Inspiration vs. Appropriation, Part 2

A couple of months ago I wrote a post about the concept of inspiration vs. appropriation (read the conversations that followed here on this blog, or here where it appeared on MulticulturalFamilia.com.) I just recently received a comment from YA author, Terry Farish, that got me thinking about the topic again. Terry writes,

"I am a member of the dominant American culture. Here's one thought I have about people from the dominant culture writing about people in non-dominant cultures.  Could it be seen as not appropriation, but as a hunger to understand.  And for writers, it is through writing that we can begin to understand
our communities, our humanity, and, in this case, our multicultural country.  Is this only an apology?  I don't think so.  I think it would far worse if white people only sought to understand other white people, only wrote about other white people.   What if we lived in a world in which each ethnicity only wrote or created art about its own and no bridges were built between cultures by people trying to understand.  I do think it's my responsibility to honor Sudanese writers and work to support the development of their skills of young writers. 

I'd love to hear your ideas about this."

Terry, I had so many thoughts and questions for myself after reading your comment that I thought it best to just write another post. I hope you don't mind me sharing your comment with other readers. I am still trying to flesh out my thinking on appropriation vs. inspiration/appreciation/and now a hunger to understand. These thoughts are still confusing to me and are not cohesive at all (they never were, which is why I wrote that first post!) But what follows is the way I have been thinking and feeling about the subject after many discussions with other bloggers.

Seeking to understand another culture is admirable. Writing about something to understand it better is something that I do, too. But then there's this conundrum that I run into...When sitting down to write, I personally always think of Mark Twain's advice, "Write about what you know." I juxtapose that with something my husband said to me when we first started dating. My whole life, I've listened to black music, loved black culture, and felt like I really identified with black people. He said to me, "You can do all that, but you will never know what it feels like to be black. I can't take this skin off."

Powerful lesson there. He said that to me 20 years ago and I still think about it every day. I can never know what it is like to be in brown skin, in his skin, in the skin of my children; but I can see firsthand how it feels to watch the world treat them based on their skin. I can't tell their stories because I don't really know their stories. I only know my story: the story of a white woman married to a black man who is the mother of three brown children. So that is the story I choose to tell. I write about what I know, not what I presume to know by observing their lives.

While I agree that it might be boring if white people only told white people stories, I can also say with 100% certainty that if a white woman who'd never been in an interracial marriage or raised biracial children wrote a book about the mixed family experience---even though they'd never been in a mixed family themselves---I would be suspicious, maybe even offended. They would have to do a really excellent job of researching and writing, and even then I would be doubtful of their motives, of their honesty. It would really bother me. To have someone write a story about my life situation, without ever having experienced that situation for themselves, would seem very inauthentic. It would bother me even more if they profited from telling that story.

Yet, that's what writers do. They create fictional stories, they pretend to be someone else.  I think life would be really boring if they didn't create those stories. I love to read and learn, but thinking about appropriation has made me reconsider the kinds of stories I want to read. I've decided to make a conscious effort to read authentic voices. That doesn't mean that I won't read books by white authors who write about other cultures, though.

Here's an example of a white author I admire, who tells stories from a different cultural perspective--Barbara Kingsolver.  The Poisonwood Bible was an amazing book to me because while it was a book that took place in the Congo, what it really described was a specific part of European-American culture (missionaries) and their intersection with Congolese culture. Kingsolver managed to teach me a lot about the Belgian Congo in the 1950s, but did so by telling the story of a white character's experiences in that culture. She didn't narrate someone else's story.  In another book, The Lacuna, she again taught me about another culture by writing about life in Mexico from the point of view of a half white and half Mexican character. She focused a lot on the whiteness/American-ness of that character, and how he didn't exactly fit in even though he lived in Mexico and was half Mexican. Is her character problematic for real life mixed Mexican-Americans? I don't know. But I was impressed that she so carefully crafted a story about another culture that still managed to be told authentically from her own white perspective.

Reading from the perspective of that mixed character in The Lacuna made me think of something else: I can think of many, many white authors who have written from the perspective of a person of color. There are too many to list or name, and they are in every genre of literature. But how many writers of color are there who write stories from another cultural perspective? Can you think of any? I can't. The only book I can think of is The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. I remember reading that book for a class in college and having my fellow students comment how strange it was to read a book about an English butler written by a Japanese man...

It seems to me that white people feel they can write from any perspective they want to, but the same is not true for people of color. White people can say that we are trying to understand, and that our quest for learning justifies writing from another cultural point of view in order to bridge gaps....and I really think that is a noble purpose. I really do.  But at the same time we have to realize that writers of color do not have that same privilege. Their stories are not being told, shared, or published as often as the white versions of their stories. And just as I would be offended if someone else wrote my story, so are many people of color offended when white authors keep telling their stories.

