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Dr. Seuss Books pulled for racist images


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27 minutes ago, Quill said:

I loved To Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street as a kid. I read the cover off that book. I loved how it encouraged imaginative thinking. I don’t remember what stereotyping was in that book that hadn’t aged well, though I have no difficulty imagining there is some. 

 

 

19 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Are those meant to be pictures of people? I would never have thought that. When I look at the picture I think they depict animals, and I see nothing wrong. Now if they meant to be people, then it’s a very different story. 🥲

There are illustrations here. And yes, they are meant to be people not animals.

https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/here-are-the-wrong-illustrations-that-got-six-dr-seuss-books-cancelled

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13 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Well it is a little strange that people are falling all over themselves to find books that they never knew existed before this news was released. 

Did you see the stores when the pandemic started?  How many years worth of TP did some people buy?  People buy all sorts of things for weird reasons.   Thinking dreadful things about people doesn’t help and is far more toxic to society than a book even a truly terrible and even racist book.    But I don’t think this is a particularly helpful discussion.   I probably shouldn’t have read or commented.   

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37 minutes ago, katilac said:

I honestly can't think of or find any in his children's books, but I'm relying on memory and the internet. What would you consider some examples of this? 

But, at any rate, read the excerpt from the blog again; it does not say caricature "alone" is what they're looking at. It says (bolding by me): "Every single character of color is portrayed through at least 3, and sometimes all 5, of the following themes: "

So caricature and either two, three, of four additional themes. 

Edited to add that they also give the precise definition of caricature that they are referring to. 

And my point remains that any of the first 4 points are highly suspect on their own, where caricature--in my mind--is very different in its nature. 

Caricatures certainly can be used in ways that are racially insensitive/offensive, but caricatures can also be a legitimate artistic style. That differentiates it from the other "themes" IMO.

Bill

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1 hour ago, Tanaqui said:

If some of you folks wring your hands every time a book goes out of print you must get one heck of a workout!

As for caricatures, that word has more than one possible definition. It's possible to decry one thing without the other thing.

I hate it when books go OOP.

I'm old fashioned like that.

I like to be able to easily access lots of books. Thank goodness for digitisation.

Have you never spent a ridiculous amount of time and money tracking down OOP books? 

 

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I think this was a savvy public relations move. They have some books that aren't selling well. They are problematic books too that the estate may be uncomfortable with.

So now, Seuss estate gets praise and maybe some sales from people who are happy with their decision. They also get sales from people who are enraged about "cancel culture" and anyone who would dare to cancel Seuss- maybe they'll just buy Seuss to support his estate or maybe they'll specifically look for the copies of the discontinued books before they are available only in the secondary market (if any are left?). 

I've never even heard of any of them and my parents read me tons of Seuss when I was a kid and we had many books. 

Any book will go out of print if it doesn't sell and if it no longer fits the public's tastes. I think it's a good thing that the public's tastes are moving away from racist kids' books. There's a ton of excellent kids' books- too many to waste time reading problematic books for enjoyment. I've been thinking I need to disappear some of my DS's books that feel like time wasters- those that don't have great pictures, great stories, or great or thoughtful messages need to get off my shelf. 

My HS students are reading Miss Julie right now. I told them before we started that they'd find it offensive, but that it will make for good discussions. I'm not at all saying we should avoid books that present ideas that we find offensive or uncomfortable, but itty bitty kids? They're just reading for fun. 

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I don't even know what to say to the idea that the publisher should just slap a sticker on the cover of a children's book saying "Warning: This book depicts Black people as ape-like savages with rings in their noses."  

Doesn't that send the message "We're fine with that image, but if that sort of thing bothers you, you might want to skip this book. But if you don't see anything wrong with that depiction, then by all means buy it!"

Like we need to keep publishing books for the kind of people who don't find that image offensive??? 

Edited by Corraleno
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54 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

 

I don’t think you’re the problem. I think swiftly attributing bad motives to people is a problem and I think othering people is a problem and at the root of racism.    Scarcity breeds desire.    I think we need to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume the best for one’s own mental health and for the health of society.   I hope you have a lovely day.  

