Melvil Dewey's name stripped from top librarian award

The American Library Association will rename the Melvil Dewey medal in recognition of their co-founder’s racial discrimination and sexual impropriety

MAKING IT BETTER, ASIF (June 27)

Must we demote Dewey Decimal?

Must his name be dismissed

simply because the man was a “racist” —

albeit “races” do not exist.

Let us call him “exclusionist”,

a term that seems more polite.

Although it means the same exact thing,

it does not sound quite so white.

As for his dealings with lady librarians —

who I presume were all of them Aryans:

while such behavior was entirely improper

a lady back then would not dare call a copper

if a hand strayed or a comment were made

for fear of how she’d be portrayed

in any resulting police report

and, heaven forfend, it end up in court.

Today men behave like meek little lambs

and Dorothy Parker is Queen of Siam*.

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*“Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporanea, And love is a thing that can never go wrong, and I am Marie of Romania.”
― Dorothy Parker, Enough Rope