Amelia Foster, director of the Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden, says: “This is again an example of how Dahl refused to take anything seriously, even himself. He was very angry at the Israelis. He had a childish reaction to what was going on in Israel. Dahl wanted to provoke, as he always provoked at dinner. His publisher was a Jew, his agent was a Jew… and he thought nothing but good things of them. He asked me to be his managing director, and I'm Jewish.”
Interestingly, Dahl himself addressed the idea that he was only anti-Israel, not anti-Semitic: he said “I am certainly anti-Israel, and I have become anti-Semitic.”
It's not at all uncommon, in fact it's a cliche, for racists to carve out exceptions for "the good ones" that they know personally. That doesn't mean they're not racist.
Dahl wrote some amazing books, many of which still stand up today. (I rolled my eyes at the article trying to claim that the wild wackiness of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator was somehow bad and uncreative.) You can acknowledge that and still acknowledge that he was also very racist.
At the risk of Godwinning myself, Hitler was friends with a young Jewish girl, and personally intervened to protect a Jewish man who had been his commanding officer in WWI. Obviously Dahl was nowhere near Hitler's level of hatefulness, but the point is that being kind and generous to a handful of Jews you know personally is perfectly compatible with being an anti-Semite. Especially when you also openly describe yourself as an anti-Semite. He was not a genocidal monster, but he was racist.
It is not unreasonable to judge a man by his own words.
I though he was accused of being anti-semitic, not racist? Are antisemites racists? Or, put another way, are jews a race? I didn’t think they were, and that’s why we had a special word “antisemitism” to describe this phenomenon.
Words are slippery things. I prefer to judge by actions, not words.
People use words sometimes confusingly and/or provocatively. I would really prefer to hear something Roald Dahl actually did which can be considered antisemitic before I want to seriously consider him to be an antisemite, is all I’m saying.
There’s no surer sign of a hatchet job than when someone is criticized for once uttering a sentence in which Hitler is mentioned unfavorably, but the criticism is for them not being unfavorable enough. There’s no defense from that accusation, since there’s always a stronger word they could have applied to Hitler. It’s a lazy hatchet job smear.
It’s especially lazy in this instance given that the quoted sentence (and other instances in the article) seems to imply some actual verified antisemitism by Dahl, but this is hardly mentioned.
The article seems instead to want to concentrate on finding misogyny, but it can only find some very thin suggestions. Racism is also mentioned, but only briefly.
The sentence in question is "Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on [the Jews] for no reason."
The problem with that sentence isn't that he's insufficiently critical of Hitler. It's the naked racism.
If you think perhaps I'm taking things out of context, here's the full quote:
“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.”
Please note: I’m not defending Dahl, I’m criticizing the article. You may or may not be right, but the article doesn’t do a very good job of showing it.
The article certainly has its problems. (Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator was great, and criticizing a beloved children's book for being too wacky is just absurd.) But you're saying that "Hitler didn’t just pick on the Jews for no reason" is not sufficient, on its own, to accuse someone of racism. And I don't believe that's true, even without the context of the full quote.
Now, the article might reasonably make one suspect that the quote was taken out of context. This would lead to a few minutes of research, ending in the same context I found, and the conclusion that, no, he really was quite unashamedly racist.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 45.4 ms ] thread— https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/in-der-schokoladenfabrik-100....
(translation from German by Wikipedia)
It's not at all uncommon, in fact it's a cliche, for racists to carve out exceptions for "the good ones" that they know personally. That doesn't mean they're not racist.
Dahl wrote some amazing books, many of which still stand up today. (I rolled my eyes at the article trying to claim that the wild wackiness of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator was somehow bad and uncreative.) You can acknowledge that and still acknowledge that he was also very racist.
At the risk of Godwinning myself, Hitler was friends with a young Jewish girl, and personally intervened to protect a Jewish man who had been his commanding officer in WWI. Obviously Dahl was nowhere near Hitler's level of hatefulness, but the point is that being kind and generous to a handful of Jews you know personally is perfectly compatible with being an anti-Semite. Especially when you also openly describe yourself as an anti-Semite. He was not a genocidal monster, but he was racist.
It is not unreasonable to judge a man by his own words.
Words are slippery things. I prefer to judge by actions, not words.
They're an ethnic group, so yes.
(They're also a religious group. It's confusing. But anti-Semites don't usually care much about the distinction.)
> Words are slippery things. I prefer to judge by actions, not words.
You don't think "I am an anti-Semite" is evidence of anti-Semitism? That seems very naive.
Is it not racism until one physically attacks people?
Is it reasonable to interpret as a criticism of publishers?
It’s especially lazy in this instance given that the quoted sentence (and other instances in the article) seems to imply some actual verified antisemitism by Dahl, but this is hardly mentioned.
The article seems instead to want to concentrate on finding misogyny, but it can only find some very thin suggestions. Racism is also mentioned, but only briefly.
The problem with that sentence isn't that he's insufficiently critical of Hitler. It's the naked racism.
If you think perhaps I'm taking things out of context, here's the full quote:
“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.”
Now, the article might reasonably make one suspect that the quote was taken out of context. This would lead to a few minutes of research, ending in the same context I found, and the conclusion that, no, he really was quite unashamedly racist.