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34 minutes ago, ealp2009 said:

I don’t think you’re the problem. I think swiftly attributing bad motives to people is a problem and I think othering people is a problem and at the root of racism.    Scarcity breeds desire.    I think we need to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume the best for one’s own mental health and for the health of society.   I hope you have a lovely day.  

What I’m saying is that the attribution isn’t swift or othering. It’s an authentic representation of a movement, an undercurrent that’s existed all in and throughout this country since its inception. The demand exists not just for pecuniary reasons. The market exists because people collect rare racist memorabilia like beanie babies. There’s no doubt to be given about the existence of those sympathies among wide swaths of Americans. I don’t need to see the tiki torches again to know that. Ignoring that doesn’t benefit ME or my social standing or mental health. It benefits YOU and yours.

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8 minutes ago, ealp2009 said:

I don’t think you’re the problem. I think swiftly attributing bad motives to people is a problem and I think othering people is a problem and at the root of racism.    Scarcity breeds desire.    I think we need to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume the best for one’s own mental health and for the health of society.   I hope you have a lovely day.  

There's no scarcity of Dr Seuss books — there are literally dozens of different Dr Seuss titles available on Amazon, where you can buy a brand new hardcover of most of the popular books for around 5 bucks. The fact that people are willing to pay high prices specifically for the books with racist images suggests that there is more to it than a bunch of people who just always really wanted a copy of Scrambled Eggs Super! and think this is their last chance to get one.

Personally, I find it amusing that people think they're somehow pwning the libs by spending large sums of money on books they likely never heard of, don't really want, and won't be able to resell in 6 months because social media will have moved on and there will be new things to be Totally Outraged about.

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4 hours ago, Dreamergal said:

I see what you are saying, but if the Enid Blyton estate stopped publishing those books today,  it would mean I do not have an answer to the question about books I grew up reading when my kids ask. It is almost all the books I read at a certain age. She was a prolific writer.

Well, not all Dr. Seuss books are going out of print, just a couple. So not really the same thing. Plus, you can buy used ones. Plus, if all the works of an author I liked were offensive to a large percentage of Americans, I'd rather my kids not read them, even if I had fond memories of them when I was younger. 

3 hours ago, Plum said:

I don’t know about their motives. Cancel culture has become a dominating force. For all I know it could have been a preemptive move. 

Can someone explain the difference between "cancel culture" and "free market" and how one is good and the other bad? 

And why ANYONE thinks some author or author's representative or estate should be somehow forced to publish books they no longer wish to publish or be associated with?

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33 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

There's no scarcity of Dr Seuss books — there are literally dozens of different Dr Seuss titles available on Amazon, where you can buy a brand new hardcover of most of the popular books for around 5 bucks. The fact that people are willing to pay high prices specifically for the books with racist images suggests that there is more to it than a bunch of people who just always really wanted a copy of Scrambled Eggs Super! and think this is their last chance to get one.

Personally, I find it amusing that people think they're somehow pwning the libs by spending large sums of money on books they likely never heard of, don't really want, and won't be able to resell in 6 months because social media will have moved on and there will be new things to be Totally Outraged about.

Perhaps they can make a future trade for some Gamestop stock?

Bill 

 

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3 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

Are those meant to be pictures of people? I would never have thought that. When I look at the picture I think they depict animals, and I see nothing wrong. Now if they meant to be people, then it’s a very different story. 🥲

Most racist drawings of black people look like animals. That is the point, I would say. And it’s not all old. Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, and the Obamas were/are drawn as monkeys.

 

ETA there is a Mammy character in some Raggedy Ann books, such as Beloved Belindy.

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31 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

Pretty much everything I value in my life has a painful history associated with it from the language English that did not have people who looked like me yet opened the most doors in my life . My religion which came as a side effect of colonization. My own family history has painful association with colonization including a British ancestor without the benefit of a relationship. This is my history. I cannot read parts of the Bible like the slavery verses without cringing. 

