Hedges: Alice Walker and the Price of Conscience

By Dilip -

Should I be banned because I admire Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s masterpieces Journey to the End of the Night, Death on the Installment Plan, and Castle to Castle, despite his virulent anti-Semitism…? Should I be banned for liking Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, which is rabidly misogynistic? Should I be banned for loving William Butler Yeats, who, like Ezra Pound… was a fascist collaborator? Should I be banned because I revere Hannah Arendt, whose attitudes towards African-Americans were paternalistic, at best, and arguably racist? Should I be banned because I cherish books by C.S. Lewis, Norman Mailer and D.H. Lawrence, who were homophobic? And let’s not even get started with the Bible… God repeatedly demands righteous acts of genocide, transforming the Nile into blood so the Egyptians will suffer from thirst. God sends swarms of locusts to torture the Egyptians, along with hail, fire and thunder to destroy all plants and trees. God orders the firstborn in every Egyptian household killed so all will know “that the Lord makes a distinction between Egyptians and Israel.” …

Alice Walker and the Price of Conscience

There is a steep price to pay for having a conscience and more importantly the courage to act on it. The hounds of hell pin you to the cross, hammering nails into your hands and feet as they grin like the Cheshire cat and mouth bromides about respect for human rights, freedom of expression and diversity. I have watched this happen for some time to Alice Walker, one of the most gifted and courageous writers in America. Walker, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel The Color Purple, has felt the bitter sting of racism. She refuses to be silent about the plight of the oppressed, including the Palestinians.

“Whenever I come out with a book, or anything that will take me before the public, the world, I am assailed as this person I don’t recognize,” she said when I reached her by phone. “If I tried to keep track of all the attacks over the decades, I wouldn’t be able to keep working. I am happy people are standing up. It is all of us. Not just me. They are trying to shut us down, shut us up, erase us. That reality is what is important.”

The Bay Area Book festival delivered the latest salvo against Walker. The organizers disinvited her from the event because she  praised the writings of the New Age author David Icke and called his book And the Truth Shall Set You Free “brave.” Icke has denied critics’ charges of anti-Semitism. The festival organizers twisted themselves into contortions to say they were not charging Walker with anti-Semitism. She was banned because she lauded a controversial writer, who I suspect few members of the committee have read. The poet and writer Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, who Walker was to interview, withdrew from the festival in protest.

https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/25/hedges-alice-walker-and-the-price-of-conscience/


Chris Hedges: Imploding the myth of Israel


Chris Hedges - Israel's big lie: This isn't self defense, it's a war crime, aided and abetted by the U.S.


Why do Americans turn a Blind eye to Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians? / Children are on the frontline of Israel’s war on Gaza – again / How the United States helps to kill Palestinians


‘It’s not fair’: 10-year-old Palestinian girl breaks down while talking about violence in Gaza // Israel is committing the crime of apartheid, Israeli rights group says


Yair Wallach: The violence that began at Jerusalem’s ancient holy sites is driven by a distinctly modern zeal


Some information for Israelis (and the rest of us)


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