In an attempt to understand the frightening aspects of political correctness we have to get above room temperature IQ. You have to move up to 10,000 feet and then look straight down. This movement gets scarier and scarier as the frightening politically correct continues to remove the best of western civilization. As unbelievable as it may sound the British Library has axed George Orwell, Lord Byron and Ted Hughes. What are their politically correct crimes? Hard to believe but links to slavery. How do they do that? Listen to these quantum leaps of faith.
For Orwell, his great-grandfather owned slaves in the Caribbean. (It is exactly the same as Kamala Harris, and isn’t it interesting no one wants to ban President-To-Be Harris?) The biographers say Orwell, Eric Arthur Blair, the son of a sub-deputy opium agent in British India; at his birth the great-grandfather’s fortune was long gone. Nevertheless….
Ted Hughes, the poet born in 1930, was added because his ancestor Nicholas Ferrar, born in 1592, was involved with the first British colony in North America. You can see what that did to native people.
Next, Lord Byron. Similar to Orwell his works are being destroyed because of a slave owning great-grandfather, as well as a slave owning uncle by marriage. Oscar Wilde may be coming on the list. This is woke ideology. This is part of the British Black Lives Matter movement that claims racism is a creation of white people and any connection to racism you’ll immediately have crossed the politically correct line.
I’m frightened as you should be as well. But turning our attention away from the UK how about this list of books currently banned by school boards in different parts of our country. They begin with The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn. We’ve been over this before.
I was surprised to learn the number two literary classic that’s been banned is Call Of The Wild, written by Jack London. Do they forget that London ran twice as the socialist party candidate for mayor of Oakland? Missed that one didn’t you guys.
Another one of my all-time favorite books, Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck’s 1939 Pulitzer prize-winning novel, was banned by the library board in East St. Louis, as objectionable language was not fit for anyone’s daughter to read.
Here’s one for you, James Joyce’s Ulysses. As if anyone could ever understand it. By the way, the Nazis burned Hemingway’s 1929 novel, A Farewell To Arms too, in 1933. One of the highlights of my illustrious career was getting to meet Kurt Vonnegut. Slaughterhouse Five was clicked.
Here’s another, wrestling fans, The Catcher In The Rye. Because of blasphemy and sexual references. I loved that book.
How about Walt Whitman’s Leaves Of Grass? Can’t be because he’s gay, of course not. And one of my true favorites, the Harry Potter series. JK Rowling’s series. Gee, she’s made some interesting remarks lately, hasn’t she?
I don’t mean to be tongue-in-cheek, I mean to be sounding the alarm. Think of how many wonderful hours you spent reading these books. And the biggest slap in the face is Orwell, who wrote extensively about banning books, himself now banned.
Happy New Year.
— Peter Boyles