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[excelsiorlef]

Ok so this is going to be a long post because it is essentially two stories in one.

First, backstory: the Editor of Writers’ Union of Canada magazine noted in an opinion piece published, I believe as the first piece, in a recent issue of the publication that

In my opinion, anyone, anywhere, should be encouraged to imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities.”

...

Canadian literature is written by people who are “white and middle-class,” and exhorts those same white, middle-class writers to look outside of their own community and write about “what you don’t know” in an effort to “explore the lives of people who aren’t like you.”

Now this alone? Sounds inoffensive.. however rather than just argue for a broader diversity in factional characters in Canadian literature he framed all in the context of saying:

“I don’t believe in cultural appropriation"
...

“Set your sights on the big goal: Win the Appropriation Prize,”

In fact that is the title of the article

“Winning the Appropriation Prize”

He goes as far as to suggest an actual monetary prize

“I’d go so far as to say there should even be an award for doing so — the Appropriation Prize for best book by an author who writes about people who aren’t even remotely like her or him.

Now even if you think hey what's the big deal. Here is the platform in which he decided to write this:

an issue devoted to indigenous writing.

He also tries to tie indigenous writers into his argument:

“Indigenous writers, buffeted by history and circumstance, so often must write from what they don’t know . . . They are on the vanguard, taking risks, bravely forging ahead into the unknown.”

Which I find it presumptuous to assume that Indigenous writers are frequently not writing about what they know.


Backlash from fellow writers and contributors and board members came swiftly

Writer Jennifer Love Grove pointed out on Facebook what she saw as a contradiction. “Hal N. writes in Write magazine that canlit is too white and middle-class, and the solution is that white, middle class writers should appropriate marginalized cultures more?”

...

Helen Knott, a contributor to the issue, wrote on Facebook: “I am seriously disgusted that someone would use the Indigenous issue of Write as a jump point for a case for cultural appropriation on the backs, words, and reputations of the Indigenous writers featured in it. It’s not enough that we are finding our voices, reclaiming our ability to tell stories, and having to heal to tell these stories. But people want to tell them for us.”
...

Write magazine editorial board member Nikki Reimer posted on Twitter a link to a statement in which she resigns from Write’s editorial board, calling the column “clueless and thoughtless.” It “marks Write magazine as a space that is not safe for indigenous and racialized writers,” Reimer said.

She goes on to say that, “Canada is ‘exhaustingly white and middle class’ not because white writers are afraid to write stories they don’t ‘know,’ but because white writers don’t get out of the way and make space for the multitude of stories to be told by those who aren’t white and middle class.”

...
In an email exchange with the Star, TWUC executive director John Degen said “Our process failed in this instance, and for that we take full responsibility.”

He also pointed to the council’s equity and diversity process, noting that “fair cultural diversity” is a “priority” and that there is a “definite focus on indigenous Councillors . . . we have a motion in place to devote at least one National Council position to an indigenous writer.”

Waubgeshig Rice is on the national council, and told the Star “I was very excited about the issue, which is why I was so disappointed to see that editorial.” The intention was to devote a full issue to indigenous writing, which Niedzviecki described in his piece as “the most vital and compelling force in writing and publishing in Canada today.”

He was also one of the signatories to a statement put out by the Union’s Equity Task Force criticizing Niedzviecki’s editorial

“We are angry and appalled by the publication . . . . In the context of working to recruit writers historically marginalized in the union, this essay contradicts and dismisses the racist systemic barriers faced by Indigenous writers and other racialized writers. This is especially insulting given that this issue features the work of many Indigenous writers.”
...

Knott told the Star that “Even to be able to tell those stories, we have had to fight — our culture was oppressed. Our voices were silenced . . . By saying it’s OK for non-indigenous people to appropriate culture, to tell the stories, is stealing our voices all over again now that the stories are seen as having value.

“I was upset because my voice and my name being attached to something that preaches for cultural appropriation is very upsetting,” she said. “It felt like they created a platform with indigenous voices and indigenous writers, and then undermined it.”

Oh and it turns out no other editor of the magazine saw or read the piece before it got published

Reimer was sent a copy of the issue which she didn’t get a chance to read, although there was no other opportunity, according to the Union, for other editorial board members to provide input. In fact, Reimer noted in a statement on her website that “not having reviewed the issue prior to putting my name to the Chair’s Report is a serious lapse in judgment and ethics, and I believe that I cannot in good conscience continue with the board.”

