Comments on: Wallace Shawn and White Privilege http://conversationalreading.com/wallace-shawn-and-white-privilege/ Since 2004. The blog of the critic, writer, and editor, Scott Esposito Wed, 23 May 2012 13:19:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Tom http://conversationalreading.com/wallace-shawn-and-white-privilege/#comment-4030 Tom Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:46:36 +0000 http://conversationalreading.com/?p=6980#comment-4030 The question of an artist's "responsibility" is old and thorny and fraught with all kinds of paradoxes. "Responsible" art morphs too easily into melodrama, sentimentality, overt politics and, let's face it, boredom. Think of all those explicitly political/activist authors from the past -- Algren, Steinbeck, Lewis, Sinclair -- and consider how many of them are widely read today...how much of their work is considered relevant? Personally, I don't think a writer has any responsibility to his society, nor to critiquing or dismantling the status quo. It's great if that happens as a consequence of his or her fiction, but to mandate it is to vastly restrict the kinds of narratives we can tell. Moreover, Ervin clearly goes overboard when he writes: "For a white male author to ignore race in his fiction is to willingly accept the most insidious privilege we have: the ability to ignore race." See what I mean? White male writers are now vilified for choosing to write about subjects/issues other than race...this narrow, totalitarian notion of art's "mission" is stultifying. Let writers write about what intrigues, inspires, angers, bewilders and challenges them. Leave prescriptive manifestos, crusades and propaganda for the birds. The question of an artist’s “responsibility” is old and thorny and fraught with all kinds of paradoxes. “Responsible” art morphs too easily into melodrama, sentimentality, overt politics and, let’s face it, boredom. Think of all those explicitly political/activist authors from the past — Algren, Steinbeck, Lewis, Sinclair — and consider how many of them are widely read today…how much of their work is considered relevant?

Personally, I don’t think a writer has any responsibility to his society, nor to critiquing or dismantling the status quo. It’s great if that happens as a consequence of his or her fiction, but to mandate it is to vastly restrict the kinds of narratives we can tell. Moreover, Ervin clearly goes overboard when he writes:

“For a white male author to ignore race in his fiction is to willingly accept the most insidious privilege we have: the ability to ignore race.”

See what I mean? White male writers are now vilified for choosing to write about subjects/issues other than race…this narrow, totalitarian notion of art’s “mission” is stultifying.

Let writers write about what intrigues, inspires, angers, bewilders and challenges them. Leave prescriptive manifestos, crusades and propaganda for the birds.

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