Stop Shaming Authors Who Write About Identities Outside of Their Own

Why is there such a backlash against authors who use their imaginations?

Earlier this year, author Jeanine Cummins was charged with the crime of being white while writing about people of color.

Her controversial novel, American Dirt, which told the story of a Mexican woman and her son who escape the clutches of a drug cartel in Mexico as illegal immigrants to the United States, provoked such a hateful backlash that her publisher had to cancel Cummins’ book tour out of the many death threats she had received.

In addition to the violent promises made to Cummins, her book caused a metric fuck-ton of emotionally-feeble readers to criticize American Dirt not for being badly written, but simply because they believed it wasn’t Cummins’ story to tell. According to their shabby analyses, authors should only write characters that fall within the realm of their own identities.

Does the stupidity of contemporary culture criticism know no bounds?

It’s this bastard premise that has also wormed its way into the young adult (YA) fiction world and gnawed at the credibility of a genre that was once ripe with originality. In 2018, YA author Kosoko Jackson tweeted out a string of this authoritarian stupidity, as seen below:

(It should be noted that Jackson himself was the victim of his own movement; in 2019 he was set to publish his first novel, A Place For Wolves, a love story between two American teenagers set during the Kosovo War. Despite being a gay black writer operating in a literary community that prides itself on “diversity”, “inclusion”, and “representation”, he faced the fierce condemnation for his book that only one of those dreaded Straight White Men would endure, because its villain was Muslim, and was forced into cancelling its publication. The Social Justice Ouroboros lives on.)

I see a whole rat pack of problems with the notion that authors should only write characters whose identity they share, problems that anyone who lacks my Eye of Sauron for Ideological Flaws should still be able to detect. But then again, intellectual tunnel vision is symptomatic of wild hubris, so I shouldn’t be TOO surprised that writers, critics, and readers who maintain this rotten belief fail to see its multiple Achilles’ heels.

If you’re still not sure why shaming authors who write outside of their identities is a concept that deserves a harsh and swift factory recall, here are 8 pristine reasons:

1. There’s no goddamn consistency in its logic

If white authors should be discouraged from writing black characters, then black authors should be discouraged from writing white characters, and if straight authors should be discouraged from writing gay characters, then gay authors should be discouraged from writing straight characters, etc. etc. etc. That is, if adherents of this idea truly care about equality — every author is held to the same draconian standard. Weird how this rule only applies to some groups but not others. Weird weird weird.

2. Say goodbye to the literary melting pot — and hello to literary segregation

Do readers really want to read books in which all of the characters share the same identity as the author? I guarantee you that if we went down this route, there will be a flash flood of complaints about the lack of “diversity”, “inclusion”, and “representation” in books that consist entirely of one race, one gender, one sexuality, etc.

Damn. Somebody really should’ve thought this shitty little precept through before writing it into cultural law.

3. No one notices the blatant bigotry in this “stay-in-your-lane-ism”

Those who believe that authors shouldn’t write characters who don’t share their surface characteristics care WAY TOO MUCH about the identity of the author. I’ve got a few horrible truths that bear repeating in this instance: people who posit that the race of an artist is more important than their work are RACISTS; those who posit that the sex of an artist is more important than their work are SEXISTS. These dorks are dabbling in street legal bigotry and don’t even realize it.

4. The writer and their work are inseparable…for some inexplicable reason

The work of a writer should stand on its own and should be the only metric by which we measure one’s talent. But nah, let’s complicate the art of criticism with identity politics to concoct vague reasons to accuse a writer of bigotry.

I’m generally a firm believer in the idea that the art and the artist can and should be separated by a good distance, and I’m just too objectively correct to allow an exception here. Critics should discuss the depth of the characters, the strength of the plot, the style of the prose, etc. and not how the amount of melanin the writer had qualified them to write that story in the first place.

Why is it so hard for literary readers to simply focus on the quality of storytelling from the author? Why do they feel compelled to drag the author’s identity into their critique?

