To think Roald Dahl books should be banned in schools and libraries....

[Oakenbeach]

.... because he’s known to have had expressed some highly anti-Semitic opinions.

Also, it is an elementary mistake to confuse the artist with his work.

@zzzzz @ KeiTeNgeNge I think craftyfox means her husband was at a jewish school!!!!

I'm not saying Roald Dahl was at school with the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. I am aware of how years work and how people get older and that people born in 1916 don't go to school with children born in the 70s and 80s.

My husband was at Jewish primary school in 1980s. Many of his classmates had grandparents who had survived the Holocaust. The school chose to remove all Roald Dahl's books from the library because Dahl essentially said Jews deserved what happened to them because Jews aren't generous to Gentiles. He said that in 1983, long enough after the Holocaust to be fully aware of what had happened to 6 million people.

Often, many years in retrospect, it's best to judge the art and not the artist. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory hasn't a hint of antisemitism that I could see. H P Lovecraft was another known racist whose novels are much beloved.

Elvis is quotes as saying, "The only thing black people can do for me is shine my shoes and buy my music". Very racist.

I am surprised about Elvis. I saw a film about him growing up and learning to play the blues with his black neighbours. His music was, at the time, 'black music'.

I’m guessing you also agree with the ban on the “baby it’s cold outside” song? The argument against which - was originally a joke...

Did Roald Dahl have anti-Semitic views? Yes. Is that good? No. Are any of those views included in his writing? No. Are they fun and well written books that children will enjoy? Yes. So are they inherently bad because a not so nice person wrote them? No.

So why ban them? Walt Disney is thought to have also shared Anti-Semitic/Racist views (though his close friends deny this, some of which were Jewish and some of which were African American), yet the films are still loved... because no child who grows up watching/reading the above has any memory of such views - only a sense of nostalgia and fondness for something that was part of a simpler time. Why try to ban that?

I was sad about Elvis too. Product of his time, though. He loved Black music and if he was born now would doubtless have been a different person.

We can feel smug and assume we wouldn't have been racist, sexist, homophobic or anti-Semitic. And that makes us feel better. But we're probably wrong.

How was Elvia racist?

I meant elvis

YABU.
If that's your opinion then don't allow your children to read them but don't censor it for others!
So sick of snowflakes constantly taking offense and trying to censor everything!

@MrsTerryPratcett Joss Whedon is an arse?!?!?!?!?!?!
But, Buffy?!?!?

A world of no!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/joss-whedon-5-times-blew-feminist-credentials/

Sorry @Boofay I wish I wasn't the bearer of bad news.

I am not Jewish, but I find Shylock's defense in the Merchant of Venice very moving and still relevant. I am surprised that that play is taken as anti-semetic.

Can see we are going to end up back in the Victorian Times when no-one ever got to read uncensored Shakespeare.

Can you imagine how many authors would be banned if we went down that route?
Salinger, Enid Blyton, Charles Dickinson to name but a few.
YABVU

Omg yes! Along with the vast majority of works of literature, art etc (because until very recently culture was mostly produced by white straight men with colonial interests and misogynistic/racist attitudes) oh wait....no. If you are to stupid to distinguish the merit of a rice of work from the attitudes of its creator that is entirely your problem.

@imissgmicheal he appropriated a very significant portion of his songs from African American artists.

Airbrushing history isn't the way to learn from it. It is infantilising to be told you shouldn't come into contact from the world's uglier side. We should face controversy head on with discussion, debate and perspective, not pretend it did/doesn't exist. If a book contains certain behaviour we dislike, or the author's views aren't compatible to ours, it doesn't mean the reader has to copy these, or admire anything about the author.

According to Snopes, the Elvis quote about black people is a myth. That being said, there's plenty of other unsavoury stuff about Elvis...

People aren't perfect. If you ban/boycott things because the creator wasn't perfect you'd be left with nothing at all.

So he's just sexually really dodgy rather than racist. That's sort of a relief.

I was also horrified by the Joss Whedon is an arse comment, and can't quite bring myself to click on the link. NOT happy with being forced to look at that one!

This is a conversation I have with my mother regularly: Back in the 70s she brought not 1 but 2 Garry Glitter albums. (for younger MNers who don't know, he was a "glam rock" singer who has more recently been jailed for horrid peado crimes).
My mum says "yes, he's a horrible man, but that doesn't mean we should hate/reject his 'art'" . she points out that the creators of Winnie the Pooh and Kipling were both horrible parents, but we love their work.

I'm not sure what wrong or right is , but I do 'get that there is a difference between the person and what the create.

Yes, you are being unreasonable.
I’m sure there are hundreds - thousands - of writers, artists , musicians who have held anti semetic views. Should we ban/censor/destroy everything they did?
What about the writers, artists etc who have been racist?
Or the ones who committed crimes? Should we ban Oscar Wilde works because he was a convicted criminal who served time ( Reading goal ironically!)
Just because someone said something years and years ago which is highly offensive now does not mean that we should be so highly patronising and pedantic and resort to destroying their work - or at the very least censoring it - when the work itself contains nothing of what you are complaining about.
How would we feel if in 200 years time people want to ban all music/art/the written word because all of the artists now flew on fossil fuel burning jets and drove fossil fuel burning cars? Or threw their children’s nappies into plastic bags which went to landfill. We don’t know how actions from now may be thought of in 200/250/500 years. You cannot ban material which has zero ‘wrong’ with it simply because the creator chose to say or do something which we now find offensive.

No we shouldn’t ban the books but I am surprised with how many are excusing his behaviour with ‘it was different then’.

It's not excusing the behaviour. I actually think it's the opposite in a way. It's acknowledging how easy it is to succumb to whatever the stupid, ugly thinking happens to be in the time you live. It's so easy to be smug and think "I would have known better" when chances are most of us would't have.