial or social connections to get exposure.
It's incredibly tone-deaf (and privileged!) to think that it's okay to write about anything YOU WANT with no thought to who you are representing and whether or not they WANT or NEED you to represent their culture. For a field that claims its purpose to "walk in others' shoes", the responses here show a breathtaking lack of empathy or even consideration of the perspective of those who feel their cultures are being co-opted and exploited.
It's incredibly tone-deaf (and privileged!) to think that it's okay to write about anything YOU WANT with no thought to who you are representing and whether or not they WANT or NEED you to represent their culture. For a field that claims its purpose to "walk in others' shoes", the responses here show a breathtaking lack of empathy or even consideration of the perspective of those who feel their cultures are being co-opted and exploited.
65
Except you're talking about two different things. You can argue 'privilege' around education, opportunity, exposure, but to say that someone cannot create material not based on their experience because the original culture may not financially benefit from it seems wrongheaded.
4
The bad feelings you describe inspire empathy, but they are among the costs of living in a free society that upholds free expression. Fortunately, artistic creation is not a zero-sum game. There will always be more words to say and more notes to play.
(PS: My comment should not be interpreted as discounting the importance of the law of intellectual property.)
(PS: My comment should not be interpreted as discounting the importance of the law of intellectual property.)
2
Enough Newspeak to make Minitrue proud.
Ms. Shriver's speech on this subject is brilliantly well written and I'd encourage everyone to read it. I am a progressive, left-leaning, college-educated adult who probably could not stomach today's academic environment. If, in fact, 'cultural appropriation' is representing yourself as in any way engaged with or interested in a cultural identity not your own.... well, wouldn't that make any form of immigration a cultural crime?
6
Uh oh, I ate some Chinese food. Cultural ingestion. Hey some one used a borrowed word from the Yiddish language while speaking English..appropriation. I don't understand this movement. As different peoples mingle, interact, and live together things change. Culture is something that can't be contained within any specific group any more than it can be erased away. Readers and consumers of artistic works should always "situate" (Laurie Sears) the testimonies they are observing by knowing who is writing what. This doesn't necessarily denigrate the individual groups and it may add to the richness of the conversation. It brings us back to the nurture and nature question, which in most cases does not offer a definitive answer.
Don't any of these people understand that understanding who you are is gained in part by how others see (and write) about you?
Sadly this all comes too late to have saved us from Mark Twain and Harper Lee writing about African-Americans.
3
What would Harriet Beecher Stowe say?
It's good to have extremes (and extremists) from both sides.
Really quite helpful actually.
Polar opposite extremists always eventually come back to the mean.
Or maybe they're just plain mean?
And to them it seems that's enough.
Cherry picking and ignoring arguments, all to justify their particular peeve.
Wish it WAS fiction!
Really quite helpful actually.
Polar opposite extremists always eventually come back to the mean.
Or maybe they're just plain mean?
And to them it seems that's enough.
Cherry picking and ignoring arguments, all to justify their particular peeve.
Wish it WAS fiction!
1
Lionel honey, you may be making this up as you go along, but you sure are making everyone think. You were great in Melbourne as well.
Everyone is quick to implicate the "left agenda," this is from Shriver's original speech, "Donald Trump appeals to people who have had it up to their eyeballs with being told what they can and cannot say. Pushing back against a mainstream culture of speak-no-evil suppression, they lash out in defiance, and then what they say is pretty appalling." This is offensive to me as an American. Is she joking? His supporters have said enough against gays, Muslims, Mexicans, and NOTHING is stifling them from expressing hate. Shriver is dangerous in making an ideological speech, strategically around an election, justifying bigotry, and positioning a bigoted faction of society as the victim. Shameful.
2
What is this about "mine' and "yours"? Since when anyone can claim ownership of a culture? The Left is becoming more irrational by the day.
Ms. Abdel-Magied is a mechanical engineer. What experience does she have as a fiction writer to make up rules for fiction writers? If she were truly voiceless she wouldn't have been invited to write about it for the Guardian.
2
Further, why would even other fiction writers The entitled to construct rules for other fiction writers?
2
Oops, don't tell John Gardner, who wrote "The Art of Fiction" and "On Moral Fiction." There are many other examples, of course. Writing is something about which writers tend to have strong opinions, even to the point of prescribing rules.
2
As an old white guy author of a forthcoming novel about mulatto twin boys in Civil War-era Texas, I opine that there is room in the artistic marketplace for all manner of "culturally appropriating" works, which at their best are an homage to people and themes whose very otherness makes them worthy of exploration. Sometimes an outside perspective can make penetratingly real lives very different from one's own--depends on the imaginative experience and persuasive powers of the writer. It's a shame this is such a controversy.
2
Do people still use the word "mulatto"?
3
And the fact that you refer to the twin boys as "mulatto" (a term rarely used today) serves the point that your outside perspective is skewed, outdated, and inaccurate.
Can we not at least agree that this is a complex question? A little humility is in order. Sensitivity around appropriation involves issues of power. Blackface has no equivalent in the other direction that I know of. What white audience a hundred years ago has been stereotyped and laughed at by black performers pretending to be white? Most comments here seem to reduce the issue to absurdity, as if it has no meaning or validity. Well it does, for many people.
71
With due respect to your point, I believe that you are confusing the limitations of and in representation (stereotypes, and caricatures) with the freedom to represent by anyone. Have you seen Spike Lee's 'Bamboozled'? It is a film that will unsettle a linear and simplistic causal understanding of who creates art and what art is created.
The accusers of cultural appropriation are woefully, and ironically insulating the potential of their own imagination and creative expression by putting an identitarian stamp on it.
The accusers of cultural appropriation are woefully, and ironically insulating the potential of their own imagination and creative expression by putting an identitarian stamp on it.
I haven't seen Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" but will look for it now. I don't think I'd argue that a fiction writer or film maker, for example, can never represent a person of a different race or ethnicity etc in their work: only that they be aware of the pitfalls of portraying a character who is a member of a group whose public identity in the past has been painfully compromised by the powerful mainstream. It seems to me this isn't a simple question; even very good fiction writers can veer toward caricature sometimes and be entirely unaware of it.
"Sensitivity around appropriation involves issues of power"--no, I don't think so. Can no one write a direct sentence anymore? Everything these days seems to be "around" and never directly on the point.
"Cultural appropriation" as a concept IS absurd. I defy you to live a single day without "taking advantage" of ten different cultures, whether it be the use of French phrases, German design, African music, or Japanese food.
"Cultural appropriation" as a concept IS absurd. I defy you to live a single day without "taking advantage" of ten different cultures, whether it be the use of French phrases, German design, African music, or Japanese food.
1
The hyper-sensitivity Shriver is talking about inhibits free exchange in a really problematic way.
The reality is that people are ignorant and will say and do offensive things. If you feel compelled to, explain to that person why their behavior or words offended you. I suspect a light touch is more productive than militant shaming and repression, because most people don't hold hateful views - they are simply ignorant.
I'm from Texas, so unfortunately I have run into actual, hardcore racists. Trying to explain the error of their views is pretty much hopeless. They do not want to change their viewpoints.
However, being from Texas, I have also run into a lot of country-boys-and-girls that grew up in towns of 2,000 people, and simply have never met a [fill in the blank]. It's no surprise that these people say and do some offensive things. However, when I speak with them about why their behavior is problematic, they are typically receptive and interested. The key is not being abrasive or assuming the worst in that person.
Exchange ideas without using those ideas as a weapon. We'll reach mutual understanding a lot faster if we don't wound so many egos along the way.
The reality is that people are ignorant and will say and do offensive things. If you feel compelled to, explain to that person why their behavior or words offended you. I suspect a light touch is more productive than militant shaming and repression, because most people don't hold hateful views - they are simply ignorant.
I'm from Texas, so unfortunately I have run into actual, hardcore racists. Trying to explain the error of their views is pretty much hopeless. They do not want to change their viewpoints.
However, being from Texas, I have also run into a lot of country-boys-and-girls that grew up in towns of 2,000 people, and simply have never met a [fill in the blank]. It's no surprise that these people say and do some offensive things. However, when I speak with them about why their behavior is problematic, they are typically receptive and interested. The key is not being abrasive or assuming the worst in that person.
Exchange ideas without using those ideas as a weapon. We'll reach mutual understanding a lot faster if we don't wound so many egos along the way.
6
I'm definitely not a fan of hers but she is right and brave for saying it. Look at the hysterical reaction from some in this article. This is all part of the now global idea that to take umbrage is to live. "I take offense therefore I am."
4
Darn, there goes my story about my dog.
6
On the one hand, protesters who shout "how dare you offend us with your ideas!" demonstrate enough absurdity that a writer like Ionesco might "appropriate" it.
On the other, a statement like this:
"Ms. Kim complained that books by white male writers on North Korea were better received in some quarters than books like her own."
does give one pause. The snarky will reply, perhaps their books are simply better. But the reality is that writers, editors, and reviewers are very cliquey. We all are, of course, but in their case they are the gatekeepers of ideas. Some get through regardless, but I have little doubt that preference and prejudice play a large role in the literary world.
On the other, a statement like this:
"Ms. Kim complained that books by white male writers on North Korea were better received in some quarters than books like her own."
does give one pause. The snarky will reply, perhaps their books are simply better. But the reality is that writers, editors, and reviewers are very cliquey. We all are, of course, but in their case they are the gatekeepers of ideas. Some get through regardless, but I have little doubt that preference and prejudice play a large role in the literary world.
It is news to me that anyone is promoting the idea that authors and artists can only work within the confines of their own gender, nationality, race and culture. That's laughable, especially considering the widespread movements to get more fictional characters of other types beyond straight, white men included in movies, tv, novels, etc.
It is not surprising that many people are upset that privileged groups are able to tell the story of less privileged groups in such a way that makes them feel powerless or misunderstood. Based on both this article and the comments, there seems to be a lack of understanding about the term "cultural appropriation," what it means, why it matters and exactly what those that are upset want changed. Miley Cyrus twerking on stage is an inappropriate example and does absolutely nothing to clarify these things. If anything it makes those that were upset like Yassmin Abdel-Magied look foolish. I would like to think that African-Americans think there is more that is unique to their culture than dreadlocks and twerking.
It is not surprising that many people are upset that privileged groups are able to tell the story of less privileged groups in such a way that makes them feel powerless or misunderstood. Based on both this article and the comments, there seems to be a lack of understanding about the term "cultural appropriation," what it means, why it matters and exactly what those that are upset want changed. Miley Cyrus twerking on stage is an inappropriate example and does absolutely nothing to clarify these things. If anything it makes those that were upset like Yassmin Abdel-Magied look foolish. I would like to think that African-Americans think there is more that is unique to their culture than dreadlocks and twerking.
3
What's happening to "artistic merit" or "insight" or "the power to move one"...or any of the other reasons we laud artistic expression? To avoid the condemnation of the political correctness police, must all creative or interpretative work be done anonymously?
4
The tragic root of modern social censorship is that works of art are works of empathy, and to bar people from writing about subjects other than their own prevents all of us from understanding broader perspectives than our tiny lives will let us see. Barring some extraordinary leap in technology, you and me and every human that has ever lived will always, only, know the world from their point of view. We may experience common cultural traits, but each of us is sculpted by our unique experiences and there is no way to truly understand the full extent of the beings outside of our own heads. When we read a book or watch a film or listen to music, we are experiencing a glimpse of life through the perspective of somebody else.
Sometimes other people get things wrong. If you are a white American and only know the world through Disney's point of view, you will only know a caricature of other cultures.
Sometimes other people get things right. There may not have been a better writer of American life than Mark Twain. He understood the black experience, he understood the white experience. He wrote of poverty and wealth, power and powerlessness. He did not have to be a king to write "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," but he exercised his empathy and our society is demonstrably better off with a record of his works.
The saddest part of this ultra-PC emergence is that a movement based on respect and understanding results in the desecration of basic human empathy.
Sometimes other people get things wrong. If you are a white American and only know the world through Disney's point of view, you will only know a caricature of other cultures.
Sometimes other people get things right. There may not have been a better writer of American life than Mark Twain. He understood the black experience, he understood the white experience. He wrote of poverty and wealth, power and powerlessness. He did not have to be a king to write "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," but he exercised his empathy and our society is demonstrably better off with a record of his works.
The saddest part of this ultra-PC emergence is that a movement based on respect and understanding results in the desecration of basic human empathy.
4
And what about music? I can almost hear the forces of correctness dusting off that fossilized remnant of the 60s and 70s: Should anyone other than African-Americans be playing jazz or the blues? I shudder.
4
When did the world become so tiresome?
4
At the exact moment when your youth ended.
1
So right around the signing of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk? Wow, that is a long time. No wonder I'm so tired.
It happens in all the arts. I sympathize to some degree. So often the minorities have been depicted in a condescending stereotypical manner that it's no surprise any majority person depicting a minority individual is looked upon as suspect.
Even when that is not the case, due to the superior distribution opportunities available to majority artists (as in "white privilege"), their vision of the minority often becomes the one we all rely on.
Interestingly, I have found, at least in the graphic arts, that majority artists depicting minority individuals fighting stereotypes find praise instead of censure.
Even when that is not the case, due to the superior distribution opportunities available to majority artists (as in "white privilege"), their vision of the minority often becomes the one we all rely on.
Interestingly, I have found, at least in the graphic arts, that majority artists depicting minority individuals fighting stereotypes find praise instead of censure.
21
Interesting point, that about superior distribution/publishing opportunities. Might not be conscious or intentional, but it's still an aspect of "white privilege" that we all need to consider. What I find especially irritating is historical novels in which white characters are anachronistically sympathetic and modern in their behavior toward nonwhite characters: you know, "I wouldn't have felt that way about black people. I would have protected them." Yeah, maybe.)
1
So if a black writer, for just one example, chooses to write a novel about both sides or points of view in a police brutality incident (or shooting of police) I'm assuming the officers will be black also?
4
Appropriation literally means to take something from someone resulting in them no longer having it. Writing about an experience that's not specifically based on your own is not appropriation becsuse it doesn't mean that minorities no longer can write from their perspective. It merely means that someone is trying to exercise creativity. If someone is writing about something that they do not have a lot of experience in then surely that lack of experience will show in their writing. Cause and effect that's all. If you don't have the skills to pay the bills then no one will buy your book and you will not be filing your tax return under the occupation "writer". The free-market applies to all aspects of society and if your writer all that matters if that you can write, that's the bottom line.
4
The wrong-headedness of this is so overwhelming that it offers few purchases to grasp. After numerous false starts at commenting, and blithering into the shaving mirror, I'll offer three words: Uncle Tom's Cabin.
2
Do we now have to stop playing the music of Elvis Presley or the Beatles, who "appropriated" considerably from less well known African-American musicians? Who would be allowed to write about a romance between people of different races?
6
No one has a right to tell anyone else what they can write, portray, film, paint, etc. Sorry, that's what living in a free society means. Nor does anyone have a right not to be offended (listen up those who push the absurd idea of "microaggressions"). This is not to say deliberately trying to offend, hurt, ridicule, etc. is never objectionable, but, again, freedom of expression comes with costs at times.
10
There is no such thing as a pure culture, unless perhaps some as-yet-undiscovered tribe in the rain forest. Cultures have been "appropriating" one another since ancient Egypt, for goodness sake. Without cultural appropriation, we'd have to restrict democracy to the ancient Greeks, and the Native Americans protesting the Dakota pipeline would have to give up their horses. These cultural appropriation activists should take a good survey history course and correct some of their misconceptions.
Too much inbreeding is fatal; bringing in new blood, new ideas, unfamiliar concepts from elsewhere boosts health, vitality, and strength -- not to mention making life a whole lot more interesting.
Too much inbreeding is fatal; bringing in new blood, new ideas, unfamiliar concepts from elsewhere boosts health, vitality, and strength -- not to mention making life a whole lot more interesting.
13
This is far too sensible.
1
We're in danger of creating s cultural apartheid, instead of a shared humanity. Truth goes much deeper than skin. Cultural cliches are another matter, but a great writer gets bone deep. That should be the only standard.
8
The argument that the voiceless deserve a voice is excellent in itself. It just doesn't proceed logically to the conclusion that pulling others down will achieve equality. Suppose a political candidate favored building a wall between the southern U.S. border and Mexico. Suppose he deflected criticism by saying that his opponent doesn't care about the American worker? The argument becomes impenetrable, so long as the idea people agree with - that American workers deserve support - is only repeated, thus whatever reasoning may underlie the position is obscured, if any reasoning is employed at all. Giving a false position to the opponent is just an old form of argumentative tactic.
Mark Twain should have left well enough alone, using a poor illiterate white boy as narrator of Huckleberry Finn with a distinct dialect, or the Southern black dialect of Jim. He should have just stuck to educated Southern white, instead of his blatant cultural appropriation in writing the greatest of all American novels. And Shakespeare, the arrogance of him depicting Italians, much less women. And the cultural appropriation of European classical music by Wynton Marsalis is outrageous. He should just stick to jazz.
10
"[C]ensorious and totalitarian." Indeed. Leftist culture has become a minefield. IMHO their attention would be better directed against the institutionalized racism shown by blue on black violence, and, in Australia, rampant sexism. The red herring here is flaming crimson.
1
Her speech should have come with a trigger warning
3
Is there any research to support Suki Kim or is her experience simply anecdotal? If there is structural bias within writing, I think that would be more on publishers and award committees anyway. In any event, artists have a tendency to feel snubbed without public praise. The argument sounds a lot like "Clearly, Adam Johnson shouldn't have won an award because he's not authentic enough."
Nobody wants to go back to the days of blackface films or the equivalent armchair authors. However, taken to the extreme, anti-appropriation is essentially a means of owning the "realness" of a subject matter. The argument also conveniently eliminates competition from within an author's field. Shriver is right to point out the absurdity. However, she shouldn't have hijacked a festival speech in a sombrero just to make the point. Artists also love public controversy.
Nobody wants to go back to the days of blackface films or the equivalent armchair authors. However, taken to the extreme, anti-appropriation is essentially a means of owning the "realness" of a subject matter. The argument also conveniently eliminates competition from within an author's field. Shriver is right to point out the absurdity. However, she shouldn't have hijacked a festival speech in a sombrero just to make the point. Artists also love public controversy.
Having just read the article about Lionel Shriver's speech in Australia, I learned that I am in the docket for the crime of "Cultural Appropriation." I have written two murder mysteries set in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1947 and '48. The two protagonists are a white homicide detective and the only black private eye in Birmingham. I am white, born in Birmingham, and I plead "Not Guilty." I also wrote a history of Alabama in the 20th century. Of course, it includes blacks and whites. Although I agree there are some limits, how can some of the reactions to Shriver's speech be anything other literary censorship and narrow-mindedness?
64
Hmph. I'll be you didn't even kill someone before you wrote about murder. JK
I disagree with those who would seek to muzzle any thinker or writer, of any identity, whether in the realm of fiction or nonfiction. All people are natural intellectual explorers, and efforts to inhibit that drive will fail in the end. Anyone (of any identity) who doesn't like the ideas out there should put forth new and different ideas.
It is appalling that this writers conference removed links to the speech of Lionel Shriver. What's next, a book burning?
It is appalling that this writers conference removed links to the speech of Lionel Shriver. What's next, a book burning?
7
I agree with some of what Lionel Shriver was saying: part of the point of fiction is to use one's imagination to overcome the limitations of one's ethnicity, gender, age, religion and to put oneself into the shoes of another who might be different in one of these ways. Shriver points out that the reductive effect of the cultural appropriations argument is that she could only write about an older North Carolina white woman, which would be a ridiculous limitation on a writer. On the other hand, I do feel that there is still some racisim and sexism in the prizes being awarded to literature writers today, and that it is silly for a book by a white man who doesn't speak Korean to have won the Pulitzer Prize while a book by a Korean woman who spent several months working in North Korea doesn't receive the same recognition. The latter book strikes me as far more valuable to the conversation about North Korea than the former book, but it didn't win the same level of literary respect.
1
"But Professor, I worked so hard on that term paper! How could I not have gotten an A?"
Actual bumper sticker: "My daughter is an effort honors student!"
Actual bumper sticker: "My daughter is an effort honors student!"
Prizes are opinions indeed and in some ways are influenced by the ideas of the persons who judge the works but a work of fiction is not necessarily "more valuable" just because the writer speaks better Korean. Maybe if both books were non-fiction but that's not the case.
Why is it "silly" to you that one book won a prize over another book, with your judgment apparently based solely on the identity of the writers and not on the quality of the works?
Have you even read these two books? Or has that part of judging writing become superfluous?
Have you even read these two books? Or has that part of judging writing become superfluous?
Hooray- an author and her creativeness being discussed with such froth. I applaud the conversation and nervous twitch that has hit a nerve an sent the world a twitter. Refreshing, and brave.
4
There are points that support both sides of cultural appropriation in literature, however Lionel Shriver comes across as uneducated on the issue. Yes there are examples of writers who get it right when they write outside of their race/culture, but there are way more who get it wrong. That she thinks wearing a sombrero in solidarity with student government members shows her total ignorance on the enormity of this subject.
1
I'm Mexican and I don't know any Mexican who wear a sombrero in a non-ironical way. My grandfather wore the small American cowboy type all his life but the silly big one, no. I don't know anyone! I personally don't understand why is so offensive for Americans.
Human history is a history of cultural appropiation. For example, there is a few types of Mexican sombreros. Some of them were adaptation of the American cowboy's but there is also an indigenous and Spanish influence.
My main worry about this theme is that progressives sound a lot like racist from XIX century with their ideas of cultural purity and nationalism. It seems they want to build walls if not phisical then cultural.
