6 Dr. Seuss books won't be published anymore because they portray people in 'hurtful and wrong' ways

[packman]

Source: CNN


Six Dr. Seuss books will no longer be published because they "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong," the business that preserves the author's legacy said.
.. Some of Dr. Seuss's books that include stereotypical, offensive depictions of East Asian characters and Black characters will no longer be published. © Courtesy Penguin Random House Some of Dr. Seuss's books that include stereotypical, offensive depictions of East Asian characters and Black characters will no longer be published.

The titles are:

"And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street"
"If I Ran the Zoo"
"McElligot's Pool"
"On Beyond Zebra!"
"Scrambled Eggs Super!"
"The Cat's Quizzer"

...
But Dr. Seuss had a long history of publishing racist and anti-Semitic work, spanning back to the 1920s when he was a student at Dartmouth College. There, Dr. Seuss once drew Black boxers as gorillas and perpetuated Jewish stereotypes by portraying Jewish characters as financially stingy, according to a study published in the journal "Research on Diversity in Youth Literature."

That study, published in 2019, examined 50 books by Dr. Seuss and found 43 out of the 45 characters of color have "characteristics aligning with the definition of Orientalism," or the stereotypical, offensive portrayal of Asia. The two "African" characters, the study says, both have anti-Black characteristics.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/6-dr-seuss-books-wont-be-published-anymore-because-they-portray-people-in-hurtful-and-wrong-ways/ar-BB1e9qlt?ocid=DELLDHP

[Beacool]

1. I believe this is ridiculous.

I abhor censorship, whether it's done by the Right banning books in some school districts mostly in the South or uber liberals taking offense by classics that were written in another era. Books need to be taken into the historical context of their time. These books were written decades ago. If needed, an explanation can be given to children that some of the images were stereotypes that are no longer acceptable in today's society, but I'm completely opposed to censoring these books by not publishing them anymore.





PS, I deleted my other post because it was a duplicate of this one

[Miguelito Loveless]

5. It appears that the publisher and right's holder

have decided not to publish these books anymore. How is this "banning"?

[Deminpenn]

6. +1

Then there is this: https://www.history.com/news/when-dr-seuss-went-to-war

[thesquanderer]

19. re: "Books need to be taken into the historical context of their time"

If you're talking about "literature," yes. Or anything targeted at adults, or even older kids. But Dr. Seuss? And is "an explanation can be given to children that some of the images were stereotypes that are no longer acceptable in today's society" really an approach to take with a kid who is 3 or 4 when you're just trying to entertain them, put them to sleep, or teach them to read? Even if you DID want to explain this to your kids, do you think the right-wing parents in Texas are trying to find ways to explain them to their kids? Or are they just laughing at the silly racial depictions with their kids, passing on the same bigotries they were raised with?

This is not censoring or banning. I think it is a publisher being responsible for acknowledgeing that some of their simple children's books may be doing more harm than good.

[wnylib]

30. +1

[TxGuitar]

32. this --- except for the "right wing parents in Texas"

There are right wing parents in every single f ing state. No need to single out one.

[thesquanderer]

38. True. n/t

[Martin68]

25. The publisher made the decision. I suspect it was a matter of looking at the bottom line and

a calculation that the books were not going to sell well in 21st Century America. That's not censorship. It is reality.

[erpowers]

48. That Is What I Thought

I thought the real reason Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the group that made the decision, chose to stop publishing the books was because the books probably were not selling well. There was just the added bonus of saying they were deciding to stop publishing the books because of their portrayal of different races.

[Politicub]

35. This is not censorship. This is a publisher that has evaluated its product and determined that it

is not fit for the market it wants to reach. It is not up to you or me to dictate to a publisher what to print and what to sell.

We don't have some kind of mystical right to Dr. Seuss books. And, if you want any of these books, there are probably hundreds of used copies floating around out there.

With that being said, I did not know there was such a complex history with Dr. Seuss books. The publisher has made the right decision.

[moose65]

49. This wasn't "Uber liberals"

The company that publishes the books made a business decision.

The original Nancy Drew books were quite racist in their depiction of African-Americans. They were later re-written to remove those stereotypes. The company that owned the books did that.

The most famous mystery story of all time, Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None,” was originally titled “Ten Little N-words.” The publishers later changed the name since it was offensive. Was that censorship? Nope. A business decision.

[kimbutgar]

3. While I agree with the decision this only gives the right another talking point about the bs

Cancel culture.

