[Julie Steiner]

Oh, goody, another opportunity to post something I'll probably regret later. But I thought my musings below might be useful, even if they're a bit tangential to David's essay. And even if something I've said gets pounced upon.

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Artistic freedom is important. I agree that the artistic imagination should have the freedom to explore any subject or experience.

However, I can't shake the impression that many members of the majority seem more interested in defending their own (or their own group's) artistic freedom than they are about actually hearing what anyone else has to say, artistically.

I don't place David in that category, but it's certainly the elephant in the room during any discussion of freedom of expression these days. So the following are general thoughts that don't relate directly to his essay.

Yes, I sincerely believe that a talented white male poet can write a wonderfully-imagined and beautifully-crafted poem about anything, including a brown transgender woman's experience. Such a poem has a right to exist and to find an audience, and if it's excellent, I certainly want to be able to see it and enjoy it and even praise it.

But if the ONLY version of brown transgender womanhood that publishers can find room for is one filtered through a respected member of the majority--and may I note that often that respect was gained via an artistic career made possible by opportunities given mostly to majority-members, by majority-members?--that's a problem, I think.

Aren't diverse voices still being excluded, and therefore silenced, even as this (hypothetical) poem appears to be representing those? Perhaps even BECAUSE this poem appears to be representing those, so we don't need to hear any more?

I hear lots of talk these days about reverse discrimination. Probably because the most traumatic persecution that many members of majority groups ever suffer firsthand is feeling unjustly accused of insensitivity or bigotry, or told that they don't have the right to say certain things.

I think that bears repeating.

The most traumatic persecution that many members of majority groups suffer firsthand is feeling unjustly accused of insensitivity or bigotry, or told that they don't have the right to say certain things

On the "victims of injustice and misunderstandings" scale--which for minority members includes things like being fatally shot by the police when mistaken for a criminal, or being murdered by people who don't like your gender presentation--that sort of social unpleasantness doesn't register very high.

I'm sorry, but it just doesn't.

Yes, such criticisms can be very hurtful to hear, and I've certainly felt devastated when I've received them myself. But frankly, I've never feared for my life when someone has told me, "I think your privilege is showing" or "That sounds racist" or "Only a homophobe would say something like that." So even when I feel I am being unjustly attacked, I don't consider myself a victim on a par with members of minority groups.

I think the anxiety about unfair accusations of ill intent is being ramped up by the fact that many prominent white men have recently been experiencing career-ending reckonings of their attitudes toward racial minorities and prospective sexual partners. (There's a convenient example in today's news, actually.) A lot of white men I know are truly fearful that the misinterpretation of something they say or do, in the current climate of merciless justice, will subject them to a similar reckoning in the court of public opinion. So that particular worry seems to provide context for some of the passion in "freedom of expression" discussions, too.

Sorry, I wandered pretty far from David's essay, but I thought these might be useful tangents.