Author Dorothy Canfield Fisher.
(Jon Margolis writes political columns for VTDigger.)
Some of her novels and stories were about children, and she was obviously writing those for young people. No wonder, then, that Vermont librarians call their best-kids-book-of-the-year prize the Dorothy Canfield Fisher (or just the DCF) award.
Fisher was also politically active, and her politics were decidedly left of center. Eleanor Roosevelt admired her. The daughter and granddaughter of fierce abolitionists, Fisher devoted much of her professional life to combating intolerance, bigotry and authoritarianism, in the words of a 1997 article in the Journal of the Vermont Historical Society by historian Hal Goldman. In 1943 she urged Gov. William Wills to try to persuade Vermont resorts to drop their policy of being restricted, the euphemism for no Jews allowed.
Now comes a request to the state librarian that he drop Fishers name from the annual award because she was a racist.
Specifically, in the view of Abenaki educator Judy Dow, of Essex Junction, Fisher stereotyped Abenaki and French Canadians in her fiction and was part of the eugenics movement of the 1920s and 1930s that sought to sterilize those considered degenerate or feeble-minded.
The second of these allegations is complicated, not because there is anything complicated about Vermonts eugenics initiative it was a truly shameful episode but because it is not clear that Fisher played any part in it, or even that she thought it was a good idea. Goldman, who is an adjunct professor of history and a provosts teaching fellow at Minnesotas Carleton College, said he found the evidence of the ties between Fisher and the eugenics movement very attenuated.
Thats academic for weak.
But there is nothing complicated about the charge that Fishers novels and short stories display negative views of racial or ethnic minorities. That charge is nonsense.
Fiction is fiction. Characters in fiction speak as those characters, not as their author. If a character in Fishers novel Bonfire describes another as half-hound, half-hunter, all Injun, thats how that character at that time and in that place would talk. If in Seasoned Timber a bigoted headmaster scorns a students awful Jewish mother, well, thats how bigoted Vermont headmasters talked back then.
Considering that starting in 1939 a steady stream of Jewish refugees from Hitlers Germany found refuge with Fisher and her husband in Arlington (this from Ida H. Washingtons biography of Fisher, published by New England Press in 1982), the headmaster clearly was not reflecting the views of his creator.
The task of a fiction writer is to portray the world as it is, not as the writer would like it to be. Any effort to discern a writers opinions through the words of his or her fictional characters is worse than foolish; it misconstrues the purpose of literature. It is barbaric.
So was the Vermont eugenics movement, which ended up sterilizing an unknown number of people, disproportionately Abenaki or French Canadian. Patients consented to the operations, but often that consent was the only way they could be released from prison.
Fisher was not part of the eugenics operation. It is not certain that she supported it. The worst that can be said about her with any confidence is that it is not certain she did not support it.
Perhaps she was a bit of a snob. She wanted Vermont to attract those who earn a living preferably by the trained use of their brains, rather than those who buy or sell material objects or handle money.
Well, la di da, and no wonder some suspect she might have harbored bigoted thoughts. But there is no reason that an Abenaki, a French Canadian, a Hutu or an Eskimo cant earn a living with the trained use of his or her brain, and no grounds for concluding that Fisher thought otherwise.
Removing Fishers name from the award would do little harm. She was hardly a giant of 20th century American literature a la Hemingway, Faulkner or her friend Willa Cather (and lets not inquire too deeply about some of their ethnic prejudices). Though someone checked her most famous book, Understood Betsy out of Burlingtons Fletcher Free Library just two months ago, most of todays teens and preteens dont read her and know her name only because of the award.
But that doesnt answer the question of whether changing the name of the award would do any good, beyond easing the sensitivities of those who care about it.
Needless to say, this anti-Dorothy flap has to be viewed in the context of other efforts to remove the names and symbols of people and causes once admired, now scorned.
Some of this has been beneficial. The Confederate States of America and its leaders and symbols should not be honored. Their secession was the greatest act of treason ever committed against the United States, and it was motivated (this is beyond debate because the traitors said so at the time) by a belief in slavery and white supremacy.
But not much about the past including its flaws is that clear-cut, and it might be wise to guard against the temptation to go out in search of new dragons to slay.
Especially dragons as unthreatening as Dorothy Canfield Fisher appears to be.