I have a book of all Dr. Seuss stories and I am going to look at it today to see what they consider offensive.

[Miguelito Loveless]

7. Do we base our decisions abou tdoing what is right based

on what our enemies say?

[kimbutgar]

8. Of course what is right.

I read one of those stories to a class years ago and was uncomfortable at the pictures of black people as savages.

Political correctness and now the new term cancel culture makes me disgusted. We need to reframe it as decency and compassion back at them.

[Miguelito Loveless]

9. Agreed...

re-framing as "decency & compassion"

[Martin68]

27. Kimbutgar, I agree with you 100%. I'm really surprised now when I see offensive stereotypes in

books or movies that I once liked. It embarrasses me the I never noticed the offensive stereotypes. My wife and I have been watching old episodes of "Laugh In," and many of the stereotypes now make me cringe. Asians and African-Americans suffer the worst depictions.

[Martin68]

52. Like the right really love Dr. Seuss. I bet they all have a copy of the Lorax.

the right will attack liberals every chance they get. We have to stop letting that influence what we believe, say, and do. At the same time, we need to proactively frame issues positively before they have the opportunity to frame them negatively.

[underpants]

4. I'd only heard of one and yes he was a horrible racist and anti-Semite

The owners of the rights are doing this so the right can end their victim culture bullshit over this.

[edhopper]

16. He was not an anti-semite

he was very anti-Hitler.

He depicted Africans in the racist fashion of the day. But he also wrote the pro-Civil Rights book The Sneetches.

He was neither a racist or anti-semite.

[Silver1]

28. He Was Jewish.

As I wrote to underpants:

He did a lot of anti-Nazi anti-Hitler, anti-America First work.

As an illustrator, he portrayed people as caricatures as a means of shorthand communication, much like comedians still do now. So his portrayals of Jews as stingy or Africans as uncivilized are, to me, more a reflection of the times than his own personal beliefs.

I have a feeling if he were here today he wouldn't have objections to the critique but would understand it.
Times change and we evolve, hopefully for the better!

[Silver1]

26. Dr. Seuss was Jewish.

He did a lot of anti-Nazi anti-Hitler, anti-America First work.

As an illustrator, he portrayed people as caricatures as a means of shorthand communication, much like comedians still do now. So his portrayals of Jews as stingy or Africans as uncivilized are, to me, more a reflection of the times than his own personal beliefs.

I have a feeling if he were here today he wouldn't have objections to the critique but would understand it.
Times change and we evolve, hopefully for the better!

[IronLionZion]

37. Where did you see that he was Jewish?

I think that's a common misconception. I thought he was Jewish too but haven't seen any sources confirming it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss

[Silver1]

43. I always thought he was ...

and I just looked into it to double check a few days ago when all this hit the news. Here's the source which states he was of Jewish descent:

https://leslie.dartmouth.edu/news/2017/02/real-doctor-seuss-cartoon-1941

"Seuss, of Jewish German descent and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, was devastated by Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and similarly outraged by America’s initial ambivalence to it. “I think he just got mad,” Judith Morgan, coauthor of the book Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel, said in an interview with The Atlantic. “He saw the growing threat in Europe and thought the Americans were not paying attention.”

Other sources say differently but sites that aren't necessarily reliable. I saw in a few places that as a kid he was discriminated against for being German Jewish. The same when he arrived at Dartmouth where he then identified as Lutheran.

Perhaps as he was predisposed to communist ideals, religion was not especially important to him hence the lack of clarity about it.

[IronLionZion]

44. He may be ethnically Jewish but not practicing the religion

or mixed. I know several people who are like that. It's true that he was adamantly anti-Nazi and supported the Allied war effort. But he has had a mixed record on race, where some of his cartoons were against the discrimination that Jewish immigrants experienced in America, but also promoting racism against Japanese Americans and other minorities.

[Silver1]

47. I saw that for the first time today. Strange juxtaposition of cruel and harmless.

At the same time, the Germans in Great Britain were rounded up and sent to camps for the duration of the war. The sentiment at the time was that Norway fell to Nazi Germany because of the "fifth column" inside the country. I don't know if it's true but this no doubt influenced the decision here to intern the Japanese.

I read Geisel produced a cartoon a day during this time. Some were wonderful and some were terrible and they all reflected the complexity of the times. We have to figure out how to sort that out but my opinion is we need to keep the best of his work as no one of us is perfect, and we all do evolve.