I’ve had to grapple with racist imagery in my own family like the gollywog doll which was handed as a heirloom by my grandmother. I knew better so I did better and refused. Some things are black and white, most are gray and that includes pretty much everything I value. Who I am is because of this. I want my children to know our family history, all the good and bad parts. That includes the books we read. I teach them right from wrong using those books. We read all kinds of books, diverse, modern and books their parents read. That is how I choose to do it because of my life experience, how I grew up and what I choose to do with things that are painful and gray. I focus on the good. Otherwise, it will mean refusing part of my identity, losing my religion and many other things I value. Your life experiences may lead you to choose otherwise. What is important to me is what we teach our children going forward. 

 

This is my ex's history (Anglo Indian). He's a novelist. He could deny himself the canon b/c colonization. But why should he? The canon is his as much as anyone's. It's not like he can't have Melville because he's brown.

As a woman, just about everything I read prior to 1960 and after 2010 contains the most outrageous stereotyping of women - so what?! I'm not going to deprive myself of a single scrap of art because of it. 

I just finished a novel which moved me greatly (Earth Abides) and which contained outrageous sex stereotyping, written in the 50's, I think. It's a dystopia, and I've read a lot of them, and this one moved me in a very particular way. I ignored the stereotyping as forming part of the historical context. I think it deserves a place on the shelf, regardless of the sexism. And I'm definitely a feminist. 

Now, I'm pretty open to the idea that Dr Suess doesn't deserve a place on the shelf where space or time is tight - I hated those books, though one kid taught herself to read using Fox in Socks. 

But for me personally, I lean towards as much art being available as possible for as many people.  From all places, from all time periods, including (but not limited to) the now. Including work marred (as work from 2021 will be, at some future time) by authors sharing prejudices common to their times).

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

I know this blog post was shared on this forum last summer. It made the rounds in the homeschooling world and I think it opened some eyes. 

When "Really Good" Books Hurt

 

I hadn't seen this blog post before, but it rings true for me. 

I'm a white mother of kids of colour.  Children's literature, especially older classic titles often recommended by classical home ed curricula, including TWTM, felt like such a minefield.  The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, the Little House books, Peter Pan, Swallow and Amazons, Pippi Longstocking, The Cricket in Times Square, The Great Horn Spoon, Twenty-One Balloons, Caddy Woodlawn, The Jungle Book, Just So Stories, the list goes on and on.  You'd be happily reading along, and them Bam! get slapped in the face with a baldly racist phrase or allusion or image, or a dismissive remark about "savages" or "cannibals" or "Indians".  It's really not OK.

Now that my kids are older, it has almost become a bit of a macabre running household joke - books of a certain age will necessarily have at least one problematic racist element. 

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5 hours ago, LucyStoner said:

4 of these books were already essentially out of print.  I would wager Mulberry Street and If I Ran the Zoo were the only ones still selling.  
 

A lot of books go out of print.  
 

As leery as I would be of his entire body of work getting written off as racist, I don’t think letting books go out of print is the same thing as banning them. 
 

I also have 3 of those books and probably two copies of one of them. I can’t be the only one contemplating if I could sell them to pay some bills.  😉

I passed all my Seuss books on about 12 months ago because my kids had outgrown them - definitely had put me in the zoo and scrambled egg super.  I did like Scrambled Egg Super although a remember a couple of cringy moments - I wouldn’t mind if they edited and reprinted it.

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12 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I passed all my Seuss books on about 12 months ago because my kids had outgrown them - definitely had put me in the zoo and scrambled egg super.  I did like Scrambled Egg Super although a remember a couple of cringy moments - I wouldn’t mind if they edited and reprinted it.

I think it was "If I Ran The Zoo" rather than "Put Me in the Zoo".