I haven't read your books, Terry. I just looked at your website after you commented on this blog. I don't know how you approach your cultural subjects or who the characters are in your books. I do know a lot of social-justice minded white writers who want to bridge cultures and share new perspectives with white readers, and I think that it is important work. But I am personally always reminded of what my husband said to me 20 years ago, "You will never know how it feels to be black." My 20 years of being the only white person in my household gives me a huge research base to draw from. I could use that experience to write a story from a black perspective, trying to give white readers a better understanding of black culture; but there is no way I could really get it right. I am not black and I never will be. My story wouldn't be authentic. Personally, I'd much rather foster and support a writer of color who can share their own story. If I write my own story, it would be the authentic story of how a white woman can interact with and learn to love black culture. That is my story to tell, and I believe it can bridge gaps just as well as (maybe even better than) a story I could write from a cultural perspective that is not mine.

Inspiration vs. Appropriation

Earlier this week my family was packing up to head out of town for Thanksgiving. My kids were being goofy (a regular occurrence) and somehow the word pelvis came up. My youngest giggled wildly about the word pelvis and asked if there was anything that rhymed with it. "Elvis used to be called 'Elvis the Pelvis' " I told her.

"Why?" she asked. And so I found her a YouTube video of Elvis performing on the Milton Berle show in 1956. While she watched and imitated Elvis' famous pelvic moves, I scrolled down the list of videos to see if there were any other good examples of Elvis the Pelvis. In with the Elvis footage was a video of Big Mama Thornton singing "Hound Dog." I played it for my kids who asked, "Which one came first: Elvis' version or Big Mama Thornton's?" My husband and I gave an impromptu little lesson about the history of black music, explaining that a lot of popular music has roots in black culture but didn't become popular until a white, mainstream artist performed it.

Then at my parents house over the holiday, a similar conversation occurred. My mom and dad recently watched a documentary about famed songwriters Leiber & Stoller, who incidentally wrote the song "Hound Dog." Leiber grew up surrounded by black folks in Baltimore. He was not just influenced by black culture, he was in it. He went to schools that were predominantly black, and helped his mom run a store that was in a black neighborhood. He said it was his experiences in black culture that allowed him to write music for black artists. Leiber and Stoller's first big hit was "Hound Dog," which they originally wrote  for Big Mama Thornton; but it didn't become popular until Elvis sang it.

Were Leiber and Stoller inspired by black culture? Or did they appropriate a style of music from black culture that didn't belong to them? Were they paying homage to a culture by popularizing black music? or were they profiting from a culture that wasn't theirs to profit from?

I've been thinking about the notion of inspiration vs. appropriation for several months. Conversations about the movie The Help over the summer, an interesting read on Racialicious, a spirited chat on the podcast Is That Your Child? about Halloween costumes, and an interview on the Mixed Chicks Chat podcast all left me thinking about the difference between honoring a culture and stealing/profiting from it. How do we decide the difference between inspiration and appropriation?

Image Credit: Flickr/brittany0177

The book and movie The Help stirred up a lot of controversy because of the fact that it is a story about the black experience written by a white woman. Many negative responses to both the book and the movie centered on the question, "When do people of color get to tell their own story?" The author, Kathryn Stockett, states that her story is based on memories from her own life. Is she inspired by the black women from her past? Or is she appropriating the story of black women, telling a story that isn't necessarily hers to tell?

Mixed Chicks Chat (a live weekly podcast about the mixed experience)  episode 225 featured a man by the name of Phil Wilkes Fixico (read a story about him here.) His mixed experience involved an amazing story: at age 52, Fixico discovered through research that he is a descendant of the Seminole Maroons-- slaves who escaped in the 18th and 19th century to live in Spanish Florida near the Seminole Indians. Their cultures intermixed, creating an African-Seminole cultural experience. Fixico discussed the fact that Seminole Maroon experience is a story that needs to be told, that more people should learn about this intersection of African and Native American history. His mission is to share this history, and he suggested that the best way to spread the word is to get someone from the dominant culture (i.e. someone white, European-American) to write about it. He argued that more people will listen if the story is told by a member of the dominant culture.

Image Credit: Flickr/ronocdh

Since that episode aired, I have been thinking about his statement.


Will the dominant culture only pay attention to a story if it is told  by one of their own?  