Anyway he resigned, the Writer's Union rightfully apologized

On Wednesday morning, the Writers’ Union quickly issued a statement, apologizing “unequivocally” and noting that “the editor of Write magazine has resigned from his position.”

The statement added that the Union was contacting each of the contributors individually and promised to “offer the magazine itself as a space to examine the pain this article has caused, and to take this conversation forward with honesty and respect.”

“Devoting the next issue is a start on this, not the solution,” Degen told the Star later in an email interview. “We are trying very hard to address diversity and equity head on. This is a frustrating and sad setback.”

And when asked about why he wrote it

“I started out kind of flippantly and I think that I failed to recognize how charged (the term cultural appropriation) is and how deeply painful acts of cultural appropriation have been to indigenous peoples,” he told the Star in an interview. He hoped that, in the future, the writers he worked with “would be willing to talk to me and dialogue with me about why it happened.”

“I’m certainly going to be thinking about this incident in the future when I write. At the same time I think it is important that we engage with each other, that we speak respectfully to each other about our differences of opinion. I don’t think we want to have a chill on expressing ideas,” he said.

There is some signs of self-reflection here but I find it ridiculous to believe that a writer/editor, who is so aware of the concept of Cultural Appropriation that he'd write a piece denying it's existence in an issue dedicated to Indigenous writers, would have no idea the impact it's had on Indigenous people.

https://www.thestar.com/entertainme...-appropriation-prize-in-writers-magazine.html

http://www.thespec.com/whatson-stor...-for-appropriation-prize-in-writers-magazine/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/...article-defending-cultural-appropriation.html

Tl;dr version:

A white middle class man wrote an article in an issue of his arguing that cultural appropriation doesn't exist and that the solution to the overtly homogeneous white middle class perspective in Canadian literature was not to amplify the voices and writings of minority writers but to instead just have the same white middle class writers write about those minorities instead, going as far as to suggest an actual monetary literary prize be created. He chose to make this argument in an issue of the magazine that was dedicated to Indigenous writing and writers. He got backlash, resigned and the magazine apologized.


And now for part two, the thread title:

In response to this event

Jonathan Kay, editor-in-chief of a smallish Canadian publication called The Walrus magazine tweets out a link to the Toronto Star Article and frames the entire event as:

The mobbing of Hal Niedzviecki is what we get when we let Identity-politics fundamentalists run riot
Sad & shameful

This is only relevant because in director response to that tweet

former National Post editor-in-chief Ken Whyte tweeted that he would donate $500 to fund the “appropriation prize” mentioned in the opinion piece.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...e-to-raise-money-for-appropriation-prize.html

He suggests calling it the Atuk Prize, naming it after a fictional Inuit character created by legendary Canadian author Mordecai Richler for a satirical book...

Here's a a blurb from one of the published editions:

‘Eskimo poetry’ – words calculated to chill the blood of all but the devoutest Canadian egg-head patriot. So when Atuk, the Eskimo poet, first came to Toronto as the ‘discovery’ of a Twentyman Fur Company public relations officer, all he got out of it was a slim volume and a few literary cocktails. Prestigewise, as his new friends would have said, it was not too bad; moneywise it stank.

But Atuk did not focus the gentle savage’s traditionally innocent eye on the Toronto scene – far from it. One gimlet glance at the delights of civilization and he was on the ball. Soon his stocky figure was to be seen stepping out of a black Thunderbird at the doors of TV, movie and press magnates – or rolling on a divan with the country’s darling, Bette Dolan, record-breaking swimmer and the wholesomest girl in the land. Atuk’s downfall only came when …

But no: we cannot do this to you. The beauty of this book lies in its surprises: in its lunatic twists and turns, in the laughs it startles out of you by outrageous shock tactics. Because one of Canada’s most serious young writers has here turned a somersault and has come up with – we are weighing our words – a tour de force of comic invention unrivalled since Juan visited America. It is possible that, as a result, when he next sets foot on his native soil it will bounce him back into the sea – but whether Canada likes it or not, it has now produced a comic writer and satirist of whom any country in the world could be proud.

https://leavesandpages.com/tag/the-incomparable-atuk/

From there editors and writers and editor including Maclain's Magazine (their EIC), National Post's Editor in Chief (also their EIC), Globe and Mail, Le Journal de Montreal, Financial Post and more all signed off seriously or not on raising money to fund a literary prize for Best Appropriation. These are all supposedly mature adults with major writing careers...

