Unfortunately, Alice Walker is a renowned antisemite, and she actively endorsed the book and its author.

She said of the book, "I do not believe he is anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish... I believe the attempt to smear David Icke, and by association, me, is really an effort to dampen the effect of our speaking out in support of the people of Palestine.”

First of all, that is repugnant. He's about as antisemitic as it gets, and so is she. Even the very language she uses, separating antisemitic from anti-Jewish is a nod to the conspiracy theories she buys into that Jews are not a "semitic" people (also, bizarre ignorance of the etymological origin of the term "antisemitism," which was literally coined exclusively to refer to hatred of Jewish people and not people who are broadly "semitic").

She wrote on her blog, "In Icke’s books there is the whole of existence, on this planet and several others, to think about. A curious person’s dream come true." In case there's any uncertainty of what his books contain, there is the conspiracy theory that a small group of Jewish people run a cabal (QAnon conspiracy theory), that Jews plotted and executed the Holocaust, that Jewish people are actually an alien lizard race (QAnon), and the Black Hebrew Israelite conspiracy theories that Jews have no real genealogical or historical connection to Israel, and that we are all actually fake converts (despite heaps of genealogical research and well-documented history suggesting otherwise).

And in case - for some reason- there is any shred of a doubt remaining as to whether she's antisemitic, there's also her 2017 poem (which she's doubled-down and defended on multiple occasions) published on her blog, entitled "It Is Our (Frightful) Duty to Study the Talmud."

It states: "an ancient history of oppression” of “Goyim, sub-humans, animals, the Palestinians of Gaza” executed “With impunity, and without conscience,/By a Chosen people.”

And nothing has changed--except that QAnon conspiracies have become more prevalent, and Alice Walker has become more of a hateful lunatic. In her first blog post of 2023, she shared a transphobic, QAnon video with the following caption:

"We’re watching as these globalists are moving us towards a future where a transhumanist agenda is carried out… where gender is dissolved, where biological women are no longer needed. Today the Cambridge dictionary updated its definition of woman to include men. And now a German molecular biologist unveiled a new concept for the worlds first artificial womb facility called Ectolife which would incubate up to 30,000 babies a year. The video is post apocalyptic. Watch! "

Again, in case there's any shred of a doubt, when people say "Globalists," they are referring to an alleged Jewish cabal, like the one Icke's books repeatedly point to, which are allegedly headed by the likes of the Rothschild's and "Jewish bankers" et al.

She married and divorced a Jewish man in the 70s in the South, and it seems his family held atrociously racist views. She retaliated by making her hatred of Jewish people (despite having a half-Jewish daughter, who does not speak to her because she is a QAnon fringe nut-job) one of her driving motivations in her life.

And for the record, I still appreciate and honor what The Color Purple means as a notable contribution to Black literature in America. I do think that "cancel culture" makes it impossible to acknowledge and contextualize and even appreciate certain works without "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." In the same way that I can still appreciate the literary significance of Mark Twain through Huckleberry Finn, I can also appreciate Alice Walker.

But, since she's still alive and actively causing harm, it's also important to call out her despicable and inexcusable bigotry.