This is the first I’ve heard of it, but here’s one of his infamous quotes:
"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.”
His other quotes tend to be condemnation about specifically Israeli zionism and barbaric murder, but i don’t have context as to whether he’s referring to palestine or not. Some people might have more sympathy for these statements these days, but a lot of his other quotes have to do with Jews controlling money and media, less defensible prejudice.
When an interviewer asked Maurice Sendak (of Where the Wild Things Are fame) about Dahl, his response was memorable: “The cruelty in his books is off-putting. Scary guy. I know he’s very popular but what’s nice about this guy? He’s dead, that’s what’s nice about him.”
He doesn’t need to be specifically referring Gaza when speaking about the large scale land theft and genocide of the Palestinian people perpetrated by the state of Israel. The region of Palestine was stolen, not just area that is Gaza.
Israel was created largely because powerful people in Europe wanted the Jewish people out of Europe. Its very foundations are antisemitic. These notions of a Jewish state in Palestine started to have widespread antisemitic support before WWII and immediately after WWI.
Dahl may have been the type of bigot to be antisemitic and against Zionism. They aren’t directly linked hand in hand.
deleted by creator
So all the Jews in the US are gonna give their land back to the natives, right?
GTFO here with this dumb shit
A little blood and land…where have we heard that before? You’re just a plain old fascist.
All for Jewish folks living with the folks that live there. Indeed the Jewish people never left. A state is not required for this. Genociding a people and stealing their homes, starving them, is not peaceful coexistence. The eugenics aspect of your argument is totally gross and hard to gloss over. DNA purity is a buck wild bigoted argument.
How do you square that up with the horrific persecution of the peoples who have lived in that land for the intermediary 2000 years?
Yep, he was a piece of shit in many ways.
The stories are still pretty great, though.
"There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews.
Taken out of context, this is literally anti-semitism though, not racism. Thereby maybe not the best quote to underline the post title.
It’s pretty anti-semitic in context too.
Do you mean you don’t find anti-Semitism a form of racism?
Do you mean you don’t find anti-Semitism a form of racism?
To be fair, that’s a difficult question because the forms of anti-semitism changed a lot over the course of recent and not-so-recent history.
By definition, semitic people are not just jewish people, and indeed, “semitic” describes an ethnicity, and by that, anti-semitism would also be racism.
However, many contemporary forms of anti-semitism are exclusively directed at jewish people, at which point they typically occur in people who are often also quite racist shitbags, but their anti-semitism in and of itself is not racist, because they direct their hatred at everything that is jewish, and for example the conspiracy theories surrounding jewish influence in the world have nothing to do with ethnicity, and all with religion.
As I learned it, one of the main historical factors contributing to this (and to anti-semitism) is that jewish people were not forbidden by religion from taking interest on money loans (from non-jews), whereas christians were. All the while in medieval times some other jobs were forbidden to them. So naturally there was an overrepresentation of jewish people in the emerging finance sector, and for the simple mind it is convenient to hate on people who you owe money to. And this form of anti-semitism I see as absolutely unrelated to racism.
PS: I intentionally write “jewish” and “christian” in lowercase because all religions suck donkey balls and while they can be tolerated, they deserve no special emphasis.
You’re overanalyzing racism.
Racism is prejudice toward an ethnic group.
Angry about money lenders - prejudiced against money lenders - not anti-semitic, not racist
Angry about money lenders - prejudiced against Jewish people - anti-semitic, racist
And I disagree that these are the only two options you can observe in society. You can very much observe anti-semitism that has nothing to do with perceived ethnicity. Especially because - as much as racists don’t like to admit that - the ethnicity of jewish people is very diverse.
Can you elaborate?
Racism isn’t about perceived ethnicity specifically, it’s about prejudice toward an ethnic group regardless of whether you can perceive the ethnicity accurately.
When someone racist toward Arabs discovers that someone they didn’t think was Arab is Arab, then demonstrates prejudice, obviously the perceived ethnicity doesn’t matter as much as the prejudice of the idea of being an error.
I don’t see the disconnect between anti-Semitism and perceived ethnicity, or how such a theoretical disconnect removes racism from anti-Semitism.
