Who has the right?

A hot topic in multicultural literature these days is who has the right to write fictional or non-fictional stories about minority groups. Many people believe that people who do not belong to a specific underrepresented group do not have the right to write a story about them. Some of the articles we read for last week's class touched on this subject. While one author argued that the only people who should write about the experiences of a specific group are the members of that group, another author argued that as long as someone is educated enough on the subject, they can write about the experiences of a group. I agree with the latter. I think that as long as someone educates themselves enough on the experiences, trials and tribulations of a specific group of people, they are at liberty to write a work of either fiction or non-fiction about that group. As someone said in class, just because someone is from a different background, does not mean that they can't or didn't go through some of the same things as someone from a different background. People from all different backgrounds need to come together and realize that just because someone is from a different cultural group or a different socio-economic status, does not mean that their growing up experience was extremely different from yours. In conclusion, I think that someone from one background has just as much right to write about another ethnic group, religion, SES, etc. as someone from that actual group as long as they have educated themself enough on the group's history.