Hey all, I'd just like to chime in my agreement with Chip's very appropriate and well-reasoned sentiments. When I am writing questions, I often find myself torn quite hard between writing about non-canonical stuff that includes knowledge beyond your standard white-man stuff and writing about canonical stuff that will make players happy. We quiz bowlers interact in a bizarrely democratic system that sometimes seems as though it resembles a majority tyranny. And yet, most large tournaments have added "underrepresented subject" quotas into their rubrics that indeed help with expanding the canon. Still, I worry about the addition of token underrepresented subjects to any preexisting knowledge category, because they can so easily be glossed over as "stuff you won't hear again." To solve what problems do exist, speaking as a white man, I guess the best thing to do is to write questions that are not essentializing or stereotyping. No needless ridiculing of Lord Krishna or Kwame Nkrumah in bonus parts (anyone who remembers the Nkrumah "bust a cap" bonus part from some tourney or another may agree). Be faithful to the reality that your question research reveals to you, and try when possible to eliminate the bizarre sort of colonialistic essentialism that gobbles up lots of non-European history. And be open to new knowledge. It's out there and worthwhile. Steve Bahnaman
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