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?

you can read anything into anything if you use the right critical theory for it.

This is true, but Dahl really made no secret of his racism. He was very explicit about it.

I absolutely do NOT believe we should ban his books, they're wonderful. But I'd like to see him less revered as an individual, and a bit more education about who he was. It could lead into the very important discussion about great artists who are terrible humans.

I also don't believe that sensitively editing absolutely unacceptable hatred out of old books (Blyton etc) is whitewashing history.

I also don't believe that sensitively editing absolutely unacceptable hatred out of old books (Blyton etc) is whitewashing history.

As long as you don't call them "Enid Blyton".

"...inspired by Enid Blyton" perhaps ?

Sorry, Husband, I'm sure you have a point but it's completely lost on me.

I also don't believe that sensitively editing absolutely unacceptable hatred out of old books (Blyton etc) is whitewashing history.

I think Enid Blyton has been done badly, why change the spelling of Jo's name but leave Chinky? But generally changing Enid Blyton to get rid of the racism I agree with, because it's incidental to the stories. Whereas changing or not reading American novels like Tom Sawyer and the Little House books would be wrong because they are historical pieces who aim to address the racism in the period they are writing about.

@Rebeccaslicker I think it's interesting that Laura gave her mother the most racist things to say, this is the woman she went NC with after her father died.

Love the books but he's got some nasty bits to say about women

Totally agree Blyton has been done badly...never mind some of the racism, just some of the phrases that have been put into them now are really jarring. Though I can see why Fanny has become Franny. We were laughing at that even when I was a kid.

Agree that the name Chinky should be changed too. I don't really remember anything about that character. Was 'chink' an offensive term in Blyton's time, and is there anything apart from the name to suggest the character was modelled on Chinese people? Either way it should be changed for sure because it's offensive now even if it wasn't then. I'm just wondering why it hasn't been.

I agree with what you say about her racism being incidental and no loss...getting rid of it isn't whitewashing history, it's just allowing new generations to enjoy the books without the poison.

American novels that simply show the racism of their time without encouraging the reader to share it, or assuming they will, are different, yes.

He wasn't anti-Semitic: he was anti-Israeli. The Jewish people who worked with him had no problem with him.

I don't believe he was racist either. He complained to the police about what he viewed as a racist attack by some police officers:

"However, what does incredible harm is the nauseating scene watched by Mr. Roald Dahl and his wife and reported in the papers on 16th September of Mr. Barton, when handcuffed, being very badly beaten up by a group of five police officers and then thrown semi-conscious into the back of a van. He was charged on 15th September with two charges, both of which were dismissed. It is to be hoped that severe disciplinary action was taken against those five police officers."

No, he was an antisemite.

”There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews.

"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 mean, if you and I were in a line moving towards what we knew were gas chambers, I'd rather have a go at taking one of the guards with me; but they [the Jews] were always submissive.

"I'm certainly anti-Israel and I've become antisemitic inasmuch as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism."

www.independent.co.uk/news/people/roald-dahl-antisemitic-100-years-remembering-author-forgotten-past-a7254266.html

He was a great writer, don't think anyone denies that, but he was an antisemite and a bigot too.

OP.......... You must resist the urge to be a PC snowflake. It really isn't a good look.

I find the comments that RD can't have been that anti-Semitic because he fought against the Nazis a bit odd. He writes in Going Solo that until he got into conversation with a German Jewish refugee in Palestine, he had no idea that the Holocaust was happening and hadn't known much about Hitler's persecution of the Jews because the East African papers were very parochial.

Other than that, I didn't know about his anti-Semitic remarks. It's a shame because I enjoyed his books as a child (apart from The Witches, which I thought was too scary) and my children enjoy them as well.

The idea that an antisemite couldn't possibly have fought the Nazis really just shows a huge lack of understanding.

Can't you enjoy Ronald Dahl's books in the same way that you could enjoy say Wagner or the early Smiths - e.g. The authors might have twatty views but the works are good. I agree we shouldn't be hero worshipping the creators, but I think it's always risky to do that anyway

I don't think RDs views on Jews would be out of place nowadays in momentum - it's an example of how anti-Semitism has become mainstream.

He held racist views and wasn't backwards in coming forward about them. Black, Asian & Jewish people weren't his favourites. As you know, since I bet you Googled info upon seeing that comment about his books. I suppose a "No he/books aren't racist, they're relevant to times he lived in!" MN thread is more interesting though.

Danny Champion of the world is my favourite book so I hope not

Me too @grasspigeons :)

Oh everything and everyone is racist these days and if you disagree then you're racist too! The oompa loompas are racist because they're like slaves 😂😂😂Now I've heard everything!

"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.'”

Source.

Anyone who doesn't think this is quite standard textbook racism is either dangerously stupid or rather bigoted themselves. I'd be inclined to the kinder option of the two, if I could decide which one it was.

The original depiction of the oompa loompas was clearly racist.

Chocolate Factory’s Oompa Loompas were originally drawn as small black pygmies with warlike cries. the book was written in the 1960s

In 1983, in the New Statesman Dahl wrote that Hitler had his reasons for exterminating people. “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity”

Zombie!?

There are some people whose art transcends their personal views or actions.....There are probably other examples but at 7am those are the two that pop into mind.

Lawrence Fox may be a posh knob in real life, but as an actor he is wooden and talentless.

Actually, he changed the depiction of the Ompahlumpa tribe when it was pointed out it might be hurtful to Africans.

Also as others posting here have pointed out, he and his wife were famously witnesses on behalf of a Black victim who'd been beaten by the police.
So generally sympathetic to the underdog and certainly not deliberately racist?

It’s a strange situation when referring to a postwar era, when Irish Catholics were casually smeared as ignorant primitives by English comedians, and were also routinely beaten and fitted-up by our police, and when the National Front were organising racist attacks, that this is what get prioritized.
As for Dahl’s comment…"I'm certainly anti-Israel and I've become antisemitic inasmuch as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism."
This was an era when Western Powers were decolonising and given back countries to their indigenous peoples. To believe that God gave you the right of white colonial conquest and apartheid domination, was treated as a regressive 19th C form of primitivism, whether it was Rhodesia, apartheid South Africa or Israel. And probably still should be.
In this regard, see – link - how Israeli Apartheid treat even other Black Jews
mronline.org/2020/12/04/a-racist-endeavour-zionist-israels-black-jewish-victims-of-color/

They actually changed Enid Blyton to try and make them appeal to a younger audience, but it didnt work so they changed them back. Soz frothers.