The Rules Won’t Save You, So Stop Looking For Them

A couple years back when I wrote about cultural appropriation for NPR one of the more intriguing reactions I got was multiple people saying what boiled down to "But you didn't tell me exactly what cultural appropriation is and the exact steps I need to avoid it in every possible scenario!" and then demanding I do so on Twitter or other public spaces where they could get at me. I tried to say both in the article and in subsequent discussions that the issue was far too nuanced for the exactness people were looking for, which… wasn't the answer they wanted. I thought about this again while reading Jeanette Ng's excellent piece on Medium offering advice for writers who want to create diverse fiction but worry about culturally appropriating.

Continue reading The Rules Won’t Save You, So Stop Looking For Them on my blog