Read on Twitter
It& #39;s not that you can& #39;t write about things outside of your social/cultural/racial/etc sphere, it& #39;s that no matter how hard you work to create something real and something good, it will always fall flat in comparison to something that came from the REAL thing.
I can write a beautiful story about gay men, and tragic romance between cancer patients, a romance set in the china; but at the end of the day, as someone who isn& #39;t a gay man, who isn& #39;t fighting cancer, who isn& #39;t Chinese, my story will always fall flat in comparison.
Nothing I ever draw will be able to capture the nuanced experience of being trans in the way that a trans person could. And if my art was good or valuable at all, it will be because I consulted with or received guidance from a trans person. This applies to all minority groups.
I don& #39;t know why people get so irrationally possessive over experiences that just don& #39;t belong to them. And again, it& #39;s not to say that you should never have characters that come from different backgrounds (cause that& #39;s already the issue we& #39;re dealing with)-
-It& #39;s just that your& #39;e main priority when exploring these different backgrounds, should be to do them justice, and to elevate the REAL world people your& #39;e representing in your work (i.e. paying sensitivity readers, doing research, being careful about boundaries, etc)
And let& #39;s face it, a lot of "good representations" of other cultures from white people, are usually very....barebones. Not to say that it& #39;s not important and not good, it& #39;s just that it won& #39;t ever be explored in a more in depth way.
I can make a hijabi character, and that& #39;s great and all, but then what? How could I expand on her personality? Her beliefs? How would I explore the intersections between her religion and her sexuality? Her way of thinking?
These are questions I can ONLY hope to answer with enough research, but a practicing muslim could answer easily.
(Scuse my clumsy wording here)
(Scuse my clumsy wording here)
This can also happen from WITHIN these groups. I consider myself brown skin, and can only talk about the experiences of dark/light skinned people from THAT perspective, and anything else comes from perspectives I have heard/studied about.
I think a big differentiating factor in something like that is your passion. A white creator will never be able to rival my passion for Black people and Black issues, I will always beat them when it comes to my drive to want to create beautiful Black stories.
I can write about colorism in my community, but will never be able to garner the same type of soulful response to it as the people who suffer from it can.
