Are Roald Dahl Books Racist?

[DangerousBeanz]

I've been reading a thread on a Facebook page where someone asked for recommendations for children's books. Someone suggested Roald Dahl as a good choice for characters who didn't conform to gender stereotypes, and another contributer said his books were racist.
Now I've never noticed any racism, but it kind of kicked off a bit and the recommended was told that if she couldn't see the problem she was part of the problem even though she only asked for examples of how and said she'd never noticed that aspect to the stories.
I didn't like to ask how and which books in case I got slagged off too.
So AIBU in thinking Roald Dahl children's books are fab and not racist or have I really missed something?

scipio thanks, yes, the N-word king.

I think not the n-word as it is used today but the old-fashioned version which starts ne-?

Don’t want to be offensive and say it but it isn’t as offensive. I believe it’s used in Gone With the Wind?

Probably not as racist as Tolkien’s whose ‘sallow skinned’ orcs were supposed to be Asian / Indian.

kindergarten I loved his books for adults! My 11 year old has read some of the non-sexual ones and found them deliciously creepy. She liked ‘The Landlady’ where the woman murders and then stuffs her lodgers.

I like the story where the wife kills her husband by bashing him over the head with a frozen leg of lamb, then serves it to the police who come to investigate the death, thus perfectly disposing of the murder weapon and all evidence of the crime.

The only one that ever struck me as 'racist' in a way was the Enormous Crocodile ... it's set in an unspecified part of Africa but at least 50% of the people in the illustrations are white and have names like Jill. Not so much racist as unrealistic.

There are several characters who are described physically across the books and are all clearly white, though this isn't specifically stated. There are no ethnic minority characters apart from the Oompa Loompahs and some of the children in the Enormous Crocodile. I wouldn't call that racist as such but it isn't reflective of society, even at the time he was writing.

Still love the books though.

Pretty soon all old books/movies/ and series are gonna be banned.

The world was a different place back then. If we start attacking works of fiction, I want the bible removed because that's quite obviously racist, sexist, and abusive.

I always thought his books showed the awfulness in people and how they got their comeuppance.

He was a product of his time. Public school educated, oldcolonial type. Definitely an anti-semite and had that horrible colonial attitude to “natives “., read the books, but challenge the thinking.

Scipio

Yes, that one. But obviously in German... and it’s one of the rudest words one could use in the German language in that context, tbh.

As I said, I think the following discussion with my parents (and not just: bad word, don’t use!) was very valuable and really is something that shaped how I saw and understood the world as a child.

Not as overtly as he was. Incredible writer, eventful life, horrible man.

Interesting froshie. I’m a linguist so always interested in connotations of words in other languages. I agree with you and I agree with other posters about Dahl that it’s better to have problematic details and deal with them than throw the baby out with the bath water. You can also see how ‘good’ people used to have views we now consider unacceptable (I’m thinking of some casual racism in L.M. Montgomery and similar) and it can be used to make people reflect on what we now do and say that might be unacceptable in the future, which is more thought provoking and useful for children to think about than just deleting anything questionable from the past.

An exceptional lack of intelligence is required not to see racism in the books of Roald Dahl.

With regard to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: “In the version first published, [the Oompa-Loompas were] a tribe of 3,000 amiable black pygmies who have been imported by Mr. Willy Wonka from ‘the very deepest and darkest part of the African jungle where no white man had been before.’ Mr. Wonka keeps them in the factory, where they have replaced the sacked white workers. Wonka’s little slaves are delighted with their new circumstances, and particularly with their diet of chocolate. Before they lived on green caterpillars, beetles, eucalyptus leaves, ‘and the bark of the bong-bong tree.'” [from Jeremy Treglown’s Roald Dahl: A Biography]

Roald Dahl was anti-semetic as well as racist. In 1983, Roald Dahl wrote in the New Statesman that “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity”, he said. “I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”

I see your point abi but how many parents would you wager are reading that version to their dc at bedtime?

I don't know about racism but I recently read The Twits with my DS and it was a really uncomfortable read. It was funny as a child but as an adult, reading the abusive things they say and do to each other was not that funny at all.

They are of their time - there is a long winded racist joke (basically mocking the Chinese accent) in the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but TBH I have not stopped DS from reading any of the books although would probably avoid the Elevator one.

My mum told me when i was a child and lived Roald Dahl that he hated women. I didn't get what she meant at the time but sort of get it now thinking about Matilda. He equates female goodness with good looks and being typically feminine and vice versa with the characters of Miss Honey and Miss Trunchbull.

'loved'

Wallis I recently read The Twits to DC. Had loved all their tricks on each other when I was young but my DC didn’t like it at all until the Muggle-Wump monkeys started to take justifiable revenge on the Twits. DC really didn’t enjoy the earlier nastiness. And I found Mr Twit calling his wife ‘cow’ quite unpleasant!

I actually googled ‘misogyny in Roald Dahl’ after reading it the other week and was surprised not to find that many obvious hits as it felt quite unpleasant (though to be fair also very harsh on Mr Twit/bearded people!).

I have an 80s publication of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. I had to stop reading it to dcs as the Chinese characters were described in a racist way. I was really surprised.

It's dated that's all. Largely the themes he writes about are child abuse, poverty and cruelty. RD books have always struck a cord with my client children I'm v protective of them. Kids in care love Matilda.

He might have been a bit offensive by today's standards but I think he writes about poverty and abuse extremely sensitively

I'm sure there's plenty of other writers who write sensitively about those things without being raging antisemites...

Scipio...yes, a child would just notice the tricks they play on each other but an adult notices how the married couple truly despise each other. The monkeys are great though.