[rockfordfile]

57. That's a lie. He wasn't a anti-Semite. He was very much against Nazism.

[RevBrotherThomas]

10. I personally have a problem with "cancel culture"...

It reminds me too much of book-burning. I realize that the rights to these titles belong to the publisher who can choose whether or not to continue releasing them (until they become public domain anyway) and it is not a "ban" per se.

I have always been of the mind; "Don't like it? Don't read it/watch it/listen to it." Just like we say, don't like abortion? Don't have one.

Just my opinion. The more we restrict what we cannot see/read/hear/say, the less free we become. There are exceptions for hate speech (and I understand some may regard these titles as falling into that category). The only one I personally remember was Mulberry Street, and as a toddler I was simply fascinated by the idea that a horse and carriage could be found on ANY street.

[Happy Hoosier]

17. So how is "cancel culture" any different?

If a company chooses not to employ a racist, isn't that THEIR expression of free speech. If the owner of the copyrighted works (see also Disney's Song of the South) choose to no longer publish a work because they think it does not represent them, how is that a bad thing. Part of moving forward against racism is encouraging people to own to these things.

I'm sorry, I don't see how this in any way impedes "freedom."

[Skittles]

55. do you mean

like.....when repukes tried to cancel the results of a presidential election?

[DashOneBravo]

56. I know it's a couple days late

But

[phandancer917]

11. In the same way we frame the founding fathers....

...we need to frame these people as well.

George Washington was a good leader and statesmen - he was also a slave owner and a racist product of his times

Same with Dr. Suess and Walt Disney and a HOST of others across the world that presented images and ideas that were common at the time, but offensive in hindsight.

This is NOT cancel culture -- but our society GROWING THE FUCK UP and realizing there is good with bad.

I will say that I do not support the deification of literature - just because it was popular/required 50 years ago does not mean we HAVE to keep teaching it -- literature is used to teach culture/language/social values etc -- there is PLENTY Of newer lit that portrays this more accurately and relatable to the next generation.

[wnylib]

31. +1000

[JohnnyRingo]

12. "out of print"

Are some of the saddest words in the free world.

Whether it's a book or a record album it's a way of disappearing the author/artist's work, and it usually comes down to a cold corporate decision. Does anyone think the collective bullshit of Ayn Rand or David Duke is unavailable?

Donald Trump, if he could write, could pen a misogynistic racist screed and Penguin would print a million copies tomorrow.

[cab67]

13. It's more complicated.

There's a volume of his political cartoons made close to, and shortly after, the start of WW2. Some of them made strong statements AGAINST anti-semitism and racism in the US. My copy isn't with me, otherwise I'd share some of them (or at least indicate page numbers in the book).

In general, when he wanted to portray a country in a bad light, he'd caricature the leader of that country, whether it was Hitler, Mussolini, Laval, or - at least before Operation Barbarossa - Stalin. He only made a stereotyped version of someone living in these countries when he was extolling them; hence, sinister Stalin became a heroic bear in mid-1941.

The one unfortunate exception was the Japanese. When shown in his cartoons, they were the stereotypical buck-toothed versions with squinty eyes and round glasses. He was in favor of internment of Japanese civilians, and this came through in his cartoons. But I've sometimes wondered how much of that came from innate racism and how much came from his steadfast support for FDR. Probably, it was both.

Everything I've said here applies equally to many of the Looney Tunes cartoons made at the time. Some of them can be seen on Youtube. Indeed, some of these were intentional propaganda; at the time, parents would have taken their children to the matinees, so the cartoons were aimed at adults as much as at the kids.

I say none of this to defend the racism expressed in these media. But neither should we pass judgment on the basis of attitudes that, at least in part, reflected the culture and events surrounding those who made them.

To write him off as a bigot is, in my view, too simplistic. His views on race and religion were not straightforward. And I have a strong dislike for dismissing people, or their works, entirely on the basis of attitudes we now find offensive.

[Happy Hoosier]

21. Would you say it should be something taught in schools today?

I think you know the answer.

[Lunabell]

22. Exactly!

[wnylib]

33. Try that in today's world, where classrooms

are integrated. And we wonder why racial biases persist. Maybe it's in what we pass on to our children as acceptable "values."

This discontinuation of the books is only partly about the effect of showing white children an example of how to view people who are not white. So you did not become a slobbering white supremacist. It does seem to have had a negative effect on you that you seem to be unaware of.

