An Aside About Cultural Appropriation

Before I start my next review, let me talk about cultural appropriation. There’s been a lot of discussion lately about that. I take it to mean that people who are not themselves of an ethnicity or cultural background, and thus fail a basic authenticity test, write (act, talk, sing, perform) authoritatively about that ethnicity or culture. So my answer is yes and no.

As a person of color, I have been (mostly) amused by portrayals of Chinese people by Korean and Japanese actors, or vice versa. Yay for actors getting acting jobs, but boo to the people who thought all Asians look alike. (Although where I come from — Hawaii — there is a lot of genetic swirling, and many people can lay legitimate claim to being able to portray a trunkful of cultural identities.) Yay for “The Jazz Singer” bringing talkies to the world, but boo to blackface. Yay to people supporting the NAACP, but boo to the white woman who pretended to be black.

So what do I think about people — mostly white — writing from the points of view of people of color or another culture. Mostly yay. Colin Cotterill, white and non-Laotian, writes a terrific series starring a Laotian ex-coroner who talks to ghosts and battles crime in his own quirky way. Cotterill did not grow up in Laos or Southeast Asia, but he lives there now and is bringing the Western world an interesting and informative look at different Asian communities without being patronizing. An inside look by an outlander. I like it.

Richard Crompton is a Brit ex-pat, like Cotterill, who has settled down in Nairobi, Kenya, after working as a BBC journalist. His main character is Mollel, a Maasai police officer. A review of “Hour of the Red God,” his debut novel, follows this pontification.

As I’ve said many times — out of your earshot — it is not so much who tells the tale as how it’s told. This cultural appropriation stuff is messy, murky ground.

I think, too, of how authors, like Donna Leon, bring us a culture viewed through a lens like the one we look through. Although Leon was born in the United States, she has lived in Venice for many years. Just living somewhere for a long time doesn’t automatically grant knowledge or insight, but I enjoy Leon’s look at life from a Venetian’s point of view. Despite her long-time residency in Italy, she can speak to English-speaking readers from a common cultural base. She knows what we don’t know about life in Venice and can address our ignorance. Reading a book written by an Italian and translated from Italian (e.g., Andrea Camillieri, Elena Ferrante) is a different experience. There is an expectation by the authors that their Italian readers will understand the sociological, political, and popular context.

Would I feel differently about the books written by people who are outsiders to the group about which they are writing if I were a member of the group? I don’t have an answer. I do judge but I judge on the merits of the story, on how authentic it sounds, on respect for characters and culture, on atmosphere, on writing style. I guess that’s all any of us can do, unless convinced otherwise.

A little Rudyard Kipling, anyone?