Unfortunately, this colleague's attitude is not unique to her, and it *has* scarred me as a writer. No amount of listening on my part is going to make it easier for me to want to/be able to write her racial group knowing that she or her ilk will use that effort as proof of the hatred they are convinced that I and my ilk harbor towards them.
First off, it's weird, but when I read your comment, I thought, "Actually, reading/listening would help you be less scarred". It won't do crap to soothe your colleague, but who says you have any responsibility to?
I'm not downplaying how personally hurtful it can be when somebody says something like that. Nor am I downplaying that people like that do exist.
My Devil's Advocate^TM question, however, is: why exactly is this person, or this group of people, the spokesperson for their entire race, or all PoC's to you? And is that fair? If I linked you to a post where (for example) a Latina woman said, essentially, "I have no problem with white writers writing PoC" - would this change things for you? Would twenty such posts?
If so, reading and listening more broadly about this topic may be helpful. Maybe you need to listen to more PoC's, not just this one person or that one group.
I think lots of white writers have this issue. I certainly know I do. I want to take something an individual PoC says as though it's the party line for ALL people of that race or all PoC's. that they want to make the assumption that if, for instance, a black person says "I found this offensive" that ALL black people will. And I've had to train myself to stop thinking that way.
Take the controversies that spring up over the use of the "n"-word in songs and other places. Some black people who hate it, and want to make it illegal to say (the mayor of Memphis, notably). Some black people have no problem with it.
You and I wouldn't for one second assume that because one woman said, "Any man who writes about women is sexist and committing gender genocide!!" that all women felt that way. We might think she was off her rocker.
But if a man then said, "I won't ever write women again because she said that! I'm done with women, I'm just going to write male characters!" - how would you react?
I, for one, would be angry that a man decided he'd just completely erase women from his writings because one woman was a complete nutjob. To me, this man would sound like he was giving himself an excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway: avoid delving into the complicated, fraught issues of gender and sexism.
Understand that I'm not accusing you of any of the above. I know you, and I can only imagine that you genuinely want to do what's right and your purpose is not to hurt people.
Nor do I doubt that this colleague is everything you say. But don't let her opinion be the only one. There are a lot of people who've spoken out about this sort of thing. If you want to me to, I'll link you to some of the discussions, because they've been very helpful to me.
There are always going to be people who are professional malcontents, who are militant and extreme and, yeah, even wrong. Any writer who puts words out into the world is going to have at least one person use them as proof of something bad that the author did not intend, whether it's racism, sexism, or Teaching Children Bad Things.
All you can do is consider their viewpoint, check it against what you know to be right and wrong, and if necessary, discard it as being pointless. Logic should tell you that this woman's viewpoint is so extreme as to be absurd.
If we can't write/talk about groups we don't belong to, then no one can write/talk about anything but themselves. Under that logic, I couldn't write anything about my grandfather and great grandmother (who were Eastern Cherokee), even though they're part of my family.
But that's half of all human wisdom, isn't it? Sorting out who genuinely has a good point (about anything, not just race) and who is talking out of their rear end.
I'd hate to think this one person (or one small group of people) has caused a great writer like you to limit herself.
no subject
First off, it's weird, but when I read your comment, I thought, "Actually, reading/listening would help you be less scarred". It won't do crap to soothe your colleague, but who says you have any responsibility to?
I'm not downplaying how personally hurtful it can be when somebody says something like that. Nor am I downplaying that people like that do exist.
My Devil's Advocate^TM question, however, is: why exactly is this person, or this group of people, the spokesperson for their entire race, or all PoC's to you? And is that fair? If I linked you to a post where (for example) a Latina woman said, essentially, "I have no problem with white writers writing PoC" - would this change things for you? Would twenty such posts?
If so, reading and listening more broadly about this topic may be helpful. Maybe you need to listen to more PoC's, not just this one person or that one group.
I think lots of white writers have this issue. I certainly know I do. I want to take something an individual PoC says as though it's the party line for ALL people of that race or all PoC's. that they want to make the assumption that if, for instance, a black person says "I found this offensive" that ALL black people will. And I've had to train myself to stop thinking that way.
Take the controversies that spring up over the use of the "n"-word in songs and other places. Some black people who hate it, and want to make it illegal to say (the mayor of Memphis, notably). Some black people have no problem with it.
You and I wouldn't for one second assume that because one woman said, "Any man who writes about women is sexist and committing gender genocide!!" that all women felt that way. We might think she was off her rocker.
But if a man then said, "I won't ever write women again because she said that! I'm done with women, I'm just going to write male characters!" - how would you react?
I, for one, would be angry that a man decided he'd just completely erase women from his writings because one woman was a complete nutjob. To me, this man would sound like he was giving himself an excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway: avoid delving into the complicated, fraught issues of gender and sexism.
Understand that I'm not accusing you of any of the above. I know you, and I can only imagine that you genuinely want to do what's right and your purpose is not to hurt people.
Nor do I doubt that this colleague is everything you say. But don't let her opinion be the only one. There are a lot of people who've spoken out about this sort of thing. If you want to me to, I'll link you to some of the discussions, because they've been very helpful to me.
There are always going to be people who are professional malcontents, who are militant and extreme and, yeah, even wrong. Any writer who puts words out into the world is going to have at least one person use them as proof of something bad that the author did not intend, whether it's racism, sexism, or Teaching Children Bad Things.
All you can do is consider their viewpoint, check it against what you know to be right and wrong, and if necessary, discard it as being pointless. Logic should tell you that this woman's viewpoint is so extreme as to be absurd.
If we can't write/talk about groups we don't belong to, then no one can write/talk about anything but themselves. Under that logic, I couldn't write anything about my grandfather and great grandmother (who were Eastern Cherokee), even though they're part of my family.
But that's half of all human wisdom, isn't it? Sorting out who genuinely has a good point (about anything, not just race) and who is talking out of their rear end.
I'd hate to think this one person (or one small group of people) has caused a great writer like you to limit herself.