The things children see and experience when very young create their perceptions of the world and people around them. They form the basis of the unconscious bias that leads people to think less of some groups as an automatic reflex. Do we really want to pass on that kind of perception to children so they can inherit passive racism in the form of unconscious bias?

The other part of this issue is the Black and Asian children in a classroom absorbing this perception about themselves and their families. Doubly embarrassing and humiliating to them in a group of white kids who giggle and laugh at the caricatures.

If we want to end racism and bigotry in society, one place to begin is early childhood. We do it by not passing on a culture of passive racism to 3 and 4 year olds. Passive racism can be devastating. It is like gaslighting. "What do you mean it's racist? Just a harmless kid's story. Don't be so sensitive."

And I can't believe that I even have to make this point on DU, of all places.

[wnylib]

51. Yes you were receiving a lecture.

You say that having your teacher read Little Black Sambo repeatedly to your classroom did not turn you and your classmates into "slobbering white supremacists" in one post and in the next you say it is strange that I might think you would object to retiring Little Black Sambo. I find that turnaround in tone strange.

You ask and then answer that maybe some of your classmates became virulent racists. I am not talking about virulent racism. I am talking about the more subtle type of racism that portrays people of other cultures as exotic "others" or caricatures instead of showing them as real people. That subtler kind of racism becomes a social undercurrent of the kind that sees others as "less than" because they are only caricatures.

I remember when Little Black Sambo was retired. It was read to me as a child, too. When I heard that it was retired I remember thinking that was a good idea.

I come from a biracial family. Both of my father's parents were mixed, European and Native American. When my father's family got together at my grandfather's - all 8 of his siblings and their spouses and chilldren - they told stories of ancestors with pride and humor. They specificallly told me to take pride in both sides of my heritage. When I was 5, and a relative from the rez passed away, another relative came to my grandfather's later where we had gathered so she could show us some treasured family items and tell us stories from the past that were associated with the people who had made and owned them.

A few years later, when my grade school class was learning about Native Americans from our region, we were told that they were gone now, a thing of the past. I remember thinking, hey, my father's family is still around. We lived a couple hours from the rez (which today the people prefer to call a territory, for historical reasons), but to me, they obviously had not disappeared. So I asked about the rez and the teacher said they were not "real Indians" any more because they lived in modern homes instead of longhouses, and wore cloth instead of deerskin.

So I naively thought I could explain modern Indians with examples from my family. I got my parents' permission to bring in some of the items we had received so I could tell the stories about the cloth sample with European designs done in Native dyed quills and beads as an example of the "transition period" when Native and European styles blended for a while. There was also a metal bracelet with a Native snake design. The teacher totally dismissed them as not Indian because "Indians of this region did not have cloth or metal jewelry." (I did not know then that samples identical to my items exist in a Native cultural museum in Rochester, NY.)

She dismissed the idea that my grandparents could be that closely related to Indians because I did not "look Indian" so what I had to say was not relevant. (My mother's heritage was northern European and I had medium blond hair until it turned dark brown in my teens. Only my eyes 'look Native.')

She wanted so much to cling to and pass on caricatures and stereotypes of an "exotic, long lost past" that she refused to acknowledge authentic people, history, and present day Native culture.

[Devil Child]

15. Good, destroying cultural icons of whiteness will destroy white supremacy

[Amishman]

24. and gross overreach undermines the legitimate efforts in this area

This definitely smells of overreach to me.

[bucolic_frolic]

18. Have other attempts to erase the past been successful?

How does humanity learn if the bad parts of history are erased? We won't know if history repeats itself, we won't even know if it rhymes.

[Bayard]

20. I still have a copy of, "Green Eggs and Ham"

My favorite Seuss. I'll have to go back and look at the ones listed.

I am against removing depictions/statues of Washington or Jefferson because they owned slaves. It was the norm 200 years ago. At the same time, it was also the norm to kill off Native Americans. Both were horrifying, and you have to hope, would never happen again.

If Theodor Seuss Geisel were still writing today, I'd bet he would be enlightened. "The Lorax," was ahead of its time on environmental awareness.

[Bucky]

41. With figures like Washington & Jefferson, you have to show the blunt truth about them.

The historians at Mt Vernon treat this topic head on and unapologetically. They say the enslaved people until title to Washington were harshly treated, more harshly punished, routinely underfed & underclothed, and subject to sale if they didn't cooperate with their captivity and work requirements.

We can discuss Washington and all honorable qualities and important thoughts, accomplishments, and legacies alongside an honest depiction of the slavery conditions on Mt Vernon.

