Is Translating Becoming A Racist Crime?

TRANSLATING IS BECOMING A RACIST CRIME

In the present situation that opens no perspective to any future at all, we are more and more confronted with a new type of censors (those who practice censorship) who are both bigots and zealots.

This is becoming a real unacceptable ukase on translation first and the freedom of intellectual enterprise second. Amanda Gorman is not supposed to be translated according to these bigot-zealots by Marieke Rijneveld because she is not black. Imagine the crime if the translator had been a man, and what’s more, older than the poetess herself!

These bigot-zealots or zealot-bigots consider that the translator must be a perfect image corresponding to the author that is supposed to be translated. If we accept — the way the very courageous publisher does — to yield to that request then we are instating a totally racist principle, that would in its turn justify other similar principles like sexism, genderism, ageism, nationalism, and why not, on that line, shouldn’t the translator be of the same national identity as the translated author.

A French author has to be translated by a French translator who is of the same sex, the same ethnic affiliation, the same religion, the same gender affiliation, the same color of course, etc. And a black person…