File under: stories you simply cannot make up.
Swedish "authorities" are reportedly purging
concerns that the story promotes racism. Best of all? A local journalist thinks purging the book copies aren't enough... they should be burned!
Breitbart summarized the idiocy thusly:
Older versions of the Pippi Langstrumpf [Pippi Longstocking] book entitled ‘Pippi in the South Seas,’ have been discarded by libraries in the Botkyrka municipality.
The Botkyrka council has denied claims by Swedish investigative journalist Janne Josefsson that libraries are specifically targeting Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Langstrumpf books, explaining that getting rid of books is a necessary process ‘in order for the space in the shelves to be sufficient.’
They stated that they get rid of books which are ‘worn out,’ ‘outdated’ or ‘have not been borrowed for a long time,’ but admitted to disposing of the Pippi Langstrumpf copies due to ‘racist’ content and replacing them with newer editions without the ‘racial’ phrases.
In a press release, they wrote: “The libraries in the municipality of Botkyrka have culled editions of Astrid Lindgren’s ‘Pippi in the South Seas’ where there are obsolete expression that can be perceived as racist, but Botkyrka Library have also bought the publisher’s new edition of the book from 2015 where the obsolete expression have been replaced by more contemporary expressions.
The new edition of the book has replaced the phrase ‘king of the Negroes’ or ‘Negro king’ – in reference to Pippi’s father, who Pippi and her friends find in the Canny Canny Islands after his mysterious disappearance – with ‘king of the South Seas’ or ‘South Sea king.’
The Pippi Langstrumpf series has also been condemned in the past as using ‘colonial racist stereotypes’ by a German theologian, who described one scene in ‘Pippi in the South Seas’ where black children throw themselves into the sand in front of white children.
"The culled specimens of 'Pippi in the South Seas' have been discarded and handled according to the same routines as all other obsolete books," one local authority said.
"Culled?" "Handled?" There's something eerily 1984 about this entire affair. Why are progressives so terrified of the past? Wouldn't it be better for children to learn from works -- be they books, art, film, music -- based on their proper historical context?
Doing so would then provide a learning opportunity whereby instructors could teach students that, "back in those days, there were slaves and people used derogatory terms, etc. Aren't we lucky to live in a better time now?"
No. Apparently it is better to rewrite history entirely.