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Old Boys' News
Kay leaves Walrus amid cultural appropriation row
Jonathan Kay ’85 resigned as editor of The Walrus magazine on May 12, a day after his regular column in The National Post came to the defence of Hal Niedzviecki, former editor of the Writer’s Union of Canada’s magazine, who advocated for the freedom of writers to fictionalize about cultures other than their own.
Jon's National Post column can be found here.
Jon's National Post column can be found here.
Jon wrote in support of such “cultural appropriation” as free speech; his opponents consider appropriation cultural colonialism and tantamount to theft. The incident re-opened an old sore among Canada’s cultural communities, and has spread through newsrooms across the country, with the managing editor of CBC’s The National being disciplined and reassigned for having Tweeted in support of appropriation.
Jon insists his decision to step down was not over disagreements within The Walrus, or even over cultural appropriation, but for more “mundane” reasons, which he discusses in a rather funny May 16 follow-up column in the National Post, which can be found here.
