Is it wrong to write characters of ethnicities/multicultural backgrounds?

This is something that has been discussed on r/writingprompts periodically. I've also seen this topic discussed in a few places recently. So I just wanted to get this off my chest. <br><br>I am a white man, from a white family, and I don't have any non"white" friends who are of any race other than black. I am a mostly self taught writer and I am getting ready to make this my profession. The same goes for my partner whom is the same ethnicity as myself. <br><br>My partner and I were discussing how I would like to write my characters of multicultural backgrounds. Some of them (a few black characters) I have fully fleshed out. While others I'm not as sure"how" to write about them. I would love to have diverse characters. <br><br>My partner read some of my work and felt that I was butchering some of the black characters. He felt that it would be best for me to write white characters. He also said that I was stealing the voices of others. <br><br>I've been crippled in a way. I am struggling to write and I don't even know if I should write multicultural characters. I understand what he's saying and I don't want to do that. I want to have a diverse cast of characters. I want to do it right. But I'm also on the fence about not at all writing characters of different ethnicities. <br><br>I just don't know what to do I guess. <br><br>\---------------<br><br>TL;DR: asking for feedback here. Is it wrong to write about characters of different races or multicultural backgrounds when you're a white person?