Why Did the New York Times Run Alice Walker’s Unfiltered Antisemitism?

On December 13, 2018, the New York Times Book Review, in its weekly column “By the Book,” published a Q&A with Alice Walker. The author and activist best known for her novel “The Color Purple” told the Times that she keeps on her night table a copy of And the Truth Shall Set You Free by one David Icke. His book, Walker said, is “a curious person’s dream come true.” While Walker’s reference may not have meant anything to most Book Review readers, Twitter users began to buzz about her unusual choice. Tablet magazine’s Yair Rosenberg wrote a long, damning story: Icke, we were reminded, is a British conspiracy theorist who believes that the world is controlled by alien reptilian creatures and—you guessed it—Jews. To back up his age-old canard, Icke quotes from—yes, really–The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The story immediately blazed through social media. Other news outlets began picking up the story, and Times readers bombarded the paper with angry comments.