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I’m teaching a workshop this weekend at Alternicon on Sunday entitled “Beating the Double Edged Sword: Appropriation versus Diversity.” I’ve previously taught it at both Wiscon and at Transcending Boundaries, so the context in which it has been offered has always been in a politically progressive space.

Workshop description: One of the adages fed to writing students everywhere is “write what you know.” But anyone who writes only about themselves is likely to be lacking in diversity and needing to represent under-represented voices/characters more. Write about anyone other than yourself, though, and you risk being accused of appropriation or cultural insensitivity of various kinds. How do you get around this double-edged sword? And how do you keep this struggle paralyzing you so you can’t write anything at all? Politically progressive, inclusive voices are too important to be silenced by fear! Come get empowered to tell the stories that need to be told.

I’m posting the glossary of terms I’m using in the workshop here so that people can find it in case I don’t bring enough handouts and also so commenters can criticize, tweak, or redefine anything I’ve got here that is off the mark. I know I can be blinded by my own privilege sometimes, so help me check it:

Glossary for Double Edged Sword: Cultural Appropriation and Diversity Workshop
presented by Cecilia Tan

Privilege: “the advantage that wealthy and powerful people have over other people in a society.” (Merriam-Webster Online). In the political sense privilege refers not so much to wealth in terms of money, but in terms of social capital, and definitely refers to the power people have over other people. An example of privilege in action is say a group of people are debating something. When a woman makes a suggestion, it gets ignored by the group, but when a man makes the SAME suggestion, it’s suddenly listened to and considered more seriously by the group. Why? Male privilege.

Entitlement: The feeling that what you have (money, power, social capital, status, opportunity, advantage, etc) as a result of your privilege is your right. (It’s not: rights are not privileges.)

Cultural appropriation: “cultural appropriation typically involves members of a dominant group exploiting the culture of less privileged groups–often with little understanding of the latter’s history, experience and traditions.” (http://racerelations.about.com/od/diversitymatters/fl/What-Is-Cultural-Appropriation-and-Why-Is-It-Wrong.htm) Make no mistake: cultural appropriation is harm.

(More after the cut…)

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Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.