A prominent black author—known for his anti-conservative, anti-Independence Day views and promotion of critical race theory—has had his children’s book, which warns against white supremacy, yanked off the market over allegations that it is full of plagiarized content from several different publications, including The New York Times, National Geographic, and The Washington Post.
Rann Miller, who has called former President Donald Trump a racist and hailed President Joe Biden for representing what he called “a multicultural electorate,” told The Epoch Times that the plagiarism allegations against him are completely false.
Mr. Miller said that if anything, the similar copy found in his book, entitled “Resistance Stories From Black History For Kids,” is likely due to an editorial oversight for quotations or direct attributions where he paraphrased or cited a source.
Mr. Miller, who has written extensively about his views that America is racist as a nation and is a regular contributor to several publications including The Philadelphia Inquirer and Salon, believes his children’s book has been targeted by right wing conservatives because it is well-researched and serves as a potential authority on white supremacy.
He pointed out that it is his first ever major published book and that it took “three months to write and six months to edit.”
“This is really just a way to take the book out of circulation because that is confronting white supremacy and racial capitalism, and showing the history of white supremacy and white settler colonialism,” Mr. Miller said.
National Review was the first to make the allegation of plagiarism against Mr. Miller in a July 7 article, in which it cited numerous excerpts from his 197-page book and compared them to excerpts from a number of the 400 publications he cited.
“... a review of the book found that in many cases, Miller lifted the language from his sources almost verbatim, often with only minor changes in wording or punctuation. He appears to have lifted language from a variety of sources, including news organizations like The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, and the BBC, as well as from books, academic journals, and black historians,” National Review wrote.
While none of the excerpts cited by National Review were identical to the copy of Mr. Miller’s source material, many cases are very close.
The nearest match appears to be an entire page from an article that ran on Blackpost.org in 2018. It appears in Miller’s chapter entitled “Black Panthers Around the World.”
Ulysses Press, which published Mr. Miller’s book, did not respond to inquiries about the allegations from The Epoch Times. The New York company’s link to Mr. Miller’s book no longer works. According to National Review, Ulysses Press Executive Vice President Keith Riegert said the book was being removed from its marketplace pending a review of the plagiarism allegations.
A link to his book on Amazon also no longer works and a link to the book on Simon & Schuster, the distributor of Mr. Miller’s children’s book, generates the message, “Sorry this page no longer exists.”
Plagiarism Scandals
The plagiarism allegations against Mr. Miller have sparked off a windfall of comments on social media and editorial comments on some publications, comparing Miller to President Joe Biden based on his 1987 plagiarism scandal, which effectively cost him his first bid for presidency.The press turned up evidence that Mr. Biden had made speeches using excerpts from speeches by other dignitaries, including Robert F. Kennedy, the father of his current competition Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
It also surfaced that Mr. Biden had been caught plagiarizing a substantial portion of a law review paper when he was a law student at Syracuse University.
In a February column for Moguldom, an online media focusing on African Americans, Mr. Miller wrote about times when Republicans booed and “heckled” Mr. Biden during his State of the Union addresses.
Mr. Miller wrote that he believes the real reason Mr. Biden gets heckled by GOPers is because he supports black voters.
“Biden’s very presence is offensive because he represents Black voters and the potential for policy change in favor of those voters. Therefore, he will get booed, heckled, and told that his presidency is illegitimate,” Mr. Miller wrote.
In an interview with The Educator’s Room, Mr. Miller, a former high school teacher from New Jersey, said he wrote a children’s book focused on teaching kids that black freedom “didn’t come by White benevolence. It came from resistance.”
“I hope this book and the animosity it may create will remind those who seek to hide history that Black people will never stop speaking the truth,” he told The Educator’s Room.
Mr. Miller told The Epoch Times that out of the nine publications he is accused of plagiarizing, not one of them has complained directly to him or even made any public comment about the allegations.
Conservatives who have been accused of plagiarism include Rand Paul, and The Federalist co-founder Ben Domenech, husband of Megham McCain—daughter of the late U.S. Senator John McCain.
Mr. McCain ran for U.S. president in 2008 but was defeated by Barack Obama, the first black president in U.S. history.
Other political figures who have been headline news on allegations of plagiarism include Martin Luther King and Melania Trump, who is accused of using excerpts from a speech given by former First Lady Michelle Obama.
Trump staff writer Meredith McIver, who wrote Ms. Trump’s speech, later took blame for the plagiarized speech.