Human history is a history of cultural appropiation. For example, there is a few types of Mexican sombreros. Some of them were adaptation of the American cowboy's but there is also an indigenous and Spanish influence.
My main worry about this theme is that progressives sound a lot like racist from XIX century with their ideas of cultural purity and nationalism. It seems they want to build walls if not phisical then cultural.
2
Ms. Beveridge wrote on the festival’s website, after links to Ms. Shriver’s speech were taken down, “As a festival of writers and thinkers, we take seriously the role we play in providing a platform for meaningful exchange and debate.”
Censorship, at a writer's festival. Apparently, irony IS dead, at least among people who organize festivals featuring writers but create nothing original themselves.
Censorship, at a writer's festival. Apparently, irony IS dead, at least among people who organize festivals featuring writers but create nothing original themselves.
7
By extension, then, we cannot ever have books that examine relationships, love affairs or childhood friendships between people of color and white people? No child in a book can have an Asian best friend? Unless the book is written by a mixed race author? How, then, will we ever do the important work of understanding our relationships with each other across the divides of race, religion and gender. Typically fiction books contain characters of both genders. As our culture becomes more mixed, and as whites move toward being in the minority mid century, as intermarriage continues, how will we map the complexities and relationships of an increasingly multi-cultural world if we can only write about the experiences of our own race/gender? How will we live in a new world if we must rigidly adhere in our literature to the racial and gender lines of the past?
If we believe that it is at least in part through literature that we learn empathy for the experiences of others, then it is obviously important to publish and honor the lived experiences of those whose race and gender differ from the dominant culture, lest we fail to grow in our understanding. But gagging fiction writers who wish to represent the multiplicity of people as they exist in the world is to deny the transcendence of imagination and the importance of the interpersonal and intrapersonal work that literature must do if we are to evolve as a culture.
If we believe that it is at least in part through literature that we learn empathy for the experiences of others, then it is obviously important to publish and honor the lived experiences of those whose race and gender differ from the dominant culture, lest we fail to grow in our understanding. But gagging fiction writers who wish to represent the multiplicity of people as they exist in the world is to deny the transcendence of imagination and the importance of the interpersonal and intrapersonal work that literature must do if we are to evolve as a culture.
3
The thing that concerns me here, as a white male writer that moves in a multi-cultural and diverse world, is how can we, the often-justly-maligned bastion of privileged creatives, not only represent the world we live in but more importantly, use our power to put more diverse and 'minority' characters out into the world?
Of course, one always hopes any author creating characters of color does their best to present a fully-realized and nuanced person--that should be a given---but isn't there a net societal benefit to simply populating the 'new canon' with as many diverse characters as possible and acculturate society away from its tradition of white-washed fiction?
At what point does this well-intentioned and progressive view of inclusion transgress into cultural appropriation? Of course, the goal should always be for 'minority' authors themselves to have greater access to the public for their voices and stories to be heard and society as a whole benefits from that, but isn't there a parallel benefit to society in casting Idris Elba or Anthony Mackie in a role originally conceived for George Clooney, or Zoe Saldana in a role written for Jennifer Lawrence?
Are we saying film would be better off if Morpheus were white? Comics would've been better off if Marvel didn't allow white writers in the 60's to create black super-heroes? If Atticus Finch defended an innocent white man accused of rape?
Should white writers, in effect, further whitewash their work?
Of course, one always hopes any author creating characters of color does their best to present a fully-realized and nuanced person--that should be a given---but isn't there a net societal benefit to simply populating the 'new canon' with as many diverse characters as possible and acculturate society away from its tradition of white-washed fiction?
At what point does this well-intentioned and progressive view of inclusion transgress into cultural appropriation? Of course, the goal should always be for 'minority' authors themselves to have greater access to the public for their voices and stories to be heard and society as a whole benefits from that, but isn't there a parallel benefit to society in casting Idris Elba or Anthony Mackie in a role originally conceived for George Clooney, or Zoe Saldana in a role written for Jennifer Lawrence?
Are we saying film would be better off if Morpheus were white? Comics would've been better off if Marvel didn't allow white writers in the 60's to create black super-heroes? If Atticus Finch defended an innocent white man accused of rape?
Should white writers, in effect, further whitewash their work?
2
Looking at my bookshelf -- not much is safe, but at least my beloved Jane Austen is. She wrote about people very much like herself -- English gentry living in the country. Other voices are noticeably absent. That was a criticism leveled against her.
2
To paraphrase the great Nathan Glazer: we are all provincialists now.
Bravo - if even fiction writers are censored what kind of open thinking and appreciation of the various perspectives and nuances of society will we be left with? Enough is enough !
2
One problem; most of our cultural identity is fiction written by the victors.
2
This is a frightening discussion that takes the issue of weather or not a writer has a right to understand one of his/her fictional characters imaginatively and knocks it around in a totally unrelated debate that is primarily about the politicalization and commodification of fiction. If a writer, any writer, out of political and/or financial resentment, is to be blocked from imaginative acts of empathy with the Other, no matter how well or poorly they are performed, then how on earth can any of us exercise this ability, which requires modeling and takes a great deal of practice and dedication? Yet to do so, well or poorly, is absolutely critical to our survival, everyone's survival, in a free, equitable and just world.
2
If a writer, any writer, out of political and/or financial resentment, is to be blocked from imaginative acts of empathy with the Other, no matter how well or poorly they are performed, then how on earth can any of us exercise this ability, which requires modeling and takes a great deal of practice and dedication?
Let's get something straight. We are not the "Other." It's whites who consider us that way. You need to practice and dedicate yourself to learning something about other people, and possibly from books written by those minority people, not by whites.
Let's get something straight. We are not the "Other." It's whites who consider us that way. You need to practice and dedicate yourself to learning something about other people, and possibly from books written by those minority people, not by whites.
3
Are you speaking to me, someone 'Other' who you know nothing about, a non-Indian who lives in the middle of Indian country? I've got more than a drop of Saami blood running in my veins and a few other ethnic strains that you perhaps may or may not have read about and may or may not be able to empathize with. I have actual flesh and blood friends who are not ethnically like me. Moreover, I read books about a great many things, including other non-Saami, non-Norwegian, non-Danish people. We're not talking about research here, though that certainly is important. What we're talking about is, when contemplating another person, besides gathering relevant information by whatever means, trying to make a leap of empathetic of imagination so that the information is expressed as truthfully as it can be through a living person who is independent of our enquiring minds, and despite them. That you are so ready to scold me and instruct me as if you know me and where I'm coming from just makes the point---you can read as many books as you want, but without empathetic imagination you're stuck in your own well-read ignorance. And we're all like that often enough in our lives so that its also good idea to develop a little self-restraint.
Beneath our cultural and ethnic differences is an irreducible human universality, to privilege difference over that shared humanity is to impoverish humanity
3
We've been "privileging difference" for centuries. Usually the difference of white males, and now females, whose interpretations of minority groups are preferred because they mediate the experience for other whites.
And the road to a shared humanity is not by pretending that this history does not exist. That's like saying you're color blind when blacks have been discriminated against for centuries and still face strong racism.
And the road to a shared humanity is not by pretending that this history does not exist. That's like saying you're color blind when blacks have been discriminated against for centuries and still face strong racism.
1
The flame below our melting pot grows weaker and weaker.
3
And some still wounder why Brexit, Trump and the rest of it.
2
Big leap, Mike.
It's a false charge to begin with. You can't appropriate a culture because cultures aren't owned. Culture is shared and lived as a part of our short time on Earth. To the extent that you participate, you're experiencing a culture.
129
I would like to see a consensus on what 'cultural appropriation' is--what does it mean, define it, clarify, specify. I's like to know what it is in advance--not after the fact--not after a young singer "tweaks" and a million white girls then do what black girls were called 'sluts' for doing years before. As an author, I want to know where artistic license ends and cultural appropriation begins. To say merely that "it's a false charge" doesn't tell me enough--WHY is it a false charge if it is? Of course, we all know "cultures can't be owned"--but what IS owned that is causing the charges of cultural appropriation. I have yet to read an answer with enough clarity to be helpful going forward. I look at the NYT book review section, and I see a review of a book, "Mischling" by an author, Affinity Konar, who was never in Mengel's death camp medical experiments but the book's protagonists were. From the review, it sounds as though the author has done a great job of capturing the horror and evil of an element of the Holocost that was as vile and shattering as anything one could imagine. Presumably the author will make some income from the book. Apparently, she has treated the subject with honor and respect. All of which brings me back to: where does artistic license end(if it does) and cultural appropriation begin (if it does)? If we can't define our terms, we can have no position on either the freedom or the accusation.
I don't think cultural appropriation is a valid concept, although it resembles intellectual property. If people are going to start filing patents on their customs and dances, I think we're headed down the wrong path. Just as nobody really "owns" an idea, nobody has the authority to fence off a culture. I would say cultures are handed down from generation to generation, and certainly across borders. We influence each other (like learning and enrichment). If you live somewhere that has cultural differences compared to where you were born, it's likely that you'll pick up some of that culture. But if you return home, are you expected to shed that part of your life experience? One of the best things about America is that it's a cultural mish-mash from all over, with everyone influencing each other. People tell you when you're young that it's best to get out there and experience cultures different from your hometown, and I think people who do this are better for it. As someone recently said, we need to stop building walls and start building bridges across cultures. Besides, if you have time to write, dance and sing -- count yourself lucky and enjoy life!
The 'cultural appropriation' people don't seem to realize that a single book is not the last word on anything. Fiction books are not manifestos. Fiction is not documentary record. No intelligent person looks to one book only in order to understand something so whatever culture is portrayed is understood as necessarily partial and therefore not fully accurate.
Moreover, how would any fictional protagonist ever be able to portray her oppressors/enemies etc with any kind of depth if the author were required to stay in her voice? That's assuming an author is permitted to engage in any imaginative role playing at all....
Sorry, 'cultural appropriation' has to be limited to theft of physical artifacts by institutions and governments or disrespectful commercial treatment of central symbols (eg: totem poles at strip clubs etc). Otherwise, it's 'fair use'. I get injustice, power, and inequality but humans are imaginative beings first and foremost and thank god, otherwise communication would be impossible and life unendurable. Let's not stay locked in our birth categories and fight.
Moreover, how would any fictional protagonist ever be able to portray her oppressors/enemies etc with any kind of depth if the author were required to stay in her voice? That's assuming an author is permitted to engage in any imaginative role playing at all....
Sorry, 'cultural appropriation' has to be limited to theft of physical artifacts by institutions and governments or disrespectful commercial treatment of central symbols (eg: totem poles at strip clubs etc). Otherwise, it's 'fair use'. I get injustice, power, and inequality but humans are imaginative beings first and foremost and thank god, otherwise communication would be impossible and life unendurable. Let's not stay locked in our birth categories and fight.
5
It's incredible how the left has become proscriptive, limiting, closed minded and autocratic. No one owns culture and most cultures dynamically change except for the most primitive (please excuse this non-PC word). Societies advance by borrowing, adapting, and improving the best from other societies. A diversity of ideas makes a society productive, antifragile (read Taleb) and more tolerant. This is a reality that will continue uncontrollably, and there is nothing that the sanctimonious cultural appropriation fascists can do about it. I would also note that those against "cultural appropriation" never seem to protest the appropriation of American culture. Isn't it ridiculous to expect Europeans to stop playing jazz, for Chinese to stop wearing blue jeans, and for Mexicans to stop eating hamburgers? Or, more seriously, for foreigners to stop attending American Universities? The growing intolerance of the left is troubling and dangerous to a free society.
16
Appropriation goes both ways; it's not just white people taking stuff from other cultures. There is currently a case against the (Woody) Guthrie estate to surrender the copyright of "This Land Is Your Land". Forcing this original work into the realm of "folk song" based on its ubiquity in the States would be a major loss for the Guthrie Estate. He was a white male writing about his experience as an American in the 1940s and 50s, but even that can be carved out from his body of work and taken if someone feels like it.
That is true appropriation. And it was reported in the NYT in June of this year.
When writers, artists, and musicians try on other lives and cultures as characters as influences in their work we have the opportunity elevate the human consciousness. We have the opportunity to make connections between cultures, sharing what's common in the human condition and celebrating what's different. Wouldn't it be better if we could identify with each other instead of rending the fabric of humanity into itty-bitty factions of hate?
That is true appropriation. And it was reported in the NYT in June of this year.
When writers, artists, and musicians try on other lives and cultures as characters as influences in their work we have the opportunity elevate the human consciousness. We have the opportunity to make connections between cultures, sharing what's common in the human condition and celebrating what's different. Wouldn't it be better if we could identify with each other instead of rending the fabric of humanity into itty-bitty factions of hate?
5
On a related note:
Cultural appropriation of cuisine is an issue on many college campuses now, with dining services accused of wrongful appropriation for serving versions of "ethnic" foods that are considered inauthentic or disrespectful. Last year, one such debate made national news when actress and alum Lena Dunham joined student attacks on the sushi served at Oberlin.
I only wish that culinary cultural misappropriation had been at issue at Harvard in the early 80s, when I attended. While Younger Me would likely have enthusiastically protested the condescendingly false-note beef bulgogi and chicken tikka masala, Younger Me would have equally enthusiastically consumed the same in preference to the creamed chipped beef and chicken à la Elmer's plopped onto my melamine plate at the steam tables back then.
Could the prefix "an homage to" inserted before the name of a "borrowed" dish help to address inauthenticity charges at the dining hall? Here at home, when I get plundery in the kitchen, I protect myself with the prefix "it's kinda like." As in, "I know it doesn't look like what we get at the restaurant, and I've never been to Thailand, but it's kinda like pad thai."
Cultural appropriation of cuisine is an issue on many college campuses now, with dining services accused of wrongful appropriation for serving versions of "ethnic" foods that are considered inauthentic or disrespectful. Last year, one such debate made national news when actress and alum Lena Dunham joined student attacks on the sushi served at Oberlin.
I only wish that culinary cultural misappropriation had been at issue at Harvard in the early 80s, when I attended. While Younger Me would likely have enthusiastically protested the condescendingly false-note beef bulgogi and chicken tikka masala, Younger Me would have equally enthusiastically consumed the same in preference to the creamed chipped beef and chicken à la Elmer's plopped onto my melamine plate at the steam tables back then.
Could the prefix "an homage to" inserted before the name of a "borrowed" dish help to address inauthenticity charges at the dining hall? Here at home, when I get plundery in the kitchen, I protect myself with the prefix "it's kinda like." As in, "I know it doesn't look like what we get at the restaurant, and I've never been to Thailand, but it's kinda like pad thai."
3
Chicken tikka masala is a perfect example of the benefits of "cultural appropriation": It was invented in Britain, not India.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tikka_masala
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tikka_masala
1
There goes "The Confessions of Nat Turner" by William Styron
4
The appropriation argument argues against the possibility of empathy and urges us all to stay in our little boxes. I can think of few things more sociologically toxic.
11
"...cultural appropriation, a term that refers to the objections by members of minority groups to the use of their customs or culture (or even characters of their ethnicity) by artists or others who do not belong to those groups."
It sounds like cultural apartheid to me.
It sounds like cultural apartheid to me.
9
What seems notable and strange about this argument (between both sides) is how blanketing it is. Can an author's use of a character's voice be inappropriate? sure, but these authors are debating whether it is inappropriate- period. I would much prefer to hear them debate the nuances. Otherwise, it seems that both sides are in a losing position.
2
Debates like this are why I gave up on the trad literary world. I may not make any money and have far less productivity than those who bask in the spotlight du-jour and can afford to kick out prose daily––but I have freedom to write whatever I choose, featuring a character of any sex, ethnicity, and view in my cloud novel Arisugawa Park.
Bottom line: if they do not pay you or invite you, they cannot shut you up. Admittedly, we are living between a Trump and a hard place.
#endwriter
Bottom line: if they do not pay you or invite you, they cannot shut you up. Admittedly, we are living between a Trump and a hard place.
#endwriter
2
Artists are often in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation when it comes to representation of people outside of their demographic group. If they include them in their work, they are accused of cultural appropriation. If they do not include them, then they are accused of discrimination via omission.
11
Does this mean that Tolstoy would have to edit out Natasha?
3
I hope none of these sensitive souls listens to Brad Paisley's "American Saturday Night." It starts "She's got Brazilian leather boots on the pedal of her German car / Listening to The Beatles singing Back In The USSR" and only gets more culturally appropriative from there.
It even *gasp* celebrates incorporating disparate cultures into the amalgamation that is his imaginary "American Saturday Night."
It even *gasp* celebrates incorporating disparate cultures into the amalgamation that is his imaginary "American Saturday Night."
3
I don't know the song, but there's nothing like being a young black woman at an excellent college in a group of white students who start singing Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" with the refrain:
"And the colored girls go, doo dodoo..."
Reduced to instant stereotype. (Don't try to justify it. Everyone else has a name in the song, except the black women, who aren't treated as fully human. They're merely local color, background, props.)
I was absolutely mortified, but none of the whites seemed to realize why those lyrics were offensive, and hey, they were having a good time, as they had a "right" to, they weren't required to consider anyone else's feelings.
At least today there are more fora for pushing back against such ignorance and privilege.
"And the colored girls go, doo dodoo..."
Reduced to instant stereotype. (Don't try to justify it. Everyone else has a name in the song, except the black women, who aren't treated as fully human. They're merely local color, background, props.)
I was absolutely mortified, but none of the whites seemed to realize why those lyrics were offensive, and hey, they were having a good time, as they had a "right" to, they weren't required to consider anyone else's feelings.
At least today there are more fora for pushing back against such ignorance and privilege.
2
So Tennessee Williams a gay alcoholic non-Slavic playwright wrote about a Polish-American man - presenting him in the broadest of prejudiced ethnic stereotypes. Should Polish-Americans demand the removal of Streetcar from every stage in the world.
PC correctness run amok...
PC correctness run amok...
6
Some commenters have asked:
So who does and does not get to do what?
According to those who toe the new line, cultural misappropriation occurs only when a:
powerful
or
white
or
European
or
majoritarian
INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP
borrows from
or
is influenced by
or
takes the perspective of
or
performs the works of
AN INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP
of color
or
of a historically less powerful group.
Thus:
It's OK for a non-Dane to portray Hamlet, but not for a non-dark-skinned person to portray Othello.
It's OK for Black Ladysmith Mambazo to play Paul Simon songs, but not for Paul Simon to play the songs of BLM (or even, according to some, to play BLM's music WITH BLM, as we saw during the Graceland cross-cultural appropriation controversy).
So who does and does not get to do what?
According to those who toe the new line, cultural misappropriation occurs only when a:
powerful
or
white
or
European
or
majoritarian
INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP
borrows from
or
is influenced by
or
takes the perspective of
or
performs the works of
AN INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP
of color
or
of a historically less powerful group.
Thus:
It's OK for a non-Dane to portray Hamlet, but not for a non-dark-skinned person to portray Othello.
It's OK for Black Ladysmith Mambazo to play Paul Simon songs, but not for Paul Simon to play the songs of BLM (or even, according to some, to play BLM's music WITH BLM, as we saw during the Graceland cross-cultural appropriation controversy).
16
I am a liberal, I read books, and I am happy to support Ms. Shriver. It is a novelist's job to explore the minds of many people via her characters and make comments on our society and civilization. If the critics think they didn't do this well, then write about it in a book review, but don't tell them that they can only write about their own specific ethnic group, class, gender, or age group. This is censorship.
41
This is self ghettoizing at its finest. What's mine is mine and it can never be yours. This is anti-assimilation at its best, isolation at its finest.
In the end, here is the paving of the road to discrimination.
In the end, here is the paving of the road to discrimination.
34
Perfectly stated.
1
And the value of a book like "The Confessions of Nat Turner," by William Styron declines because the author of truths about the black condition was white?
15
According to this theory, yes. Toss it onto the fire alongside Tom Sawyer.
1
I was always deeply offended by Walk This Way by Run DMC, but I never knew why. Now I understand. Black rap artists appropriating the work of a white rock band is insensitive and wrong. Shame on you Run DMC. Cultural mash ups and any kind of cultural collage that offends anyone anywhere should be outlawed. The show Hamilton needs to be boycotted! It all makes sense now! Everyone needs to color inside their own lines. This will make everything fair and better.
43
Hilarious and spot-on!
2
These guys lost me in the 1980's, when they criticized Paul Simon for making "Graceland." Simon's masterpiece piqued my interest in African music, broke down cultural barriers and increased my respect for foreign art and artists. Trying to get into each others' heads is *exactly* what we should be doing; creating sympathy and empathy. That's true Liberalism.
199
So the best way to foster inter-cultural sensitivity is to BAN authors from using other cultures in their artistic pursuits? Are they joking? This proves that my worst nightmare has come true: the Left has become the Right.
29
To Lamont MacLemore-
You obviously have no truck with Ms. Shriver and her defense of "cultural appropriation." Beyond your disapproval, in your view, what should be done about it? Will you be satisfied with an army of live Twitterers calling out artists, and others, for their misdeeds, hoping that shame will do the trick? Or should there be a law? And what would be the consequences for violating it? And who determines when a violation occurs?
You obviously have no truck with Ms. Shriver and her defense of "cultural appropriation." Beyond your disapproval, in your view, what should be done about it? Will you be satisfied with an army of live Twitterers calling out artists, and others, for their misdeeds, hoping that shame will do the trick? Or should there be a law? And what would be the consequences for violating it? And who determines when a violation occurs?
6
I’ve hidden my CD of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado, but have lost sleep in fear of the campus Asian Students Caucus ferreting out my secret and demanding my dismissal. It’s depiction of Japanese life is both derisive and unauthentic; I’m so ashamed.
