This is the thing that happens if you live long enough: somebody returns the argument right back to where it was thirty years ago or more. Now, that's a lousy argument, I know, but it's tiresome to think that we've made no progress on this.

When I teach, I teach at-risk adolescents who are mostly "minority" -- though they're a majority where they live (and almost a totality in my classes). I tell them they have a right to all the culture of humankind -- it's all their legacy -- it's all their legacy. And then I have them contemplate Shakespeare and anime and rap in the same breath.

I'm not going to apply a different standard to my own legacy from the one I apply to theirs. If I was to limit myself, my writing, to only what comes from -- what? what culture? I'd be lost: the subculture I come from is tiny (though overrepresented in the arts, I guess). Well, all subcultures are tiny, compared to the vastness of human experience. Are we supposed to limit our sensitiviy, our appreciation, our understanding, our comprehension the same way?