Banned books and thoughts on characters

 I am reading "tender is the Night" by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  I wonder why I never read it, as he is one of my favorites from the Jazz era.  I will probably try to follow it up with Zelda's take on the same theme "save me the Waltz"

Their great-granddaughter wrote the forward and in it, she muses on Scott's racism in the novel ( I do love how she calls him Scott, rather than Fitzgerald)  It got me to thinking about novels and books written in a time when racism was accepted and what it means for a character in a book to express racism.

Since the character in the novel is supposed to be Scott himself, we can assume that the racism that is expressed IS Scott ( ok I haven't read the book yet, so I am guessing based on what the great-granddaughter says)  Can we excuse his literary racism as a plot device?  I think  not.  He did, as the foreword points out, have a chance to do better.

Which brings me to something that bothers me a bit.  Laura Ingalls Wilder being shamed for accurately relaying what her mother said about Native Americans.  Was she wrong to repeat what Ma said in the context of the story?  No.  I also don't think ten-year old Laura was going to call out Ma for her beliefs ( ten year old M might have said something, but I was raised in the era of Civil rights and not "children should be seen and not heard")  Does creating a racist character- or in Laura's case revealing one- require the book to be censored?  Is Ma's racism a talking point.  I am fairly sure MOST ten year olds gloss over what Ma says in the book anyway, she is sort of a weak character as far as I remember her, having read the books in elementary school.  I don't think grammar school kids are suddenly going to embrace a throw away line from Ma as their mindset AND that be shining a light on racism we can expose it and defeat it.

I Love ( not really) how the Republican Party wants to ban every book that might have a difference of opinion or talks about things that ARE happening that they must be wearing night blinders- which I suppose more than a few of them are.

I will post my thought on the actual book when I am done.  My Kindle says it is a nine hour read, but I think it is mixing up my reading speed- it's a little over 300 pages.  I read quickly, despite what my Kindle thinks.