Judging from the reaction, though, I wonder if they didnt feel confronted by art they were seeing, and felt a need to justify what they were doing which played out in putting down where other people were at. Of course that’s only one way to see it, and not really an important way. What is more important is thinking about how I relate to expectations because I too want to be free. In my art, in who I am.

And I really did appreciate reading your experience in Guatemala. That’s fascinating, interesting. Deep.

Good to see ya!

I’m white and working-class, I’m from the UK. When I was dealing with literary agents, they would say, enthusiastically, that I was going to be marketed as “a new working-class voice” and so on, as if I should be pleased about this. Or they would keep referring to my work as being “political”, which is apparently another word for “truthful” – “Do you market your middle-class writers that way?” was my question. Of course not. But for me, in their eyes, it was some exotic thing, the clever savage, with his gritty tales from the street, speaking the truth etc (when I knew I could make it all up and they wouldn’t know the difference). I think this is the sort of pressure that the black woman is perhaps referencing, when a frame just gets placed around whatever you do to keep it easily identifiable and easily classified. Reading through this long post of yours, it seems that you accept that this frame will always be there, that you can’t wish it away (I am in agreement with you), but perhaps you are at a different point in the evolution of your thinking with regards to creativity and how it mixes with the issues that engage you.

For myself, I have had the opposite problem, that I feel I can’t mix politics with writing fiction, as a white man living in Latin America (Guatemala), because I can’t in good conscience see a way of dramatising my experiences there without ‘taking control’ somehow, or of ‘stealing’ etc, and so, I still debate this, and I still learn from it, but it is a wholly private and internal affair, and my life in Guatemala requires that I suppress all literary production (or seriously consider switching the language I work in, which raises another set of questions), and take a more fact-based approach to the culture. Anyway, this whole issue of how a white man is viewed in Latin America is a whole other question, one that each Guatemalteco/a that sees me in the street must answer for themselves.

Really enjoyed the post. Going to read a few more now, maybe you’ve already covered some of the things I said here.

Either way, despite who it was in my personal story, I think we know the type.

Ciao,
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