Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: John Savard Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Re: (WFC) The Truth of the Aleke by Moses Ose Utomi Date: Mon, 20 May 2024 11:42:34 -0600 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 29 Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Mon, 20 May 2024 19:42:36 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="b4bf609440e8a3413435cfb9a6b6ce67"; logging-data="127649"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18tO7/uA72ZiUHBnTnE7xzlSQeJjnNrECo=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:bRMgKzMgMBat3/Ifp7xS1McDCEY= X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 3.3/32.846 Bytes: 2404 After using James Nicoll's review of a novel which I have not read or even seen as a psychological projective test, I was going to further compound my sins by discussing Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney. However, I hadn't managed to slog through the entire work, so I was going to just discuss what I vividly remembered from the part that I had read. (I was going to avoid naming the book or the author, although I believe it would have been recognizable.) Having, however, first looked at the Wikipedia article on the book, I learned two things. I had not read enough of the book to connect to what its primary plot was. And that its author, Samuel R. Delaney, was black. As that materially impacts the scathing comments I was going to make about the book, what I might have posted is no longer relevant. Instead, I will limit myself to incredulity that a black author would choose to perpetuate one of the most vicious and evil stereotypes about black people in existence. (A defense exists: that the stereotype has some basis in truth, _but only because black people are human_ - yes, some black people do bad things, but no more so than anyone else would, particularly under similar circumstances. The riposte is, of course, but did you really think white readers would be sophisticated enough to understand that?) John Savard