And the response to criticism of their twitter behaviour?

Apologies for any offence caused by what began as free speech protest thread -- twitter no place for glib

This is literally a tweet from the Editor in Chief of the Nation Post, a major National Newspaper...

https://twitter.com/AnneMarieOwens/status/863033270321250305

Not even Canadian Journalists understand what free speech really means.


tl;dr part 2: In response to the event of part 1 far too many high profile Canadian journalists and editors decided to either seriously raise money for an Appropriation Award or joke about doing so in the name of "free speech"

 

[Slayven]

Some real snowflakes there. The fact so many think it is cool is scary

 

[excelsiorlef]

Some real snowflakes there. The fact so many think it is cool is scary

And just how glib they were guffawing publicly about it for everyone to see...

 

[Sunster]

Even if I was the greatest author alive I still wouldn't have the ability to write from the perspectives of other cultures. Seems like a classic case of "we white people wanna play too!" really weird how we seem to be the only one's with this need to be apart of all things.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Even if I was the greatest author alive I still wouldn't have the ability to write from the perspectives of other cultures. Seems like a classic case of "we white people wanna play too!" really weird how we seem to be the only one's with this need to be apart of all things.

I mean the fact that his solution to make Canadian Literary canon less white was to give money to white people to write about minorities is fucking absurd... and then all those journos falling over themselves to joke about doing it because somehow this is about free speech now is just asinine. I expected better, probably shouldn't have. I did enjoy how many of them offered to pay but had to make sure it was clear they didn't represent their magazines and newspapers... because they knew they were being shits.

 

[BorkBork]

Been following this and have read the piece. It's shockingly oblivious in tone.

The doubling down by so many major journalism players is insane.

 

[Slayven]

I mean the fact that his solution to make Canadian Literary canon less white was to give money to white people to write about minorities is fucking absurd... and then all those journos falling over themselves to joke about doing it because somehow this is about free speech now is just asinine. I expected better, probably shouldn't have. I did enjoy how many of them offered to pay but had to make sure it was clear they didn't represent their magazines and newspapers... because they knew they were being shits.

Once again reality one ups what would have been a hilarious comedy sketch

 

[excelsiorlef]

Been following this and have read the piece. It's shockingly oblivious in tone.

The doubling down by so many major journalism players is insane.

And it is from all sides (from National Post to even a more liberal guy from CBC) all making jokes , if it was just the Blatchford types I'd be disgusted but unsurprised but this is from everywhere... It's embarrassing at how publicly brazen they were being.

 

[BocoDragon]

I don't know that I'd be encouraging simple to write from the perspective of other identities... but I certainly wouldn't be discouraging it either. Literature would be cut off at the knees if we weren't able to write about people whose lives we didn't directly experience ourselves.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Once again reality one ups what would have been a hilarious comedy sketch

So true.... It's amazing Onion still is in business when reality is scooping them every day now.

I don't know that I'd be encouraging simple to write from the perspective of other identities... but I certainly wouldn't be discouraging it either. Literature would be cut off at the knees if we weren't able to write about people whose lives we didn't directly experience ourselves.

Yeah but they key to this story is the writer literally thinks there's no such thing as cultural appropriation and that the solution to more diversity in literature is to hand out cash money to the best writer who writes about another race (which in the context of his argument is clearly directed rewarding white writers primarily)

 

[excelsiorlef]

DP

 

[gutter_trash]

High-profile Canadian journalists ?

I must be living under a rock for 40 years because I never heard of these journalsits.

OP, you should edit your first post and name the names of the journos in your original post.

after clicking on the links, I never heard any of these names

 

[MMarston]

High-profile Canadian journalists ?

I must be living under a rock for 40 years because I never heard of these journalsits

Also, the National Post.

 

[gutter_trash]

Also, the National Post.

Post Media toilet paper

 

[BorkBork]

High-profile Canadian journalists ?

I must be living under a rock for 40 years because I never heard of these journalsits.

OP, you should edit your first post and name the names of the journos in your original post.

after clicking on the links, I never heard any of these names

EIC of the Walrus.
Former EIC of the National Post.
Current EIC of the National Post.
EIC of Maclean's.
Andrew Coyne.

