In 2006, Michael Lewis authored the captivating bestseller “The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game,” about Michael Oher, an athletically brilliant
The book inspired a more popular film that garnered Sandra Bullock an Oscar for playing Oher's fiercely protective adoptive mother, Leigh Anne Touhy.
Oher filed a civil petition a few days ago saying that the Touhys never adopted him and instead made immensely successful business dealings
in his name after placing him under conservatorship. (The Touhys reject this last allegation. They apparently plan to end the conservatorship.
Lewis's account of Michael Oher always read like a fantasy meant to show white saviorhood over black exploitation.
In a newspaper review, I wrote, “The essential message of his book is that poor black children matter, are worth saving, not because of their characters or minds, but because of their physical prowess.
The most amazing part of the Oher narrative is that few readers or viewers saw this perversity. Lewis and his subjects briefly acknowledged it, then ignored it.