9
Hmmm, so writing fiction is now considered cultural appropriation? Hey, it's fiction. Anyhow, I have to go and get back to the autobiography of Harriet Tubman I am writing.
12
Young people are obsessed with themselves and their identities, as if these things have universal importance or interest to others (I suppose if you're Philip Roth you can get away with that, but most can't). Perhaps it's not surprising then, that they believe authors should only write about themselves. Forget about imagination, speculation, dreaming, inhabiting other shoes and worlds. What a ridiculous, myopic, limiting view of art, literature and even living in general.
21
These are not college kids we are talking about here. We are talking about grown-up writers.
Cultural appropriation? Give me a break. We are living in a global economy, Borders are being crossed in ways many never imagined possible....and its wonderful. On the other hand, are these cultural zealots really saying that culture is property? That identifying with a culture can only occur if it is your culture? Its foolishness. Shame on them for censoring Ms. Shriver.
23
Cultural appropriation is, even if it is a social occasion like a "around the world in 80 days" costume party is a very good thing. Cultural appropriation at its most serious is about learning about other cultural heritages and traditions, putting yourself into that tradition and sharing it. Could be serious, not so serious or just plan trivial fun. Cannot African Americans join in St Patrick's Day Festivities in NY? Most of my African American and Jamaican friends proudly wear the green and are Irish for the day. How is that not a good thing? In the UK, traditional folk dancers Morris Dancers "black up" for their performances. They have been doing this for 500 years + with no racial angle to it whatsoever. Because a few quasi intellectuals who know nothing about the truth and customs of Morris Dancing suddenly feel uncomfortable about it, there are attempts to ban it and label Morris Dancers as racist. Nonsense! Again anything encourages sharing and communication and assists wider assimilation and coming together of society. As to writers seeking to ban "cultural assimilation" no matter what it is or they think it is, they should hang their heads in individual and collective shame. Such attitudes go against Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Ideas and Thought. Those fundamental principles trump some guilt ridden elitist "feeling uncomfortable" every day.
7
Apparently it's only a problem when someone who is white is the appropriator.
2
Indeed. Only white males can be racist, apparently.
1
Well, if this movement against cultural appropriation means I won't even be given the choice to use chopsticks at East Asian restaurants I'm all for it.
I would like to have the option of eating non-eastern European food though. I'll stock up.
I would like to have the option of eating non-eastern European food though. I'll stock up.
3
Once again, a complex social and historical phenomenon like cultural appropriation, which has been studied seriously at length for decades, gets denounced as "PC" by some derisive, reductive public figure who knows nothing about the whole subject (Shriver in this case). Before you know it, the anti-PC brigades are out in droves, ranting about censorship. Who is censoring Shriver? She got to speak, right? Is no one allowed to criticize or disagree? And look at all the publicity she drew! Now a barely-known author will get to have a fan club and lots of Twittering followers. In the meantime, all those who have written thoughtfully and studiously about cultural appropriation all these years should just return to their quiet caves, muttering about the stupidity of public opinion.
4
What's stupid and autocratic is limiting people's choices to do what they want, live how they want, and indeed, say/write what they want. Censorship at its worst. I'll wear a sombrero to keep the sun off my face if I want to, and I'll cook Chinese food even though I can't speak a lick of Mandarin. I'll borrow ideas from anyone and everyone and I won't apologize for doing so.
3
Well, the link to her comments was removed from their web page. That seems a little bit like censorship, doesn't it?
4
MC, I'm a 58-year-old straight white male, and I acknowledge that as such I benefit from a whole constellation of privilege that I have to consciously remind myself exist. That said... to date nobody seems to have written thoughtfully and studiously about cultural appropriation anywhere that I've been able to see it, so all I know about it is that as reported in the mainstream media it looks ridiculous as hell to me. If there are reasonable arguments to be made in favor of the concept's existence and evil, somebody -- perhaps you -- really needs to publish a dummy's guide to it.
1
Shame on the Book Festival organizers for censoring Ms. Shriver's speech. So what else would they censor? Othello. The Known World. Darktown. Property by Valerie Martin. The list is endless. Do these people not see that Shriver is defending the artistic rights of writers of all backgrounds?
15
Every writer should be free to write anything, or attack anything written. The scary part here is a "writers festival" deciding to suppress shriver's writing about writing by making it impossible to read.
16
Reduced to their absurd extreme, outcries of "Cultural appropriation" boil down to the claim (a) No one can write about me but me, and (b) I'm not entitled or competent to write about anything but me.
By this argument, there's no such thing as imagination or empathy or any of the creative qualities that we value in imaginative literature. Writers would be restricted to diaries and journals, and Shakespeare would be vilified and banned as the greatest "cultural appropriator" of all.
By this argument, there's no such thing as imagination or empathy or any of the creative qualities that we value in imaginative literature. Writers would be restricted to diaries and journals, and Shakespeare would be vilified and banned as the greatest "cultural appropriator" of all.
15
And here I thought the one purpose of art was to provoke.
9
It has provoked. :-)
As an Australian, and as a Queenslander (the state in which the Brisbane Writers Festival was held), I would like to apologise for the behaviour of the festival organisers.
We are doing our best to contain the spread of Special Snowflake Syndrome, as epitomised by Yassmin Abdel-Magied and the festival organisers. For the most part, we've managed to keep a lid on this debilitating disease. But occasionally a particularly large concentration of special snowflakes in one location reaches critical mass and we get outbreaks of entitlement, whining and tantrums, as we saw in this case.
But it's important to keep things in context. Remember that most of the audience laughed at Shriver's recounting of politically correct foolishness. And where Abdel-Magied's article was posted, on her blog and the Guardian website, the overwhelming majority of comments disagree with her complaint. So sanity prevails, for the moment at least.
We are doing our best to contain the spread of Special Snowflake Syndrome, as epitomised by Yassmin Abdel-Magied and the festival organisers. For the most part, we've managed to keep a lid on this debilitating disease. But occasionally a particularly large concentration of special snowflakes in one location reaches critical mass and we get outbreaks of entitlement, whining and tantrums, as we saw in this case.
But it's important to keep things in context. Remember that most of the audience laughed at Shriver's recounting of politically correct foolishness. And where Abdel-Magied's article was posted, on her blog and the Guardian website, the overwhelming majority of comments disagree with her complaint. So sanity prevails, for the moment at least.
136
Enjoy diversity and sanity while they last.
Hilarious irony that a writer's conference would engage in censoring its own keynote speaker. I shudder for the next generation for its ideas about what public discussion and democracy mean.
14
I am aghast that you would even mention the next generation without being a member of it.
The concept of "cultural appropriation" is as misguided as it is fascistic. It basically says that if you are not of a certain ethnicity or culture, you should not use certain things from that culture in your art. This effectively ghettoizes that culture by ensuring that its artistic contributions remain locked within that culture, and it also prevents that culture from having an influence on the dominant culture thus ensuring that the minority culture remains uninfluential i.e. powerless. The grand dragon of the KKK could not have come up with a concept more in line with his value system.
To think that anyone who considers herself a liberal, who values freedom of expression, would support this effort to censor and restrict freedom of speech and expression that is anathema to liberal ideals is shocking. Without so-called cultural appropriation the arts would be eviscerated, everything from dance to the visual arts to music, and what was produced in the future would be constrained both in the influences it reflects and in the influence it has on the larger culture, generating incestuous anemic works in segregated cultural pockets, and ensuring that the marginalized and powerless remain marginal and powerless.
To think that anyone who considers herself a liberal, who values freedom of expression, would support this effort to censor and restrict freedom of speech and expression that is anathema to liberal ideals is shocking. Without so-called cultural appropriation the arts would be eviscerated, everything from dance to the visual arts to music, and what was produced in the future would be constrained both in the influences it reflects and in the influence it has on the larger culture, generating incestuous anemic works in segregated cultural pockets, and ensuring that the marginalized and powerless remain marginal and powerless.
14
Perhaps the use of “appropriation" was the wrong word. "Use" would be a better one.
It would be very, very difficult for minority writers to write without the “use” of the dominate culture either as a scenic backdrop or as a juxtaposition. "Culture" used as "history" produces good fiction.
It is simply not a good idea to "ban" what authors can use in writing fiction.
Perhaps writers can remember the stir caused by William Styron's fictional account of Nat Turner or the difficulty Salman Rushdie encountered. In both cases, writers who misappropriated another culture paid a price.
Let those writers who are daring enough to "use" another culture--for good or bad--pay the price but not be denied the possibility of a reaction--no matter how inappropriate.
It would be very, very difficult for minority writers to write without the “use” of the dominate culture either as a scenic backdrop or as a juxtaposition. "Culture" used as "history" produces good fiction.
It is simply not a good idea to "ban" what authors can use in writing fiction.
Perhaps writers can remember the stir caused by William Styron's fictional account of Nat Turner or the difficulty Salman Rushdie encountered. In both cases, writers who misappropriated another culture paid a price.
Let those writers who are daring enough to "use" another culture--for good or bad--pay the price but not be denied the possibility of a reaction--no matter how inappropriate.
4
By this standard Mark twain should not have written The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
19
And many have argued that.
Did we not appropriate our alphabet from Mesopotamian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs? No writing for any of you Westerners!
20
To say nothing of those Phoenicians who flummoxed the Greeks with their mad inventory-keeping skills, enabled by their alphabet. Then the Greeks took the alphabet, turned some of it upside down, added their own things and voila ... Elvis.
The new provincialism, with a heaping dose of sanctimonious, self pitying authoritarianism.
The presumptuous of a lazy minded white male author is no excuse for a presumptuous, lazy minded totalitarianism.
The presumptuous of a lazy minded white male author is no excuse for a presumptuous, lazy minded totalitarianism.
12
Thank you, Ms. Shriver for standing up for an artist's right to write from any voice or perspective or race he or she chooses. In the era of political correctness you are a breath of fresh air! If Shakespeare were alive these same people would criticize him as well. Pay no heed.
20
The Man Booker Prize shortlist is going to get a hell of a lot shorter....
5
Written language is a CULTURAL APPROPRIATION from the ancient Assyrians. Unless you were born in ancient Ur--or can trace your family line back to Gilgamesh the goring wild bull, King of Heroes--please do not write anything ever. Dalīlu!
19
“As a festival of writers and thinkers, we take seriously the role we play in providing a platform for meaningful exchange and debate.”
Which is why we censored access to this writer's speech but not the viewpoint that we agree with. SMH.
Which is why we censored access to this writer's speech but not the viewpoint that we agree with. SMH.
15
As a (white) college student in Amherst, MA in the '70s, I studied music with Vishnu Wood, Ken MacIntyre, Marion Brown, Roland Wiggins, Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, all black artists, in addition to being wonderful human beings and inspiring teachers. I've been listening to, and playing, jazz and Latin music for more years than most of the people who would accuse me of cultural appropriation have been alive. If, as it seems to me, the root of the "problem" is people learning to love and appreciate cultures they were not born into, the cure is much worse than the disease.
14
Will one of these critics of Ms. Shriver please write a book with only characters who fit their very specific demographic including gender, age, ethnicity, national origin, ability/disability, mental acuity, sexual orientation, theist/atheist beliefs, height, weight, hair and eye color, health status, favorite philosopher, etc?
I can't wait to not read it.
I can't wait to not read it.
23
So often, the easily and professionally offended shut down any "discussion" they so openly declare needs to be had.
In reality-- lets walk out of lecture we arranged and expunge her from our website.
I'm also waiting with baited breath for the "discussion" on race relations the media says Kaepernick is spawning with his protest.
In reality-- lets walk out of lecture we arranged and expunge her from our website.
I'm also waiting with baited breath for the "discussion" on race relations the media says Kaepernick is spawning with his protest.
6
Whoa.
Your last paragraph is jarringly out of sync with what came before.
So free expression is OK for writers and intellectuals but not for athletes?
Or is your point that free expression is a great idea as long as you agree with the idea being expressed and/or think that such expression is going to lead to a result desired by you?
Or does the cultural or racial identity of the person doing the free expressing matter to you after all?
Your last paragraph is jarringly out of sync with what came before.
So free expression is OK for writers and intellectuals but not for athletes?
Or is your point that free expression is a great idea as long as you agree with the idea being expressed and/or think that such expression is going to lead to a result desired by you?
Or does the cultural or racial identity of the person doing the free expressing matter to you after all?
I've never understood the argument against "cultural appropriation," because the opposite is frankly so abhorrent. Do we really believe that culture is somehow a genetic phenomenon, inherited and immutable? What about immigrants? Are they permitted in assimilated?
I can see how abuses in the past led to this situation - I wouldn't want to be in a society where a black artist could write a great song (say) and have it languish unheard and uncompensated until a white artist took it. That's among issue, and not what we see today.
I can see how abuses in the past led to this situation - I wouldn't want to be in a society where a black artist could write a great song (say) and have it languish unheard and uncompensated until a white artist took it. That's among issue, and not what we see today.
8
People come to America for the melting pot. How did the celebration of different cultures by those outside that culture get turned into a sense of "repression by the man"?
12
On second thought, given the many intelligent and provocative comments which we've read here on the subject, it does seem futile and counter-productive to spend so much time discussing it and digressing it ad nauseam. Time to confront other far more important and relevant issues, people, i.e. the irrationality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the many western-inspired wars in the Greater Middle East, the never-ending plunder and environmental destruction of our planet, etc. etc.
3
Saw the movie and read the book, 'We Need to Talk About Kevin'. It dealt with a question many people would ask after a young person commits a seemingly unthinkable crime. What happened here? The parents? The culture? By imagining herself into the mind of the mother, Ms. Shriver seemed to bring us closer to an understanding. The thin candy shell of political correctness will not prove nourishing in the long term.
11
Please don't discuss this thought control movement as being left or right. It's a disturbing mixture that needs to be resisted by anyone who values intelectual freedom. I find myself thinking of how the Chinese destroyed a great deal of their culture during the revolution and sent dissidents to retraining camps. Can a modern Chinese really write about prerevolution China? Wouldn't they be imagining a way of life they had never experienced? Soon we will only be reading each others journals.
12
Why doesn't she just identify as a different culture, since that's all you have to do nowadays
5
We live together on this planet, thank God. How do we avoid including each other in our writing? This is absurd.
8
While privileged white writers should be criticized heartily for misrepresenting or stereotyping other races in their fiction, the "cultural appropriation" charge is one hell of a slippery slope. In fact, cultural appropriation in real life is what makes our much maligned country truly rich and special. There's appropriation, and then there's sharing, exchange, broadening of horizons. As for condemning and censoring cultural appropriation, may as well start with Shakespeare, a major offender, and no one's hanging around after Othello or Merchant of Venice to offer a dissenting opinion.
11
Until the cultural appropriation activists start demanding that Yo Yo Ma, Zubin Mehta, and Wynton Marsalis stop playing Beethoven, I would consider them intellectual lightweights and dilettantes and being no more worthy consideration than the flat earth society.
19
May we assume that Black, Egyptian, Latin American writers may no longer have white characters in their books? Or that French writers or authors who are Russian are excluded from the characters of an English or American POV? Perhaps minority American women must eliminate male personna? Yes?
In philosophy it's called reductio ad absurdum. In the rapidly contagious American disease it's called Politically Correct. America's politics are strangling on it - as are PC writers, minority groups, majority groups, victims of all sorts which includes most of the humans in the world.
In philosophy it's called reductio ad absurdum. In the rapidly contagious American disease it's called Politically Correct. America's politics are strangling on it - as are PC writers, minority groups, majority groups, victims of all sorts which includes most of the humans in the world.
10
So much for Mark Twains "Jim", Snow White, not to mention the Dwarfs.
6
Following the logic of protesters, Lionel Richie should never be allowed to sing treacly ballads since that's clearly not black enough plus it cuts into Barry Manilow's income. Not good.
Everything influences everything else. Heck, Rhianna Giddons, who is black, just won the Steve Martin Award for excellence playing the banjo and her music is old timey string music.
Artists write about the human condition. Should artists only stick to their little ghettos when writing songs, books and plays? Sounds ludicrous when you think about it that way.
I will say this though, white people in dreadlocks needs to just stop.
Everything influences everything else. Heck, Rhianna Giddons, who is black, just won the Steve Martin Award for excellence playing the banjo and her music is old timey string music.
Artists write about the human condition. Should artists only stick to their little ghettos when writing songs, books and plays? Sounds ludicrous when you think about it that way.
I will say this though, white people in dreadlocks needs to just stop.
8
"Following the logic of protesters, Lionel Richie should never be allowed to sing treacly ballads since that's clearly not black enough plus it cuts into Barry Manilow's income. Not good."
Well actually, in that *particular* case...
Well actually, in that *particular* case...
Her name is Rhiannon Giddons.
Like many other issues concerning race, what appears simple on the surface is complex underneath. Of course, on the surface, authors should be free to utilize any viewpoint they want. The problem is when fiction is taken as reality, as when a white author's interpretation of a black viewpoint is taken as a real viewpoint. It is not. But the answer cannot be to restrict writers. The answer is to challenge these viewpoints and grow from the experience. That is the essence of writing (and reading).
6
I urge readers to read the speech in its entirety. It's brilliant and irrefutable.
6
I don't know much about this author, who seems to be a poor messenger. But how can I write about only white characters when, all my life I've lived, loved, and even made a mess of my life in a diverse city of many races, religions, gender identities, and languages? Am I prohibited from being inspired by my children, relatives, friends, and strangers on the subway?Shall I change all the inmates I shared cells with on Rikers Island into white people? Shall I change depictions inspired by my own homelessness into a story in which only white people in NYC are homeless? Should there be no Latino characters in my books even though I speak fluent Spanish and can tell you five ways to warn that the cops are coming in the language we used in the South Bronx "back in the day." I can't write about that or the many triumphs I've witnessed or taken part in if the heroes are non-white. So, what they're saying to me as a writer is that I cannot write fiction. Period. And, by the way, they're not doing minority actors any favors here (there will be fewer parts in movies adapted from novels). Or doing society any favors. Heightened awareness can serve a valuable purpose but, in this case, the political correctness police are trying to shut down expression naturally flowing from a diverse world that many of us live in. Okay, have at me now.
8
Yes there was a piece in the Guardian but what this article fails to say is that in the several hundred comments there were almost none who supported the author, Abdel Magied. Combine that with the negative tone of these comments and you'd hope that this literary festival and some of those on the regressive left might start to get it. When two of the worlds most liberal organs have readers that think you are ridiculous you might want to stop digging.
7
What should really be considered "wrong" is bad writing, not writing about things from different points of view. I will read any book by any author from any point of view if it is filled with beautiful and compelling writing, regardless of the author's real life situation.
86
I think we all know when something has truly transcended the realm of common sense. Barring not getting the full context in the story, here, we all know the histrionics about "cultural appropriation" are not constructive. We are entering a post-reality world, where ideas and feelings carry more weight than reality. And for those so easily offended, let them beware: what goes around comes around.
5
I guess we should ban Ulysses, as that was obviously written by an Irish goy with a Jewish main character. Orwell would be proud.
16
The Beatles and Rolling Stones are going to be in serious trouble, then, having been heavily influenced by all those great bluesmen of early 20th century America … And what about those bluesmen - they were influenced by European Christian musical developments of the previous 400 years … How far back are we taking this?
13
Too late. There's already an army of ethnomusicologists working on that issue
I object to this article's inappropriate rendering of the concerns and point of view of those who object to the misappropriation of their worldview
6
As my father used to say, "I was wrong. So sue me".
I add to that, "PC geeks, Get Over Yourselves. You Are Dull!"
I add to that, "PC geeks, Get Over Yourselves. You Are Dull!"
4
I'm glad that this issue is now being taken seriously. I don't have a problem with white authors writing non-white characters, the problem is that more often than not, the non-white characters are stereotypes and caricatures. For example, in books like "The Help" and "The Secret Life of Bees", the black characters don't seem like real people, but instead the characters are what a white person thinks black people are like.
52
Shouldn't the complaint be against lousy writing then?
2
Or take "Akeelah and the Bee," a film about a little black girl who won a national spelling bee. Written by a white male writer, it won the prestigious Nicholls Fellowship screenwriting prize. I was expecting something special, but it was a formula film: striving young child groomed by a stern adult mentor with a secret sorrow.
It wasn't as bad as the parade of stereotypes that was "The Help," but it still bugged me. Although the little girl was the best, she didn't even win outright in the end -- she shared her victory. It was presented as a gesture of extreme empathy, but if you've NEVER in your life seen a black child on film, much less a black girl, win a big, non-athletic prize it was a huge disappointment. White writers, not having lived the life of a person in a marginalized group, don't grasp these points.
In the recently acclaimed "The Night of" on HBO, the black characters were stereotyped and noticeably more brutal than everyone else.
A white writer also probably would have difficulty writing black characters that resemble the people in Margo Jefferson's memoir "Negroland." Whites don't realize they exist. I highly recommend it: A wonderful account of a past generation of middle class blacks negotiating their relative privilege with the black underclass and the larger white world.
It wasn't as bad as the parade of stereotypes that was "The Help," but it still bugged me. Although the little girl was the best, she didn't even win outright in the end -- she shared her victory. It was presented as a gesture of extreme empathy, but if you've NEVER in your life seen a black child on film, much less a black girl, win a big, non-athletic prize it was a huge disappointment. White writers, not having lived the life of a person in a marginalized group, don't grasp these points.
In the recently acclaimed "The Night of" on HBO, the black characters were stereotyped and noticeably more brutal than everyone else.
A white writer also probably would have difficulty writing black characters that resemble the people in Margo Jefferson's memoir "Negroland." Whites don't realize they exist. I highly recommend it: A wonderful account of a past generation of middle class blacks negotiating their relative privilege with the black underclass and the larger white world.
