> Over the last year or so, I showed it to several people in the business who all felt it was not a good idea for white authors to be writing about this character in this time and place.<p>Despite all the "what do you mean by 'white'" feigned ignorance, deconstructing whiteness, and claiming there's no such thing as white people [1] or culture [2], they have no trouble understanding the term if it's to further the right cause.<p>Also noteworthy is that there was no significant rejection of "culturally appropriating" books from <i>readers</i> that preceded this - it is a top-down push of new norms.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/7/23/white-is-not-a-colour-white-is-an-ideology" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/7/23/white-is-not-a-...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/18/opinions/american-culture-and-race-ford/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/18/opinions/american-culture...</a>
> It’s ironic that an Indian author would, I believe, have no trouble writing a story about an American who took care of fifty cats, but the reverse situation is considered racist or bigoted.<p>People are still saying this kind of thing in 2023? It only seems ironic if you have a naive, 2015-era understanding of wokeness. In reality, it's in perfect harmony with the principles of wokeness and should be viewed by no one as ironic, contradictory, or surprising.<p>The core principle of wokeness is not "races should be treated equally," but rather "white bad, black good." Take a set of controversial issues and try using each of these principles to predict the woke position. Your predictions will be far better using the latter.<p>With that context in mind, of <i>course</i> an Indian man will face fewer restrictions than a white man in getting published. How is it ironic or noteworthy?
Hi, why don't you try working with Indian publishers? When that book is published, you can try getting the same book published in the west.<p>I have worked and known many Indian men and women in the US. They markedly are less prone to rage due to cultural appropriation and such things.
The same people who preach inclusion , condemn cultural appropriation as a sin. What they mean is they want to exclude people based on race, background etc.
It's amusing that he made a story about being rejected by British publishers into a diatribe on apparent wokeism in American publishers, without ever bothering to submit his book to American publishers...