Honestly, I don’t think our viewpoints differ enough to waste our time on a discussion. The usefulness of debating nuances is a bit too academic in nature and better done over a beer or so. I like to make a distinction between anti-<insert religious group here> and racism in order to deface the blatant racism disguised as anti-<whatever religion>-ism.
E.g. 95% of the European citizens claiming they’re “not racist, but” (we call them but-Nazis) they have an issue with islamic traditions, are just stupid racists against brown people but don’t have the spine to admit that.
I can’t imagine how anti-(fill in the ethnicity) cannot be perceived as racism, so I assumed our perspectives on racism were diametrically opposed.
Thank you for “but-Nazis”, haha, I haven’t heard that term before and I’m definitely going to be propagating it in the wild.
He was a POS, much like Lovecraft and Rowling.
Someone else mentioned this, but didn’t follow up with any examples.
I am ready to TIL, how else was Roald Dahl a POS?
The racism maybe?
The racism definitely; that’s the topic of the original post actually, but there are a lot of oblique references to him being a bad person aside from his racism, but nobody has provided any examples yet.
Here is a list of controversial actions and statements attributed to Roald Dahl:
-
Made numerous anti-Semitic comments, including stating there were reasons for Hitler’s actions against Jews[1][4].
-
Expressed anti-Israel sentiments and admitted to becoming anti-Semitic[4].
-
Used racial and sexual stereotypes in his writing[3].
-
Included racist depictions of Oompa-Loompas as African pygmies in early versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory[4].
-
Incorporated themes of child abuse, neglect, racism, sexual innuendo, and fat-shaming in children’s books[4].
-
Used coarse language and drug references in works intended for children[4].
-
Originally described Matilda as a “devilish little hussy” before editors intervened[4].
-
Engaged in long-term adultery, having an affair with a friend of his wife[1].
-
Displayed a mean and unpleasant personality, earning the nickname “Roald the Rotten”[1].
-
Expressed chauvinistic attitudes, frequently portraying women negatively in his stories[1][3].
-
Showed a lack of remorse for his controversial statements and views[1][4].
Citations: [1] The dark side of Roald Dahl - BBC https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160912-the-dark-side-of-roald-dahl [2] The hundreds of changes made to Roald Dahl’s books to suit a new … https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1154tr5/the_hundreds_of_changes_made_to_roald_dahls_books/ [3] Roald Dahl revision controversy - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl_revision_controversy [4] What’s the Deal With… Roald Dahl? - Becandbooks https://becandbooks.com/whats-the-deal-with-roald-dahl/ [5] After family apology, 5 antisemitic Roald Dahl quotes - The Forward https://forward.com/fast-forward/349771/roald-dahls-family-has-apologized-for-his-jew-hatred-what-were-the-5-worst/
-
Sorry, I don’t get your reference.
Do you mean he’s not racist because Jewish isn’t a race?
In other quotes, he’s much more clear that he’s talking about Israeli people, like with zionism.
“I’m certainly anti-Israeli and I’ve become anti-Semitic in as much as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism. I think they should see both sides. It’s the same old thing: we all know about Jews and the rest of it. There aren’t any non-Jewish publishers anywhere, they control the media—jolly clever thing to do—that’s why the president of the United States has to sell all this stuff to Israel.”
It definitely seems to depend on which aspect of Jewish or Israeli culture or stereotypes he has problems with.
For good reason of course, Jewish rights organizations talk about themselves as Jews rather than as Israelis.
Not exactly the funnest mud puddle to skip through.
deleted by creator
People discriminate against each other for all kinds of stupid reasons. Yeah, the word racism gets used for groups that aren’t actually genetic in nature sometimes. Let’s not be pedantic about the terminology used to describe discrimination against groups that have been the victims of genocide though.
There is a word for that though, bigot. Racism is effectively a subclass of bigotry that is more specific. If we have a word for it already we should use that instead.
Racists make this argument so often it’s tiresome, ‘Jewish isn’t a religion’ always comes from the same idiots who say ‘this person cant be trusted because they’re a Jew, look their great grandmother was Jewish!’
