Editor Resigns Over an Article Defending ‘Cultural Appropriation’
This content was originally published by JENNIFER SCHUESSLER on 11 May 2017 | 7:47 pm.
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Among them was Alicia Elliott, an indigenous writer from the Tuscarora people, whose own article discussing cultural appropriation had been edited by Mr. Niedzviecki. “It felt like an intimate betrayal,” she told The National Post.
The lack of diversity in Canadian literature, Ms. Elliott added, wasn’t because of limitations on cultural borrowing, but because of the fact that the voices of white, middle-class writers “are lifted up” while those from other cultures “are pushed down and kept outside the industry.”
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The union, a group for published book authors that has about 2,000 members, responded with a string of Twitter posts, acknowledging “mistakes we have made” and promising a review of policies at the magazine and “across the organization.”
“The intention behind the magazine is to offer space for honest and challenging discussion and to be sincerely encouraging to all voices,” it said in a statement quoted by The National Post and other news media outlets. “The Union recognizes that intention is not enough, and that we failed in execution in this instance.”
The charge of cultural appropriation has a long history, and has prompted debate about where, if anywhere, artistic influence ends and illegitimate borrowing begins. Last year the novelist Lionel Shriver generated a firestorm of criticism for a speech at the Brisbane Literary Festival in Australia arguing that accusations of cultural appropriation threatened “our right to write fiction at all.” (To underline her point, Ms. Shriver, an American who lives in London, put on a sombrero.)
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