Tarquin asks: “Everyone is talking about cultural appropriation. What’s the deal?”
Resources Mentioned:
The Mikado
Soviet War Crimes
Pol Pot
Great Leap Forward
Nazi extermination camps
Rape of Nanking
Unit 731
Native Americans in the United States
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I’m super-sensitive about this issue as an African American fiction writer. I think it’s a cop out not to write whatever characters you want; the danger is in creating a character from another culture without any actual research into where they’re supposed to be from. That leads inevitably to stereotyping and/or tokenism. I LOVE your podcast but admit I was terrified of how this ep. might turn out.
In my view, you nailed it and beautifully. The issue is our humanity vs tokenism. You get it. Thank you for taking this on. It’s important. Savanna