 

[BocoDragon]

Yeah but they key to this story is the writer literally thinks there's no such thing as cultural appropriation and that the solution to more diversity in literature is to hand out cash money to the best writer who writes about another race (which in the context of his argument is clearly directed rewarding white writers primarily)

I don't mind the challenging of the concept of cultural appropriation or the idea that people should be able to write from the perspective of other identities. There is something rational in the underlying notion: if people are starting to insinuate that people "aren't allowed" to write from the perspective of other identities, that would warrant a kind of challenge.

But perhaps the execution went awry. If you're specifically encouraging whites to do it, that's a fail that looks bad.

 

[Sunster]

I don't mind the challenging of the concept of cultural appropriation or the idea that people should be able to write from the perspective of other identities. There is something rational in the underlying notion: if people are starting to insinuate that people "aren't allowed" to write from the perspective of other identities, that would warrant a kind of challenge.

But perhaps the execution went awry. If you're specifically encouraging whites to do it, that's a fail that looks bad.

idk about others but I don't say "not allowed" i say "not able". ie, your book will probably be shit.

 

[gutter_trash]

I don't mind the challenging of the concept of cultural appropriation or the idea that people should be able to write from the perspective of other identities. There is something rational in the underlying notion: if people are starting to insinuate that people "aren't allowed" to write from the perspective of other identities, that would warrant a kind of challenge.

But perhaps the execution went awry. If you're specifically encouraging whites to do it, that's a fail that looks bad.

Plus we should encourage empathy, understanding other cultures rather than ban people from writing journalistically or artistically about other cultures

 

[TemplaerDude]

Ugh, National Post garbage.

 

[cartographer]

I don't mind the challenging of the concept of cultural appropriation or the idea that people should be able to write from the perspective of other identities. There is something rational in the underlying notion: if people are starting to insinuate that people "aren't allowed" to write from the perspective of other identities, that would warrant a kind of challenge.

But perhaps the execution went awry. If you're specifically encouraging whites to do it, that's a fail that looks bad.

I don't think people are really being as extreme about it as you seem to be taking it. Writing from other perspectives or being more diverse in characterization isn't automatically cultural appropriation. This should be encouraged and is encouraged. White people only writing white characters is effectively erasure.

But there are cases in art where it is appropriation. The man mentioned in the OP is saying this can't really be possible. Nuance matters here. It wasn't a case of him being close enough and fumbling the execution. He missed the most important point.

 

[BocoDragon]

idk about others but I don't say "not allowed" i say "not able". ie, your book will probably be shit.

That's interesting. Perhaps. "Write what you know" and all that.

But as a counterpoint I think a great many celebrated works are from people writing about an identity they didn't experience.

Plus we should encourage empathy, understanding other cultures rather than ban people from writing journalistically or artistically about other cultures

Yeah that sounds like a healthy approach.

 

[Platy]

There is always a need for a more diverse cast of characters but this can easily done in 3967686 better ways than how he tried =P

Hell, you barely need appropriation to write a character that has 90% stuff you know but happens to be Argentinian-Canadian. You Google a little, talk to people who are like this ...you know, do actual research like every writer should do

 

[BorkBork]

So How’s That Whole “Diversity In Media” Thing Going?

I can’t believe I have to fucking say this, but no one, in the history of writing books, has ever suggested that white people are not allowed to write thoughtful portrayals of Indigenous people or people of colour, namely in fiction. Frankly, we encourage it. But remember how fucking mad all of you got when you found out there’d be a black Stormtrooper in Star Wars? Remember when some of you got hot over the suggestion that Santa Claus, a literal figment of children’s imaginations, could be black?

Promoting the work of white writers who use another culture for profit isn’t trying. It’s meeting the laziest kind of diversity metric, one that doesn’t actually shift power balances or change the status quo. Abstaining from cultural appropriation wouldn’t stop you from writing thoughtfully about people who aren’t white. It does, however, stop you from ripping off people of colour, or pretending like you understand their stories intimately. It does preclude you from taking a culture that was never yours to begin with — a culture that might have made the lives of the people born with it harder in white Canada, or might mean they don’t get the same opportunities and privileges — and turning a profit.

