[Mark McDonnell]

Hi Andrew,

Are we still doing this? Ok. Well let's look at your second post first. I only skimmed through the article you linked to because I can't keep up a debate with you and someone else, but unsurprisingly I agree with you. If you want to say 'bae' and 'hella' then you go ahead and don't let the mean lady from the Twitter stop you. I won't be using those words, not because of cultural sensitivity but because I'm 46 and my kids would stop speaking to me. I could make many more serious points but I don't think her article is worth the time. I genuinely think she's inventing a problem that doesn't exist. Or rather taking a phenomenon (that language is in constant organic flux) and making it a problem that needs to be policed or fixed.

As to your first post: lots of points, lots of questions.

My point on jailing, which should be obvious, is here we're talking about artistic stakes and audience tastes; a world like "could" (which I used) perhaps could open up more. I don't want it to.

I'm sorry I genuinely still don't understand the point you were making about jail and this doesn't help.

Do you think white actors should play roles in blackface?

What, as a rule? As the norm? Of course not. But it's so easy and tempting to say 'No! Never!' isn't it? Nearly all of the time the answer would be no. And in mainstream entertainment it rightly pretty much never happens any more. But I can imagine some arthouse film or experimental theatre production where a director makes that artistic decision as some sort of Brechtian alienation device. I can imagine a play commenting on race with white actors in blackface and black actors in whiteface. That could be interesting. So like anything in art, one shouldn't make make hard and fast rules. I thought I'd answer this question seriously even though I think you meant it as a rhetorical one to set up your next…

How is visually recalling minstrels different than aurally?

It's different. Can a white playwright, screenplay writer or novelist create a black character and write dialogue for them that include some of the vernacular of black speech? I think so, don't you? Unless you envisage a future where all fiction with a multi-racial cast of characters should be written by committee. Should a white actor then be hired to play the part in blackface? Of course not, that would be ridiculous.

You keep saying that it was Carlson-Wee's very act of trying on a black persona is what caused the furor, but you are wrong on this. All the serious critiques, whether we agree with them or not, focus on his language.

Well, provide me with links and I'll read them. Maybe they'll change my mind about the poem. They wouldn't change my mind about the magazine's decision to apologise for publishing it though, however well argued. 'All the serious critiques' suggests you must have at least three. All the Twitter comments from the black poets I posted earlier suggest the former.

First, not every black person speaks in AAVE. Second, in jumping in to that specific persona and speaking from it poorly, I can see the argument that he's not far from minstrelsy.

Of course not every black person speaks in AAVE. The poem isn't suggesting that. But I'm sure you'd accept that there's a good chance that a homeless black person might, given your own comments about AAVE and class. I suppose you might now ask 'why choose a black person to be the homeless character?' Statistically, black people make up around 14% of the US population, yet comprise 46% of the homeless population. That's a terrible statistic, but it's a good argument for the poem's artistic choices unfortunately. You keep telling me how 'poorly' the AAVE is achieved in the poem. Can you be specific, in terms of syntax and word choice, if it's so obvious? It might be my English ear, but I don't hear 'minstrelsy', nor do I hear an unintelligent voice. The speaker seems sharp and insightful. That's the point of the poem isn't it?

You talk about the Civil War, but that's not what this is about.

I haven't mentioned the Civil War.

The history of minstrelsy pushes far past that, and the history of appropriating a black voice to denigrate black people's intelligence stretches to today.

I have no doubt. But I don't see anything in this poem that denigrates the speaker's intelligence. See above.

To keep the black/jewish parallel, it would be like a non-Jew writing a poem and being overly concerned with money.

I assume you mean a non-Jew writing from the persona of a Jew who was overly concerned with money? No it wouldn't! That's a silly comparison. Being homeless isn't a 'black stereotype', it's a terrible reality. See statistics above. For that analogy to work Carlson-Wees poem would have to have his speaker talking about how much he loved watermelon.

Can a white man write a poem about Trayvon Martin? Sure, but it needs to be damn good for it not to come across to most as exploitative.

Well, you know my answer. Yes he damn well can! Just as a black writer can write a Jane Austen-esque novel about the English aristocracy in the late 18th century if he damn well wants to. And I don't think it would have to be 'damn good' not to come across as exploitative. It would have to be sincere and meant, that's all. Whether it is published is a secondary issue to the creation of art. 'Can a white person...?' 'Can a black person...?'. That's identity politics talking. For artistic freedom to mean anything the answer to a question starting with 'can' should always be 'yes'.

How can anyone dictate what is or isn't to be allowed expression from a person's imaginative life? Anyone can write about anything under the sun that moves or interests them, and imagine themselves into any situation or persona they want. They might do it clumsily or awkwardly, but unless their motives were to deliberately cause harm they SHOULDN'T BE MADE TO FUCKING APOLOGISE for it.

Cheers Andrew, this is interesting. Sorry for the swearing and ALL CAPS haha.