Habitus

I think that you should be able to write about whatever you want. Storytelling is about using your imagination and going further than your own experiences. I think its a problem when writers can only create characters based on themselves, I personally hate protagonists who are also writers, I think its lazy and overdone. To write about a different culture, I think there needs to be a large amount of research done. When stories are set in a foreign country but focus on white characters it can be a missed opportunity. Movies like ‘Lost in Translation’ ignore the culture of the stories setting, and dismiss its population as ‘weird’ which is a sign of the creator's own lack of understanding. Sometimes white writers will have a person of colour as their protagonist, but other than telling you the race of this character, they don’t include any experiences or anything else unique to this character's experiences. The lack of research into your character's experiences is clear to the reader.  I also think that self-awareness is important when writing about cultures that are not your own. Being careful of being too judgemental or overly critical is important because it can come across as condescending. There is also the other extreme, which is fetishisation. No culture is perfect, and to write about one other than your own requires honesty and self-reflection. Also, know your shit.