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7 hours ago, Spy Car said:

For those who'd like a little fuller appreciation of where Theodor Geisel was coming from:

 

 

 

And, because people are complicated, at the same time he was drawing hideous cartoons that openly depicted Japanese Americans as enemies of the country. I'll post an example that I think will fall easily under fair use, and others are readily searchable: 

Waiting for the signal from home...

When Seuss is presented only with the hazy halo of Nazi-fighter and writer of anti-racist books, all the strong and powerful parts of the story are left out. Like how he could see the evils of Nazism and the dangers of America First, but could not see the evils and dangers of presenting American citizens as enemies to be feared, based only on their race. He could not see that this could actually incite violence against them (I mean, I hope he couldn't see that). 

It leaves out his deep regrets as he realized how wrong he was, and how those regrets, and the lessons he learned, influenced him to attempt to make amends. How, even in the midst of making those amends, even after realizing how his efforts to dehumanize the Japanese people were tragically wrong, he still managed to repeat the same mistakes, perhaps thinking that the humorous and light-hearted manner excused it. 

The complete story of his contradictions and efforts and failures is far more interesting and inspiring, imo. 

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4 minutes ago, Lanny said:

I remember reading "The Cat in the Hat" to my DD many times when she was very young. I do not remember that being racist.  If it is, possibly because of my age I didn't realize that it was racist. 

The Cat in the Hat is not racist. It could, perhaps, be withdrawn for causing children to lie to their mother about what they get up to home alone, but that's it. 

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4 hours ago, katilac said:

And, because people are complicated, at the same time he was drawing hideous cartoons that openly depicted Japanese Americans as enemies of the country. I'll post an example that I think will fall easily under fair use, and others are readily searchable: 

Waiting for the signal from home...

When Seuss is presented only with the hazy halo of Nazi-fighter and writer of anti-racist books, all the strong and powerful parts of the story are left out. Like how he could see the evils of Nazism and the dangers of America First, but could not see the evils and dangers of presenting American citizens as enemies to be feared, based only on their race. He could not see that this could actually incite violence against them (I mean, I hope he couldn't see that). 

It leaves out his deep regrets as he realized how wrong he was, and how those regrets, and the lessons he learned, influenced him to attempt to make amends. How, even in the midst of making those amends, even after realizing how his efforts to dehumanize the Japanese people were tragically wrong, he still managed to repeat the same mistakes, perhaps thinking that the humorous and light-hearted manner excused it. 

The complete story of his contradictions and efforts and failures is far more interesting and inspiring, imo. 

As you noted, the man expressed regrets for many of these images in his lifetime. I'd say that the efforts of some to paint the man as nothing but a virulent racist presents the same danger of one-sidedness that you object to yourself. It isn't consistent with his complete life record, despite the existence of art work from early in his career that clearly doesn't pass muster today.

Being a fighter against Nazism, fascism, and the fascist enabling American First movement isn't a "hazy halo," with all due respect.

Bill

 

 

 

 

 

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30 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

The Cat in the Hat is not racist. It could, perhaps, be withdrawn for causing children to lie to their mother about what they get up to home alone, but that's it. 

You must not have read the articles linked above that directly compare the cat to blackface minstrel shows where the “black” characters would entertain white children with tricks. It goes right over the heads of people not raised on racist entertainment like that, but the argument is very compelling when you compare the Cat to pictures of the author performing in such shows. 

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10 minutes ago, Katy said:

You must not have read the articles linked above that directly compare the cat to blackface minstrel shows where the “black” characters would entertain white children with tricks. It goes right over the heads of people not raised on racist entertainment like that, but the argument is very compelling when you compare the Cat to pictures of the author performing in such shows. 

Oh, for goodness sake. Seriously? Cat in a Hat is now about white children engaging in white supremacist entertainment? Please. 

Luckily here we didn't raise our children on black and white minstrelsy, so I think their self concept as non-white children survived some nonsense verse. 

