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.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/are-jews-a-race/
The short answer is no — Jews are not a race.
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.
i mean i’m against all religions, but i’m not going to let anyone call me a racist because of that
Well if you say there is “a trait in a group of peoples’ character” then you should be called racist. This has nothing to do with being against religions.
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.
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.
I’ve seen another individual argue that it is in fact a race due to bloodlines running back to the source. I’ve gotta say I’ve got some of that fresh-squeezed jew-blood and even though I wasn’t really raised around any Jewish folk and clearly am not religiously Jewish I have been picked out by practicing individuals for having some of that blood in me. As well as others, who are like me and miserable mutts cast to roam the Earth forever being mystery meat =P!
Perhaps there’s levels to this though? I mean with the bigotry. I am not saying it’s all roses, cause it ain’t. But I am saying maybe when we get to the extreme that we want to wipe individuals from the Earth whomever they are (and whomever is thinking this) that’s when we really know we’re in the wrong. Then again I would cruxify all sex-offenders. So eh, who am I to speak? A nobody on this issue, but one last thing - I’ve got friends who are ethnically Jewish who absolutely do not see themselves as white. And yes, I know Jewish folk come in all shapes and sizes.
(p.s. - I refer my quantity of Jewishness as “jew” because I am lower-case ethnically but not even by Jewish standards (paternal) related to anything minuetly Jewish. Not because I am a raging anti-semite.)
"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.
But special racism for white people apparently.
No need for their own name of racism…that’s weird.
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 let’s not even get started about the disgusting mix of rightful criticism of the Israeli government with anti-semitism and racism. This topic is so emotionally charged, and gets “overcharged” each time a new sequence of Hamas-Israel mutual war crimes is started (whatever the name), and every time civilians suffer, and people nurture their hate. Mankind is so messed up.
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 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.
Thanks. I irresponsibly overlooked that.
Apparently he was a big ol’ troll.
“I thought he might say anything. Could have been pro-Arab or pro-Jew. There was no consistent line. He was a man who followed whims, which meant he would blow up in one direction, so to speak.”[201] 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.”
“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.”
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.
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.
“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.”
I doubt he was.
“Dahl may have been the type of bigot to be antisemitic and against Zionism. They aren’t directly linked hand in hand.”
Yes, those views are precisely his stated prejudices in the above quotes.
He doesn’t seem to have linked those two instances directly or causally, each is a skewed reasoming for why he doesn’t like jews in general, within or without Israel.
Yeah I wrote that before you edited your post, you mentioned Gaza. All good in the hood my dude!
I heard something like this on…Reddit? Maybe. A while ago. They said something akin to while Dahl was racist he didn’t let it encroach upon his writting like Lovecraft. I don’t really read Lovecraft (haven’t since a long, long time ago) but I do have a compillation of Dahl’s writings. And I liked them. Didn’t feel put off by them, outside of the fact that he can write some gross stuff. I am not sure what else to say on the subject other than it stinks.
I loved his books as a child. As an adult I read them to my kids and I’m strick by a lot of inappropriate language, normal for the time. Racism, fat shaming, child abuse.
Its problematic, and if I was black, I dont know that I’d be comfortable reading descriptions of oompa loompas to my child in a world full of racists. It made me wonder if I should not have read it to munchokd, who would not understand the stereotypes used, nor the allegory to slavery.
I mean kinda, I had fun reading his adult stuff as an adult. But to each their own. Also this was a handful of years back. So I’ve got the jist of what I read but can’t give you a thorough play by play. But I will say as an individual who is a minority, of a minority, of a minority (the lazy way of saying I have some intersectionality going on here) that I don’t remember being outright terribly sad face offended. Which when that happens, I tend to put down whatever I am reading/doing/going to and never pick it back up.
I know lovecraft was racist in his personal writings, but I can’t recall any specific exams of it inside his fiction.
He wrote so many stories, I would guess it must have somewhere, but I don’t remember any and I’ve read almost all of lovecraft.
I should fill in the gaps with Lovecraft actually and finish the rest of it.
That’s great you got a collection of Roald Dahl, I’ve definitely read all of his books multiple times, they are great.
I don’t see evidence of racism inside Dahl’s works either, except for like the oompa loompa is coming from Africa, being African pygmies?
I know lovecraft was racist in his personal writings, but I can’t recall any specific exams of it inside his fiction.
The glaring example.“The Rats in The Walls” had a cat called “removed Man”.
And of course admins censor the N word. Jesus Christ this world we live in is fucking scuffed.