Canada publishes a laughably low number of books by people of colour, namely black and Indigenous writers, and the discrepancy is just as bad in journalism. You don’t get to check off a box for diversity for allowing your white writers to invent the lives of POC people. That’s not enough. You have to actually find people who write and speak and live from different perspectives, and promote them. And pay them, because historically and currently, they’re not getting work, and they’re not getting money. White writers using their very histories and cultures, naturally, get their dues.

 

[excelsiorlef]

High-profile Canadian journalists ?

Well Blatchford is an obvious one...
Ken Whyte is the former Editor in Chief of the National post
Alison Uncles is the Editor in Chief of Maclain's Magazine
Anne- Marie Owens is the Editor in Chief of The National Post
Andre Coyne you should have heard of

Those are the high profile ones from the Toronto Star piece from where the headline came from.

The rest are in giant twitter chains so I summarized the people I saw but here are some:

Lise Ravary writes for La Journal de Montreal
Steve Ladurantaye is a Managing Editor of Digital News at CBC
Terence Corcoran is an Editor at The Financial Post
Barbara Kay is a Columnist at The National Post
Scott Feschuk is a Columnist at Macleans
David Reevely writes for the Ottawa Citizen
Miro Cernetig is a former columnist for the Vancouver Sun and former Quebec Bureau Chief of the Toronto Star and worked for the Globe and Mail and CBC in the past
Steve Maich is the Head of Digital Content and Publishing for Rogers Media

List is here in Ken Whyte's feed as he quote and retweeted most of them:

https://twitter.com/KenWhyte3


And just so we're clear if this were serious it was absolutely not going to go to Indigenous writers, one said they'd only donate if the money went to indigenous writers to which the man organizing this "joke" replied

Ken Whyte‏
@KenWhyte3

Any money you donate will go to a special supplemental fund for indigenous authors

https://twitter.com/KenWhyte3/status/862876240377782273

 

[Simon Belmont]

Pretty disappointed to see Andrew Coyne wrapped up in this.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Plus we should encourage empathy, understanding other cultures rather than ban people from writing journalistically or artistically about other cultures

You sure as hell don't encourage any of that by writing an article, in an issue of your magazine dedicated to Indigienous writers, auguring that cultural appropriation doesn't exist and that there should be a cash prize for the, likely white writer, who writes the best, likely indigenous, story every year and call it The Appropriation Prize and then suggest this is how you make Canadian Literary Canon less White...

You absolutely don't do that too by publishing it without getting any feedback from any other editor of the magazine completely blindsiding everyone.

You also don't encourage that by joking around about it with all your editors and journalist pals on twitter.

 

[gutter_trash]

You sure as hell don't encourage any of that by writing an article, in an issue of your magazine dedicated to Indigienous writers, auguring that cultural appropriation doesn't exist and that there should be a cash prize for the, likely white writer, who writes the best, likely indigenous, story every year and call it The Appropriation Prize and then suggest this is how you make Canadian Literary Canon less White...

You absolutely don't do that too by publishing it without getting any feedback from any other editor of the magazine completely blindsiding everyone.

You also don't encourage that by joking around about it with all your editors and journalist pals on twitter.

I argree with you om this point,

mind you that it is Post Media = trash

Well Blatchford is an obvious one...
Ken Whyte is the former Editor in Chief of the National post
Alison Uncles is the Editor in Chief of Maclain's Magazine
Anne- Marie Owens is the Editor in Chief of The National Post
Andre Coyne you should have heard of

Those are the high profile ones from the Toronto Star piece from where the headline came from.

The rest are in giant twitter chains so I summarized the people I saw but here are some:

Lise Ravary writes for La Journal de Montreal
Steve Ladurantaye is a Managing Editor of Digital News at CBC
Terence Corcoran is an Editor at The Financial Post
Barbara Kay is a Columnist at The National Post
Scott Feschuk is a Columnist at Macleans
David Reevely writes for the Ottawa Citizen
Miro Cernetig is a former columnist for the Vancouver Sun and former Quebec Bureau Chief of the Toronto Star and worked for the Globe and Mail and CBC in the past
Steve Maich is the Head of Digital Content and Publishing for Rogers Media

List is here in Ken Whyte's feed as he quote and retweeted most of them:

https://twitter.com/KenWhyte3


And just so we're clear if this were serious it was absolutely not going to go to Indigenous writers, one said they'd only donate if the money went to indigenous writers to which the man organizing this "joke" replied


https://twitter.com/KenWhyte3/status/862876240377782273

aside from the CBC guy. all the others on the list write for Consevtative leaning publications,

majority are Post Media, some Rogers and one toxic Quebecor paper

 

[excelsiorlef]

I argree with you om this point,

mind you that it is Post Media = trash



aside from the CBC guy. all the others on the list write for Consevtative leaning publications,

majority are Post Media, some Rogers and one toxic Quebecor paper

Yeah but non Posters jumped on... I mean folks from CBC and Maclains...

