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<blockquote data-quote="BookTenTiger" data-source="post: 8114240" data-attributes="member: 6685541">Many American authors purposefully depicted non-straight, white, male characters as less intelligent, driven, or worthy than the white protagonists. Or they just put racist, homophobic, or sexist opinions in their books, and not just as the opinions of their characters. I mean you have the absolute classic racism and xenophobia of HP Lovecraft.Another good example of this is Road Dahl. He was an outspoken anti-Semite. He literally said, &quot;I am anti-Semitic&quot; in interviews. It doesn't need to be interpreted from his work. You have a work like The Witches, in which the characters uncover a secret coven of powerful people working behind the scenes of society, revealed to be hook-nosed, bald beneath their wigs, and have animal-like claws. These are ways that people with anti-Semitic viewpoints have characterized Jewish people for hundreds of years.Should we ban Road Dahl from being read? No, he's a wonderful storyteller. However, his work should be read and shared with the knowledge that it carries an anti-Semitic view of the world. We should understand that the author was flawed, and had a flawed view, and that should be part of the discussion of his works. And modern authors, when writing fantasy, should learn from this lesson and be careful to not depict their evil characters through the same dog-whistles that racists, sexists, and homophobes have done for hundreds of years.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="BookTenTiger, post: 8114240, member: 6685541"] Many American authors purposefully depicted non-straight, white, male characters as less intelligent, driven, or worthy than the white protagonists. Or they just put racist, homophobic, or sexist opinions in their books, and not just as the opinions of their characters. I mean you have the absolute classic racism and xenophobia of HP Lovecraft. Another good example of this is Road Dahl. He was an outspoken anti-Semite. He literally said, "I am anti-Semitic" in interviews. It doesn't need to be interpreted from his work. You have a work like The Witches, in which the characters uncover a secret coven of powerful people working behind the scenes of society, revealed to be hook-nosed, bald beneath their wigs, and have animal-like claws. These are ways that people with anti-Semitic viewpoints have characterized Jewish people for hundreds of years. Should we ban Road Dahl from being read? No, he's a wonderful storyteller. However, his work should be read and shared with the knowledge that it carries an anti-Semitic view of the world. We should understand that the author was flawed, and had a flawed view, and that should be part of the discussion of his works. And modern authors, when writing fantasy, should learn from this lesson and be careful to not depict their evil characters through the same dog-whistles that racists, sexists, and homophobes have done for [I]hundreds of years.[/I] [/QUOTE]

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