"no one owns culture"

What can you do if you can't write about experiences that are, apparently, supposed to be your own?

J.S.F. said:

The thing is, though, is that when PoC say that they're the ones most qualified (not you, just a generalization) to write from their perspective (and they are) it can come across as a kind of intellectual/cultural snobbery and make it even more inaccessible to those who genuinely want to learn about that culture. JMO...

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I'm going to agree with Kuwis. Its not snobbery if it's true. Not at all. If Kuwis was to say their more qualified then me to write the half Zuni experience it wouldn't be snobbery. Kuwis is mixed and happpens to be Zuni.

I myself am mulatto. And for a more intra racial spin on things, Kitty is black. She is more qualified then me to write from the perspective of a full black woman, and I'm more qualified to write the perspective of than her of a mullato lesbian. To outsiders we're both black, but my being mixed does change things. I'm still more qualified to write the experience of a full black woman than a middle aged white man but not as qualified as Kitty is.

I agree with Kuwis, I'm still getting used to writing mixed characters. And I'm still scared I'll mess it up and they would be too black to non-black people, and too white to black people.

I guess that makes sense, I am afraid to go to some of my own people because I still do t think I got as much education as I "should" have when I was a kid, and my sect isn't "good enough," etc.

Then again my group is completely over represented in media so I shouldn't even try, should I? Ugh. This is why I write pretty much exclusively alt-universe spec fic, I'm too terrified of offending anyone.

I break down in terror, usually. That's probably not a good response but it's the only one I have for most things.

Like I mean I have been looking at a project that would be steampunk Ottoman Empire based. I've heard so many people begging for non-European steampunk and whenever they see this idea they get really excited. But I have no idea how to go about it, particularly with the "offensiveness" because while the ethnic groups still exist there is no Ottoman Empire anymore, and, being an empire, has a significant amount of nasty history.

Hapax Legomenon said:

I break down in terror, usually. That's probably not a good response but it's the only one I have for most things.

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Its one I have to. I end up scrambling for some way to calm down. It's not pretty or pleasent. I've ended up hyerventilating.

I have often thought I should just not write at all because no matter what I wrote, it would somehow, no matter who I wrote about, be horribly racist.

I do wonder what would happen if we all just decided to chill out a bit.

Probably nothing good, considering the internet age.

kuwisdelu said:

All we can do is try our best.

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This! I agree completely.

kuwisdelu said:

So I guess, if you still don't understand, I want to ask:

Why do you feel you're as qualified when it takes everything I have to convince myself I have the right to even try?

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As someone who's trying his best to become an established writer--yeah, it's a dream--I realized a long time ago that if I ever wanted to make it as a writer then I'd have to try different things. Write outside the box. Challenge my own boundaries.

Twisted is a result of that. So is Lindsay Versus the Marauders. The former deals with a gender switch; the latter has a lesbian MC. As a guy, straight, and as white as the driven snow, this is about as different for me as it gets.

Am I qualified as a woman to write this? No. Am I qualified to come at a story from the POV of a lesbian MC? Others would say no, and truth be known, the whole notion just plain scared the shit out of me at first.

But if I'm ever going to be a good writer and NOT just write about tried-and-true white guys who get into trouble with the law and then find the girl of their dreams, then this is my way of understanding or, at the very least, trying to understand a different POV. I may not be successful at it, not totally, but it's a start on my own path to literary enlightenment.

Will I offend some people along the way? Probably. I'm in the process now of finishing off a novel in which one of the main characters is a transgendered teenager. If it's published, will it offend some members of the transgendered community? Probably. But as a writer, and as someone who's making an honest effort to understand things as they are, then that's the risk I'm willing to take.

Sorry if I offended anyone earlier on with my comments. Those were my honest feelings in the matter.

I mean if I write about white people, I'm racist, if I don't, I'm only writing in fear because with every word I'm liable to be called racist anyway. If I try to write about a place where race isn't a thing people pay attention to, it's immediately assed that people with dark skin are going to be the bad guys, if I write about people like me, I'm just contributing to the over inundation of stories about Jews, who obviously need to get out of the way for other minorities, if I write about cute woodland creatures they're still coded as white and I'm still racist...