Both Leiber & Stoller and Elvis brought a lot of attention to black music. Without their inspiration/appropriation of black culture, what would music sound like today? The Help started a lot of conversations about race that weren't happening prior to its release. Many white women in particular who read the book/saw the movie are seeing issues of race from a perspective they had never before considered. Without that inspiration/appropriation, would those conversations have occurred? Will more people learn about the story Phil Wilkes Fixico wants to share, the story of Black Seminole Maroons, if it is told by a white/European-American?

I don't have answers here, just questions. In fact, the more I think about it the more questions I have. When I talked to my husband about the concept of cultural appropriation he told me a story about walking to work and seeing a group of Japanese college students dressed in hip hop attire. He asked: are they appropriating black culture? Or is their expression of hip hop culture not considered cultural appropriation because they aren't members of the dominant European-American culture?

What do you think? What constitutes cultural appropriation? What is the difference between inspiration and appropriation? 


Will the dominant culture listen to a story that comes straight from the source? or does it need that inspiration/appropriation to happen before it can learn to appreciate other cultures?

Is that Her Natural Color?

When people see my middle child, their first reaction is almost always the same. They wonder about her hair. Years ago, I might have been offended. We lived next door to another mixed race family who's child was born with bleach-blonde hair and the mom always got the same looks and questions. People wondered aloud if we colored our babies' hair. She was offended. For a while, I was too. It makes you wonder what kind of mom they think you are--one that would but chemicals on a newborn's head to change her hair color! But now it's no longer a shock when they ask what they always ask:

Is that her natural hair color?

 

2011 All Rights Reserved, Bobby Duncan

The genetics are pretty amazing. In order for her to have red hair, she must have inherited the gene from both sides of the family. My sister is red-headed, so we know where it comes from on my side; but my husband is black and the red-headed tendency is not so obvious unless you look at one other feature: freckles. Red hair and freckles go together.

2011 All Rights Reserved, Bobby Duncan

My husband, beautiful mother-in-law and one brother-in-law all have freckles. Beautiful, aren't they?

I found an article that argues the number of redheads will decrease as the races intermingle. But my daughter is an example of how our intermingling races are still very capable of producing vibrant, beautiful redheads.

Tolerance and Respect

For years I've been a subscriber to the Teaching Tolerance newsletter and have used their website as a resource for lesson plans that I use in my classroom. I've tried to impress upon my students the notion that difference isn't bad--it's what makes the world interesting.  I encourage tolerance for differences of opinion and teach my children and my students to listen to and reflect on a variety of viewpoints. Tolerance is a core value in my belief system. But lately I've wondered: is it enough?

Earth Day: stomping newly lain sod.

Earth Day weekend my youngest daughter and I worked with a local volunteer organization to beautify the grounds at her elementary school. All three of my children attend our neighborhood elementary school and it is extremely diverse (58% non-white.) Their school is labeled as "failing" according to NCLB guidelines, but I think it is an amazing place and wouldn't want my children to be anywhere else. We live in Iowa, and there are few schools in the state that better represent the diversity of our world. My husband and I feel strongly that it is important for our children to attend school where there are families that are like ours, with parents from different cultures, ethnic backgrounds, races and ethnicities. We teach our children that all people have the right to fall in love with whomever they want--regardless of color, religion or gender. We teach them to do more than to tolerate differences--we teach them to respect differences.

I'd like to live in a world where we all practice more than tolerance...one where we show each other genuine respect...


...which is why I was flabbergasted by the comment of a fellow parent during the Earth Day event at our school.

After a solid hour of laying new sod, my daughter took a break and ran to play on the playground. A younger girl went to play with her while we parents continued to work. A few minutes later, the mother of the younger girl--a woman whom I know fairly well--asked if I could keep an eye on her daughter while she ran inside to use the restroom. She said that her daughter was over there on the playground with mine. She said they were playing together and that it was good for her daughter. "She's getting in some multicultural time."

My jaw dropped.

I still do not understand.

Two girls were having fun on the playground. They were playing together. I am certain that neither one even thought about the color of the other child's skin. Neither one thought about the races of their parents. They were just two girls playing on the playground.

She noticed my open-mouth. She said, "I'm sorry...was that inappropriate?" and then continued on her way to the restroom.

After the fact, there are always a million comebacks that come to mind. A million ways to say the things that you wish you could've said. But none of them were spoken that day. I started out thinking of angry and sarcastic comebacks. I continued with imaginary, short affirmative comebacks "YES! That was inappropriate! How dare you think of my beautiful daughter as nothing more than a tool!" I ended up with patient, teaching comebacks about how she could've phrased things better. But in the end I was left with a bunch of feelings that I couldn't exactly identify. I know this woman from many school-based situations. She has always seemed fairly tolerant of the differences in our community. But her comment reflected something that didn't feel good.

