Who Can Write Whom?

Who can write whom? Who can't write whom? When you write about a different culture or your own, are there certain things you should write about or shouldn't write about?

There's been a lot said about cultural appropriation over the last half decade or so. I understand it, to an extent. But I think sometimes we go too far with it. If an object, food, story, etc. has significant cultural meaning, it needs to be respected. A few months ago, a teenager sparked controversy when she wore a traditional Chinese dress to prom in the United States. There was nothing malicious about her wearing the dress. The girl wore the dress out of love for its history and to show respect to cultures different from her own. The reaction was way over the top. It's okay for people to think it was in bad taste. But this teenager was cyber-bullied and threatened. Isn't the world a better place when we are all sharing ideas and parts of our cultures? As long as the "appropriation" isn't coming from a place of disrespect, I can't see the issue.
I think it is similar for writing. If you're going to write of a habitus different than your own, it should be done from a place of respect. I personally don't believe that anybody should have restrictions on who or what they write about. But it is important to do the right thing and represent other cultures as faithfully as you can. I applaud our guest lecturer last week for her book set in Indonesia, in the year 800 CE. I also applaud her for undertaking so much research, being 10 years worth. That is simply incredible.
That's not to say that we should all do a decade of research before writing about another culture. That would mean that we get about 6 cultures we can write about in our lifetime, assuming that you started researching at 20 and continued until well after retirement age. But it's important to treat the subject matter and/or characters with the respect they deserve. If it's about a current culture, talk to people who live there. Find out what their lives are like and how they would want to be represented. If it's about an ancient culture, long gone, get to the library and start reading. It's not going to be easy to do and you definitely shouldn't just start making it up on the spot and hope for the best. That's how people get misrepresented and (rightly so) offended.

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