And ‘I’m not a racist, just a bigot!’ What’s even the point?
Oh and interesting side fact, bigot likely comes from the phrase ‘by god’ which was often used by religious hypocrites and became a byword for intensely religious hypocrites. It came into English during conflict between protestants and catholics - suggesting racism is a sub category of bigotry implies acceptance of the modern meaning derived through common use over time… which is what you’re trying to reject for the word antisemitism, kinda seems then that it’s not a honest approach you’re taking but have brought into logic from racists who are trying to find semantic cover for their hatred of a group of people based on traits they believe are biologically innate in that group.
I think bigots deserve the same level of disdain as racists and/or antisemites. If racist/racism has become a common and accepted terminology to describe people that hate based on a common trait other than race then I stand corrected. Sorry my attempt to clarify someone elses point has lead you to believe I hold hatred for any group based on their race, religion, or other inherited trait. And sorry if I walked into a talking point from racists, I tend not to interact with them online or offline.
If I hold hatred towards anyone it’s bigots and racists. What I’ll tell you I’ve witnessed is the racism against Ethiopian Jews by Israeli Jews when they fled to a country that was supposedly their promise land. So when trying to have an intelligent discussion about this topic I do think it’s fair to state bigots in Ethiopia forced people of their own race out of the country only for those that fled to go and face racists in a country that supoosedly shared their religious values. I hope this clarifies why I thought the distinction might be worthwhile. I understand language is ever evolving but I think there is a distinction between the origin of a word that is hundreds of years old verses what is still listed in most dictionaries. Again I’m not rejecting the strong presence of antisemitism throughout the world, I’m saying I see it as a subclass of bigotry the same as racism. Also again, whether I call someone an antisemite or a bigot I’ll hold the same level of disdain for them.
I can only out words on the internet and it up to you to believe them but I hope you understand I wasn’t coming from a place of any form of bigotry.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
I completely agree, I did chuckle out loud in bewilderment when I read that wholly incommensurate epithet.
“A stinker like Hitler”.
Absurd.
deleted by creator
“You be careful or you might run into that upstart Zodiac Killer!”
This is just British way of speaking.
“I’m in a spot of trouble”
“Off, that was a nasty business”
A lot of times the mild language is used for stuff that would get kicked off Liveleak for being too extreme
Funny hearing a Brit complain about another race’s lack of generosity towards others. Especially since he helped the colonialist Empire to win a war
Yeah, I hate Brits. They are so bigoted. /s
Read a history book
I’m Irish and have read many and am quite familiar with British imperialism, and racism. However further, bigotry doesn’t improve matters.
Read a psychology book. Or a game theory book. Or just try to be less angry.
So when you get colonized and fucked, you shouldn’t get mad, just take it and accept it? I mean that’s a hell of colonialist answer.
Would you? If Russia colonized you and killed half your family today would you just forgive and say to yourself that hitting back is only gonna breed more hate?
No, you take your country back with violent rebellion if needed, but ideally by peaceful means. However, given that Britain has not invaded any country in our lifetime, this doesn’t apply to us.
Yourbrussia example is relevant as that’s exactly what Ukraine is doing, with support from the UK, among others. Manynukrainian refugees are in Ireland. Mynparebts are hosting a family.
Hitting back is not the same as fostering deep seated prejudices against people who had nothing to do with past injustices your ancestors faced, even if they may have benefited from it, indirectly, through a more wealthy society.
Wow you’ve really brought into the racist mindset and amplified it to genuinely insane levels, I’m actually impressed!
Please tell me you think you’re left wing?
I’m not gonna explain why my indigenous ass doesn’t have the finest view of history’s biggest colonial power. By the way “Brit” isn’t a race
I’m indigenous too so that doesn’t win the argument by shocking me into the stunned silence you hoped.
Why should I think your current racist mindset is acceptable? And if you think racist mindsets are correct then what do you even have against the colonial era brits?
And of course brit isnt a race, are you one of these racists that tries to ignore the actual definition and common usage of the word racism to excuse your racist ideology?
