Nikesh Shukla: Here are some tips for writing “the other”. Do your research. Do it properly. Make sure someone from the “other” community reads your work before it gets read by someone with publishing power. Especially if the person with publishing power isn’t from that community. Don’t get defensive if people tell you that you got it wrong. Don’t think you can hide behind “it’s fiction and I can do what I want” because that tends to err on the side of fetishisation. I think we have the right to tell stories that are different from our own backgrounds, heritages, races, if we do them responsibly. I don’t know why this is a hard thing to understand. Also, ask yourself: why am I telling this story? Why are there no stories out there written by people from that community? Did I find it easier to write about this because I filtered it through a white gaze and thus made it palatable for a largely white publishing industry? And most of all, and this bears repeating, don’t get defensive. Because you may be making a larger conversation about marginalised communities, and their ability to tell their own stories in their own voices, all about yourself. More here.