Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from November, 2020

Cultural Appropriation

  For the past few years this has been the rallying cry of a lot of people on the Internet, usually people on the progressive side of things. I don't want to use the SJW term because I'm conscious that it's a red flag to a great many people. Mostly, I've seen it in writing circles, where there's rather more discussion of it, with questions being asked about whether it's appropriate for writers to set stories outside their own culture. I've also seen some truly bizarre claims out there on the Internet, which often seem intent on unpicking the lessons learned by my generation about racism. For example, the complaints about Iron Fist being white, which seems to me to double down on the "Asian people are all martial artists" cliché, and which equally seems unwilling or unable to actually deal with Asian people beyond a stereotype. I also know of a Thai reviewer and writer who's treatment of anyone who dares to write about her culture has led to at ...