 

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14 minutes ago, Katy said:

You must not have read the articles linked above that directly compare the cat to blackface minstrel shows where the “black” characters would entertain white children with tricks. It goes right over the heads of people not raised on racist entertainment like that, but the argument is very compelling when you compare the Cat to pictures of the author performing in such shows. 

I read that article and didn't find the argument compelling at all. I don't have a great love for The Cat in the Hat and I don't have any problem with these titles being pulled, but I felt that the argument in that article were weak. One that jumps at at me is well down in it where the author is asserting the idea that the pink ring in the bathtub in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and the Yink who drinks pink ink in (I think) the Foot Book are clearly party of the racist trope of ink drinking to gain color. Then, the author compares a truly racist cartoon of a baby drinking ink and the picture of the Yink drinking ink, saying that the first picture obviously inspired the second as they resemble each other so strongly. The thing is, they don't. Both contain characters driving ink through a straw, but the resemblance end there. Different facial expressions, postures, arrangements on the page, kind of straws, kind of bottle, literally everything is different. The author wants to show that Geisel's racism taints everything he wrote, and I don't think the author succeeds in showing that.

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10 hours ago, Dreamergal said:

Pretty much everything I value in my life has a painful history associated with it from the language English that did not have people who looked like me yet opened the most doors in my life . My religion which came as a side effect of colonization. My own family history has painful association with colonization including a British ancestor without the benefit of a relationship. This is my history. I cannot read parts of the Bible like the slavery verses without cringing. 

I’ve had to grapple with racist imagery in my own family like the gollywog doll which was handed as a heirloom by my grandmother. I knew better so I did better and refused. Some things are black and white, most are gray and that includes pretty much everything I value. Who I am is because of this. I want my children to know our family history, all the good and bad parts. That includes the books we read. I teach them right from wrong using those books. We read all kinds of books, diverse, modern and books their parents read. That is how I choose to do it because of my life experience, how I grew up and what I choose to do with things that are painful and gray. I focus on the good. Otherwise, it will mean refusing part of my identity, losing my religion and many other things I value. Your life experiences may lead you to choose otherwise. What is important to me is what we teach our children going forward.

I agree.  I've been using books to help my kids understand what's wrong and why as long as my kids could understand the words.  It helps when they then hear things from older people they love and respect etc.  It seems a much better approach than pretending I don't know anything about the history of racism.

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C’mon, really? Not reading books rife with racist language or imagery doesn’t mean you’re ignoring racism. For some of us it’s an everyday lived experience so reading about it is simply an exercise in self-flagellation. For those who NEED to read it to believe it exists/existed, I humbly propose that original content from the past isn’t where it’s most likely to be ignored and reading only or mostly from those sources gives the impression that it exists only in the past. It doesn’t.

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2 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

C’mon, really? Not reading books rife with racist language or imagery doesn’t mean you’re ignoring racism. For some of us it’s an everyday lived experience so reading about it is simply an exercise in self-flagellation. For those who NEED to read it to believe it exists/existed, I humbly propose that original content from the past isn’t where it’s most likely to be ignored and reading only or mostly from those sources gives the impression that it exists only in the past. It doesn’t.

I didn't say you need to read it to your kids.

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6 minutes ago, SKL said:

I didn't say you need to read it to your kids.

If you need to have and profit from, on an ongoing basis, hard copy versions of Dr. Seuss and other books vs. digitized bits to illustrate the prevalence of racism, combatting those messages isn’t the goal. Promulgating them is.

Edited by Sneezyone
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1 hour ago, Xahm said:

I read that article and didn't find the argument compelling at all. I don't have a great love for The Cat in the Hat and I don't have any problem with these titles being pulled, but I felt that the argument in that article were weak. One that jumps at at me is well down in it where the author is asserting the idea that the pink ring in the bathtub in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and the Yink who drinks pink ink in (I think) the Foot Book are clearly party of the racist trope of ink drinking to gain color. Then, the author compares a truly racist cartoon of a baby drinking ink and the picture of the Yink drinking ink, saying that the first picture obviously inspired the second as they resemble each other so strongly. The thing is, they don't. Both contain characters driving ink through a straw, but the resemblance end there. Different facial expressions, postures, arrangements on the page, kind of straws, kind of bottle, literally everything is different. The author wants to show that Geisel's racism taints everything he wrote, and I don't think the author succeeds in showing that.

