I am sad for a time when one must know a man's race before his work can be approved or disapproved.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

On May 2nd of 1940, a Reverend Leon M. Birkhead — National Director of "Friends of Democracy," an organization committed to combating "anti-Semitic propaganda" — wrote to the author John Steinbeck with the following inquiry:

I hope that you will not think I am impertinent, but our organization has had put up to it the problem of your nationality. You may consider that it is none of our business, nor the business of anyone else in the country. However, there is a very widespread propaganda, particularly among the extreme reactionary religionists of the country, that you are Jewish, and that Grapes of Wrath is Jewish propaganda. I wonder if you have any sort of a statement that you could send me which would clarify this issue.

Steinbeck replied as follows.

(Source: Steinbeck: A Life in Letters; Image: John Steinbeck, via.)

Los Gatos
May 7, 1940

Dear Mr. Birkhead:

I am answering your letter with a good deal of sadness. I am sad for a time when one must know a man's race before his work can be approved or disapproved...

read the rest here --> http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/04/american-democracy-will-have.html

[teddy51]

1. What saddens me more is that we have come full circle and are right back in that time again. Thanks

to our Tea Party and Republican morons.

[Igel]

4. Not just the right.

I've seen papers criticized by those firmly on the left as bigoted, sexist or biased, insensitive and unable to properly understand the data or how to argument in order to reach anything like a reasonable conclusion.

Then they back down and nod wisely, in deep agreement, when they found that the author was black (not necessarily African-American) or a woman or GLBT. Or some combination thereof.

[teddy51]

5. Agree, and it is very sad. Why can't people just live and let live and help one another? Life is

hard enough without having someone else standing on your back.

[bemildred]

2. Margaret Atwood:

And she also includes, in an appendix, her letter to a school district board in San Antonio after it banned her novel "The Handmaid's Tale" (a decision since reversed) for its strong sexual content. "I would like to thank those who have dedicated themselves so energetically to the banning of my novel," she begins. "It's encouraging to know that the written word is still taken so seriously."

[liberal N proud]

3. It is easy to be racist

So many have been taught that anyone different than them is evil and should be avoided.

No one ever takes the step to see if what they were taught was true, they never find out there is many differences but then there is no differences.

It is easy to stay with your own kind and never be uncomfortable.

We have seen a resurgence in racism in this country because a few people were uncomfortable with a Black Man becoming President. When Obama was elected, I thought, America has finally grown up and gotten over the racism, but I think it has been just the opposite and is growing more concerning.

A few have made it more difficult for the rest of us to get along.

[Wraith20878]

6. Tolkien received a similar inquiry from Nazi Germany

The wanted to translate his works into German, but were concerned about whether or not he was a "true aryan." This was his reply.

"Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride."

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-have-no-ancestors-of-that-gifted.html