1
Sally:
The problem is that the criticism is not directed at the poor writing that produces stereotypes. The "cultural approraition" warriors start from the assumption that our shared humanity is too thin a reed to allow persons from a different background to genuinely understand someone from another culture and write about their experience. Cultures are unique, but they are a manifestation of the humanity that binds us all. If we fail to begin from that touchstone, our diversity becomes a barrier instead of a source of wonder at how we humans have built such amazingly diverse ways of living and understanding our experiences.
The problem is that the criticism is not directed at the poor writing that produces stereotypes. The "cultural approraition" warriors start from the assumption that our shared humanity is too thin a reed to allow persons from a different background to genuinely understand someone from another culture and write about their experience. Cultures are unique, but they are a manifestation of the humanity that binds us all. If we fail to begin from that touchstone, our diversity becomes a barrier instead of a source of wonder at how we humans have built such amazingly diverse ways of living and understanding our experiences.
1
Damn. I'm part way through writing a book that has straight characters in it, and women and I'm a gay man. Sigh. Back to the drawing board
15
I wonder if it is acceptable to translate works from one language into another. After all, the very act of translation leaves one open to an accusation of cultural imperialism. I fondly imagine everyone being so culturally sensitive that they would prefer reading the foundation texts of their subject in the original.
11
The argument about cultural appropriation is befuddling. I don't see why anyone cannot write from whatever perspective that they wish to. Or why a white person cannot wear dreadlocks if they wish to.
This whole cultural appropriation thing is unnecessary and unfair to authors, and will have a backlash on writers from minority groups.
I am from a cultural minority and I came to show some support for Ms. Shriver - I hope she is gets to read this. I am glad to see that a majority of the comments is also supportive.
This whole cultural appropriation thing is unnecessary and unfair to authors, and will have a backlash on writers from minority groups.
I am from a cultural minority and I came to show some support for Ms. Shriver - I hope she is gets to read this. I am glad to see that a majority of the comments is also supportive.
14
Really? Get a life, people, and find something worth protesting about!
11
I, Yassmin Abdel-Magied,
Was offended by L Shriver's screed.
So I got up and left,
For identity theft
Makes me very indignant indeed.
Was offended by L Shriver's screed.
So I got up and left,
For identity theft
Makes me very indignant indeed.
1
Australian censorship, just a couple weeks before Banned Book Week. White authors must only write about whites, of the same nationality, age, sex, class? Throw out most of Shakespeare and Hawthorne!
16
Glad I read Watership Down before it became verboten.
67
What do these writers in the Brisbane Writers Festival write about in their books?
8
Shriver is so right. Fiction is about imagination......any one should be able to write what they think and feel, and it is up to the reader to sort through what is real compared to what the writer imagines. If this nonsense about cultural appropriation spreads. men could not write about women, adults about children, humans about animals. Who could ever write an historical novel? Stupid.
15
I'm a white, middle aged male musician. Does this mean I can't play jazz?
16
well if i had wanted truth why would i go to a writers symposium?
2
If you really want to call "cultural appropriation" on other people you should look very carefully at what you're eating, it's origins, and how it got to your country.
This argument is beyond absurd.
This argument is beyond absurd.
7
How can Lionel Shriver be a woman when Lionel is a man's name!?
14
Decades ago, a news weekly posed Shriver with a big game animal, probably, from her first name, a lion. There was no explanation in the caption. I thought it was a typo.
And what if Harriet Beecher Stowe had observed this new liberalism?
7
Slavery likely would have survived longer in the United States.
How dare she run roughshod over our snowflake sensitivities when writing a book that contributed to the freedom of enslaved people.
How dare she run roughshod over our snowflake sensitivities when writing a book that contributed to the freedom of enslaved people.
1
Ms Shriver: Should you need my help in organizing another literary festival in Australia, or everywhere else, on your own terms and censor free, please count on me.
10
The only thing that matters is imagination. All other criteria be damned.
These disagreements have a chilling effect on literature. Writers must be free of self-censorship or worrying that a particular 'community' might take offense. If a book is disgusting or insensitive enough, don't read it, don't recommend it.
Lionel Shriver is a professional right-wing provocateur and thus a terrible person to make this argument - while stupidly wearing a sombrero! But artistic freedom is just that - freedom.
Who is in a hurry to castigate Picasso from borrowing so obsessively from African Art? Basically nobody. It's largely literature - and popular music - where people are castigated about 'stealing' or 'appropriating' from other cultures.
Intolerance not only does art no favors, it is anti the spirit of art.
What sparks creativity in a writer is their business alone - and cannot be known or understood by anyone else. To condemn writers for being influenced or moved by another person's work or culture is the very definition of THOUGHT CRIME. (see Orwell. He would get how stupid this is.....)
These disagreements have a chilling effect on literature. Writers must be free of self-censorship or worrying that a particular 'community' might take offense. If a book is disgusting or insensitive enough, don't read it, don't recommend it.
Lionel Shriver is a professional right-wing provocateur and thus a terrible person to make this argument - while stupidly wearing a sombrero! But artistic freedom is just that - freedom.
Who is in a hurry to castigate Picasso from borrowing so obsessively from African Art? Basically nobody. It's largely literature - and popular music - where people are castigated about 'stealing' or 'appropriating' from other cultures.
Intolerance not only does art no favors, it is anti the spirit of art.
What sparks creativity in a writer is their business alone - and cannot be known or understood by anyone else. To condemn writers for being influenced or moved by another person's work or culture is the very definition of THOUGHT CRIME. (see Orwell. He would get how stupid this is.....)
11
Kudos to the brave Ms. Shriver!
3
Good for Ms. Shriver. You go, girl. Oops!
9
Let's think. Does this mean that Shakespeare should not write about Juliet, or or Harper Lee about Calpurnia, or Dickens about Little Nell, or Melville about Queequeg, or Henry James about Daisy Miller, or Kenneth Grahame about Mr. Toad, or James Baldwin about David, or Ishiguro about an English butler?
20
Leigh Brackett, a superb writer of science fiction, mysteries, and screenplays, wrote "John Wayne" better than any other writer in films, understanding the filmic John Wayne better than did the living John Wayne. And yet, as a woman, she should not have been permitted to do so?
9
Was'nt there a major hue and cry some years ago when someone gave the role of Jesus to a black man? Hmmmm!!
Othello role over years going to a white guy who then darkened his skin. Hmmmm!!!
Sigh!!
Othello role over years going to a white guy who then darkened his skin. Hmmmm!!!
Sigh!!
1
Once they go after the authors, maybe we readers will be on the chopping block. I'd hate to live in a world where I could read only Philip Roth.
15
The festival organizers provided a great self-parody of totalitarian ways by leaving a rebuttal on their Web site while removing the address to which it responded: It didn't happen, and here's what we think of it!
22
As an American musician, with forty years of experience interpreting mainly-European classical music perpertoires. I have found myself under fire from certain quarters for performing music from other countries and other cultures.
Recently, I proposed an award-winning (Edison Prize) program of medieval Spanish, Jewish, and Hispano-Arabic music to a festival in France. The festival director declined my proposal on the grounds that I was only qualified, in his eyes, to perform music from the country of my birth. And, in fact, he organizes his festival around criteria of ethnicity and "belonging."
This man's take on ethnic purity derives, I believe, less from the current attacks on so-called "misappropriation," but rather, from an older, and quite sinister line of reasoning about blood and race, current in Europe in the nineteen twenties and thirties, and perpetuated until recent times in communist-era festivals of "official" folklore from the Eastern bloc. What is scary to me is that the current noises from the left are so creepily similar to the fascist and stalinist doctrines of the recent past. Ewww!
Let's get a grip on ourselves, people. Art transcends frontiers, ethnic and religious dogmas, and collective haranguing. The criterion for a creative artist is not the color of her skin or her passport, but uniquely how good she is at elucidating and sharing the secrets of the human soul.
Joel Cohen
music director emeritus, The Boston Camerata
Recently, I proposed an award-winning (Edison Prize) program of medieval Spanish, Jewish, and Hispano-Arabic music to a festival in France. The festival director declined my proposal on the grounds that I was only qualified, in his eyes, to perform music from the country of my birth. And, in fact, he organizes his festival around criteria of ethnicity and "belonging."
This man's take on ethnic purity derives, I believe, less from the current attacks on so-called "misappropriation," but rather, from an older, and quite sinister line of reasoning about blood and race, current in Europe in the nineteen twenties and thirties, and perpetuated until recent times in communist-era festivals of "official" folklore from the Eastern bloc. What is scary to me is that the current noises from the left are so creepily similar to the fascist and stalinist doctrines of the recent past. Ewww!
Let's get a grip on ourselves, people. Art transcends frontiers, ethnic and religious dogmas, and collective haranguing. The criterion for a creative artist is not the color of her skin or her passport, but uniquely how good she is at elucidating and sharing the secrets of the human soul.
Joel Cohen
music director emeritus, The Boston Camerata
54
I've heard white TV writers get criticized for not including nonwhite characters in their shows. Now it's white writers criticized for daring to speak in the voice of a nonwhite character. No surprise that many just say "who will save me from this lunacy?" And the only voice they hear is Donald Trump's.
14
I wish the "cultural appropriation" folks would have the chance to enjoy Misty Copeland dancing "The Firebird", Lang Lang playing Beethoven, or Aziz Ansari doing standup. All are examples of non-Europeans who have "appropriated" the European (or American White) cultural canon and taken it in new directions and to new heights. Good for them - and good for anyone who uses diverse influences to create art.
31
It's a little frightening that, in the comments section, there seems to be no understanding of the structural basis of the critique this author lambasted. Namely, that literary and educational institutions have marginalised or excluded minorities for generations and developed a fairly well-established bias for white and particularly white male perspectives.
It confuses me not at all when those marginalised people express frustration over watching their lives and experiences written about and, ultimately, profited from by white men from the very same institutions which have excluded or overlooked writers from their communities.
A milder version of this might be imagined in the experience of someone, who'd had a brief and hostile encounter with your family, then writing a best-selling novel about your lives.
The problem with her speech is that it condescends to this discourse, which in its mainstream form doesn't suggest censorship, but rather greater inclusion and sensitivity. The push on campus to ban, essentially, frat parties where privileged young white men put on black face or sombreros to 'celebrate' their right to mock minority cultures was given a false equivalency with the discussion that goes on around literature.
From the excerpts quoted here, it seems it was as offensive for being a snarky, straw man line of complaint as it was for its insensitivity and inconsideration for her hosts.
I read this as a publicity stunt by a self-promoter. Nothing more.
It confuses me not at all when those marginalised people express frustration over watching their lives and experiences written about and, ultimately, profited from by white men from the very same institutions which have excluded or overlooked writers from their communities.
A milder version of this might be imagined in the experience of someone, who'd had a brief and hostile encounter with your family, then writing a best-selling novel about your lives.
The problem with her speech is that it condescends to this discourse, which in its mainstream form doesn't suggest censorship, but rather greater inclusion and sensitivity. The push on campus to ban, essentially, frat parties where privileged young white men put on black face or sombreros to 'celebrate' their right to mock minority cultures was given a false equivalency with the discussion that goes on around literature.
From the excerpts quoted here, it seems it was as offensive for being a snarky, straw man line of complaint as it was for its insensitivity and inconsideration for her hosts.
I read this as a publicity stunt by a self-promoter. Nothing more.
9
AAC:
Thank you. Unfortunately, the majority of the comments display a profound ignorance of these structural forces, an ignorance wrapped in high-minded protestations of l'art pour l'art. It's mind-boggling.
Thank you. Unfortunately, the majority of the comments display a profound ignorance of these structural forces, an ignorance wrapped in high-minded protestations of l'art pour l'art. It's mind-boggling.
3
Apply your criteria and virtually all of literature in any language except autobiography (which is a relatively recent genre) vanishes. Is that what you recommend?
2
"Unfortunately, the majority of the comments display a profound ignorance of these structural forces,..."
I asked the question earlier, how do you go about telling white southerners the horrors of there history without alienating them? How do you explain 'structural forces' to reasonable people of good intention?
I asked the question earlier, how do you go about telling white southerners the horrors of there history without alienating them? How do you explain 'structural forces' to reasonable people of good intention?
I'm all in, if it means no more claiming the Bible (the original one) in Sunday sermons.
3
Take Jim out of "Huckleberry Finn." For that matter, Take "Becky Thatcher" out of Tom Sawyer. Instead of writing in a pleasant gazebo, only write in the cave, or on the raft, or while painting a picket fence.
My issue with those suffering under the hideous monstrosity that is cultural appropriation (pardon me as I put down my Taco to drink my Perrier) is their insistence that only they have both the sole understanding of and the sole right to portray "their" culture. How dare they say that in English.
The truth is, and this is an absolute truth, the only culture I really know is that which is inside my own head. I do not know my wife's culture. I am familiar with it, but I can only imagine what is actually going on within the confines of her thoughts and imagination, her emotions and her reasoning, or her body and its unique biochemistry. In reality, I don't know.
What I do know is that when I do try to think as my wife does, when I try to understand her priorities, wants, needs, desires, tastes, likes, foibles, I actually feel closer to my wife. I actually develop empathy for my wife. I begin, in some small way, to comprehend my wife.
Now, if your goal is to remain on your island and hold to your nativist exclusivity views, that is your right. You cannot, however tell me that my mind cannot wander. You cannot tell me that Tony Hillerman should not write about the Navajo and Hopi. You cannot tell me that I should not write historical fiction because I wasn't Jeanne d'Arc.
My issue with those suffering under the hideous monstrosity that is cultural appropriation (pardon me as I put down my Taco to drink my Perrier) is their insistence that only they have both the sole understanding of and the sole right to portray "their" culture. How dare they say that in English.
The truth is, and this is an absolute truth, the only culture I really know is that which is inside my own head. I do not know my wife's culture. I am familiar with it, but I can only imagine what is actually going on within the confines of her thoughts and imagination, her emotions and her reasoning, or her body and its unique biochemistry. In reality, I don't know.
What I do know is that when I do try to think as my wife does, when I try to understand her priorities, wants, needs, desires, tastes, likes, foibles, I actually feel closer to my wife. I actually develop empathy for my wife. I begin, in some small way, to comprehend my wife.
Now, if your goal is to remain on your island and hold to your nativist exclusivity views, that is your right. You cannot, however tell me that my mind cannot wander. You cannot tell me that Tony Hillerman should not write about the Navajo and Hopi. You cannot tell me that I should not write historical fiction because I wasn't Jeanne d'Arc.
24
Cultural appropriation, or borrowing (as those of us who are not insane call it), gave us The Beatles and Rolling Stones (and maybe less obviously Prince, James Brown, Miles Davis, and nearly every other musician/composer who has lived during the past several hundred years). We should all be thankful.
14
Not to mention Rufus Wainwright.
I think Ms Shriver lost a lot of credibility by wearing a sombrero – tipping her hat to the recent incident of low grade racism at Bowdoin College – while making her statement. It coarsened her comments and undercut her moral authority.
I realize a novelist slips into the personas of his or her characters but when she uses as the narrator's voice that of a person of another "exotic" ethnic group whose own narratives have gone unheard or drummed out, it doesn't at all seem to be in good taste. The well-intentioned "Confessions of Nat Turner" was criticized for this kind of borrowing years ago. Even when men impersonate women narrators (this is different from creating female characters), such as in Cesar Pavese's "Among Women Only" and Javier Marias's "The Infatuations", as good as these novels are, something often doesn't ring true, they're novels in drag.
Well there's ethnic drag and there's impersonating "poor folk" drag and there's something off about all of it. Plus it displaces the real voices for a long time after.
I realize a novelist slips into the personas of his or her characters but when she uses as the narrator's voice that of a person of another "exotic" ethnic group whose own narratives have gone unheard or drummed out, it doesn't at all seem to be in good taste. The well-intentioned "Confessions of Nat Turner" was criticized for this kind of borrowing years ago. Even when men impersonate women narrators (this is different from creating female characters), such as in Cesar Pavese's "Among Women Only" and Javier Marias's "The Infatuations", as good as these novels are, something often doesn't ring true, they're novels in drag.
Well there's ethnic drag and there's impersonating "poor folk" drag and there's something off about all of it. Plus it displaces the real voices for a long time after.
3
The tyranny of identity politics strikes again.
Luckily we still have South Park to mock this nonsense.
Luckily we still have South Park to mock this nonsense.
18
Lionel Shriver has a genius for imagining and conveying the pain of walking in other people's shoes. I am extremely open-minded but her books have taken me outside my comfort zones and challenged assumptions that I didn't realize I held. I owe her a debt for broadening my horizons, my compassion, my understanding.
If "cultural appropriation" were taken seriously no-one could write anything but autobiography.
If "cultural appropriation" were taken seriously no-one could write anything but autobiography.
18
Is it be necessary to point out that the issue of cultural appropriation cuts both ways? In other words, if I, as a white male of European descent, should not be allowed, say, to wear a kimono, should all Japanese people be barred from wearing pants? Or eating hot dogs? Where should this absurdity end? It's not a rhetorical question.
20
"Cultural Appropriation" is real. Literature is replete with it.
Productions of "The Mikado" now risk this criticism, because it is a work set in Japan, by an Englishman, with English music, and Japanese names. A recent local production changed the names in the lyrics, and the location, to England, to solve this problem.
For roughly the past 50 years, ever since Olivier played him, Othello has been played only by actors of color. (It has only been about 80 years since Robeson was the first African American to do so, in the modern era)
These changes are, I think, appropriate. (No pun intended)
We are evolving constantly, as a culture. A dialogue is taking place now, about Mark Ruffalo's new movie, with out gay actor Matt Bomer playing a transgender woman, and the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of that.
But while we "teach" artists how better to address these concerns in their works, we have to remember, we can create our own works, and each artist has the right to their own idea of what is appropriate, as well as their own mistakes. Criticizing and boycotting are all fine. Attempts at censoring are not. You might say that is not what is happening. But I see the impulse to stifle as an attempt to proscribe, and dictate terms, and not to "protect" anything.
Ms. Shriver may have been a little too shrill for her audience, but she had a point.
Productions of "The Mikado" now risk this criticism, because it is a work set in Japan, by an Englishman, with English music, and Japanese names. A recent local production changed the names in the lyrics, and the location, to England, to solve this problem.
For roughly the past 50 years, ever since Olivier played him, Othello has been played only by actors of color. (It has only been about 80 years since Robeson was the first African American to do so, in the modern era)
These changes are, I think, appropriate. (No pun intended)
We are evolving constantly, as a culture. A dialogue is taking place now, about Mark Ruffalo's new movie, with out gay actor Matt Bomer playing a transgender woman, and the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of that.
But while we "teach" artists how better to address these concerns in their works, we have to remember, we can create our own works, and each artist has the right to their own idea of what is appropriate, as well as their own mistakes. Criticizing and boycotting are all fine. Attempts at censoring are not. You might say that is not what is happening. But I see the impulse to stifle as an attempt to proscribe, and dictate terms, and not to "protect" anything.
Ms. Shriver may have been a little too shrill for her audience, but she had a point.
72
"Shrill"?
Hmmm. Why does that adjective give me pause?
You mean "shrill" like Hillary Clinton and other uppity women?
Hmmm. Why does that adjective give me pause?
You mean "shrill" like Hillary Clinton and other uppity women?
4
'uppity' is racist.
And a micro-aggression.
Absurd argument. Elmore Leonard - for one - has many black characters in his books. He also has Englishmen, Native Americans, Hispanics, the list goes on... are all of these wonderful and memorable characters no longer valid? Is Jim in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn no longer valid? One of Alastair MacLean's main characters was Dutch. Is this, too, cultural appropriation? When writers start to censor themselves for the sake of political correctness we have truly entered a period of complete lunacy.
12
The claim of cultural appropriation is utter nonsense. Every culture that believes they are bent appropriated, has appropriated from others in the past.
7
No culture or cultural practice should be on a pedestal, immune from appropriation from those who want to embrace it or adopt it.
Haven't cultures been borrowing from one another since the beginning of time? Isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery? So long as the appropriation is not mocking, why should any particular culture take collective offense at others who appropriate it?
Haven't cultures been borrowing from one another since the beginning of time? Isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery? So long as the appropriation is not mocking, why should any particular culture take collective offense at others who appropriate it?
11
Well, if you wanted to give the low-info Trumpist Right some good grist for the WingnutWorld "political correctness is taking over" mill, you couldn't do better than a minor writers' festival censoring a major writer for speaking truth to the powerless.
28
... and exactly who was powerless?
Writers of science fiction long ago dealt the appropriation conundrum by creating alien life forms whose experiences could be examined without apology or undue fear of offending exaggerated sensitivities. For just as surely as infections will fester until they are cured, writers will find some way or another to effectively express whatever truth they're currently feeling within themselves an undeniable need to express.
24
If writers didn't appropriate culture, we probably wouldn't have any culture to begin with.
I recently re-read the Discourses on Art by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first president of the Royal Academy. In it he urges the young student of painting to focus on the study of the masters, which in his day were found largely in Italy.
Reynolds believed that literature was as much an art as painting, save with words as its raw material instead of pigment. He also believed that imitation of the masters was a necessary stage in the development of a serious artist, which might be why the English turned out so many sonnets.
So it puzzles me why cultural appropriation is such an issue for some people. All art is appropriation of some kind or another, and although there are always issues with imitation or forgery or fair access to markets, these should be taken up squarely for what they are. Art itself is never pure, and the shrill voice of the puritan is neither helpful nor welcome.
I recently re-read the Discourses on Art by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first president of the Royal Academy. In it he urges the young student of painting to focus on the study of the masters, which in his day were found largely in Italy.
