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From: John Savard <quadibloc@servername.invalid>
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
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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