Is the book American Dirt controversial?
I’ve taken a stand against the anti-cultural appropriation crowd in this blog before, but with the attacks on the new book American Dirt, it’s time to reaffirm that stand! This book is controversial, but only because its subject is immigration, which is hotly debated now in the US and around the world, mostly by far-right drum-beaters who want none of it.
The consequences of the anti-cultural appropriation crowd’s unfair and egregious attack on an author and publisher is just creating a meaningless distraction that plays into Trump’s hands. Their vitriol is having exactly the opposite effect of what they want: the book was #4 in sales on Amazon last time I checked! in spite of Oprah’s recommendation and defense of the book from another Hispanic author, threats on the author’s life (her publisher cancelled a book tour) only reaffirm how far they’re willing to go to stifle free expression. Now even Book Club Oprah is cowed by them.
Of course, the whole anti-cultural appropriation is a storm in a teacup, meaningless malarkey. First, Jeanine Cummins, the book’s author, has a Puerto Rican grandmother. While I prefer to call Puerto Ricans Americans, unlike some politicians (notably POTUS, who probably uses the s-word in private), reasonable people will say that Ms. Cummins has every right to tell stories related to her Hispanic-American heritage. The anti-cultural appropriation nuts dispute that.
Second, it’s a publisher’s prerogative to publish books that focus on current themes irrespective of the authors who write about them. Indeed, it’s a publisher’s prerogative to decide which books to publish, period. No strident hate movement that proposes violence has the right to censor those authors or dictate those publishing choices. That would not only create chaos and abuses, it would be illegal, because it violates freedom of speech. (Yes, I know the US Constitution is under attack in the US Senate right now where the Good Ole Piranhas are claiming that POTUS can do anything—maybe kill someone on Fifth Avenue?—and get away with it, but the 2020 election will put an end to that. I’m not so sure about the anti-cultural appropriation groupies’ attacks, though.)
Third, and to repeat it as strongly as possible, those crazy activists are missing an important point: Ms. Cummins’s book is about immigration and its inequities—those stories must be told, no matter how many people don’t want them to be! And I don’t care who’s telling them! Dictators love to censor books with controversial themes. The activists are encouraging exactly that kind of behavior. Fahrenheit 451, here we come!
In the big picture, and more generally, I strenuously object to the objections expressed by this mob. Free speech rights allow them to protest too (death threats aside), but they’re doing zero social service by doing so, and they’re attacking Ms. Cummins’s and my freedom of expression as an author. I’m an old white guy. So I shouldn’t have Hispanic characters in my fiction? My first wife was Colombian, and I’ve been more immersed in Latino culture than many of these activists. (By the end of my 10+ years in Colombia, I was dreaming in Spanish!) And I can’t write about terrorism when my son’s Hispanic godfather’s son was killed in 9/11? The anti-cultural appropriation crowd’s positions are absurd!
Can I not have Arab, Asian, or African characters (in my fiction, most of those have “-American” attached, but the activists certainly aren’t American patriots), considering what a diverse country and world we live in? Indeed, to show how absurd these person’s assertions are, should I not have ET characters in my sci-fi? There’s no author on planet Earth who has ET ancestry! I certainly don’t (although some readers might wonder).
I know where these people are coming from. They’re riled up because there aren’t that many authors belonging to these varying ethnic groups compared to old white gals and guys. That’s like saying there aren’t enough black authors or female directors participating in the Academy Awards (all true, of course). it is what it is, but I’d rather have any authors featuring diversity, no matter who they are, than none at all. In fact, the more the merrier. I also grew up in California where we always celebrated diversity.
So what’s the solution? Death threats are over the top. Maybe picket publishing houses and movie studios? That will work as well as lying down in the Lincoln Tunnel to block traffic (yeah, that’s happened): It will backfire because sane people will just get pissed off, including me!
The people who create the content, which often includes many cultures and ethnicities, are just telling their stories. While other stories should also be told, no stories would be told at all, given present attempts at denigrating free expression. So maybe that’s what the anti-cultural appropriation really want? Especially in the case of immigration, that’s a valid question. Extremists, be they on the far-right or far-left, are still extremists, and one must wonder what the real agenda is.
I don’t know if I’ll read Ms. Cummins’s book, but I damn well know I’ll support her right to tell that story! And I damn well know I’m not letting anybody tell me how to write my own stories.
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Comments are always welcome.
The Last Humans. I’m really amazed that the anti-cultural appropriation activists didn’t come after me on this one. It’s already published, of course, and features Penny Castro, ex-USN diver and now deputy for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Penny surfaces from a forensics dive to find the apocalypse. Her subsequent adventures as she struggles to survive are a testimony of will and endurance. (OMG! I dared to write this in the first person. The ultimate sin in cultural appropriation?) Available in ebook and print format at Amazon and the book’s publisher, Black Opal Books, and in all ebook formats at Smashwords and its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and lenders and library services (Scribd, Overdrive, Baker & Taylor, Gardners, etc.). Also available at your favorite bookstores (if they don’t have it, ask them to order it).
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