Reynolds believed that literature was as much an art as painting, save with words as its raw material instead of pigment. He also believed that imitation of the masters was a necessary stage in the development of a serious artist, which might be why the English turned out so many sonnets.
So it puzzles me why cultural appropriation is such an issue for some people. All art is appropriation of some kind or another, and although there are always issues with imitation or forgery or fair access to markets, these should be taken up squarely for what they are. Art itself is never pure, and the shrill voice of the puritan is neither helpful nor welcome.
37
Amateurs appropriate, professionals appropriate.
Is this really an issue? How have I missed this? The suggestion that authors should only write about characters who share their own ethnicity and culture is oppressive and boring.
43
I, for one, am thrilled that this serious issue of cultural appropriation has finally been brought to light. And I fervently hope that that vile Muggle - or as we call her JKR - will finally be brought to judgment for her gross misrepresentation of the thoughts and practices of my people.
236
I thought we were all people. And I thought owning people was wrong, well......, it is. How come you call them your people? you own them?
Haha! See you on Walpurgis night :)
Read Harry Potter and you will understand the joke...
1
This is absurd on so many levels. So, now writers are going to be judged as "appropriating culture" if their skin color or place of birth is different?
What happens if a person identifies with another culture, in a similar fashion to identification with a different gender? The complexity of physiological and psychological processes underlying the "self" will make any attempts to delineate boundaries a pointless exercise, simply leading to crude segregation.
Isn't being able to identify with other culture/ groups the goal of understanding and integration? Peace?
To diminish "racism" or "inequality", we must address competitive nature of intergroup conflict. How do we do this without the "blending" of groups and their identities?
Its absurd to suggest that intergroup competition and conflict can be "reasoned" "protested" "shamed" away via twitter, without groups developing common traits and identities.
I undestand the argument of "white" domination in history, but its ridiculous and ignorant to suggest that human society, being a highly complex, self-organizing system, can be manipulated to rearrange its internal structure and distribution of power without assimilation!
What's next? Protest:
- man writing through the eyes of a woman
- straight writing through the eyes of gay
- europeans writing through the eyes of all countries they ever colonized?
This would be a very, very long list, leading to s very short and circular path.
What happens if a person identifies with another culture, in a similar fashion to identification with a different gender? The complexity of physiological and psychological processes underlying the "self" will make any attempts to delineate boundaries a pointless exercise, simply leading to crude segregation.
Isn't being able to identify with other culture/ groups the goal of understanding and integration? Peace?
To diminish "racism" or "inequality", we must address competitive nature of intergroup conflict. How do we do this without the "blending" of groups and their identities?
Its absurd to suggest that intergroup competition and conflict can be "reasoned" "protested" "shamed" away via twitter, without groups developing common traits and identities.
I undestand the argument of "white" domination in history, but its ridiculous and ignorant to suggest that human society, being a highly complex, self-organizing system, can be manipulated to rearrange its internal structure and distribution of power without assimilation!
What's next? Protest:
- man writing through the eyes of a woman
- straight writing through the eyes of gay
- europeans writing through the eyes of all countries they ever colonized?
This would be a very, very long list, leading to s very short and circular path.
177
My God! What would the likes of Larry McMurtry do to replace his classic character, Buffalo Hump? One could go on and on. Well, since it appears fewer and fewer of our young seem to be reading and writing in cursive, you can say goodbye say goodbye to diversity. Crikey!
3
I agree and to wish to add that our creative psyche does not know cultural boundaries. Really great moving literature/art/music resonates on multiple levels.
I'd like to also say that the best thing for humanity will be the blending and the sharing of all human cultures. White male culture is one that is broken but in the process of being remade, drawing the line around it will only make the situation uglier. But honoring each other starts in the heart, some people can do that and some just don't go that deep. That is the problem.
I'd like to also say that the best thing for humanity will be the blending and the sharing of all human cultures. White male culture is one that is broken but in the process of being remade, drawing the line around it will only make the situation uglier. But honoring each other starts in the heart, some people can do that and some just don't go that deep. That is the problem.
I fear that the idea of 'empathy' and the time-honored advice to 'walk a mile in his shoes' would be seen as imperialist attempts to appropriate someone else's experiences -- even if done in order to better understand and help another person. These notions have to have been developed and nurtured in the rarified air of university writing programs.
1
This is what the younger generation was taught to do to get power.
So they're doing it - policing culture - because it gives them power.
So they're doing it - policing culture - because it gives them power.
133
Well said.
1
Exactly. Policing culture - just like Brave New World, 1984, etc.
1
Few of any younger generation hold power anywhere. Its the old that send young to fight wars. It is the old that run educational and business institutions for the most part. Either side in this debate is trying to police culture from their own perspective. Ms. Shiver herself is 59 and certainly not young. The idea of appropriating culture is nothing new as to being for it or against it. In the US the long ago practice of white actors appropriating black culture by wearing black face was debated long ago. Those Indians John Wayne and other cowboy heroes were not Indians for the most part in those movies. Is policing culture bad all the time? numerous groups have done it for a long time from Catholic groups denouncing many things they see in media they think demeans them, to Jewish ones doing the same thing or Italian groups complaining about how they are constantly portrayed in the arts as mafia or what ever.
Oh well, there goes Othello.
443
Too late. The entire Shakespeare Canon was long gone. He is, after all, a dead, white male.
3
And "Antony and Cleopatra."
And, for that matter, "I Claudius."
And, for that matter, "I Claudius."
2
And "Merchant of Venice."
3
Excluding students who are forced to read novels against their wills
are we not free to buy or not buy novels by those who have "street cred"
and those who do not ?
are we not free to buy or not buy novels by those who have "street cred"
and those who do not ?
28
So if I can't write about fictional characters of another race/culture can I make teriyaki chicken, tacos, or curry? Or is that cultural appropriation as an American white man?
It's odd that so many people want "pure" culture. Yes, there are examples of whites people using minority accomplishments and creations (look at music 50 years, no one can deny that). I think the difference between then and today is we are more likely to acknowledge influences, recognize bad representations, and be more multi-cultural in general thus preventing the need for appropriation. The crusade against cultural appropriation seems to be some kind of hyper-correction for wrongs made decades ago and in the process run the risk of causing more problems by putting people in a box. It also further confuses the identity of multi-racial people.
It's odd that so many people want "pure" culture. Yes, there are examples of whites people using minority accomplishments and creations (look at music 50 years, no one can deny that). I think the difference between then and today is we are more likely to acknowledge influences, recognize bad representations, and be more multi-cultural in general thus preventing the need for appropriation. The crusade against cultural appropriation seems to be some kind of hyper-correction for wrongs made decades ago and in the process run the risk of causing more problems by putting people in a box. It also further confuses the identity of multi-racial people.
227
Let's not be dismissing the wrongs done by the powerful group to the powerless groups as history done and over with so fast. And there's a huge difference between the powerful group appropriating identity from the powerless group as opposed to the other way around. People who are not Norwegian can tell Norwegian jokes from now until the end of time and they are never going to carry the sting of black jokes or Jewish jokes told by people who are not black or not Jewish because Norwegians never experienced anything close to the nightmares that the other two groups did. A thin person telling fat jokes is more offensive than a fat person telling skinny jokes.
Given the history of Australia's Aboriginal tribes, the festival's response seems understandable; even if it is completely ridiculous.
8
Completely ridiculous
2
I thought I was a liberal, but this new "liberalism" seems foreign to me.
Political correctness and all this being sensitive and thin skinned is getting a bit bananas.
Political correctness and all this being sensitive and thin skinned is getting a bit bananas.
257
And tedious.
2
These new liberals are kinda conservative if you ask me. Angry, reactionary, wanting to tell others what to do, say, think...
You are. This is not liberalism, but leftist group-think authoritarianism.
To all the conservatives out there howling about "the left" - there are plenty of leftists, including myself, who are opposed to the irrationality and authoritarianism and censorship of identitarian extremists. They may be claiming they act on behalf of oppressed peoples, but anybody with a brain can see that what it's really about is promoting themselves on the backs of oppressed peoples who surely don't care whether Yasmin Abdel-Magied felt the need to throw a hissyfit over a speech among a group of privileged people, or whether privileged Suki Kim has a lesser career than a privileged white man. And nobody is telling Abdel-Magied or Suki Kim that they may not write about the lives and cultures of "white" people.
336
It's just sour grapes that Suki Kim is not as good a writer as Mr. Johnson.
5
Also as a life-long left-of-center individual, I applaud you. I fervently hope that the age of identity politics and political correctness comes to an end and is relegated to the dustbin of history, where it belongs. Such smallmindedness masquerading as intellectual rigor.
3
Indeed. Thank you for expressing exactly how I feel.
Good show, Ms Shriver. The fight against political correctness, a particularly obnoxious form of left wing fascism, will be long and difficult but will eventually prevail - human beings are stronger and more intelligent than these petty pseudo-intellectuals would have us believe.
106
"Walk a mile in my shoes," the song says. Isn't that a good thing? Why on earth would anyone discourage a writer from trying to imagine a life different from his or her own?
185
no Emma Bovary. no Anna Karenina. No Moll Flanders.
no Othello. No Shylock. No Hamlet.
No Daniel Deronda....on and on and on.
no Othello. No Shylock. No Hamlet.
No Daniel Deronda....on and on and on.
313
No Faulkner !!!!
And, ironically, no Giovanni's Room.
2
No Shylock. Sounds fine.
What seems to missing from the conversation is any recognition of the fact that no fiction writer worth a damn writes a character that's meant to represent a people. It's meant to represent an individual, born in the author's imagination. If, say, a white man writes a novel from the point of view of a Nigerian woman -- or vice versa -- and the novel is any good, the narrator isn't representing Nigerian women, or white men, in general: the character will be singular and distinct, and if he or she succeeds, that's what will make the book live. Cliches are to be avoided, but human experience is hugely varied, even within marginalized or under-represented groups. Authors don't appropriate a culture: they invent a person and the world they live in; and they should be judged on whether or not they succeed in this, and only this endeavor.
The same, of course, holds true of a female writer, or a black writer, or an aboriginal writer, whatever they choose to write about. The art lies in its specificity: generalizations are the enemy of the novel. This should be borne in mind by authors, readers, and critics; none of them should be thinking in terms of broad and vague cultural categories, either to fashion or to condemn a book.
The same, of course, holds true of a female writer, or a black writer, or an aboriginal writer, whatever they choose to write about. The art lies in its specificity: generalizations are the enemy of the novel. This should be borne in mind by authors, readers, and critics; none of them should be thinking in terms of broad and vague cultural categories, either to fashion or to condemn a book.
231
This may be true of individual characters, but it is at best less true of locations and groups of characters, such as families. If a Black family is portrayed in a book, even if it is fiction, the understanding, conscious or unconscious, of most readers is that this family is at least somewhat similar to the "average" Black family. Authors just need to understand this, and tread carefully. But I agree that ultimately this doesn't mean that authors need to stick to their own races when developing characters.
Great topic of immense importance for all as we navigate the unchartered seas
of multicultural democracy. I watch with fascination as both Right and Left seem locked in intellectual adversity. Imagine now in France a woman cannot wear her 'burkini' at the beach. Sacré Bleu!
of multicultural democracy. I watch with fascination as both Right and Left seem locked in intellectual adversity. Imagine now in France a woman cannot wear her 'burkini' at the beach. Sacré Bleu!
25
The French burkini ban was in fact reversed rapidly.
2
J.M. Coetzee wrote a book, Elizabeth Costello, in which he explored the issue of cultural appropriation across every border I can think of. It's a fascinating book by a Nobel Prize winner from South Africa, now living in Australia, I believe. Maybe it is all his fault; we seem to be living his fiction!!
7
This was interesting. I think the core issue is around what freedom of expression really means. I'm torn sometimes. There is a lot of speech I find hard to hear, read and tolerate. Often such "speech" can be proven empirically wrong. Such speech can also be hurtful. Regardless, I try to remember that this speech is another person's truth at the moment and no matter how wrong or misguided it may seem to me or ultimately be I must try NOT to have it censored. If we as a society want to find real truth, consensus and unity we must allow for the debate and allow all voices to be heard no matter how distasteful. In that context, I trust the best ideas of humanity will ultimately prevail. It's a leap of faith I suppose, which itself is being debated.
My position on this issue doesn't mean that all speech and expression is "equal". My position is that free speech should always allow each side to be heard and just as importantly it should also allow each side to be challenged.
My position on this issue doesn't mean that all speech and expression is "equal". My position is that free speech should always allow each side to be heard and just as importantly it should also allow each side to be challenged.
21
As someone once said (Oliver Wendell Holmes?), "The proper remedy for bad speech is more speech."
Does this mean only people with a certain percentage of Irish DNA will be allowed to wear green on St. Patty's day?
Seriously, most people have no idea that the Irish ever suffered racism. Those comical leprechaun images were appropriated from Irish culture and once used to mock and belittle the Irish.
So what do we do now with that massive celebration of Irishness by people who aren't even remotely Irish? Some of whose ancestors once enslaved our own during Roman and Viking times?
I don't understand the rules here. Can someone not being ironic explain?
Seriously, most people have no idea that the Irish ever suffered racism. Those comical leprechaun images were appropriated from Irish culture and once used to mock and belittle the Irish.
So what do we do now with that massive celebration of Irishness by people who aren't even remotely Irish? Some of whose ancestors once enslaved our own during Roman and Viking times?
I don't understand the rules here. Can someone not being ironic explain?
53
I'll try.
The rules appear to be that whoever takes the argument furthest back in history gets to win the argument. Some people never seem to realise that THAT way madness lies and it's far better to start from where we are now and LEARN from the errors of the past, instead of reading it as an instruction manual.
The rules appear to be that whoever takes the argument furthest back in history gets to win the argument. Some people never seem to realise that THAT way madness lies and it's far better to start from where we are now and LEARN from the errors of the past, instead of reading it as an instruction manual.
4
No. I am afraid that there can be no real explanation without irony.
1
And the "comical leprechaun images" were, in turn a creation of the Irish who had driven the prior inhabitants off the land and into the woods, to survive by begging or trading anything they had for food. The origin of the "pot of gold" was from the practice of going into the woods with some food and giving it to the "leprechauns" only if they had something like metal in exchange.
And I know all this from my sainted grandmother, who was so Irish her descendants could claim to be 100% Irish down at least 3 generations, even if none of the people who fathered or mothered her children/grandchildren had a drop of Irish blood in their veins.
And I know all this from my sainted grandmother, who was so Irish her descendants could claim to be 100% Irish down at least 3 generations, even if none of the people who fathered or mothered her children/grandchildren had a drop of Irish blood in their veins.
Guess it's a good thing Tolkien has passed. Those hobbits would be in high dudgeon.
74
I think you mean High Durthang, but if hobbits were there, all would be lost.
Had Tolkein grown up in a dark wet cavern in middle earth he wouldn't likely have written so prejudicial a perspective on gollum culture. Thank you post-modernity.
2
Can anyone defend Twain's misrepresentation of Jim?
10
Can anyone defend peoples' misrepresentation of Twain's representation of Jim?
Jim was the smartest character in the book - the only one who knew which way the Mississippi River actually ran. He was also a good person.
I don't read Jane Smiley.
Jim was the smartest character in the book - the only one who knew which way the Mississippi River actually ran. He was also a good person.
I don't read Jane Smiley.
46
I don't understand. An author can't misrepresent his own character, by definition. If you mean he was 'poorly' or negatively represented that is a different matter, but I assume many would disagree with the premise. I would.
1
Or Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness? Perhaps he should have written: "Mistah Kurtz - he great white God!" and "The joy! The joy!" instead.
Shriver is a serial offender in her taste for this kind of silly controversy, but she's on the right side of this argument, for the little that it's worth. No serious person questions the right of writers, or indeed anyone, to imaginatively portray the situation of the Other, even if the portrait is self-serving and offensive. I've read Ms. Abdel-Magied's piece in the Guardian, and it feels like a comic parody of vacuous virtue-signaling that seems to have replaced actual ethical thinking in a certain cohort of young people.
136
"No serious person" except for the majority of serious fiction writers today.
I like how the Korean woman said she was angry that other people's books were better received than her own. Maybe her writing wasn't all that great.
This is definitely PC gone too far. I say this as a queer Transgender woman in a polyamorous relationship.
If authors aren't allowed to imagine when they write, all we will have is a bunch of boring memiors.
This is definitely PC gone too far. I say this as a queer Transgender woman in a polyamorous relationship.
If authors aren't allowed to imagine when they write, all we will have is a bunch of boring memiors.
122
Plus her book (her name is Suki Kim) was a best seller and she was invited to Brisbane and reported about in the Times.
10
I have read quite a few opinions. I am glad to see quite a few people have, what I call, emotional intelligence and common sense.
What's galling here -- as with so much of the right's railing against "political correctness" -- is that Shriver is responding to a nonexistent problem. White people are in no way shape or form prohibited from writing about characters of other backgrounds. Adam Johnson, for instance, was able to write about North Korea and even receive a Pulitzer for his trouble. All that has happened is that some have noticed that actually-Korean writers on the same subject were and remain ignored, and have suggested there is something unfair about that. But this alone is too far for the Shrivers of the world, and so we get yet another vitriolic attack on... um, nothing.
12
I haven't read the pulitzer prize-winning novel or the novel written by the Korean American woman , but i trust the novels were judged on their literary merit. Maybe she's not a gifted writer and maybe he is. To suggest that her book should be more acclaimed because of her gender and ethnicity is the reason for the backlash against political correctness. It sacrifices art to politics.
58
The Adam Johnson book is just an example of the larger issue: Anyone can write about anybody. Those are the actual rules of the literary road, now and for the foreseeable future. Some people are calling attention to inequities in the world of publishing arising from and exacerbating this. Which is to say they are expressing themselves and disseminating ideas, if generally in obscure venues like the Brisbane Writers Festival. Wonderful, no? Writers writing; intellectuals theorizing. Except oops, *those* writers don't count, and, heavens, what if something they say causes a writer who *does* matter to self-censor? It's a longshot and the onus for this self-censoring would logically be on the self-censoring writer, but no matter. The dissenters must silence themselves, or be silenced, before we sacrifice art to politics or something
This is not about the right wing taking using the straw man of "political correctness". This is, as numerous commenters have pointed out, a case of a small but vocal group of people asserting themselves by trying to restrain other people's freedom to imagine and express other perspectives. As far as vitriol is concerned, Ms. Shriver's speech was perhaps condescending, but hardly vitriolic. By contrast, Ms. Abdel-Magied's piece was vitriol to the point of farce. The number of stories coming out of college campuses about microagressions, claims of cultural appropriation, trigger warnings and safe spaces shows that there is a real issue. What is galling is that in an era where Fox News and Breitbart are able to whip up a substantial portion of the electorate with lives and half-truths, parts of the left are so self-absorbed that can't help but churn out fodder for the alt-right outlets to give their claims an aura of truthiness.
2
When I read We Need to Talk About Kevin by Shriver, I was so moved by how she described the feelings of a mother and the worries and confusion about trying to understand and love a difficult child. I assumed she had been through these struggles herself because she made them so real. I was amazed to find out she had no children at the time of her novel. Should she not have written about the mother of a disturbed child? Some people have extraordinary emotional intelligence and understanding of others outside their experience. If a novelist can make characters come alive by their artistry that is part of their gift.
301
And then there is Anna Sewell, who wrote "Black Beauty," even though I'm fairly certain she'd never been a horse.
61
"Some people have extraordinary emotional intelligence and understanding of others outside their experience."
In whose opinion?
In whose opinion?
5
Their readers.
7
Not really sure about the entire picture, but here in Canada there is a long tradition of white folks going into Aboriginal communities, recording their stories, and publishing them in their own names - profiting handsomely with royalties or academic advancement though the process. Meanwhile, the communities themselves continue to suffer in dire poverty. You can talk about censorship and perils of political correctness all you want, but what you are really doing, in part, is defending rip off artists who prey on the most vulnerable among us.
27
That's a real financial appropriation. That's the kind I understand. Like taking a black musician's Delta blues tune and calling it "traditional" instead of paying royalties to the family of the writer. That's clearly appropriation.
But imagining a fictional character of another background? You can't steal money from someone who doesn't exist.
But imagining a fictional character of another background? You can't steal money from someone who doesn't exist.
77
There is a large difference between ripping off art (publishing someone else's in your own name) and improvising/innovating. There is no "original" art. The teller has some responsibility to pay homage to their inspiration, but who are you to say the story "belonged" to one person, one tribe, for all time? Maybe it just belonged to that particular teller in that particular moment. The world is pretty good at revealing fraudulent copycats versus talented (re)creators. When was the last time anything was truly new?
19
So far in copyright law, the subjects non-fiction have not been entitled to a share of the proceeds of the book. That's not usually a problem because writing using "cultural appropriation", like most writing, is mostly not very interesting. But all I care about is whether someone does a good honest job of portraying how values and emotions commonly play out in different parts of different cultures. Many times such accounts are by persons within the culture, but other times they are not. Creative people are different. It's essential that they be able to use whatever will express their vision, whether it's a black person writing about white culture or an Italian writing about an American couple vacationing in Bali. The role of artists is to connect, even by maybe disconnecting, disparate segments of the universe. Only an fool would try to extinguish that capacity for synthesis.
10
It absolutely terrifies me that these leftists don't see how their simplistic, unsound and philosophically inconsistent position has become the fertile soil in which Trump has arisen.
This decades-long current is a tragic failure of the intellectual left to be smarter, more discerning and more direct in regulating their own nonsensical religion, whose core tenet holds that a single individual's subjective perception of slight rightly hegemonizes any and all others in its path. Apparently they don't see the performative contradiction: this is precisely the sin they're railing against.
