Submitted by Hardscrabble Farmer
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name removed from book award over portrayal of minorities
The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association, announced over the weekend that it voted to strip Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from a major children’s book award.
The move came after decades of complaints about how the “Little House on the Prairie” author portrayed blacks and Native Americans in her books.
Wilder was the first author to receive the award in 1954, almost 20 years after she wrote the famous 1935 novel, in which she described unoccupied land as a place where “there were no people. Only Indians lived there.”
An editor at Harper’s decided to change the word “people” to “settlers” in 1953, though that did little to silence critics who characterized such wording as racist, according to The Washington Post.
The ALSC board made the decision to change the name of the award to the Children’s Literature Legacy Award during a meeting Saturday in New Orleans. The board said the decision was met with “a standing ovation by the audience in attendance.”
The group said Wilder’s novels include “expressions of stereotypical attitudes inconsistent with ALSC’s core values,” according to The Associated Press.
The board went on to say that Wilder’s written works will continue to be published, but added that her “legacy is complex” and “not universally embraced.”
Comical…..and that is the way of the Left…..if you don’t like the history, just re-write the history book.
Nothing will satisfy the crazies except the total destruction of American culture….
It won’t be as comical when they start removing her books from libraries…
The board went on to say that Wilder’s written works will continue to be published, but added that her “legacy is complex” and “not universally embraced.”
Universally embraced? What idea is universally embraced? Adam and Steve? Illegal aliens?
Go home to your cats ladies – you’re never going to get laid.
Do ((they)) run the ALSC?
Yep…along with feminist cat ladies….Which is what most librarians are these days.
No! dang flama nana dinda. The sh’riff is a ni (dong!)r! I’m reminded of this cause on Turner Classic Movies last weekend they showed Blazing Saddles, cept that the word nigger was edited out. It completely ruined the film, especially the scene where Cleavon Little grabs a gun, points it to his head and says, “Don’t anybody move or the (nigger) gets it!”
TCM edits their movies now? What happened to commercial free and uncut? I’ll never watch again. Doesn’t anyone remember that Richard Pryor co-wrote the damn movie?!
“I wish to extend a Laurel and Hardy handshake to our new…Nigger!”
“Up your’s, nigger!”
The use of the word made the movie hilarious! Tongue planted firmly in cheek.
Did they edit out “faggot” in the Dom Delouise scene? “Watch me faggots!”
With the advent of the internet, and technology, books can be made available to anyone – even rare books – all they have to do is scan them into a .pdf A bonus is that .pdf’s are easily searchable, and a cross reference database makes dewey decimal or library congress obsolete. Librarians are also obsolete.
Here in Minneapolis libraries are mainly places to flop for the homeless and bums. Our downtown library offers ‘programs’ for adults – somewhere around 10:00 to 3:00 – what working person would attend? None.
One of my friends wife is a librarian. When it snowed fairly deep, his wife called in, saying she was not going to be in. Her boss said: “You know we have to be here to open for the homeless”. No shit. She says they regularly have to call the police on the bums.
Greetings,
Here in Tourist Town, a visit to the library will present you with several dozen homeless men all looking at hardcore porn on computers. It isn’t a place for children anymore as it just isn’t safe.
Reminds me of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Her book Cross Creek being branded as racist. When I read it I thought it historical.
The Denver library is a shoot up den for junkies, really. It got so bad, Denver City Council mandated 7 City sponsored shoot up houses, they packed. Unfortunately, the junkies still love to shoot up in the library.
If you go to the Denver Library, stay the fuck out of the bathrooms, just hold it.
A commentary by Charles Burris yesterday on LewRockwell.com:
from his piece, a section of the Wikipedia posting on Rose Wilder Lane (her daughter and the REAL author of the books):
During World War II, Lane enjoyed a new phase in her writing career. From 1942 to 1945, she wrote a weekly column for The Pittsburgh Courier, at the time, the most widely read African-American newspaper. Lane combined advocacy of laissez faire capitalism and anti-racism. The views she expressed on race were similar to those of Zora Neale Hurston, a fellow individualist and writer who was black. Her columns emphasized the arbitrariness of racial categories and stressed the centrality of the individual. Instead of indulging in what she referred to as the “ridiculous, idiotic and tragic fallacy of race, [by] which a minority of the earth’s population has deluded itself during the past century”, Lane believed it was time for all Americans – black and white – to “renounce their race”. Judging by skin color was comparable to the Communists who assigned guilt or virtue on the basis of class. In Lane’s view, the fallacies of race and class hearkened to the “old English-feudal ‘class’ distinction.” She further believed that the collectivists, including those who embraced President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, were to blame for filling “young minds with fantasies of ‘races’ and ‘classes’ and ‘the masses,’ all controlled by pagan gods, named Economic Determinism or Society or Government.”
No real shock why they have been working to get rid of these books.
It’s OK. Nobody reads books anymore. Librarians are as outdated and obsolete as buggy whips.
Been to a library lately? The kids are there to play with toys, get online, and books are distinctly low on the list of things to do.
I did a pro bono investigation once for a public Library. Random books were being found with pages ripped out, defaced with large X’s or just scrawled on with gibberish. Mid-sized southern town, rural county. Beautiful library.
Only took a week with a covert camera. It was the black janitor, mid 50’s, slow and lazy and considered a poor worker, uneducated, on the surly side. He had been there a long time.
I always dig deep into motivation during interrogations…he felt the two white librarians (a couple of younger small town (I thought sweet) Aunt Bea types were talking down to him. They were stunned speechless.