As a history teacher I deal with this frequently and teenagers are smart enough to understand that a good person can do bad things. For that matter we cover MLK's filandering as a coping mechanism for the tremendous stress he lived under, JFK's substance abuse and cover-up of his grave health condititions, Ronald Reagan's support for terrorism in Central America, Nicola Tesla's extraordinary racism, John Adams's dysfunctional family dynamics and pomposity, Henry Ford's antisemitism, Will Rogers's early admiration for fascism.... the list goes on.

[Liberty Belle]

23. The heirs should have the books updated to replace stereotypes

With an editor's note stating that this has been done, with credit to any author or artist involved.

If any book had an overarching racist theme, it's probably appropriate to pull it off shelves forever.

If it was just a verse or two, or a picture or two, an updated version approved by the estate would be better than banning the entire work.

[C Moon]

29. That is eye-opening. I didn't know that about him.

[TxGuitar]

34. My sister-in-law was an elementary librarian

Many schools stopped using several of Dr. Seuss' books years ago because of how they portrayed people. By the way-- that was in Texas! Same sister-in-law is now a reading specialist for a district in Texas and she does not use Dr Seuss books

[Cozmo]

36. Can't we all just agree to evolve?

[Polybius]

39. Red meat for Republicans

I can only imagine the posts.

[Roy Rolling]

40. Too Late

I suspect those books were no longer financially profitable, either. Waiting this long to act makes it impossible to rule out that suspicion.

Not publishing a book that nobody reads anymore, and then making a big splashy news announcement is very self-serving if you ask me.

Not that anybody does anymore. 😂😂

[Bucky]

42. People still read the shit out of Dr. Seuss. He still has some unsung gems

On Beyond Zebra will blow your ever-loving mind. Teach your kid the alphabet with that book, and you're guaranteed to raise a genius.

[LanternWaste]

45. So a company is not printing some still-existing books anymore, eh?

In 1977, an author wrote a novella in which the anti-hero wracked up a pretty high body count during a school shooting. Time passed and school shootings in America became something other than a mere plot device. The author felt his book contributed to a handful of those shootings.

In a footnote to the preface of another novel written by the same author, dated January 30, 2007, he wrote of the novella in question: "Now out of print, and a good thing."

That was Stephen King in response to his book, Rage. His ownership, his choice. Like the Suess books, Rage isn't banned, simply out of print. You can find a copy if it's important to you. Legally.

Out of print. Like an estimated 4.73 million other written works throughout human history. Or when Haagen-Dazs stopped making Black Walnut Ice Cream; a dark day for me personally-- but I wasn't irrational enough to call it banned.

"They banned my ice-cream!!! This makes us look bad!!! It's book burning!!! Righteous rage!!!" would have been a silly and irratioal response.

[msfiddlestix]

46. Interesting. The Birch Society strongly advocated for banning Dr Seuss Books

back in the day because ..... wait for it..

Birchers considered Dr Seuss books as Communist Indoctrination tools, Communist leanings indoctrinating the young minds of American children toward sympathizing with the Soviet Union, Anti-American Pro Communist blah blah blah

take your pick.

My daughter's grandparents on her father's side were John Birchers through and through. They were horrified to learn that I read Dr. Seuss books to her and that she had quite a collection along with Shel Silverstein and Maurice Sendak.

Well she didn't grow up to be a racist, or a bigot or a communist. She's more left than I am, maybe leans towards Socialism but definitely not a Communist.

Maybe it's just me, but our peeps sure know how take their eye off the ball pretty quickly.

[GulfCoast66]

53. First, no one canceled anything. His estate decided not to publish them.

But let’s remember, dude was born in 1904. I imagine you could long and hard and not find a single person born in that year who would seem legit to us from a social opinion standpoint.

It was a different country and a different time. I am the product of my time and I tend to concentrate on that.

From what I read after WWII he was a decent character. Most of his work stands the test of time.

I guess I might put him in the Samuel Clemons category. Very progressive for his time but wrote some things that are offensive now. I still think Huck Finn great literature. It made me think about the way we treat people different from me when I was an adolescent.

[pfitz59]

54. I'm sure anyone interested can buy used copies.

The publisher decided to stop publishing. Faux News and their wingnuts are screaming "Dr. Seuss is canceled!" 6 out of more than 60 titles. He is far from canceled, but Hannity and Company got their sound-bite.