By failing to move to a more sophisticated version of their critique they're not just fueling crude demagoguery on the right, they're mimicking it.
This decades-long current is a tragic failure of the intellectual left to be smarter, more discerning and more direct in regulating their own nonsensical religion, whose core tenet holds that a single individual's subjective perception of slight rightly hegemonizes any and all others in its path. Apparently they don't see the performative contradiction: this is precisely the sin they're railing against.
By failing to move to a more sophisticated version of their critique they're not just fueling crude demagoguery on the right, they're mimicking it.
32
No one has ever explained it to me that way, before.
3
R Smith, as an old sixties lefty I... have to agree with you. There is a totalitarianism on the left that sure sounds like it prizes and policies identity grievances above all others, and that corner of the left has certainly helped fuel the "Hey! Me too!" complaints of many Trump supporters. In addition to Mr. Smith here, I also found myself agreeing with the University of Chicago Dean's letter about the school not being willing to disinvite controversial speakers, require trigger warnings, or mandate safe spaces.
Perhaps it's just my becoming a curmudgeon--me?!--but I deplore the thought of fettering any artist's imagination in the name of such an extreme version of political correctness. I want mutual civility, kindness, and respect in a general way when it comes to public discourse, but some truths are better expressed with the bark on, even if that risks anger and hurt feelings. It's an old saw among authors to "write what you know," but turning that into some sort of iron maiden of the imagination would have every work of literature limited to being a navel-gazing autobiography. No thank you.
That said, I think the problems that authors who aren't white and male have getting their work published are very real and have been with us for a long time (George Eliot anyone?). Racism and sexism and classism are very real and pernicious, but boxing in human creativity the way some are advocating is not the answer.
Perhaps it's just my becoming a curmudgeon--me?!--but I deplore the thought of fettering any artist's imagination in the name of such an extreme version of political correctness. I want mutual civility, kindness, and respect in a general way when it comes to public discourse, but some truths are better expressed with the bark on, even if that risks anger and hurt feelings. It's an old saw among authors to "write what you know," but turning that into some sort of iron maiden of the imagination would have every work of literature limited to being a navel-gazing autobiography. No thank you.
That said, I think the problems that authors who aren't white and male have getting their work published are very real and have been with us for a long time (George Eliot anyone?). Racism and sexism and classism are very real and pernicious, but boxing in human creativity the way some are advocating is not the answer.
39
I don't think people with progressive (leftist) political beliefs necessarily share this very fringe PC bullying proclivity. There have always been and will be the shrill malcontents needing their "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings" as they kick and scream and roll around howling "cultural appropriation" and "white privilege"... Yawn. The children of boomers are just too awful to believe. They do not have a clue how to genuinely and realistically work to solve/improve the excruciatingly real racism that continues to fracture our (shared) culture. And these folks come in every color and religion. Mercifully they are a minority. So don't tar the liberals as necessarily sharing this kind of "thinking!"
I've read many comments that state that any author has the right to write whatever they want and no one should be able to make a comment about that writing without being told they are advocates of censorship, political correctness, and even responsible for the rise of one the current presidential candidates. What none of these commenters (thus far, at least) have acknowledged is the difficulty in getting your work published by a "name" publishing house, and how often non-majority authors don't get those opportunities. Yes, I know that many authors of all colors and ethnicities don't get an opportunity to have their work published and promoted by a Big Six/Five publisher . But none of these comments are willing to acknowledge that there may be biases towards certain people, and the stories told by majority peoples are often given more credibility and deemed publishable that those stories by minority authors. Many of these authors don't get the opportunity to tell their story from their point of view because publishers don't associate authenticity and value until someone who looks like them writes it.
78
Because if you have a problem with the publishing industry you don't turn around and use its practices as an excuse to censor and oppress individual writers on the basis of their birth ethnicity. Seriously, why does that even have to be explained to people?
20
As a reader of NYTimes Book Reviews for over 30 years, I've noticed an enormous increase in books by authors of diverse nationalities and ethnicities being published by the major houses. Perhaps what you are saying was true at one time. It appears less so than ever before.
17
Maybe you're right about access. But I fail to see the connection between that and the issues Lionel shriver discussed. It is one thing to nurture Hispanic voices, and another thing to limit the creativity of all voices in embracing whatever inspires them. There are very few good books of any kind. Let a thousand flowers bloom!
17
So now we're only allowed to write books about our own ethnic identities? Only White people can write about Whites, Black about Blacks, Asians about Asians, and etc??? Even regarding fiction? Has the world gone insane? Political Correctness gone overboard.
31
How many "Blacks, Asians, . . . and etc" have become wealthy writing about whites? "Show me the money!"
2
How many have tried?
1
"How many "Blacks, Asians, . . . and etc" have become wealthy writing about whites? "Show me the money!"
For a start, how about Kazuo Ishiguro who wrote the wonderful novel Remains of the Day. Surely he was not a white butler working in an aristocratic house. And then there is Ruth Prawer Jhabvala who wrote the screen play for the award winning movie of that novel as well as the screen plays for so many other Merchant-Ivory movies about white English aristocrats.
I don't think anyone should object that Ishiguro or Prawer Jhabvala were engaged in cultural appropriation. They just both showed great artistry in writing about people with a very different ethnic background from their own.
For a start, how about Kazuo Ishiguro who wrote the wonderful novel Remains of the Day. Surely he was not a white butler working in an aristocratic house. And then there is Ruth Prawer Jhabvala who wrote the screen play for the award winning movie of that novel as well as the screen plays for so many other Merchant-Ivory movies about white English aristocrats.
I don't think anyone should object that Ishiguro or Prawer Jhabvala were engaged in cultural appropriation. They just both showed great artistry in writing about people with a very different ethnic background from their own.
1
Harriet Beecher Stowe practiced "cultural appropriation" when writing Uncle Tom's Cabin. How dare she!
17
Well, she was white.
2
This is a funny discussion. I have nothing against cultural appropriation well done but I haven't seen very much of it. The real issue is that much of what is called cultural appropriation is little more than cultural mimicry. It is really difficult and a project of many years duration to absorb enough of a culture to accurately represent the frames of mind and sentiments characteristic of it. Most individuals simply can't do it. That is why the works that pretend to cultural appreciation are so thin and incomplete. It's an issue of shoddiness not of ethics.
10
Excellent point!
1
Cultural Appropriation, more political correctness run amok. Dial it back people. If sharing isn't allowed, Kurosawa couldn't have made Throne of Blood (an adaptation of Macbeth), Lin-Manuel Miranda couldn't have made Hamilton, the Compania Nacional de Danza of Mexico couldn't perform Giselle, America would have to give baseball back to the British, and the Irish and Mexicans would have to duke it out over Dia de Muertos/Halloween or acknowledge their shared roots in the ashes of Numantia, recollected in Fuentes's The Orange Tree (how dare Fuentes appropriate Scipio Aemilianus, destroyer of the Celts and Carthage).
86
Writing, in itself, is an active process by which you produce an extension of self.
To write about a whole other cultural experience that does not belong to you, has an awfully long history infested with colonialism and racism. Though there may be any sense of good will---that these white authors are simply telling another culture's story, without any intent to demeaning them--they are still, in fact, capitalizing and profiting off of a whole other heritage, one that does not belong to them.
White people writing non-ficitional works on other cultures are fine (whether they may be news reports or ethnography), but writing fiction, that is the realm of self-expression. That wanders into very treacherous waters. As it has been seen recently, when JK Rowling incoprorated Native American experiences when she wrote about "skin walkers", one that she as a British woman has absolutely no cultural right to.
You may observe, you may participate, but you may not claim another cultural product as you own, because you have no respect for that, you are simply repeating history: another white person capitalizing off of the experience of those whose skin color differ from their own.
These writers are no less savages than the Europeans who plundered ancient artifacts from wherever they went, from Greece to Egypt, to China, to Mexico---they took whatever they liked, and brought them home as though these were mere items of souvenir bought at the airport.
To write about a whole other cultural experience that does not belong to you, has an awfully long history infested with colonialism and racism. Though there may be any sense of good will---that these white authors are simply telling another culture's story, without any intent to demeaning them--they are still, in fact, capitalizing and profiting off of a whole other heritage, one that does not belong to them.
White people writing non-ficitional works on other cultures are fine (whether they may be news reports or ethnography), but writing fiction, that is the realm of self-expression. That wanders into very treacherous waters. As it has been seen recently, when JK Rowling incoprorated Native American experiences when she wrote about "skin walkers", one that she as a British woman has absolutely no cultural right to.
You may observe, you may participate, but you may not claim another cultural product as you own, because you have no respect for that, you are simply repeating history: another white person capitalizing off of the experience of those whose skin color differ from their own.
These writers are no less savages than the Europeans who plundered ancient artifacts from wherever they went, from Greece to Egypt, to China, to Mexico---they took whatever they liked, and brought them home as though these were mere items of souvenir bought at the airport.
4
Who are you to say which ideas "belong to" individual human beings? It is you who are wrong and you are worse than "savages" - you are a would-be fascist dictator.
16
The problem was not that JK Rowling had no right to include Natives in the imaginary world of wizarding that she's been building. The problem is that she did it badly. Instead of inventing Native characters that were as rooted in Native culture as her Saxon, Irish and Norman characters are rooted in theirs, she tried to project the Saxon idea of a wizard onto Natives.
The root of the problem really is that wizarding is a culturally specific storyline. The basic conflicts that drive her wizarding world story engine are not conflicts in Native cultures. She's trying to bring her story of Old World oppression by the Norman aristocracy (the muggle-haters all have French names) into the New World. Where it doesn't fit.
The root of the problem really is that wizarding is a culturally specific storyline. The basic conflicts that drive her wizarding world story engine are not conflicts in Native cultures. She's trying to bring her story of Old World oppression by the Norman aristocracy (the muggle-haters all have French names) into the New World. Where it doesn't fit.
3
What are the limits of my culture? Can I still write about Ohio if I lived there for 16 years but my family isn't from there? Can I write about people who lived two streets over from me? Can I write about white people who are of different religions or no religion? What you are proposing is an art of isolation so limited that it defeats the whole purpose of art.
46
Sorry folks: Culture IS appropriation.
29
That's how historians are able routinely to claim that "Western" - European - civilization has its origin in the Middle East and in North Africa.
2
Historians who claim that European civilization has its origin [or more appropriately the origin of many of its aspects] in the Middle East and North Africa are doing the opposite of appropriating another's culture. They are acknowledging a non-European source of European culture, not claiming that everything in Europe was invented or discovered in Europe.
1
If Mark Twain were alive today I would love to hear his thoughts on this one.
32
And you would be very much surprised.
2
Lamont, could you please disclose what the thought of Mark Twain would be?
1
I'm very glad to see so much sensible support of free expression and disapproval of this "cultural appropriation" prohibition. Certainly there are genuine instances of cultural appropriation which are disparaging at heart, but there are also many that signal sympathy, interest, appreciation and admiration. And nobody "owns" a culture.
It seems to me that there are far too many real problems of bigotry and discrimination that need to be addressed to waste time attacking cultural appropriation. which is largely a trumped up sin against political correctness. And deleting an invited speaker's remarks from your website because you disagree with them is inexcusable censorship.
The watchword of the ACLU applies: the proper response to "bad speech" (if you believe that is what it is) is "good speech" and an open marketplace for ideas.
It seems to me that there are far too many real problems of bigotry and discrimination that need to be addressed to waste time attacking cultural appropriation. which is largely a trumped up sin against political correctness. And deleting an invited speaker's remarks from your website because you disagree with them is inexcusable censorship.
The watchword of the ACLU applies: the proper response to "bad speech" (if you believe that is what it is) is "good speech" and an open marketplace for ideas.
38
Cultural Appropriation [stealing, co-opting] is as old as humanity. The music business is rife with examples- beginning with white artists & record labels who stole songs by black artists and white artists having to finally admit [and pay] for that usage: Pat Boone, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, et al.
The venerable George Gershwin's " Porgy & Bess" is a prime example of one man's co-opting "concept" of Black Life.
The issue is- who makes money; the originators or the imitators?
The venerable George Gershwin's " Porgy & Bess" is a prime example of one man's co-opting "concept" of Black Life.
The issue is- who makes money; the originators or the imitators?
9
Anybody who opposes "cultural appropriation" as a principle - rather than as a convenient excuse for censorship and targeting scapegoats to pay for centuries of oppression - must also protest against jazz, in which black musicians "appropriated" US Army European-derived band instruments for their own music. You must ban anybody but Asians eating with chopsticks. You must disapprove of yoga for non- Indians. You must tell black women to stop straightening and coloring their hair. Etc. Etc. Etc. Unfortunately there are people so extreme, so deranged that they might actually support such insanity but the rest of us know that all humans should benefit from all human culture. And you won't fix racism by forcing people to stay within rigid, ridiculous cultural boundaries - you'll make things worse.
6
So let's see: rock and roll was introduced to a large audience that then got interested in black artists; and Porgy and Bess helped open the door to Etta Moten (brilliant but uncredited in Gold Diggers of 1933) who then opened the door to man other African American singers, and these examples -- your examples -- of the breakdown of artistic barriers and the opening up of multiple possibilities for black genius to flourish reduces to appropriation?
1
It did not begin in the twentieth century!
1
why do you think they call it "fiction" . . .
15
All fiction is written in the voice of someone who is not the author's, if you slice the groups thinly enough. This remark does not apply to certain genres of fan-fiction.
6
The concept of "cultural appropriation" as one of the latest forms of our on-going culture wars is certainly worth discussing, but without going to ridiculous extremes at either end of the spectrum. Do native peoples, wherever they may be, and their representative voices have a right to protect and defend their cultural heritage? Most definitely! And do artists from dominant western cultures also have a right to forms of self-expression using native subcultures as a larger frame of reference? The answer is a tentative yes, so long as this remains within acceptable bounds. A word of caution: this certainly does not include the depiction of native characters as a if they were a faithful reproduction of real living ones. That then, for sure, would amount to clear cultural appropriation.
4
Ergo what? Are you advocating for prior restraint?
Political Correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners - George Carlin
65
Actually, I believe it was Charlton Heston who said that, although he used the word "tryranny" rather than "Fascism."
Given that Australia is a nation of immigrants (as is America, but farther back), how could any non-Aborigine, i.e. Indigenous, Australians write fiction if they were barred from vaguely-defined cultural appropriation?
11
"non-Aborigine, i.e. Indigenous"
Do you mean, "non-Aborigine, i.e. non-Indigenous"? Or "Aborigine, i.e. Indigenous"?
Do you mean, "non-Aborigine, i.e. non-Indigenous"? Or "Aborigine, i.e. Indigenous"?
1
The left- if that is what it is anymore- has become painfully hypocritical, tiresome, and frankly self-defeating.
It is cultural appropriation for a non-Mexican to wear a sombrero for Halloween, but apparently just dandy for anyone- Celtic or not- to celebrate Halloween, a Celtic holiday.
Not surprisingly, this type of double standard, "justified" by reams of papers, is a bit baffling for those without the time to read the appropriate journals. Further, anyone who knows much about history knows that Celtic culture has been targeted for erasure on more than one occasion, while Mexican culture is doing just fine, thank you. Just ask the many indigenous cultures that have been supplanted by the culture of Mexico.
Conveniently, there is a handy dandy rough guide to the moral hierarchy the left is perfecting: the less straight, white, male, able-bodied, etc., etc., you are, the more you are allowed to opine about the moral turpitude of the more white, male, straight, able-bodied, etc., etc. and the more able you are to just appropriate away, to your heart's content.
The Koch brothers and their ilk no doubt find this circular firing squad hilarious.
I, however, can't be bothered to listen anymore.
Yes, I know that shows my enormous privilege. Zing! I don't really care.
I'll take my fingers out of my ears again when folks are ready for a less hostile, less absurd discussion, where I am not labeled before I even speak by my gender, skin color, and sexual preference.
It is cultural appropriation for a non-Mexican to wear a sombrero for Halloween, but apparently just dandy for anyone- Celtic or not- to celebrate Halloween, a Celtic holiday.
Not surprisingly, this type of double standard, "justified" by reams of papers, is a bit baffling for those without the time to read the appropriate journals. Further, anyone who knows much about history knows that Celtic culture has been targeted for erasure on more than one occasion, while Mexican culture is doing just fine, thank you. Just ask the many indigenous cultures that have been supplanted by the culture of Mexico.
Conveniently, there is a handy dandy rough guide to the moral hierarchy the left is perfecting: the less straight, white, male, able-bodied, etc., etc., you are, the more you are allowed to opine about the moral turpitude of the more white, male, straight, able-bodied, etc., etc. and the more able you are to just appropriate away, to your heart's content.
The Koch brothers and their ilk no doubt find this circular firing squad hilarious.
I, however, can't be bothered to listen anymore.
Yes, I know that shows my enormous privilege. Zing! I don't really care.
I'll take my fingers out of my ears again when folks are ready for a less hostile, less absurd discussion, where I am not labeled before I even speak by my gender, skin color, and sexual preference.
51
Thanks for this.
5
"Halloween, a Celtic holiday"
If Hallowe'en is a "Celtic" holiday, then how did it get its Germanic name, with a hint of nothing Celtic in it?
If Hallowe'en is a "Celtic" holiday, then how did it get its Germanic name, with a hint of nothing Celtic in it?
1
Because Halloween is what is called in English. Look up Samhain.
You go Lionel Shriver. More power to you, and keep up your voice of reason.
30
So many Americans fought hard to make the ideals of the civil rights movement a reality. We dared to dream that we would see each other for the content of our character rather than the color of our skin. America is a place where anyone can open a chinese food restaurant, or make a movie, or listen to rap music, or country music, or dress as a cowboy, indian, or any way they wanted to. People are more than just their race.
"Cultural appropriation" is a made up term being pushed to force us back into a dark era of racial segregation and censorship.
"Cultural appropriation" is a made up term being pushed to force us back into a dark era of racial segregation and censorship.
38
"... force us back into a dark era of racial segregation..."
"Force us _back_," you say. That "dark era" has never been left.
"Force us _back_," you say. That "dark era" has never been left.
5
This is absurd - you can make the appropriation argument for just about any art form that came out America, Australia or any other post colonial country. All art builds on what came before it, but the funny thing is that when the Italian immigrants took Irish customs etc I'm not sure this came up. Only when POC cultures are involved do we get riled up about appropriation. Don't get me wrong, I think it is imperative for an artist to be respectful, honest and transparent about where they draw inspiration but to limit one's work to influences and material that directly reflect one's background is antithetical to the very act of creating new culture.
8
"you can make the appropriation argument for just about any art form that came out America, Australia or any other post colonial country."
Exactly.
Exactly.
And so all of that art is invalid? What about black classical musicians? What about Mexican chefs in Italian restaurants? In a multicultural society, we cannot pretend and only draw influence from our own kind, that is a recipe for tribalism.
"Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto."
"I am human, and nothing human is alien to me."
(Terence, 185-159 BC)
"I am human, and nothing human is alien to me."
(Terence, 185-159 BC)
67
More like "I am a dead white male, and everyone not a dead white male is alien to me." (Just kidding)
1
You failed to translate the word, _puto_ "I think," gw. Terence was merely offering an opinion, not making a statement,
1
Why does the left's extremist fringe get so much attention? The number of people who "think" in this manner is exceedingly small. Ignore them. The problem with right wing extremism is that it is no longer the province of just the fringe.
20
What do anti-appropriationists make of Gordon Parks who wrote "Shannon," a novel about Irish immigrants in NYC. Parks was an African American.
29
According to Apowell232, Parks may well have been non-black, depending on where Apowell232 has chosen to draw the line.
Just think about what it says when critics try to shut down this "smart alecky 52 year old 5'2" white woman from North Carolina." Is this what years of challenge to the dead white male canon has come to, replaced with Orwellian rules on acceptable language from a new cadre of self-appointed would-be masters? Whose canon is it anyway?
28
Imagine the outcry if black writers were forbidden to write about white characters, or women forbidden to write about men! I didn't hear this speech and I don't know whether Ms. Shriver's opinions extend beyond simply defending the right of an author to write about characters who aren't just like them. But this much is certain: you can't judge the quality or authenticity of an author's voice solely by the author's ethnic background.
If we allow our desire to be fair and sensitive to override common sense and practical experience, then all writing will be ethnic writing; our world is increasingly multi-ethnic and interconnected, but our literature will become provincial and insipid. Imagine if you really did have to be a whale to write "Moby-Dick"!
Much great literature has been written by authors of all backgrounds, but so has much terrible literature. Belonging to a certain ethnic or religious minority doesn't mean that your voice will be authentic or compelling, any more than it disqualifies you from writing about anyone belonging to a different group with a voice that speaks to everyone.
It's important to respect other cultures. But our concern about sensitivity, like many other matters, needs to be constrained by logic and moderation. There's a difference between respect and fanatical cultural possessiveness.
If we allow our desire to be fair and sensitive to override common sense and practical experience, then all writing will be ethnic writing; our world is increasingly multi-ethnic and interconnected, but our literature will become provincial and insipid. Imagine if you really did have to be a whale to write "Moby-Dick"!
Much great literature has been written by authors of all backgrounds, but so has much terrible literature. Belonging to a certain ethnic or religious minority doesn't mean that your voice will be authentic or compelling, any more than it disqualifies you from writing about anyone belonging to a different group with a voice that speaks to everyone.
It's important to respect other cultures. But our concern about sensitivity, like many other matters, needs to be constrained by logic and moderation. There's a difference between respect and fanatical cultural possessiveness.
25
"Imagine the outcry if black writers were forbidden to write about white characters[?]"
Can you name a black writer who has written a book about white characters?
Can you name a black writer who has written a book about white characters?
