I. D. Effin'. K.

[fiction_theory]

After reading Charles Tan's essay "No Foreigners Allowed", I'm left trying to figure out how anyone thinks it would be a positive if we were to encourage writers to pen more works like Heart of Darkness. In fact, I can't say how the world would be worse off without that particular book.

I have read it, as part of a literature class in high school

Comments

[fiction_theory]

(because that ALWAYS comes up, as if minority groups had the power to actually censor the privileged

But, but, making white writers feel uncomfortable is EXACTLY like oppression and censorship. Don't you know that reasonably, respectfully criticizing someone's works or views is exactly like banning books from libraries or burning them or *gasp* governments criminalizing certain works? They're the same thing! [/sarcasm]

I don't know why it's so necessary to hold on to problematic/privileged viewsAs one of those privileged people? The most terrifying thing, sometimes, is to imagine having to live/act the way your privilege makes other people live/act which is to say, as though you are not automatically more important. Because privilege teaches you that your very existence relies on being privileged and that if you don't have it, you won't exist anymore

[zahrawithaz]

YES. This especially

[fiction_theory]

it also has the effect of conflating people with privilege, especially race privilege, with writers, a much larger group--because if that's who you mean when you talk about "writers," and those are the other writers you talk about, the unspoken implication--that other writers aren't out there or don't matter--grows and grows.Yes, this. That bothered me too but I hadn't quite put my finger on why until just now. It's the "who's this WE, you're talking about" kind of feeling. I think it may have escaped me because well, privilege. It sucks. There are a lot of writers who are NOT white at all, who do not come from a place of privilege and I don't like that this argument erases them or fails to acknowledge that they experience the reverse problem, only in a far more real and depressing way

[delux_vivens]

conflating the natural insecurities of any writer with white guilt.

you know, i think this just about sums it up. because i keep seeing him and other people asking 'well arent you saying that white people cant write about this!!?!?!" no matter how many times people say 'um, no, no one said that,' they keep asking it. which has led me to the conclusion that the real question is 'are you saying you'll critique people's work instead of automatically praising them for bothering?'

[ext_59120]

They are amazed and disturbed that there are non-white people who aren't being 'Warm & Welcoming' at their very presence.