And even then it's still news...

 

[gutter_trash]

Yeah but non Posters jumped on... I mean folks form CBC and Maclains...

Macleans have been slammed often in the past for writting trash pieces where they were forced to apolygyze

Lise Ravary from JdM is not a journalist but just an opinion columist who isnt well known

 

[Shoeless]

I have very mixed feelings about this, so I'm not sure where exactly I stand.

I'm Canadian, a visible minority, and I'm a writer that has had fiction published both in Canada and in the USA. Up until recently, diversity in fiction has never been a big concern, and so, consequently, many of my years learning to write fiction and the stories I've had published were about white middle class characters, because I knew if I wrote them about ethnic characters their chances of publication would be lower. In other words, I had no choice but to "appropriate" white, middle class settings and characters for my narrative, despite the fact that I wasn't actually white, because that was the dominant convention, and I would have been penalized for not appropriating it.

So my feelings about white writers saying "We should tell the stories of other cultures" bounces around the spectrum. On the one hand, as a visible minority, I do take a little umbrage at this because there's a gut reaction of "Are you really saying you're going to take this away from us too?"

On the other hand, I have to admit, for years, I've "appropriated" white culture for my stories, since I'm not white, but wrote stories about white people and white concerns anyway.

I've since stopped doing that, and much more of my writing in recent years has actually embraced my Asian culture. It was refreshing to see more agents, editors and publications say "It's okay to not be white, and tell not-white stories" but a lot of people who are hopeful about careers in fiction have done a lot of "reverse cultural appropriation" in that even though they weren't white, they told white stories, and white people were cool with that, even applauded it.

So yeah... I'm actually a bit confused as to how I should feel about this and am still sorting through my feelings.

 

[Sunster]

That's interesting. Perhaps. "Write what you know" and all that.

But as a counterpoint I think a great many celebrated works are from people writing about an identity they didn't experience.



Yeah that sounds like a healthy approach.

you might be right about that but going back to the OP, to argue cultural appropriation is not real is absurd.

I have very mixed feelings about this, so I'm not sure where exactly I stand.

I'm Canadian, a visible minority, and I'm a writer that has had fiction published both in Canada and in the USA. Up until recently, diversity in fiction has never been a big concern, and so, consequently, many of my years learning to write fiction and the stories I've had published were about white middle class characters, because I knew if I wrote them about ethnic characters their chances of publication would be lower. In other words, I had no choice but to "appropriate" white, middle class settings and characters for my narrative, despite the fact that I wasn't actually white, because that was the dominant convention, and I would have been penalized for not appropriating it.

So my feelings about white writers saying "We should tell the stories of other cultures" bounces around the spectrum. On the one hand, as a visible minority, I do take a little umbrage at this because there's a gut reaction of "Are you really saying you're going to take this away from us too?"

On the other hand, I have to admit, for years, I've "appropriated" white culture for my stories, since I'm not white, but wrote stories about white people and white concerns anyway.

I've since stopped doing that, and much more of my writing in recent years has actually embraced my Asian culture. It was refreshing to see more agents, editors and publications say "It's okay to not be white, and tell not-white stories" but a lot of people who are hopeful about careers in fiction have done a lot of "reverse cultural appropriation" in that even though they weren't white, they told white stories, and white people were cool with that, even applauded it.

So yeah... I'm actually a bit confused as to how I should feel about this and am still sorting through my feelings.

This is not an example of appropriation. White middle class is not a culture

 

[excelsiorlef]

Macleans have been slammed often in the past for writting trash pieces where they were forced to apolygyze

Lise Ravary from JdM is not a journalist but just an opinion columist who isnt well known

Ok?

I really don't care that they're mostly Conservative...