I mean... I started writing for pleasure... So I think I need to trash any ambitions I had and never show my work to anyone to retain any of that...

For me, a lot of the issue here is what do I want my readers to experience? My highest aspiration as an author is what I personally want as a reader. I want to be entertained. As a reader, I don't want to fret, I don't want to worry or muse about deep things. I want a rollicking, wild ride that leaves me closing the book, breathless and satisfied.

So I tend, as an author, to focus less about internal issues than external threats. Does that make me less sensitive to some of the culture issues? Yes, probably. But my character's issues have more to do with the paranormal culture they belong to than the human variety. Writing a serious literary or genenral fiction is, to me--and maybe ONLY me--far different than most of the genre fiction I write and read.

Do I worry I'm not portraying cultures well? Not really. In fact, not at all. I make my characters individuals. Some worry about their heritage, some don't. For those who don't, who identify themselves with their chosen group (whether that group is wannabe actors or cops or surfers) the heritage details don't have much book time. For those who do, it's their driving force and I spend more research time on their particular worries. So far, I've only had, I think, two fans who had any quibbles with portrayal, and I fixed those with the subsequent re-issue and made them happy. More often, fan mail has been in support of the characters and their believability.

My best advice: Don't worry so much that it paralyzes you. That does no good for you or the readers.

Hapax Legomenon said:

I mean if I write about white people, I'm racist, if I don't, I'm only writing in fear because with every word I'm liable to be called racist anyway...

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This is what's called reductio ad absurdum.

No one is saying you can't write X or Y. For the love of all that's holy, people write about Grendel, and Elves and Orcs, and homicidal maniacs; but they do it with care and thought and effort and honesty.

No one is asking more than that.

Do you write with good will?

Are you interested in writing genuinely and honestly?

Are you willing to work at it?

Are you willing to ask beta readers for help?

Then get on with it.

ETA: looking over this, my thoughts are scrambled. Sorry about that

I wasn't sure if I could/am able to contribute to this thread, but upon seeing a few posts about being Irish and Jewish, I figured I'd throw out my strange experience.

Also, slhuang's post really resonated with me because the idea of owning a culture terrifies me for basically the same reasons.

I am also a first-generationer and I have issues with my own culture. My native language is not the same as my parents. My mother spoke Polish and my father spoke Czech & Slovak. This has, and will be until we die, been a source of conflict for us. There are things I cannot convey to my own family. Sure, I have been brought up listening to the music and eating the food, but I'm not as "ethnic" as they are. They assimilated more. That was not my choice. It never was. I have family that are more and less ethnic than me. It's strange to think of family in that way.

I have been raised with (I guess) a more European view that looks at whiteness a bit differently as many in Europe tend to see Slavs as a "fake white" or just "not-white." I have never seen British or Irish people as the same race as me. I just can't. Our cultures are too different.

ETA: the point of this is to point out that while I know I'm not Irish I still don't see issue with time celebrating St Patricks day, but then again I also understand the history of it

Personally, I always self identified as Slavic, and not necessarily as white. (Now, I don't get cocky and label myself as a PoC either.) But things changed about a year ago when my grandmother confessed on her death bed that she was a cyganko, or gypsy.

We had always made guesses and jokes about it because she had a lot of stories, traits, and beliefs that were very different from everyone around her. Curious, I poked around and forced my family to give me answers about her life which matched with the info I read about on Wikipedia on Polish Rom. Not only had my grandmother hid from that part of her life for many years due to persecution she faced from people around her, but so did my mother and her brothers.

Some people claim that Romani is a PoC. (I'm not sure I do, but that's another topic).

Can I claim this? Am I allowed to? The thing is, when it was finally confirmed I felt a kind of click inside. Everything finally made a kind of sense to me.