Especially when you neglect to consider that both books are written to have a very limited, phonetically decodable vocabulary, so lots of words like cat, hat, pink, ink, etc. My teen also pointed out that Seuss drew the art for said books at a time color printing was expensive and limited, so the main character being a black and white anthropomorphic tuxedo cat would have been a cost savings, since the character holds a big percentage of many of the pages. It is likely that had the Cat in the Hat been written later on, there would have been more color range (as you see in later Seuss books). 

 

 

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Just now, Sneezyone said:

If you need to have, on an ongoing basis, hard copy versions of Dr. Seuss and other books vs. digitized bits to illustrate the prevalence of racism, combatting those messages isn’t the goal. Promulgating them is.

I didn't say any of what you are implying.

As someone noted above, literally every book in print from my childhood or before (and many since) have content that reflects wrong ideas of the past.  Yet many of them are still great books for many reasons.

I am not a big fan of Dr. Seuss, though some of his books were useful in teaching words, along with others which also were not 100% reflective of present-day values.

For most, the thing to appreciate about Dr. Seuss was that he was one of the first successful authors to provide early reading materials that were both engaging and effective.  Obviously he was born into an environment that didn't have the most enlightened values, as were most people of his day.  IMO that's not a reason to cancel what he did right.

FTR I have no problem with his racially problematic books going out of print and off the shelves.  In particular, I don't think they need to be accessible to young kids without their parents there to guide their understanding.  I think it's fine for them to exist for study of how things used to be, by people mature enough to do that study.

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18 hours ago, Corraleno said:

This story is a perfect illustration of the "outrage culture" fomented by talk radio and social media. So a minor story noting that the company founded by Seuss's family will no longer reprint a few books that most people have never heard of, gets blown up into "they're banning Dr Seuss!" And now people are paying inflated prices to buy up soon-to-be-OOP books that they've likely never read, and have no real interest in reading, because they saw a tweet or a FB post telling them that their right to read a book with racist stereotypes is being taken away from them!!! and they should be totally outraged about that!!! Apparently some people think that allowing the company that owns the rights to a book to decide not to continue publishing it is actually more offensive than depicting Black people as monkeys.

Yep. Seems many people have lost the ability to read beyond a headline, let alone discern that said headline was crafted specifically to evoke outrage.  

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2 hours ago, Xahm said:

I read that article and didn't find the argument compelling at all. I don't have a great love for The Cat in the Hat and I don't have any problem with these titles being pulled, but I felt that the argument in that article were weak. One that jumps at at me is well down in it where the author is asserting the idea that the pink ring in the bathtub in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and the Yink who drinks pink ink in (I think) the Foot Book are clearly party of the racist trope of ink drinking to gain color. Then, the author compares a truly racist cartoon of a baby drinking ink and the picture of the Yink drinking ink, saying that the first picture obviously inspired the second as they resemble each other so strongly. The thing is, they don't. Both contain characters driving ink through a straw, but the resemblance end there. Different facial expressions, postures, arrangements on the page, kind of straws, kind of bottle, literally everything is different. The author wants to show that Geisel's racism taints everything he wrote, and I don't think the author succeeds in showing that.

And I'll add that this kind of argument is exactly why people wind up nervous about reevaluation of books. There's the reasonable stuff like "every single non-white person in these books is a ridiculous caricature." And there's the "the author is so prejudiced that all of his work is tainted, and it doesn't matter if my argument is a really serious stretch." 

I think it's fine for Geisel's estate to pull these books. That's obviously not censorship in any way. However, some aspects of the cultural climate around this do bother me. There are MANY famous authors who indulged in racist stereotyping. I remember some of them being almost comically bad. Try Chesterton on just about any race. Or Shakespeare. Or if you want some easier reads... how about Jane Austen? Or Agatha Christie? 