Then I read this op-ed in our local paper, "Replace tolerate with the word 'respect'" and realized that this writer has a point. The other parent who worked with us on Earth Day weekend sends her children to the same neighborhood school as mine. She may want her children to get some "multicultural time" with children who don't look like hers. She may even tolerate the majority of people in our neighborhood who are not like her and her family. But judging from her comment about my daughter, I can tell you what I did not feel from her--respect. Tolerating people implies that you are putting up with them. You allow them to exist even though they are not functioning on your level. Respecting people puts them on an equal plane.

I will no longer be teaching tolerance. I will be insisting that my children and my students show respect.



Check out other posts about a wide variety of multicultural issues at Bicultural Mom during the Multicultural Blog Carnival

Change IS Gonna Come (get ready Iowa)

Last Wednesday in Iowa City,  a short documentary film premiered entitled "Black American Gothic: Planting Urban Roots in Iowa."  An opinion article appeared in the Iowa City Press-Citizen prior to the film's release stating, "New documentary will spark some needed discussion"


The opinion piece briefly describes problems with racism that exist in Iowa City, but the evidence of those problems appear in the comments section. 


For example, the opinion piece states that black folks move to Iowa City from Chicago because they want better lives for their families. The commenters discuss their belief that black folks come to Iowa City for shorter welfare lines. 


The filmmaker is quoted as saying, "Soon Iowa City and much of Iowa will be truly multiracial like most of the nation, and now we must all reconsider what that means." The commenters do not understand this statement. One of them asks, "Does that mean we have reached some magical number on the desired mixture of races?" 


I read this article and feel a knot in the pit of my stomach. I remember the looks on my all-white students' faces when in Government class we discussed the 2010 U.S. Census prediction: by 2023 more than half of the children in our country will be nonwhite; by 2042 more than half of the adults will be nonwhite. Iowa will not be immune to this change. My family is evidence of the shift to a more multiracial community, as are the many other multiracial families in my neighborhood. Change is here and more is coming. One can only hope that when those white folks who make such closed-minded comments become the minority, the multiracial majority will treat them better than they have been treated. We need to learn to respect each other, not beat each other down.

Why I LOVE Public Education

It's time for a positive public relations campaign! We need to make sure the public hears what is GREAT about our public schools! I am limited to my own experience as a student, teacher, and a parent and I realize that not everyone has the same experience in public schools; but here's what tops my list of public school JOYS:

• KIDS!  When I was one, I didn't always fit in, was at-risk in junior high and high school, and didn't always love school. But in retrospect, I am so grateful for my time in public schools. I grew up in suburban Chicago and attended an elementary school with a lot of diversity (100+ languages spoken!) There was always a peer who who helped me and a group of friends that I considered my second family.  As a parent in Iowa,  my children attend a public school with a similar demographic to my old elementary school (yes, in Iowa!)  This huge mix of culture and diversity really prepares them to be global citizens. They learn about the world through their interactions with their peers. As a teacher, I love my students! We become a little family, sharing chores that keep the classroom running, sharing learning and sharing conversations. They are so smart and so funny sometimes that my time with them very rarely feels like work.
•  COMMUNITY-BUILDING! It starts in the classroom, where students and teacher become a little community. It spreads to a building, and if you're lucky, it moves throughout a district and/or a town. My students partner with the community in several projects each year. They are all labeled "at-risk" of dropping out and the "bad vibes" go both ways: they don't like most adults in the community and most of those adults don't like them. Community projects help everyone be more accepting of each other. As a parent, I want to see more of this at my children's school: we have such a wonderfully diverse population and if we interacted more we could all learn to appreciate and celebrate that fact! Where else can such community building occur but in a public school?!?
• GLOBAL VILLAGE-BUILDING! We start by building small communities, but why stop there? So many kids in my classroom and in my neighborhood suffer from poverty. They don't get to go on vacation or see the world outside of their towns and they don't even have access to technology to see the world via the Internet. I LOVE the fact that public schools can give students the opportunity to look out a window to the world. A small field trip, a guest speaker, a Skype meeting with someone halfway around the world, or an introduction to a Google app: any of these things we do in our public schools can show kids the world outside. If they can see a glimpse of the world outside of their hometown, then they can dream a better life.
• HOPE! In my professional life, I have seen some kids who are really beaten down by personal traumas and tribulations. By the time I see them, they have sometimes suffered for fourteen or more years. But despite all of that suffering, most of them still have hope! They still want to learn! They still come to school each day and get that twinkle in their eye when they understand something! They can still laugh! When I see these kids not only survive, but succeed, it is hard not to LOVE my job and LOVE public education--without it, none of the above would be possible.