# 1 MOST SECRETLY RACIST CLASSIC CHILDREN'S BOOKS....CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

This book has been featured several times here, mostly because parts of it are nightmare fuel, and also because its writer, Roald Dahl, was some sort of nymphomaniac James Bond. But there are also aspects of the book that don't make Dahl seem like an awesome guy to party with.

You probably remember the Oompa Loompas -- they look like compact clowns and sing creepy songs while getting rid of the corpses of the victims of Willy Wonka's shoddy factory safety standards. If you are wondering what's so racist about them it's because you are only familiar with them from the movies.

The Racism:

In the original book, the Oompa Loompas don't come from Loompaland -- they come from Central Africa, and they were described as just regular ol' black pygmies and not hippie clown dwarfs. They were relocated to Loompaland and their skin was changed from black to white in the illustrations thanks to growing controversy in the '70s. Get your hands on one of the versions printed before the world came to its goddamn senses, and you'll read about how Willy Wonka simply found a tribe of Africans, enslaved them and used them to replace his regular work force because they were willing to work for chocolate. And before you complain that they were not slaves because they got paid, we'd remind you that even the worst slave owners fed their slaves a more balanced diet than Mr. Wonka.

Of course, the original treatment of the Oompa Loompas is reminiscent of colonial Europe, when white folks were still able to convince each other that they were doing all the other races a favor by enslaving them. Unfortunately for Dahl apologists, the book was published in 1964, right around the time that the "Hey, everyone thinks black people are funny little animals" argument became a hundred goddamn years too late.

As we've pointed out before, Dahl even based some of the ideas from the book on actual events involving real chocolate companies. So Dahl was probably at least partially aware that a lot of the cacao plantation workers in Ivory Coast, the biggest producer of chocolate, were practically enslaved African children. It seems more than a little insensitive of Dahl to give Wonka a bunch of funny little African slaves who happily give away their freedom just to give white kids some chocolate. But then again, he's never been the most sympathetic guy when it comes to children.