1
Never heard of James Baldwin?
2
Colton Whitehead; Chimamanda Ngozi-Adiche;Ngugi Wa'Thiongo; James Baldwin; Toni Morrison; Alice Walker; Walter Mosley;Ralph Ellison;Barack Obama; Maya Angelou;Gwendolyn Brooks ... just for starters
4
"Where they burn books, the will ultimately burn people."
It was the German student union who started this in '33. Who's to say where we'll be in 7 years if we're not careful.
It was the German student union who started this in '33. Who's to say where we'll be in 7 years if we're not careful.
20
Does cultural appropriation work in reverse?
If minorities take on white attributes - like straightened hair - or engage in white arts - like opera or classical music - or write about white people in novels - is that cultural appropriation?
You can't have it both ways.
We are all humans. Global citizens. No one individual or ethnic group owns their culture.
If the Asian guy next door enjoys his bagel with a schmear - that's fine with me - I'll be eating Chineese food with chop sticks - and loving every bite.
This is political correctness gone awry.
Ridiculous.
If minorities take on white attributes - like straightened hair - or engage in white arts - like opera or classical music - or write about white people in novels - is that cultural appropriation?
You can't have it both ways.
We are all humans. Global citizens. No one individual or ethnic group owns their culture.
If the Asian guy next door enjoys his bagel with a schmear - that's fine with me - I'll be eating Chineese food with chop sticks - and loving every bite.
This is political correctness gone awry.
Ridiculous.
84
Regardless of what one thinks of Ms. Shriver's position on cultural appropriation, the saddest take-away from this episode is that literary festivals, like colleges and universities, are no longer the bastions of ideas, thought and debate that they once were and still should be. Only safe and comfortable ideas survive in this environment, which means they can hardly be considered "ideas" at all.
572
No, we're just tired of the same ideas circulating and being applauded over and over again. It's why Abdel-Mageid got up and walked out. Not interested in a juvenile American obsession with "it's my party, I'll cry if I want to, because it's my first amendment..." Are we even interested in why Australians (and others) are offended, their construction of an ideal society at odds with ours?
1
Because administrators are afraid to lose their cushy existence. Where hard work is demonized and only thought counts. While the infancy of higher education was founded in both rugged individualism and enlightenment, the pendulum has swung way past the left side.
1
Not my favorite writer by any stretch, but she is most definitely right on this one. Too bad the sponsors of the event lacked the courage to support an original thinker...even if they did not like her thoughts.
59
I don't have a problem with political correctness, but I think maybe it should be restricted for the most part to sociopolitical discourse.
Within the arts, there seems to be a need to differentiate between cultural appropriation and cultural mis- or mal- appropriation.
Within the arts, there seems to be a need to differentiate between cultural appropriation and cultural mis- or mal- appropriation.
5
Ms. Abdel-Magied's comments strike me as the usual left-wing orthodox nonsense that you hear when you express any views contrary to the orthodoxy, it is due to white males and patriarchy--even when the views are expressed by a white female.
Think of ll the literature that would not have been written if the writers had not been able to go outside themselves: all the famous Greek plays (since they were written by males but had female characters), Shakespeare's plays, for the same reason, Huckleberry Finn, Brokeback Mountain--the list is endless. These rules are stupid.
Think of ll the literature that would not have been written if the writers had not been able to go outside themselves: all the famous Greek plays (since they were written by males but had female characters), Shakespeare's plays, for the same reason, Huckleberry Finn, Brokeback Mountain--the list is endless. These rules are stupid.
64
"These rules are stupid."
Which "rules" are you referring to?
Which "rules" are you referring to?
1
Lamont, come on now. That's just disingenuous. You know exactly what she's talking about.
2
Seems simple: fiction writers can create whatever characters they want, out of whatever experience or imagination they have, and write whatever they want. That's IT. Poets can speak in whatever voices they want. This is nonsense.
93
Melissa Harris Perry, I hope I have her name right, was angry because the Help was written by a white woman. I completely lost respect for her. if you want a black woman to write about maids, write it. if you don't like a writer using your race, ethnicity etc don't buy the book. criticize the book. whatever, but don't censor the author.
95
MANY black people were extremely offended by "The Help. It literally appropriated the story of a black woman (she sued, but it was too late) and told it in the most stereotypical way possible, using "black dialect" that was condescending and putting a young white woman in the hero role. We've had quite enough White Savior books and movies, thank you very much.
No one censored the author. They criticized and refused to buy her book or see the movie. I am a member of that huge group.
No one censored the author. They criticized and refused to buy her book or see the movie. I am a member of that huge group.
10
I imagine it wasn't that she was white writing about the help but that it was not a credible account and if you read the book you'd see that too. For example, what black person you know compares their skin tone to a cockroach? I'm black and I've never encountered this but it appeared in The Help and that is insulting. I'm sure it was instances like this that caused MHP'a disdain for the book as it caused mine as well.
10
Melissa Harris Perry had a right to express her opinion, just as the writer of the film had a right to self-expression. I don't see the problem here. Critical reaction to the film, as you may recall, was quite negative, focusing in particular on the tone-deaf portrayal of the African-American maid.
3
Writing a different experience from your own is not cultural appropriation, it's the essence of fiction. Writing from your own perspective is called autobiography.
478
Many works by whites about minority groups, especially those embraced by whites, assign stereotypical roles to minorities. I can't recall the name, but an African woman writer asked a white man who was writing about an "oppressed black girl," why he assumed that was her p.o.v. and why he wasn't mining stories about middle-aged white men, a perfectly question.
7
Lifelong reader – –
How wonderful that in a free society she had the right to ask that question. How equally wonderful that the man had the right to go ahead and create as he wished.
How wonderful that in a free society she had the right to ask that question. How equally wonderful that the man had the right to go ahead and create as he wished.
3
Sadly, the left long ago and now almost in any imaginable situation denies you and me such opinion and strikes back harshly like any totalitarians would do. We need to speak out, not to be intimidated by the ever present political correctness labeling us as "deplorable" to use the term "history-making" Hillary used.
1
It is difficult for people outside of a particular identity to comprehend how misunderstood and misrepresented and underrepresented so many people are. And how deeply offensive it is to be presented by someone who doesn't have a clue about them.
And after so many years of this going on, it is not surprising that there is push back against those who are doing the misrepresenting (and appropriating), especially when the voices of those who being represented still don't have a place at the table.
Ms. Shriver's remarks seemed to be extremely tone deaf. No one is saying that one can't empathize with another's experiences, in fact the best writing does just that. But to ignore the history of appropriation and lack of representation and cast it all in a cloak of political correctness does nothing to further the conversation.
And after so many years of this going on, it is not surprising that there is push back against those who are doing the misrepresenting (and appropriating), especially when the voices of those who being represented still don't have a place at the table.
Ms. Shriver's remarks seemed to be extremely tone deaf. No one is saying that one can't empathize with another's experiences, in fact the best writing does just that. But to ignore the history of appropriation and lack of representation and cast it all in a cloak of political correctness does nothing to further the conversation.
113
Freedom of expression means you don't have to read what offends you. But do not deny a writer's right to that freedom.
24
Thank you, Nancy. You're one of the few here who understands the problem.
10
Ms. Shriner's supporters are not addressing the market-based "whose voice gets heard" problem, but the right of artists to create. There may be access and audience limitations for "authentic" cultural expression and we ought to always be scanning our horizons for moving and original art rather than focus on the blockbuster fed to us, but we should never limit what artists are allowed to do and say. That leads nowhere good for anyone.
9
Episodes like this are why Trump might win. The liberal left's obsession with ever greater censorship and condemnation of free speech strikes the vast majority of Americans as absurd and, for lack of a better term, unamerican. At some point, it's just a bunch of elitists trying to usurp the narrative so that they can feel powerful and better than the masses.
White performer wearing blackface? Bad. Beatles misappropriating la bamba as their own music? Bad.
But criticizing a European author for having a Korean character in a book as per se wrong? Come on. And the fact that it outsells a book by one random Korean author is somehow evidence that the whole world (or whole literate world, at least) is racist? Maybe it was just a better book.
1900-2000 saw amazing strides in civil rights and equality. But it has spawned a generation desperate to repeat those feats, with some fanatics desperately looking for problems that don't exists so they can pretend they are continuing that arc of history.
Should Asians be barred from paying the blues because the genre evolved as part of African-American culture? Should native Americans be barred from learning arithmetic because Arabs invented our numeral system and the concept of zero? Should German beer be banned because beer-making was invented in Egypt?
And should dialogue be shut down and speech suppressed because someone questions an ultra-PC viewpoint?
(Although to be fair, perhaps wearing the sombrero was a little much)
White performer wearing blackface? Bad. Beatles misappropriating la bamba as their own music? Bad.
But criticizing a European author for having a Korean character in a book as per se wrong? Come on. And the fact that it outsells a book by one random Korean author is somehow evidence that the whole world (or whole literate world, at least) is racist? Maybe it was just a better book.
1900-2000 saw amazing strides in civil rights and equality. But it has spawned a generation desperate to repeat those feats, with some fanatics desperately looking for problems that don't exists so they can pretend they are continuing that arc of history.
Should Asians be barred from paying the blues because the genre evolved as part of African-American culture? Should native Americans be barred from learning arithmetic because Arabs invented our numeral system and the concept of zero? Should German beer be banned because beer-making was invented in Egypt?
And should dialogue be shut down and speech suppressed because someone questions an ultra-PC viewpoint?
(Although to be fair, perhaps wearing the sombrero was a little much)
154
Generally agree with your comments, including about the sombrero, but I don't agree that this nonsense can be laid at the feet of the "liberal left." At least not the liberal part. As I liberal myself, I don't recognize this line of authoritarian thinking. Sombrero aside (seems like overkill), Shriver is absolutely correct.
16
"Should Asians be barred from paying the blues because the genre evolved as part of African-American culture? Should native Americans be barred from learning arithmetic because Arabs invented our numeral system and the concept of zero? Should German beer be banned because beer-making was invented in Egypt?"
The "straw man" - like begging the question - is used by fakers who have no genuine argument. Has anyone, in fact, suggested any of these possibilities? Can anyone picture any circumstance under which anyone would suggest these things, even as a joke? Of course not.
The "straw man" - like begging the question - is used by fakers who have no genuine argument. Has anyone, in fact, suggested any of these possibilities? Can anyone picture any circumstance under which anyone would suggest these things, even as a joke? Of course not.
1
Perfect comment. You explained something I've been trying to understand for a while: why people are looking for offense these days. Your explanation makes perfect sense.
"1900-2000 saw amazing strides in civil rights and equality. But it has spawned a generation desperate to repeat those feats, with some fanatics desperately looking for problems that don't exists so they can pretend they are continuing that arc of history."
"1900-2000 saw amazing strides in civil rights and equality. But it has spawned a generation desperate to repeat those feats, with some fanatics desperately looking for problems that don't exists so they can pretend they are continuing that arc of history."
2
If we want to render the literary world obsolete, we'll keep at this Puritanical, anti-intellectual bullhorn. Perhaps Jared Taylor is right -- diversity doesn't work (if people can't be more charitable nd tolerant of one another.)
29
I totally disagree with Shriver! I'm a woman and take offense when a man dares to write a book from a woman's point of view! A book by a man should not include any dialogue , character or point of view of a woman! How dare he use his imagination! When are we going to put an end to this practice! We should start banning books and authors who dare to do this. And the same goes for women who pretend to write from a mans point of view. What did that English Christie woman know of a male detective from Belgium? Nothing. That's what. We should ban her for daring to assume that is ok. DOWN WITH BOOKS AND DOWN WITH INTELLIGENT PEOPLE. UP WITH CLOSE MINDEDNESS.
327
I started to read your post without realizing you were being sarcastic; thank goodness for both of us that I caught on! Funny thing is, one of the best writers of female characters is, of all people, Stephen King. Read "Gerald's Game," and you will come away thinking that "cultural appropriation" is the only way to go.
8
Your (overdone) sarcasm is missing the fact that before the 1970s, when novels by women about women's concerns finally began to be published and reviewed in large numbers, male writers were almost completely defining women, often completely inaccurately. Try reading Norman Mailer or John Updike for starters. There was a critic at New York Times, Anatole Broyard, now deceased, who famously failed to take women writers seriously.
I'm old enough to remember English classes in high school in which a male teacher would lead a discussion about Moby Dick and then turn to a girl and ask for "the woman's point of view." Men and women are still nowhere near parity in respect and power in the literary wars, as in any other conflict.
Too many of the Shriver supporters here lack cultural sensitivity and a sense of history.
I'm old enough to remember English classes in high school in which a male teacher would lead a discussion about Moby Dick and then turn to a girl and ask for "the woman's point of view." Men and women are still nowhere near parity in respect and power in the literary wars, as in any other conflict.
Too many of the Shriver supporters here lack cultural sensitivity and a sense of history.
15
I give you Alan gurganus who wrote about s Confederate woman telling all there is a man who knows women, oh and black people. too. read it.
2
Censorship. Wonderful response.
I am wondering why the Times has written about the notion of "cultural appropriation as if it is an accepted and, indeed, definable concept. It is not. The proponents of the theory ignore thousands of years of civilization and what we used to think of as progress and learning about the world. Artists are "appropriating" nothing. The purported "owners" of the culture are free to "exploit" it as they choose. The idea that human culture and art are zero-sum games is ridiculous.
I am wondering why the Times has written about the notion of "cultural appropriation as if it is an accepted and, indeed, definable concept. It is not. The proponents of the theory ignore thousands of years of civilization and what we used to think of as progress and learning about the world. Artists are "appropriating" nothing. The purported "owners" of the culture are free to "exploit" it as they choose. The idea that human culture and art are zero-sum games is ridiculous.
363
"The purported "owners" of the culture are free to "exploit" it as they choose."
But they aren't free. That's the whole point. For centuries, certain groups have had their cultures used and often misrepresented by whites or other dominant groups for gain. Talented writers from those groups with a unique and more accurate perspective have been shut out, unable to make a living from their own writing.
Minority groups are tired of being treated as Other or local color for the benefit of whites.
But they aren't free. That's the whole point. For centuries, certain groups have had their cultures used and often misrepresented by whites or other dominant groups for gain. Talented writers from those groups with a unique and more accurate perspective have been shut out, unable to make a living from their own writing.
Minority groups are tired of being treated as Other or local color for the benefit of whites.
9
No one has a right to make a living from their art. It's a ridiculous privilege and every artist knows it. Everyone in America can make all the art they want - making a living at it is like winning the lottery. You are confusing the market with creative output. History generally does a pretty good job of judging the thieves from the inspired innovators and creators. Lack of success or audience is no excuse not to create.
11
Lifelong – –
So what is your solution?
So what is your solution?
1
I've read both books on North Korea mentioned, and enjoyed them both. Kim's book about being a teacher in North Korea was fascinating, but for the story, not the storytelling. I'm flabbergasted that Ms. Kim would think that Orphan Train, a haunting, brilliant work of fiction, won the pulitzer, presumably over her, because the author was white.
167
NOT Orphan Train.
2
It's called racism; yes there is a theory or world view to back up Kim, but ultimately and quite clearly it's anti-white male racism (and sexist to boot). It is what it is.
5
Yes - not Orphan Train! Sorry - reading that right now. Orphan Masters Son. Orphan Train is good too.
I haven't read The Mandible, so my comment is based only on a short summary I found online and what is said here. I too would question the depiction of a black woman on a leash, even if she has dementia. There's an element of gratuitousness in resorting to this tactic, as if to say "I'm going to shock you just for the sake of shocking you, not because it really serves any artistic purpose."
Ms. Shriver expects to be treated as a serious writer when she appears not to treat her own writing very seriously. She should be prepared to take flak for it.
As for the whole "political correctness" debate, my response is that one of the most politically correct statements in history is: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." It happens to be in the Declaration of Independence, in the second paragraph. Thomas Jefferson didn't believe in burying the lede.
If you're going to consider yourself an American, then some part of you has to believe in that.
Ms. Shriver expects to be treated as a serious writer when she appears not to treat her own writing very seriously. She should be prepared to take flak for it.
As for the whole "political correctness" debate, my response is that one of the most politically correct statements in history is: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." It happens to be in the Declaration of Independence, in the second paragraph. Thomas Jefferson didn't believe in burying the lede.
If you're going to consider yourself an American, then some part of you has to believe in that.
4
"I too would question the depiction of a black woman on a leash, even if she has dementia. There's an element of gratuitousness in resorting to this tactic, as if to say "I'm going to shock you just for the sake of shocking you, not because it really serves any artistic purpose.""
I agree. I've also seen television shows, one was Law & Order SVU, in which black women characters are treated much more savagely than white characters. I remember an episode in which a black woman character with severe MS was raped and brutalized. She was treated like a piece of meat and couldn't speak. I have no doubt a white writer wrote that teleplay.
White writers often treat minorities like props. Whatever the intent, it is racist. It has to stop.
I agree. I've also seen television shows, one was Law & Order SVU, in which black women characters are treated much more savagely than white characters. I remember an episode in which a black woman character with severe MS was raped and brutalized. She was treated like a piece of meat and couldn't speak. I have no doubt a white writer wrote that teleplay.
White writers often treat minorities like props. Whatever the intent, it is racist. It has to stop.
6
"I have no doubt a white writer wrote that teleplay". Ah, perhaps a little doubting from time to time might serve you well? But don't worry, you say "it has to stop", and I agree. I'm sure we'll have book-burnings under Trump. We'll have to throw in those television shows too, including the 'one' you've mentioned.
By the way, why not throw anthropologists on the fire too? They dare write about different cultures than their own.
By the way, why not throw anthropologists on the fire too? They dare write about different cultures than their own.
5
If you read Ms. Shriver, you'll see that she sometimes can be brutal in her characterizations but to great purpose. There is greater symbolism there. She has written some of her white characters in horrible situations - read So Much For That - especially the part with a despondent male character in his kitchen, and you'll see what I mean. No character of any race should be above it all - that's not fiction and that's not life. No sacred cows (of any color, sex, religion, etc).
6
Frankly I don't blame people for walking out on Shriver. I was outraged at the Hamilton performance where a black man played the Irishman Hercules Mulligan. Talk about cultural appropriation run amok and what makes it worse is that the Latin culture is responsible for the genocidal destruction of the Celt, the Celtic language and Celtic culture of Iberia. Shame, shame, shame. (Not really. You think I'm walking out on a great show that cost me $1500 dollars a ticket... you must be nuts. Have another Guinness and drink to St. Patrick, the patron saint of Nigeria).
31
You and other readers are failing to grasp the difference in relative power between cultures. Whites have been dominant in the United States for centuries. When minority groups adopted European culture they were assimilating, and often they had no choice. Whites who are picking and choosing what to recognize, what to elevate, are appropriating.
I would never say that a writer from one culture could never write about another culture. But you have to be sensible of the history and you'd better do a damned good job. You WILL be scrutinized, as you deserve to be and would have been in the past except that certain groups had no power. You should think very carefully:
"Why do I think I have something to contribute to someone else's story, especially when members of the group itself often can't get their work published?"
This is no sterile discussion about artistic freedom. It's about whose stories get told and by whom and who gets to make a living from the telling.
I would never say that a writer from one culture could never write about another culture. But you have to be sensible of the history and you'd better do a damned good job. You WILL be scrutinized, as you deserve to be and would have been in the past except that certain groups had no power. You should think very carefully:
"Why do I think I have something to contribute to someone else's story, especially when members of the group itself often can't get their work published?"
This is no sterile discussion about artistic freedom. It's about whose stories get told and by whom and who gets to make a living from the telling.
11
Thanks, Ms. Shriver!
Wholly correct and greatly appreciated.
Wholly correct and greatly appreciated.
9
These two paragraphs are really quite astonishing in conjunction:
Ms. Beveridge wrote on the festival’s website, after links to Ms. Shriver’s speech were taken down, “As a festival of writers and thinkers, we take seriously the role we play in providing a platform for meaningful exchange and debate.”
She could not be reached on Monday to ask why links to Ms. Shriver’s speech were removed from the festival website. Links to the rebuttal remained active.
Do the organizers of this festival have no self-awareness at all?
Ms. Beveridge wrote on the festival’s website, after links to Ms. Shriver’s speech were taken down, “As a festival of writers and thinkers, we take seriously the role we play in providing a platform for meaningful exchange and debate.”
She could not be reached on Monday to ask why links to Ms. Shriver’s speech were removed from the festival website. Links to the rebuttal remained active.
Do the organizers of this festival have no self-awareness at all?
107
Though I rarely read for pleasure, I always read Ms Shriver's novels for both pleasure and social insight. Her writing has made me laugh between tears. Ms. Shriver's always presented as an equal opportunist when it comes to folly and nobility in her characters. No writer should be stifled in their portrayals by being limited to their own experiences or even viewpoints, and in fact they should try to reach beyond them - right?
12
I'm looking around the room and wondering what I must cull so as not to show my age and apparently egregious lack of sensitivity. I suppose it has to be something near and dear to me. My copy of Ray Charles's "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music" maybe?
7
I applaud Ms. Shriver's insight. Cultural appropriation is inherent to the grab-bag that makes for the creative, ever-evolving patchwork quilt that is global culture. Regarding the issue of privilege, the most effective advocacy will seek to empower the voices of disenfranchised communities, not stifle the voices of enfranchised communities.
12
The organizers of the festival need to look up the definition of fiction.The ideological bullies who have coined the term cultural appropriation want to have it both ways. They want to remove from the canon writers whom they categorize as belonging to a majority group precisely because they claim that these writers do not depict enough characters belonging to minority groups. Simultaneously, they object to a writer who does represent minority group members. The logical conclusion of this argument is, as Ms Shriver points out, that true confessions on the order of Eat, Pray, Love, becomes the only acceptable type of writing. By the way, I am a non-white lesbian.