And again we're talking Editor in Chief of Macleans

Feschuk isn't a Conservative (or if he is he hides it well) most of his Macleans pieces are humorist anti-Trump, anti-Leitch, anti-O'Leary works these days

Reevely also is not a conservative and his history shows a lot of pieces written about systemic racism

It wasn't all right-wing

 

[BorkBork]

I have very mixed feelings about this, so I'm not sure where exactly I stand.

I'm Canadian, a visible minority, and I'm a writer that has had fiction published both in Canada and in the USA. Up until recently, diversity in fiction has never been a big concern, and so, consequently, many of my years learning to write fiction and the stories I've had published were about white middle class characters, because I knew if I wrote them about ethnic characters their chances of publication would be lower. In other words, I had no choice but to "appropriate" white, middle class settings and characters for my narrative, despite the fact that I wasn't actually white, because that was the dominant convention, and I would have been penalized for not appropriating it.

So my feelings about white writers saying "We should tell the stories of other cultures" bounces around the spectrum. On the one hand, as a visible minority, I do take a little umbrage at this because there's a gut reaction of "Are you really saying you're going to take this away from us too?"

On the other hand, I have to admit, for years, I've "appropriated" white culture for my stories, since I'm not white, but wrote stories about white people and white concerns anyway.

I've since stopped doing that, and much more of my writing in recent years has actually embraced my Asian culture. It was refreshing to see more agents, editors and publications say "It's okay to not be white, and tell not-white stories" but a lot of people who are hopeful about careers in fiction have done a lot of "reverse cultural appropriation" in that even though they weren't white, they told white stories, and white people were cool with that, even applauded it.

So yeah... I'm actually a bit confused as to how I should feel about this and am still sorting through my feelings.

I'm in the same boat as you, except in creative nonfiction. Don't worry about reverse cultural appropriation. That's not a thing.

Minority groups can mock white people. They can mimic dominant culture. They can even completely assimilate into “respectable behavior” if they so choose. There are levels of social benefits and costs to doing so. But, minority groups will never be able to appropriate ‘white culture’ in a way that is harmful or damaging to whites in the aggregate. White complexity is never denied nor questioned while minority group identities are countered with dangerous and even deadly caricatures.

More here

 

[Kinitari]

This is not an example of appropriation. White middle class is not a culture

I think what he's describing is a white middle class, pseudo Christian, 'Full house esque' culture, which is so far removed from what I experienced growing up in Canada I thought it only existed on T.V.

It wouldn't be representative of my experiences anymore than me writing about East Asian culture would be. But a charicuture of it might be more successful than a legitimate representation of say... My Ethiopian-Muslim-Canadian upbringing. I don't know if the word cultural appropriation has additional meaning other than 'taking on another culture and utilizing it for your own means', because I think this would fit the bill.

But that doesn't make it the wrong thing to do, I think it's a reflection of an underlying rot that needs to be resolved. I think part of that resolution is successful white authors putting well written minority characters in the forefront - the higher quality the better. And i think another part is having minority authors having their diverse cultural works accepted by publishers, but most importantly, people need to buy and read these books, or it's all for nothing.

The most utilitarian approach to the eventual goal of getting people buying these books is what I would pursue, it's just hard figuring out what that is.

 

[Sunster]

I think what he's describing is a white middle class, pseudo Christian, 'Full house esque' culture, which is so far removed from what I experienced growing up in Canada I thought it only existed on T.V.

It wouldn't be representative of my experiences anymore than me writing about East Asian culture would be. But a charicuture of it might be more successful than a legitimate representation of say... My Ethiopian-Muslim-Canadian upbringing. I don't know if the word cultural appropriation has additional meaning other than 'taking on another culture and utilizing it for your own means', because I think this would fit the bill.

No it doesn't because context matters and racism + cultural appropriation are not just black and white dictionary definitions. as for the rest of your post I have no issue with that. me writing about some black guy is not cultural appropriation by itself. me writing about a fictional universe like in the Dune series then copy pasting everything I know about the San tribe in Namibia and giving them a new name and using them as some backdrop to my setting is an example of appropriation.

not saying Dune did that. I have never read Dune.

 

[Shoeless]

No it doesn't because context matters and racism + cultural appropriation are not just black and white dictionary definitions. as for the rest of your post I have no issue with that. me writing about some black guy is not cultural appropriation by itself. me writing about a fictional universe like in the Dune series then copy pasting everything I know about the San tribe in Namibia and giving them a new name and using them as some backdrop to my setting is an example of appropriation.

not saying Dune did that. I have never read Dune.

