Insider/Outsider Debate

When thinking about the insider/outsider debate, I do not believe that it is an either/or debate. I do agree with Bishop when he said that "you have to know a culture intimately if you're going to reflect it accurately in your fictions." This quote simply sums up how I feel about this issue. I believe that quality and authentic children's literature should not be limited to only authors who are considered insiders, and by insiders I mean someone who is of the same ethnicity, race, sex, or gender. Therefore, the one quality that I think should be the determining factor should be if the author has spent quality time researching, spending time, and accurately represents the group that they are writing about.
Bishop says "to exclude the literature of any group from the body of multicultural literature is to distort the literal meaning of the term". Therefore, I believe that the same holds true for the authors of this literature. I don't believe that its accurate to say that only genuine and authentic literature comes from an insider. As I stated earlier the only true determining factor for authors of genuine multicultural literature is that they know a culture intimately. However, in closing I will add that, I do think its fair to say that often times people who often know a culture intimately are often people who are an insider.