184
If writers exclude everything but their own ethnicity/cultural experiences, isn't the result monochrome works lacking the ethnic diversity that we are supposed to incorporate into schools, work, and life in general? Or, is the goal to have the major author employ an "expert" in the minority to be mentioned in the work, and that person becomes a co-author?
I'm confused.
I suppose no one, then, is to write about history, or historical fiction, because even though we've studied history, researched, etc. we didn't live in 1771, so I really don't know about it, and can't write about it? Perhaps I should employ a psychic to reach out to the spirits.
Science fiction also seems off limits. If Gene Roddenberry had followed these rules in the 1960's, a Black woman would not have been on the command staff, a Russian would not have been a navigator, an Asian would not have had the helm, and Mr. Spock..... No Vulcans, Romulans, or Klingons. Only Mr. Scott, Dr. McCoy, Nurse Chapel, and Yeoman Rand would have gone where no man had gone before. And, then, of course, George Lucas.... no Chewy.... And, no Hobbits.
Authors must be factual with their work, but the things we would never had if we stayed in out own experiences.
I'm confused.
I suppose no one, then, is to write about history, or historical fiction, because even though we've studied history, researched, etc. we didn't live in 1771, so I really don't know about it, and can't write about it? Perhaps I should employ a psychic to reach out to the spirits.
Science fiction also seems off limits. If Gene Roddenberry had followed these rules in the 1960's, a Black woman would not have been on the command staff, a Russian would not have been a navigator, an Asian would not have had the helm, and Mr. Spock..... No Vulcans, Romulans, or Klingons. Only Mr. Scott, Dr. McCoy, Nurse Chapel, and Yeoman Rand would have gone where no man had gone before. And, then, of course, George Lucas.... no Chewy.... And, no Hobbits.
Authors must be factual with their work, but the things we would never had if we stayed in out own experiences.
17
I love your Star Trek example. Gene Roddenberry was able to explore racism in a non-threatening way when he created the character of Spock. His "otherness" and treatment by shipmates created so many provocative story lines. And the utopian Earth with its mixed race crew was revolutionary for television at the time. A victory of art and imagination to create a singular world view.
4
He made extensive use of Greek and Roman mythology, having never lived in those times. And, he incorporated his vision of what we could be, not what we were. Because he never experienced what we could be, he should not have written about it?
I taught sociology, and I referred to Star Trek all the time. Interestingly, though the students were younger, and had watched it, they never saw the hidden messages.
I taught sociology, and I referred to Star Trek all the time. Interestingly, though the students were younger, and had watched it, they never saw the hidden messages.
3
Both sides have a point.
If people want to read a work of fiction from someone who is writing from a sort of 'vicarious' point of view, then they should be free to do so. However, such authors should declare their hand lest possible readers mistake the tale as a 'first-hand' account. I believe you'll find this is the true grievance most of the other authors have - that they're losing 'market share', and perhaps more importantly, that readers might be fooled into believing such 'unauthentic' tales. However, such aggrieved authors need to understand and accept that IT IS, after all, a work of fiction. Otherwise, where do you draw the line? Science fiction simply wouldn't exist.
If a non-Chinese wants to cook and open up a Chinese restaurant, then he/she has a right to do so, but this might influence my decision to eat there. It's entirely my decision, and it wouldn't - at least for me - be based entirely on the chef's ethnicity.
If people want to read a work of fiction from someone who is writing from a sort of 'vicarious' point of view, then they should be free to do so. However, such authors should declare their hand lest possible readers mistake the tale as a 'first-hand' account. I believe you'll find this is the true grievance most of the other authors have - that they're losing 'market share', and perhaps more importantly, that readers might be fooled into believing such 'unauthentic' tales. However, such aggrieved authors need to understand and accept that IT IS, after all, a work of fiction. Otherwise, where do you draw the line? Science fiction simply wouldn't exist.
If a non-Chinese wants to cook and open up a Chinese restaurant, then he/she has a right to do so, but this might influence my decision to eat there. It's entirely my decision, and it wouldn't - at least for me - be based entirely on the chef's ethnicity.
4
Completely agree with you.
I don't think have ever read any "'first-hand account" fiction, however, it can be said that Hunter Thompson wrote non-fiction from a 'vicarious' point of view.
Is Adam Johnson’s “The Orphan Master’s Sun” an inauthentic work of the imagination? Why would you put this in the same category as a work of experience like “Without You, There Is No Us"?
Is Adam Johnson’s “The Orphan Master’s Sun” an inauthentic work of the imagination? Why would you put this in the same category as a work of experience like “Without You, There Is No Us"?
1
Do you seriously check the ethnicity of chefs before eating at a restaurant? Or sous chefs? What about fusion restaurants? Does that chef need multi-ethnic parents? Are you expecting a disclaimer on the menu once you are seated or on the signage outside? Hmmm. Same for fiction?
5
If writers had to observe the limitations imposed by the doctrine of cultural appropriation, then James Joyce does not write "Ulysses." Joyce, a Roman Catholic, appropriated the voice of a Jew of Hungarian heritage in his character of Leopold Bloom--and he also, for like 45 pages, spoke directly in the voice of Molly Bloom. If we must confine our imaginations to stories that emerged only within the world of own corrals, then ultimately, fiction, a genre rooted in imagination and empathy, will die. Writing will devolve to reporting. Writing will be confined to witnessing and no longer be the alchemical transformation of learning, formal experimentation, experience, and curiosity into a unique narrative that will compel readers to engage in stories beyond their own. I read this article with despair.
116
These Thought Police Made Fiction Writing Illegal and Watch What Happened. (Number 6 Is The Best.)
2
Did you seriously call Ms. Shiver's defense of a writer's right to explore any subject mater, drawing freely from whatever traditions and sources, a defense of "cultural appropriation"? That's newspeak in its pure form. Would Shakespeare be banned today from appropriating Roman and Scandinavian chronicles, or Gauguin from painting portrats of Tahitians?
As to Ms. Kim's complaint about white male writers who dare to write on North Korea - particularly those more successful than she - I'd like to ask why she thinks it appropriate for a Korean wrter to address non-Korean audiences in the appropriated English language.
As to Ms. Kim's complaint about white male writers who dare to write on North Korea - particularly those more successful than she - I'd like to ask why she thinks it appropriate for a Korean wrter to address non-Korean audiences in the appropriated English language.
265
To hear the early Beatles or early Bob Marley & The Wailers trying to sound like Chuck Berry is too hilarious.
To hear what they later did with their 'cultural appropriation' later is to hear magic.
To hear what they later did with their 'cultural appropriation' later is to hear magic.
9
You seem to have missed Ms. Kim's point entirely. She did not say that this white man should not be "allowed" to write about Korea. She simply pointed out that while she spent much more time there, and is of Korean descent, the work of a white male contemporary who spent just 3 days in the country about said country was better received than her own. She is pointing at bias in the publishing industry, not stomping on authors' rights. Having worked in the publishing industry myself, I have seen this happen firsthand-- it's not just a matter of how people "happen" to receive a book but how much time and money go into book tours, book placement in stores, securing interviews from leading publications, etc.
You seem to have missed Ms. Kim's point entirely. She did not say that this white man should not be "allowed" to write about Korea. She simply pointed out that while she spent much more time there, and is of Korean descent, the work of a white male contemporary who spent just 3 days in the country about said country was better received than her own. She is pointing at bias in the publishing industry, not stomping on authors' rights. Having worked in the publishing industry myself, I have seen this happen firsthand-- it's not just a matter of how people "happen" to receive a book but how much time and money go into book tours, book placement in stores, securing interviews and reviews by leading publications, etc.
Let's reverse engineer this. A Sudanese-Egyptian writer who appropriated the English language as well as the citizenship of Australia, attacks free thought. Free thought is what is lacking in all Muslim and Arab cultures such as Sudan and Egypt. How ironic. What better example of thought squelching Islam meeting the radical histrionic left?
BTW, anyone who appropriated the Bible, which was written in Hebrew and was the Jewish book, is guilty of cultural appropriation and should stop. That includes basically anyone who writes anything at all in any of the monotheistic cultures!
Also, people should stop eating food that isn't 'theirs', and should stop mingling with other ethnicities. Let's maintain the purity of the races, shall we?
Madness.
BTW, anyone who appropriated the Bible, which was written in Hebrew and was the Jewish book, is guilty of cultural appropriation and should stop. That includes basically anyone who writes anything at all in any of the monotheistic cultures!
Also, people should stop eating food that isn't 'theirs', and should stop mingling with other ethnicities. Let's maintain the purity of the races, shall we?
Madness.
105
I agree! Please stop appropriating our Bible, Christian people! I'm talking to you, Mr. William Blake. Just who do you think you are making art out of our YHWH, whose name you can't even pronounce? And you, Mr. White Man Milton. How dare you write about our Tanakh and call it your own? And then turn around and write from the standpoint of the Great Adversary, as though you could possibly know the thoughts and experiences of a dark fallen angel ruthlessly cast from heaven for daring to rebel against divine authority. And don't get me started on Ms. Toni Morrison. How dare she appropriate our Song of Songs? As if any human being with a heart can possibly understand the desire, love, and feeling of poems written by another human being who feels what it is to be human.
If such malpractice continues, we might start to empathize with one another. And I for one will not stand for it!
If such malpractice continues, we might start to empathize with one another. And I for one will not stand for it!
7
Donald Trump would approve of all that.
1
I'm a black woman, a writer, and I think this is completely ridiculous. I get the good intentions behind the idea that white writers sometimes appropriate cultures they have no knowledge of and make no pretense at understanding, then benefiting through white privilege, and that should stop. I get that, and I also get the frustration with the publishing industry's marginalization of nonwhite voices. I get it and still think Ms Shriver is right and her critics wrong. Can we not tell people what they can write about.
180
There are no 'good intentions' behind these demands for censorship in the name of political correctness.
14
Surely minority writers are at liberty to appropriate non-minority characters, or their mandate will be, um, shall we say, minor? If we restrict this right to 'minorities', what will we say when everyone has a legitimate minority claim? After all, there aren't that many Englishwomen and Englishmen, much less Scots; indeed far fewer than Africans and Asians.
At this point some (forgive me) annoying person will start talking about power, but it will turn out that only they, and people they define as 'like them', can say who has power and who doesn't. In effect, they will allocate all power to themselves.
This is ridiculous. Kudos to Ms. Shriver for telling it like it is, and speaking her truth to power, in this case power in the form of the festival administration which now seems to be doing its best to harm her.
The rest of us have an obligation to stop indulging these extreme, self-involved, self-serving and ultimately parochial views on the left. These views, and those who hold them, are exactly what provides the Trumps of the world with the support they have. Enough with them! Let them move to their own island and micromanage who gets to say what about whom, while leaving the rest of us alone.
At this point some (forgive me) annoying person will start talking about power, but it will turn out that only they, and people they define as 'like them', can say who has power and who doesn't. In effect, they will allocate all power to themselves.
This is ridiculous. Kudos to Ms. Shriver for telling it like it is, and speaking her truth to power, in this case power in the form of the festival administration which now seems to be doing its best to harm her.
The rest of us have an obligation to stop indulging these extreme, self-involved, self-serving and ultimately parochial views on the left. These views, and those who hold them, are exactly what provides the Trumps of the world with the support they have. Enough with them! Let them move to their own island and micromanage who gets to say what about whom, while leaving the rest of us alone.
38
Ms. Shriver seems abrasive and supremely entitled. However, fiction is fiction. It is unjust to demand that a creative artist be prohibited from creating characters and culture based on their imagination. Fiction is fiction.
Political correctness is going too far.
Political correctness is going too far.
18
Picasso "appropriated" many facets of primitive African sculpture in the development of his Cubist style. Also Velasquez, Manet, et alia. Is that racist or devoted flattery? Should he have reimbursed all the families of dead African artists and artisans for "using" their ideas? Likewise, Cézanne "appropriated" Delacroix's compositions and reordered them.
I am not speaking of racism now, I am speaking of artist's using what they want from whichever source they want, and wanting to include a three-dimensional story line of the entire human prism. Since when is that "appropriation". If it isn't written well or researched accurately, it's not racism, it's just bad writing.
Duh.
I am not speaking of racism now, I am speaking of artist's using what they want from whichever source they want, and wanting to include a three-dimensional story line of the entire human prism. Since when is that "appropriation". If it isn't written well or researched accurately, it's not racism, it's just bad writing.
Duh.
50
Can you tell us what made that African art primitive?
@ Hfo
"Primitive" or "naive" art refers to a particular style used by artists all over the world, including in the US.
Some of the artists may have had no training, some may have had extensive training.
"Primitive" or "naive" art refers to a particular style used by artists all over the world, including in the US.
Some of the artists may have had no training, some may have had extensive training.
1
I am shocked that writers are telling each other what they can and can't write. I am a white woman who grew up on an island in a multi-cultural world. I have every right to write stories about blacks, Puertoricans, Danes and Arabs because they were all part of my world. Even if they weren't I would still have the right to excercise my literary freedom. Who are we to shackle one another's literary journey?
122
NB: The author referred to in this article as Clive Cleave is actually named Chris Cleave. The book The Orphan Master's Sun is actually titled The Orphan Master's Son.
8
Lionel Shriver is not known for either political correctness or sugarcoating anything. While I don't agree with her view on the subject on which she spoke, if the festival wanted to dictate what she could and could not talk about they shouldn't have had her speak. She's allowed her opinion and in the literary circle her opinion is in the minority anyway. People can take what she's said, think about it, and still disagree. But for everyone to just spout the same politically correct line over and over again is a little dull and not reflective of society as a whole. I don't agree with the type of censorship that's occurring here. It's very immature and shows the festival has an agenda.
32
I agree with you. And the festival was well within its rights to program contrasting opinions in response to Shriver's expression of her own. But to then kill the links to Shriver's speech? Disgraceful.
5
I am filled with horror at the thought that even empathetic acts of imagination would be condemned. Having just finished reading Clarissa by Samuel Richardson and railing against some of his depictions of women, I nonetheless understand that he created strong, moral, and intelligent women characters, and that his book helped create a more sympathetic view of women in subsequent centuries. Writers and speakers should be mindful of the limits of their understanding. They should try to gain deeper understanding in any way they can. But they shouldn't be silenced.
26
My daughter came home from college talking about cultural appropriation and scolding me for wearing a Kimono type robe. I think it really takes away a whole lot of useful material from artists and really narrows one's artistic horizons. Not to mention all the different food dishes one might want to make, Chinese anyone?
17
My mama wore a mumu in Honolulu reading Michener's Hawaii to her Detroit boy eating squid and poi from a Japanese food truck guy. I then read the Source and have since returned again and again to read the words of others writing of one another. Oh the things I have become so far from home to which I can not return. .. Thank God for empathy conquering entropy
11
Bravo to writers, and anyone else, who fights for freedom of expression. Offend away.
36
Cultural Appropriation is something everyone does ...white/black/yellow/brown/purple or green.
remember....
"Good artists borrow, Great artists steal" Picasso.
remember....
"Good artists borrow, Great artists steal" Picasso.
12
Perhaps a serious discussion rather than a keynote might have been better from the start.
2
Strange that her point of view -- writers should be free to create their characters -- is controversial; Kafkaesque that attempts are made to silence her.
26
This sort of PC backlash is exactly why Trump is this close in the polls to Hillary. It's rather absurd to say an author can't write about a culture, gender or sexual orientation different than their own.
35
“How dare you come to my country and offend our minorities?”
Is it cultural appropriation to be offended on the behalf of a third party whose standards you did not grow up with yourself?
All art, all culture, is appropriated and/or combined/melted together. I do feel itchy though when people from the dominant culture put out their view of how minorities see things. Literature is where that gets me most, not so much music or cooking.
Is it cultural appropriation to be offended on the behalf of a third party whose standards you did not grow up with yourself?
All art, all culture, is appropriated and/or combined/melted together. I do feel itchy though when people from the dominant culture put out their view of how minorities see things. Literature is where that gets me most, not so much music or cooking.
13
Thank goodness there still are intelligent and fearless women around who don't mind telling the left where they can shove their intolerance and their hatred. Good for Lionel Shriver!
45
I read Ms. Abdel-Magied’s article on Medium.com. Wow. Looking through my library I see a lot of books that I now need to burn, because they have appropriated from cultures and sexes other than their authors – best that I start with Shakespeare. I also need to cancel my opera subscription, as the cultural appropriations by Puccini and Verdi are appalling. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison has to go: the protagonist is male, and well, Toni’s not a man. Same with All about H. Hatterr, since G. V. Desani was not Anglo-Malay. Don’t even know what to do with my science fiction…
47
I'm on the left and I agree with Shriver 100 percent. Without appropriating other cultural practices, civilizations grow stale and wither away. Are we really supposed to live in a culture that doesn't learn from others, or a culture that magically generates original "brand new" cultural practices every day? If we really believe in cosmopolitanism, then we should embrace the cross pollination of culture.
One problem with this whole debate is that people conflate "appropriation" with caricature, as if writing about someone else's experience is equivalent to white people wearing blackface or kimonos. If it's not possible to write about other people's experiences, how can a writer develop or create memorable characters? How is anyone supposed to learn from others or empathize with their situation if they're incapable of entering into it in a smart, reasonable way? Are other cultures black boxes? I'd like to think they're not.
And it should also be pointed out that no one but racists and white supremacists care when communities of color "appropriate" (i.e., appreciate and/or develop ideas from) "Western" or "white" culture. Sure, we can talk about speaking truth to power or the power imbalances between the dominate culture and marginalized cultures until we're blue in the face, but appropriation is appropriation, and if it enriches our general culture then I applaud it. Let's stop pretending that entering into other people's experiences is automatically naive racism.
One problem with this whole debate is that people conflate "appropriation" with caricature, as if writing about someone else's experience is equivalent to white people wearing blackface or kimonos. If it's not possible to write about other people's experiences, how can a writer develop or create memorable characters? How is anyone supposed to learn from others or empathize with their situation if they're incapable of entering into it in a smart, reasonable way? Are other cultures black boxes? I'd like to think they're not.
And it should also be pointed out that no one but racists and white supremacists care when communities of color "appropriate" (i.e., appreciate and/or develop ideas from) "Western" or "white" culture. Sure, we can talk about speaking truth to power or the power imbalances between the dominate culture and marginalized cultures until we're blue in the face, but appropriation is appropriation, and if it enriches our general culture then I applaud it. Let's stop pretending that entering into other people's experiences is automatically naive racism.
286
Whoa, what's the deal on kimonos? As an artist and fiber arts collector, I'm devoted to Japanese textiles. Japanese textiles and ceramics opened up a whole exciting world of historic culture to me! Because of this passion I drove far to the Asian Room of the County Library to rent over 35 Japanese classic films. Learned terms for different kinds of silks, cottons, weaving and dyeing techniques, etc. Kimonos are NOT holy, sacred garments. In Japan they sell them in department stores. Vintage kimonos are avidly sold to westerners on Ebay. As an artist, traditional Japanese aesthetics are of my soul, though I am of European background. I honor the Japanese for creating the most beautiful and inspiring textiles in the world, and as long as they are selling them, I am grateful to buy and wear kimonos!
19
I'm sorry. Please return all the kimonos. You may start a collection of cowboy hats or vinyl upholstery if your family has been in this country for at least three generations. If not, we'll put your name on the waiting list. Please provide details of your European background, you may be eligible to listen to classical music. We do not consider The Ukraine to be part of Europe at this time.
7
100% agreement. No need to repeat your persuasive arguments.
Their being "roiled" over an author supporting authors' use of cultural appropriation is ridiculous. She makes a great point that without cultural appropriation she would only be able to create characters in her books just like her which would result in boring fiction.
9
When a speaker agrees to address a conference audience they enter into a contract with both the organizer and the audience in terms of the content the agree to address. If reporting here is accurate, Ms. Beveridge appropriated a significant conference event as a platform for personal opinions for which she had not been contracted. She breached both the organizer's and audience's trust in doing so regardless of whether or not her opinions have merit. It is right that she was censored for doing so.
3
Censors always have some legalistic nitpicking to justify their censorship. Nice job.
39
I agreed right up to the point where you call for her speech to be censored. True, she may have violated the agreement with the festival's organizers. However, her speech should still be able to be read by others to arrive at their own conclusions, instead of reported excerpts.
5
Well you know what they say about verbal contracts:they're not worth the paper they're not written on.
1
I certainly support Ms Shriver's concern. When the left becomes too politically correct - or worse - it becomes the intolerant extremist itself. Really, self-betrayal, if you like. Sensitivity is one thing - and certainly one should be careful not to abuse artistic license and free speech - but straitjacketing artistic impulse with political correctness is an expression of mediocrity at best
558
And mediocrity is the foundation of totalitarianism.
7
This is a very unhealthy trend. It reminds me of a student comment which essentially said, "You cannot understand Beethoven unless you are German." This type of orthodoxy echoes the horrors of Orwell's mind control and doublethink. I can hardly imagine that prickly, snobby, self-righteous
sensibility is coming from a liberal tradition, one that I have been proud to be part of.
sensibility is coming from a liberal tradition, one that I have been proud to be part of.
14
Shivers' position takes for granted that her view is "the mainstream" perspective. She promotes the idea of denying authors from different cultural backgrounds the opportunity to tell their story. As the rebuttal commenter said, often racism means that authors of color don't have the same opportunities and their work is not not as well received as white authors, not because their work isn't as good but because of racism. Shivers should at the very least acknowledge this point. And, to wear a sombrero during her talk was completely unnecessary and offensive taken in conjunction with Shrivers remarks.
6