But I also understand where you're coming from. The line between appreciation and appropriation, between fascination and fetishization can be very thin and very gray. And while no one wants to accidentally cross that line, it becomes very frustrating (esp in our increasingly globalized world) to be told that the products of cultures other than our own are off limits. If I decide I want to tell a trickster story, am I only allowed to find inspiration in the stories of Jack and Loki, or may I also look to Anansi and Coyote? Am I, as a white non-Christian, allowed to like Gospel music? Sing it? I find Rumi's poetry inspiring, even though I'm not a Muslim. Am I allowed to use it as a jumping-off point for my own poetry? Can I write a retelling of the story of Passover? I know the story very well, but I don't know what it's like to grow up Jewish, to search the house for leaven, to ask the Four Questions, to be connected to that heritage. I feel obligated as an artist to acknowledge what my sources of inspiration are and my own viewpoint in interpretation, but there's also a point at which that becomes intrusive (the metaphor that occurs to me is the way in which continuously seeking active consent disrupts the natural flow of sex, which I just realized opens up all sorts of unfortunate rape metaphors).
From an educational standpoint- if I am only allowed to talk about my own culture, then my students and my children will only ever learn Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Hawthorne, Wollstonecraft. Shouldn't they also read the Ramayana and Maya Angelou and Soyinka? Of course they should, for exposure to art is one of the ways in which we learn about our world and the people in it. But of course, being familiar with the work of another culture is not the same as being a product of that same culture.
And turn the tables for a minute. What if someone who was from a Hindu background decided to retell the Crucifixion? What if they assumed that the Bible was misogynistic before reading it (it is, in lots of places, but that's not the point).
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If I decide I want to tell a trickster story, am I only allowed to find inspiration in the stories of Jack and Loki, or may I also look to Anansi and Coyote? Am I, as a white non-Christian, allowed to like Gospel music? Sing it? I find Rumi's poetry inspiring, even though I'm not a Muslim. Am I allowed to use it as a jumping-off point for my own poetry? Can I write a retelling of the story of Passover? I know the story very well, but I don't know what it's like to grow up Jewish, to search the house for leaven, to ask the Four Questions, to be connected to that heritage. I feel obligated as an artist to acknowledge what my sources of inspiration are and my own viewpoint in interpretation, but there's also a point at which that becomes intrusive (the metaphor that occurs to me is the way in which continuously seeking active consent disrupts the natural flow of sex, which I just realized opens up all sorts of unfortunate rape metaphors).
From an educational standpoint- if I am only allowed to talk about my own culture, then my students and my children will only ever learn Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Hawthorne, Wollstonecraft. Shouldn't they also read the Ramayana and Maya Angelou and Soyinka? Of course they should, for exposure to art is one of the ways in which we learn about our world and the people in it. But of course, being familiar with the work of another culture is not the same as being a product of that same culture.
And turn the tables for a minute. What if someone who was from a Hindu background decided to retell the Crucifixion? What if they assumed that the Bible was misogynistic before reading it (it is, in lots of places, but that's not the point).