Cultural Appropriation and fandom vs authors & critics

[deborah]

I've just been catching up on a month of old ChildLit messages, and current context is making me notice something unpleasant. When there's an accusation of cultural appropriation in LJ fandom, fans immediately fall on the side of saying "How dare those of you with white privilege tell PoC their claims of having been harmed are false?" Whereas on ChildLit, accusations of cultural appropriation lead to a massive pileup on -- well, pretty much always on Debbie Reese. I don't always agree with Debbie, but the constant claims over there that her understanding of Native appropriation is wrong leave a vile taste in my mouth. Especially when contributors hit multiple bingo squares:

• You're telling us what we can't write!
• You're telling us what we can't read!
• It's just fiction.
• No, it's different when it's a non-Native [in this case Jewish] story that's mistold; that's BAD.
• Isn't it racist to say you need Native clearance to tell this story?
• But the author had anti-racist intentions!
• You say that the characters are portrayed unrealistically as members of their culture, which means you want a sterotypical portrayal, which is racist.

steepholm, diceytillerman, fjm, other ChildLitters, am I wrong? I know I'm a month out of date with my reading, but it really seems sketchy, how that conversation usually goes. And it happens again and again. Is fandom really that much more capable of seeing its own white privilege than ChildLit (which I know is not monolithically white any more than fandom is)?

Comments

[diceytillerman.livejournal.com]

I'm not in fandom, so i can't make a comparison, but I do agree with you about child_lit and what-all is placed on Debbie's shoulders. She's not 100% alone either onlist (Jean Mendoza and Beverlet Slapin at the very least are vocally supportive) or offlist (I've emailed her offlist in support more than once, and I only mention that because if I'm doing it, someone else must be too).

But overall, as a general trend, there's certainly a whole lot more protestations in the form of bingo squares than there is support. When I say support, I mean not just answering DR's posts and agreeing or taking it further, but original initiations of posts on the same topics. I can think of several possible reasons, but I don't know which one or ones are the real ones, and I don't quite feel comfy listing my potential reasons right here at the moment. I'll think on that, and maybe come back.

THanks for bringing it up. It's a critical question. Even for me who's just looking at the child_lit side and not the comparison with fandom: still valuable.

[diceytillerman.livejournal.com]

Also a specific thank you for your decision to post about it. I don't know if that decision was hard or easy, but I've been thinking about this exact issue for months now, and I've gotten nowhere near having enough [redacted] to make my own post about it.

[deborah]

Heh. It was hard, but I don't think it was all that brave. Notice I didn't make the post to ChildLit, I made it in my own blog, where I have a fairly small and friendly readership. Also, even I know Debbie is reading LJ now, she's not reading here, so I'm not bringing her into the discussion (not that I mind if she shows up in the discussion, but I wasn't reaching out to her). Mostly there's nothing like catching up on two months of pileup to make me feel incredibly uncomfortable.

[deborah]

The more I think about it, the more it's the bingo square nature of the protestations against Debbie that gets me mad. People don't have to agree with her. Hell, I don't always agree with her. But Bingo, people.