Continue reading here:
Margolis: Fact and Dorothy Canfield Fisher's fiction - vtdigger.org
- Anton Chaitkin: the British Monarchy & Euthanasia - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Rate the The Mental Hygiene Society - Yale University connection - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Len Horowitz files pandemic charges against Rockefeller - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Judge Napolitano on Forced Vaccinations in Massachusetts - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Joseph Moshe (MOSSAD Microbiologist): “Swine flu vaccine is bioweapon” - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Canadian study that suggests seasonal flu shots raise a person's risk of catching swine flu - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Doctor Admits Vaccine Is More Deadly Than Swine Flu Itself & Will Not Give It To His Kids - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Ineffectiveness And Dangers Of Flu Shots - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Maafa 21 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Doctors Concerned FluMist Vaccine Could Spread Live H1N1 Virus - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Martial Law Soon - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Humanity's Greatest Challenge - Fear or Love - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Does the Vaccine Matter? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Ten questions about flu vaccines that doctors and health authorities refuse to answer - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Swear NO Oaths (UNDERSTANDING JURISDICTION) - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- WARNING! Goodbye U.S Sovereignty... Hello One World Government ! - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Glenn Beck interviews Lord Monckton on the Soviet style takeover of America by the NWO & BHO - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- TAVISTOCK - THE BEST KEPT SECRET IN AMERICA - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Become a Free Man { SUI JURIS } - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Income Tax Trial of the Century - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Gary Null Speaking Out Against vaccines at the NYS Assembly Hearing | 10-13-2009 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- WHO memos 1972 explains how to turn vaccines into a means of killing - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Swine Flu (aka 'H1N1) That's Not A Flu At All - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Lord Christopher Monchton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, answers critics of his claim that Obama intends to cede U.S. sovereignty - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Swine Flu Government Data Scam Government using fraud to generate flu hysteria - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Strecker Memorandum video - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- United States Patent 4,647,773 Gallo -Continuous production of retroviruses - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS FOR 1970 : The funding of the Bio-terrorism AIDS virus - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Merchants of AIDS - full article - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Another Tool of Eugenics: Fluoride - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- 1988: Dr. Jonathan Mann : Killed in Plane Crash - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Boyd Graves: Interview with Alex Jones - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Boyd Graves: Letter to Ninth Circuit Court - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Gallo and Litton Bionetics: Creators of Aids - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- This site is being developed - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- 2002: Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Kissinger, Eugenics and Nazis - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- July 27, 1990: Aids is man-made - By William Cooper [Killed by Law enforcement in 2001] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Merchants of aids - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Why we should not trust the health market. - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Dr. David James preview - conscious media network - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- AIDS HIV BAYER CORPORATION HEMOPHELIA TAINTED BLOOD SUPPLY - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Ugandians not dying fast enough. International Eugenists (Aids experts) want them to engage in casual sex - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Proof that AIDS was engineered to kill primarily blacks - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- In lies we Trust. The history of American Bioterrorism - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Dallas: A possible Aids Cure? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Glutathione Accelerator - Any Good? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Dr. Boyd Ed Graves International AIDS activist dies age 57 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Genocide in Progress with novel flu virus. - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Genocide in Progress with new flu virus- CDC is suspect - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Vaccines: The Bargain Basement Technology of the 20th Century - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Anthrax - as American as Apple Pie. Eustace Mullins - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Swine flu: Some pregnant women shunning H1N1 vaccine - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- CFR lies to get You to take the Shot - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- US spraying Ukraine?? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Eustace Mullins: Murder By Injection - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Microbiologist nabbed by FBI after warning us that vaccine is a bioweapon deployment - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Airplanes sprayed mysterious substance over Ukraine days before pneumonic plague outbreak - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- NIH Whistleblower Alexander S. Jones: Deadly Flu Spreads Across Ukraine - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- RBD Change D225G in Ukraine Lungs Raises Concerns - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Young Boy in Agony After AH1N1 Nasal Flu Mist - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Unconfirmed Reports of Large Numbers of Deaths from the Vaccine in the Ukraine - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Vaccinations are Causing Impaired Blood Flow (Ischemia), Chronic Illness, Disease and Death for us All - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- British scientists suspect that swine flu virus has mutated in Ukraine. - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Vaccination: Federal Health Agencies Continue to Deceive Americans - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Ukraine plagues and now heavy supply and personnel movement in and out of US Deep Underground Military Bases (DUMBs) - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- College Students Getting Smarter, Shunning H1N1 Vaccine - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Deeper down the rabbit hole - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Ukraine Pneumonic Plague Research Nov 2009 - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Keiser on 'Tsunami alert': Dubai debt crisis awakes storm? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Christopher Story - EU Corruption - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- John Harris - Undermining Democracy - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- The first case of HIV/AIDS cure and no mention in the media. Why? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- What is AIDS? - January 7th, 2010 [January 7th, 2010]
- Europe to Investigate the UN Over “Pandemic” Scam - February 13th, 2010 [February 13th, 2010]
- Nuke @ Olympics ????? - February 13th, 2010 [February 13th, 2010]
- Intelligent Anti-Fluoride Statement - Dr. J. William Hirzy - February 24th, 2010 [February 24th, 2010]
- Testimony [4-9] Fluoride's Definitive Medical Indictment - February 24th, 2010 [February 24th, 2010]
- History Lesson - March 10th, 2010 [March 10th, 2010]
- As the Bank System fails so will society - March 13th, 2010 [March 13th, 2010]