Most of the time, being a writer isn’t very fun, and being a writer of color is even less so. Being a writer is a privilege, but writing has always been lonely work. Even for those of us lucky enough to have full-time staff jobs, it can frequently feel isolating to be in a predominantly white setting, the only commonality between fellow writers of color often being our place on our companies’ bottom rungs. It’s no surprise, then, that writers of color (and those of other marginalized groups) have forged communities on Twitter and other social media platforms, where we can communicate in languages that don’t necessitate cultural or linguistic code-switching. Sometimes, those languages allow us to speak more freely, with words or attitudes that are out of bounds in the publications we write for. Other times, they represent experimentation in new forms of cultural or comedic expression. Earlier this week, I retweeted a post that requires both English and Korean fluency, mostly because I thought the tweet was funny, but also as a small token of Korean American pride. I occasionally see, say, Muslim or Cuban American writers whom I follow on Twitter making similar in-group jokes I don’t get. That’s fine. In most cases, I believe people should be able to affirm their identities in the ways they see fit.
from Stories from Slate https://ift.tt/2AyT2h9
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