It’s astonishing that an author is now expected to consult race groups before writing even a children’s book to see what he’s allowed to say
The outrage over the celebrity chef’s book is a form of race censorship from a government-appointed Aboriginal commission.
Andrew Bolt
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What woke impertinence. Victoria’s Yoorrook Justice Commission now wants to drag in celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to tell him how to write about Aborigines.
Oliver has offended this Orwellian commission – a government-appointed Aboriginal body with the power to summon witnesses – by writing Billy and the Epic Escape, an adventure story for children, with a woo-woo message about keeping the world in balance.
It’s set mainly in Britain, but in one chapter Oliver writes about the abduction of an Aboriginal girl living in Alice Springs with a foster family.
Shock! The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Corporation demanded the book be banned, claiming it somehow contributed to the “erasure, trivialisation, and stereotyping of First Nations peoples and experiences”.
Sue-Anne Hunter, a Yoorrook deputy commissioner, got specific, saying Oliver was insensitive to “include themes of child stealing” in Australia, given the “painful, historical context of the Stolen Generations”.
Apparently Oliver should have included in his children’s book a rant about the “stolen generations”, even though no court has ever identified a single child actually stolen by racist officials just for being Aboriginal.
But then Hunter really went too far: “The most troubling aspects include the complete lack of consultation with First Nations peoples, despite the book heavily featuring their culture and experiences.”
How astonishing, that an author is now expected to consult race groups before writing even a children’s book, to see what he’s allowed to say.
Yet, to his shame, Oliver caved.
He pulled his book from sale, apologising that he could so “misinterpret” the “stolen generations”: “I am devastated to have caused offence.”
But that wasn’t enough for the Yoorrook Justice Commission.
It’s now asked Oliver to come before it “as part of a learning and healing process” – to, in reality, be told what he must believe and say.
I foolishly assumed this imposition on a novelist’s freedom to think, imagine and write would shock the literary world.
But even The Australian’s literary editor, Caroline Overington, ruled against Oliver, declaring: “It’s pretty much accepted in Australia these days that no book can be written about Indigenous Australians without Indigenous input.”
It is? Does this racist rule apply to any other race? Must Aboriginal authors consult White Pride groups before writing about Anglo-Saxons?
Wokeness is killing free speech, killing imagination and killing truth.
Yet we now have a government body to push this new race censorship on us, without even a vote of the people.
Originally published as It’s astonishing that an author is now expected to consult race groups before writing even a children’s book to see what he’s allowed to say
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