Diversity and Appropriation

I must hear some version of this a dozen times a month:

“I am plain vanilla white American. But I want to tell stories that have never been told before, without stealing.  And I also don’t want people to hate me.”

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So…what we have here is someone who wants to write about a wider range of humanity than what he generally sees onscreen in in print.  But he also wants to be respectful of the concept called “cultural appropriation.”  This is admirable, and I can see how people get lost.  While I...