I've been refining my take after reading some interpretation and explanations and this is final take:

Not every book will or should be for a white audience. It should cater to whoever they want. But the tweet also also seems to assume that every non white person has sufficient knowledge of their own culture to understand everything being written. Of course maybe that kind of person is not the intended audience which is also fine, but it's a bit alienating to be told that you're not entitled to learn about your own culture just because some random :lmayo: might benefit from a free translation

And no, this is not written by some mad white guy who doesn't understand what shawarma means. It's coming from an Asian immigrant who's far removed from his culture with little resources in English to learn about it.

    • PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I mean I basically agree but the implication that PoC readers are more entitled to the translations is pretty funny. I'm just imagining that you have to write into the publisher with proof of nonwhiteness and you get the good edition

        • thekid [none/use name]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Sometimes I wish your dumb, racist belief that liberals are throwing money and book deals at “entitled” non-white people was true

          did you respond to the right comment? where did you even read this in their comment? the original tweet says "readers, especially white readers, are not entitled to footnotes", which makes it sounds like if you're Indian, you're somehow more entitled to footnotes than if you were German or something. it makes no sense.

        • CanYouFeelItMrKrabs [any, he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I think they meant writing to the publisher to buy a book from them (and proving non-whiteness to get the footnotes edition). "Good edition" meaning with the footnotes. Not trying to get a book published by a publisher where yeah they're more likely to reject POC authors

    • Diogenes_Barrel [love/loves]
      ·
      2 years ago

      For one, she’s referring to FICTION, not history or philosophy, subjects that obvi have to be more expository

      :hahaha: :hahaha: academics feel even less obligation to explain themselves. i've read books that'll just paste a whole passage in not-what-the-book-is-written-in and gesture 'this proves my point' :farquaad-point:

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        That's fine in fiction. In any non-fiction work you should probably have a footnote.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      For one, she’s referring to FICTION, not history or philosophy

      Someone probably should have mentioned that and pinned it to the top comment.