Cultural
appropriation is censorship by another name
One of the
sessions at the SC Writers Association’s conference Saturday allowed writers to
read aloud their query letter to a panel of three literary agents for critique.
I made a mistake. Because I hadn’t read the directions carefully, I arrived
with a pitch instead of a query letter, which I read anyway despite my
embarrassment.
However, I
couldn’t have been as disappointed with my critique as another writer who
actually read a query letter. Her book, the subject of the
letter, involved a story with a slave.
The subject of
“appropriation” dominated the agents’ comments. Appropriation in writing is
commonly understood to mean that a writer adopts customs, behavior, habits,
etc., of a culture that’s not their own in producing a book. For example a
white writer produces a story about a
black, or a Latino writes about an Asian.
The writer at
the conference who read her query letter before the panel was cautioned that we
have to be careful in today’s environment. By the time the agents finished
their cautionary statements, it was clear that the writer’s book had no chance of
being published. The problem was her color. She was white and her story
involved a black slave.
When it comes
to cultural appropriation, a distinction should be made between historical
fiction and contemporary fiction. It is easier to understand that ethnic groups
have a right to claim their story as it exists today. Who better to understand
the traditions, language, and ideas than one of their own members?
But historical
fiction is another matter. The most contentious issue today is that blacks
claim ownership of their history as slaves. The argument goes that they were
the ones who suffered and no white (or yellow or red) person can understand
this. But how can a black person living in the 21st Century understand
what their ancestors underwent over a hundred years ago?
A white writer has as much access to the Slave Narratives and
slave autobiographies as a black writer. When you come to think of it, one of
the most powerful books written about slavery was written by a white woman. Historians
credit Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe with galvanizing the abolition
movement. Are we to say she had no right to write this book?
Restricting
historical fiction novels to certain authors based on ethnicity limits our perspective, imagination, concepts
and understandings. The losers here are not just whites but black, reds, and
yellows, the entire spectrum of
literature.
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"Query Letter" panel of literary agents
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