So here I am, with a culture I didn't know I "had." I'm currently writing a book with a main character who is more Romani than I and I worry about how I'm doing it, if I doing it right or just adding to the gypsy stereotypes. I think my only saving grace is that I'm using the lens of "first generation" and "assimilation" if that makes any sense.

It might not be as distinct as kuwi's but I am freaking out about it none the less. Should someone else be able to write about this? Sure, if they treat it with respect but that doesn't help me.

kuwisdelu said:

Why do you feel you're as qualified when it takes everything I have to convince myself I have the right to even try?

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I completely understand what you are saying, and I empathise. But to look at it another way:

Why do you feel that your insecurities should impact on my writing?

kuwisdelu said:

Where do you think my insecurities came from?

Not yours specifically (I'm assuming), but from other writings from the culture of "no one owns culture" that appropriated our stories and told them with no respect for cultural accuracy or our cultural ownership of them.

I grew up reading "traditional" stories told by white men about my people that I'm only learning now more than a decade and a half later were full of lies and mistakes and romantic revisionism.

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This, I know almost all the books I read as a small kid for black children weren't written by black people. And as such they really did no matter how untintentionally write it from the perspective of a most likely white author.

Same thing for any books or media my mom could find for me and my sister on Native American stories. My mom didn't have a lot to choose from, and to be frank. Agents and publishers still greatly prefer stories, even legends from other non-white cultures told from the perspective of a white author.

Because of this people like me and Kuwis are nervous when it comes to writing about our communities, or incorperating things from those communities into our writing.

Lillith1991 said:

Because of this people like me and Kuwis are nervous when it comes to writing about our communities, or incorperating things from those communities into our writing.

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But you sure have an advantage. I wouldn't write an MC with a culture that I wasn't very familiar with until I did a lot of research. And even then, I'd be working with one arm tied around my back. Unless you really know a culture there's a strong likelihood you'll offer up a surface portrayal. Not just true with culture though, right? True of any life factor you're not so familiar with. I find that for me, for my two ethnic groups, one kind of white, one kind of brown, both often stereotyped in books and movies, my bigger strength is in knowing what they're not.

So far my MCs have all been of one or the other cultures. Did I worry that I was going to get it wrong? Definitely. Did I worry that I was gonna either perpetuate the stereotypes or go so far out of my way to dispel them that I would deny the truths about them that may have been part of the stereotypes? Definitely. It's a difficult tightrope to walk. But what I'm always concerned with is depicting the truth, as best I know it, for this particular MC, from this particular culture, with these other factors and with the circumstances that he/she is presented with. Their truth, as best as i can see it, that's the best that I can do.

I've read a couple of really cringe-worthy novels set in India by Westerners who, even though they had actually lived in India, still didn't get some of the nuances of life there. An example is this book.. Not a bad story, if you can get past the usual cliche of white-woman-going-to-backward-country-and-saving-the-poor-natives.

The author had lived in Madras/Chennai; so have I. But you could tell almost from the first page that she had never really "absorbed" India; that she remained a stranger, even though she knew a lot of straight facts about the culture. For example: a women's shelter decides to hold a feast for all the poor women living there. The main dish: chicken. I'm still scratching my head how she got that wrong. In Chennai, vegetarian is the default; restaurants that serve meat identify themselves as non-veg in bold signs outside. There would never, ever be a non-veg feast for a community such as this.
Constantly, the author had the Indian women thinking as a Westerner would; she had no inkling as to nuances that might make an Indian attitude sometimes the very opposite to a Westerners; she just went around assuming that the Western take was right.

So you see, Shaldna, it's not just about offending people or stepping on sensitive toes. It's about understanding, getting beneath the skin, getting it right. And you can only really do that if you have walked in the other's shoes, and left your own identity behind. You really have to shed that skin you know and get into another -- completely. That's what I love about books -- they enable you to do so without ever leaving your home -- but you have to trust that the author knows what she is doing. The author of the book above didn't -- and her readers don't know that she didn't to judge from the good reviews she reaped. THAT'S what it's about. If you cannot get into that other skin, at least partly, you have no business writing the character.