Thread: (1) This piece is a laundry list of instances in which Roth ascribes racist attitudes to fictional vulgarians--thereby proving, to the author's mind, that Roth himself was racist. https://www.salon.com/2021/02/07/philip-roth-and-race-a-legendary-novelists-troubling-pattern/

(2) This would be news to Zadie Smith (for one), who said in her Philip Roth Lecture that Roth "is part of the reason, when I write, that I do not try to create positive black role models for my black readers ...

(3) " ... and more generally have no interest in conjuring ideal humans for my readers to emulate." (FWIW, she knew and liked Roth personally.)

(4) Never mind that Roth gave the bulk of his estate to the Newark Public Library, in large part because ...

(5) ... it was a place where the city's majority Black population could get access not only to education but to social services, job applications, etc.

(6) Of course, in his fiction (n.b.) Roth had hard things to say about Jews, women, and everyone else. As Roth himself said ...

(7) ... when accused of being anti-Semitic AND anti-American: "Tomorrow the galaxy!"