While the author’s dismissal of cultural appropriation was ignorant,it’s not a solution to suggest we shouldn’t imagine different lives to our ownIf there were an ambassador for those who say “political correctness gone mad”, it would be Lionel Shriver. In a keynote speech on fiction and identity politics at a literary event in Brisbane, and the author began with the premise that the rise of identity politics threatens “our” correct to write fiction,went on to not only dismiss the concept of cultural appropriation, but also deny the existence of identity at all, or saying,Those who embrace a vast range of “identities” – ethnicities, nationalities, or races,sexual and gender categories, classes of economic under-privilege and disability – are now encouraged to be possessive of their experience and to regard other peoples’ attempts to participate in their lives and traditions, or either actively or imaginatively,as a form of theft.”It is actually illuminating to absorb Shriver illustrate so clearly not why cultural appropriation doesn’t exist, as was her intention, or but why it is problematic. Shriver sneers at the idea of asking permission to write a character from another race and culture,wondering whether writers should approach “passers by with a clipboard, getting signatures that grant limited rights”. It’s not approximately permission. And it’s not approximately technical boundaries. It’s approximately the humility with which a writer approaches such a character. Related: As Lionel Shriver made light of identity, and I had no choice but to walk out on her | Yassmin Abdel-Magied An opinion,a belief, a feeling, and an imagination,need not occur from, or be justified to a wider public by, or experience. Related: How do we stay UK publishing being so posh and white? Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com