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<span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important">Librarianship is in danger of losing one of its foundations- that no one can tell you what you can read, or
what you can write. Let's not let that slip away.</span> As I hope you know, Jeanine Cummins' new novel
<i>American Dirt, </i>which tells the story of a middle-class Mexican woman suddenly reduced to refugee status,<i> </i>has been the subject of attacks from those who want to silence any voice or story they do not approve of. These attacks are not primarily
on the quality of the book, but on the idea that a white American woman dare write a fictional story about Mexicans. The censors, and the threats of violence from their supporters have led to the cancellation of Cummin's book tour, including an appearance
at Powells. </div>
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Paired with that bigotry, the idea that a writer should be silenced if her characters don't match her skin color has been given serious hearings in the media. To my knowledge, only the wise and big-hearted Oprah WInfrey has taken the position that the book
should be viewed on its merits, and last I heard, she was still planning on featuring the book on one of her programs.</div>
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That said, the advocates of silencing others have tasted victory in cancelling the book tour. They may choose to continue their campaign of censorship by calling for removal of the book from library shelves. With that real possibility in mind (and given the
silence from the American Library Association, which has chosen to look the other way,) I offer this defense that librarians may choose to take against the censors. It is a list of books with white protagonists written by famous people of color. (Some of
the titles on this list were found in the research of Robert Fikes, a librarian at San Diego State University, and Martin Japtok of Palomar College.) If the censors assert that a white woman should not write fiction about a Mexican woman, then ask them if
they wish to censor these authors as well. Included is a thought from a better writer and thinker than I can ever hope to be.</div>
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Tony Greiner</div>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">“No human culture is inaccessible to someone who makes the effort to understand, to learn, to inhabit another world”-
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. </span></p>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">Novels with a protagonist of one race or culture written by an author of another race or culture:</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">Nobel Laureate John Steinbeck:
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic">Tortilla Flat</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">;
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic">The Pearl.</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">Nobel Laureate Pearl Buck:
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic">Good Earth, and </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">others. Buck has also been a target of race-based criticism, but she spoke
Cantonese, and her work has been praised by Anchee Min. There is a statue of her in Nanjing, China. </span></p>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro.
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic">Remains of the Day. </span></p>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">David Guterson.
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic">Snow Falling on Cedars</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">. Winner of the Pen/Faulkner award for Fiction, 1995.</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">Dubose Heyward.
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic">Porgy.
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">Praised by Langston Hughes, who said that Heyward's brings "with his white eyes, wonderful, poetic qualities in the inhabitants of Catfish Row</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400"> that
makes them come alive." This book is the basis for George Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess.” "Porgy and Bess" has had some criticism, but was also praised by Duke Ellington and recorded by many black jazz musicians. Gershwin’s will stipulates that the opera
may only be produced with a black cast.</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">James Patterson. A series of detective novels featuring Alex Cross.</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">James Baldwin. Short Story: “The Man Child.” </span></p>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">Ann Petry.
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic">Country Place</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">. Petry isn’t well known now, but her first novel,
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic">The Street,</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400"> (set in Harlem) was the first novel by an African-American woman to sell 1,000,000
copies. </span></p>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">Richard Wright.
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic">Savage Holiday</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">. Wright’s novel about an insurance executive has no black characters. </span></p>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">Zora Neale Hurston.
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic">Seraph on the Suwanee</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">. This novel looks at the life of poor white ‘crackers’ in Florida.</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Dunbar, better known as a poet, had two novels with only white characters,
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic">The Uncalled
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">(1898) and
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic">The Love of Landry
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400">(1900) a western.</span></p>
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<div id="Signature">**tony_greiner@hotmail.com** </div>
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