Dune is actually quite interesting, because Frank Herbert did take some elements of the Muslim religion and incorporate them into the desert culture of the planet the story takes place in. So you actually do have words like "Jihad" sprinkled through the narrative.

Although the setting itself does take place in the year 10191, and all major world religions have morphed into something much messier and blurrier than what we have today, with the standard "Orange Catholic Bible" being a mish-mash of tons of stuff.

 

[CazTGG]

Well Blatchford is an obvious one...
Ken Whyte is the former Editor in Chief of the National post
Alison Uncles is the Editor in Chief of Maclain's Magazine
Anne- Marie Owens is the Editor in Chief of The National Post
Andre Coyne you should have heard of

Those are the high profile ones from the Toronto Star piece from where the headline came from.

The rest are in giant twitter chains so I summarized the people I saw but here are some:

Lise Ravary writes for La Journal de Montreal
Steve Ladurantaye is a Managing Editor of Digital News at CBC
Terence Corcoran is an Editor at The Financial Post
Barbara Kay is a Columnist at The National Post
Scott Feschuk is a Columnist at Macleans
David Reevely writes for the Ottawa Citizen
Miro Cernetig is a former columnist for the Vancouver Sun and former Quebec Bureau Chief of the Toronto Star and worked for the Globe and Mail and CBC in the past
Steve Maich is the Head of Digital Content and Publishing for Rogers Media

List is here in Ken Whyte's feed as he quote and retweeted most of them:

https://twitter.com/KenWhyte3


And just so we're clear if this were serious it was absolutely not going to go to Indigenous writers, one said they'd only donate if the money went to indigenous writers to which the man organizing this "joke" replied


https://twitter.com/KenWhyte3/status/862876240377782273

Surprised you didn't mention Desmond Cole.

As for this...I recall reading about how media written by minorities don't get the same amount of attention, be it critical of commercial, as those written by the dominant culture (read: heterosexual white males), even when they involve subjects that pertain to a given minority i.e. residential schools and indigenous Canadians. Events like these only help to contribute to this issue and stigmatize the struggle that many minority writers have and continue to put to pen. In short, it's just another reminder that Canada has a lot of work to do in terms of living up to its claims of embracing diversity.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Surprised you didn't mention Desmond Cole.

As for this...I recall reading about how media written by minorities don't get the same amount of attention, be it critical of commercial, as those written by the dominant culture (read: heterosexual white males), even when they involve subjects that pertain to a given minority i.e. residential schools and indigenous Canadians. Events like these only help to contribute to this issue and stigmatize the struggle that many minority writers have and continue to put to pen. In short, it's just another reminder that Canada has a lot of work to do in terms of living up to its claims of embracing diversity.

Yep.

Yeah the timing of this and everything that happened with Desmond Cole being pushed out of the Toronto Star because you apparently can't be an activist and a journalist is messed up...

For those more interested this is a good write up ironically from the Toronto Star on Desmond Cole

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/05/12/it-was-wrong-to-rein-in-desmond-cole-paradkar.html

 

[Zekes!]

Well this is incredibly disappointing

 

[BorkBork]

Jonathan Kay stepped down from the Walrus this morning. Bunch of media people are apologizing on Twitter.

 

[unpopularblargh]

Jonathan Kay stepped down from the Walrus this morning. Bunch of media people are apologizing on Twitter.

Such a clusterfuck. How hard is it to maybe use some common sense before you support a really dumb idea?

 

[Shaanyboi]

Jonathan Kay stepped down from the Walrus this morning. Bunch of media people are apologizing on Twitter.

They should probably be losing their jobs too. This was fucking gross.

 

[BorkBork]

Managing editor of the National reassigned. Dominos.

 

[Slayven]

Typical "Aw shucks we didn't mean it" apologies.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Almost like twitter is public and public actions require accountability.

Waiting on the Maclean's EIC to take some accountability

 

[Fugu]

So How’s That Whole “Diversity In Media” Thing Going?

My friend wrote this.

She's a smart lady. Listen to her. Also, buy her book.

 

[Volimar]

Me reading the OP:

"That's a good thought."

"Okay, I can see why you might do that."

"Oh."

"Oh no."

"Oh God, just stop!"

 

[Turbo Killer]

I thought Canadians were supposed to be nice, there goes that.