5. Rabid-dog vengeance is an acceptable response to writers who stray outside of their own race/gender/sexuality/etc.

It’s not enough for readers and critics (and in the case of Jeanine Cummins, fellow writers — 138 published authors wrote an open letter to Oprah asking her to rescind her endorsement of the book, the porcelain bastards) to simply ignore a work they feel is insensitive to them or to other groups. They have to go on the offensive and shame the culprit/author off bookshelves and back into obscurity, because that’s what Social Justice is all about, right? It’s a brutish reaction to something that would be considered, in saner minds, a minor creative infraction AT WORST.

6. This broken guideline will kill literature’s future

Demanding that authors stay in their own identity lanes will only discourage aspiring writers who have bold and original ideas to share their stories with the world. It’s a needless kamikaze move on the part of critics — the book world has suffered quite a bit in the digital age, and these self-induced, self-righteous blows aren’t doing anything to rescue a sinking ship industry.

The literary hall monitors bitching about the race, gender, and sexuality of authors are dooming the next generation of potential authorial greats, but are too entrenched in a passing-phase sensitivity to look beyond tomorrow. Grow some foresight already, you high-class dung beetles.

7. There are no “rules” to this rule

No one in this Killjoy Klique has put forth a set of guidelines about which characters authors should write about and which they shouldn’t. Nor should they, but shit, if they did, we could at least discuss where these guidelines may be appropriate (spoiler alert: they’re never appropriate).

Unfortunately, accusations of insensitivity or cultural appropriation will remain vague and all-encompassing, which means that any meaningful conversation that can occur around this topic will be struck down and limp around like a stroke victim.

8. This literary law can go too far, but its enforcers don’t care

If you believe that authors should not be able to write about the experiences of others, then why haven’t you publicly discussed when this notion can go too far? Does that mean that I, someone who has no law enforcement experience, can’t write a crime thriller in which the protagonist is a police officer? I’m not a Martian; does that mean I can’t write sci-fi stories? My 23andMe results showed that I don’t have any traces of goblin or Gandalf in my lineage; I suppose I should kill my month-long dream of writing fantasy novels, huh?

Fine.

I’ll give this Devil his goddamn due:

Authors who portray members of a real group in a stereotypical light are certainly deserving of criticism.

There.

Satisfied with my nuance?

Good.

Now get ready for a big steaming, stinking caveat to stick to the immaculate walls of your rumpus room:

That criticism should not have anything to do with the immutable characteristics of the author. Instead, it should focus on their laziness, carelessness, or the general fuck-assery of their shit-style.

Why turn your review into a booming condemnation of a white author writing a sympathetic story of a Mexican woman? Why go through the trouble of giving into your basic, tribalistic wisdom and demand that all authors stick to writing characters that could only have come out of their own lineage?

“Feh! Let creative freedom ring!” I say. No character of any skin color should be off limits to any writer. It’s simpler this way, and more equal, since every author will have the same opportunity to let their imaginations run rowdy and robust. But let’s not pretend that the Woke Folk have a steely grasp of “equality” — in their bent brains, equality only goes in the direction they prescribe.

The only limitations that should be placed on an author should come from the author. Those are the limitations that are born out of ingenuity, the creative choices that we should be judging a writer on. Self-imposed restrictions are liable to give birth to all kinds of weird and wonderful works. Don’t expect much originality to come out of a group of zealous followers of a fainting couch philosophy.

Who wants art that’s forged by committee, especially if that committee values identity over craft?

No. If we want to revivify the dying publishing industry, we have to stand back and let authors create as their own reckless muses dictate to them, not produce work that’s been castrated and spit-shined by a fragile, faceless crowd.

Yes, some authors will write books that are filled with genuinely bad ideas. But that’s the price we’ll have to pay if we want a rolling and roaring literary world, and an audience that’s ready to demand it.

Such are the spoils of a society that empowers the work of courageous creators instead of castrating them.