More on Diversity

An article in The Guardian on whether one should represent marginalized people in fiction.

I am of several minds re this. I do agree that all art has an agenda. You learn this in art history. But I also support the romantic (I think it is) idea of self-expression and truth to oneself. A very 19th and early 20th century idea. Finally, I am uncomfortable with the stories I have written in an effort to be multicultural. Not the future stories where I make human society non-racist and a mix of cultures, not the future stories where I make everyone black. Those are fun. But the stories where I try to write an existing nonwhite culture from the inside. I am not drawing on my own experience and I worry about treating other cultures dishonestly or disrespectfully. It's not worth the psychic wear and tear for me.