All of these people were products of their times. It's not reasonable for us to expect them to conform to our current values. Yes, we should name the racism when we encounter it. And yes, children's books with racist stereotypes are particularly pernicious. But I dunno... some of the rhetoric around this stuff bothers me. 

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9 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

And I'll add that this kind of argument is exactly why people wind up nervous about reevaluation of books. There's the reasonable stuff like "every single non-white person in these books is a ridiculous caricature." And there's the "the author is so prejudiced that all of his work is tainted, and it doesn't matter if my argument is a really serious stretch." 

I think it's fine for Geisel's estate to pull these books. That's obviously not censorship in any way. However, some aspects of the cultural climate around this do bother me. There are MANY famous authors who indulged in racist stereotyping. I remember some of them being almost comically bad. Try Chesterton on just about any race. Or Shakespeare. Or if you want some easier reads... how about Jane Austen? Or Agatha Christie? 

All of these people were products of their times. It's not reasonable for us to expect them to conform to our current values. Yes, we should name the racism when we encounter it. And yes, children's books with racist stereotypes are particularly pernicious. But I dunno... some of the rhetoric around this stuff bothers me. 

It bothered me more to be forced to read a ‘cannon’ that didn’t reflect my family’s perspective at all. I did it because I was forced to and promptly discarded most of it as garbage devoid of 3D authenticity, keeping only the catch phrases and references necessary to communicate that I’d done the deed. It’s all cute and nostalgic to people who use these works as a proxy for lived experience and deeper human interaction/understanding. I don’t expect the works to conform. I expect their proponents to find a new way to communicate an old message.

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11 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

It bothered me more to be forced to read a ‘cannon’ that didn’t reflect my family’s perspective at all. I did it because I was forced to and promptly discarded most of it as garbage devoid of 3D authenticity, keeping only the catch phrases and references necessary to communicate that I’d done the deed. It’s all cute and nostalgic to people who use these works as a proxy for lived experience and deeper human interaction/understanding. I don’t expect the works to conform. I expect their proponents to find a new way to communicate an old message.

Whereas I read a deeply anti-Semitic canon without any issues. People do vary on their response to this stuff.

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I've read lots of things that offended me, some of which were required reading.  I even had to write essays about some of them.  I thought that was part of being a literate human being.

Again, I'm not saying this is appropriate for books in a children's library, but it is not wrong for tween, teen, or adult to have to deal with literature containing difficult content.  A wise teacher will include a variety of readings so that people from all backgrounds can have this experience.

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1 hour ago, SKL said:

I've read lots of things that offended me, some of which were required reading.  I even had to write essays about some of them.  I thought that was part of being a literate human being.

Again, I'm not saying this is appropriate for books in a children's library, but it is not wrong for tween, teen, or adult to have to deal with literature containing difficult content.  A wise teacher will include a variety of readings so that people from all backgrounds can have this experience.

There aren’t enough ‘wise’ teachers on Earth to give it appropriate context. Most of it is offered up without any literary counterpoint, only the ill-informed opinions of ‘peers’ for discussion, with those on the receiving end of biases having to inform those who are ignorant or swallow their BS whole. Unless/until Native Son is read alongside other similarly difficult high school works, it’s all lip service.

ETA: Let’s take the perennial favorite Huck Finn. How many teachers require students to critically analyze the story from Jim’s perspective? How many encourage kids to think about the perspective that doesn’t exist b/c Twain wasn’t privy to it? How many critically consider the language/cant for authenticity? Is Jim stupid or shrewd? How did he really feel caring for/saving and also relying on this clueless little white boy? These aren’t the questions being asked when these books are read.

You can’t credibly talk about works as academically valuable without working through these issues. In my experience, which is not any different from what DD is experiencing, shallow analysis is the norm b/c the very people ‘teaching’ these works haven’t ever wrestled with these issues themselves.

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16 hours ago, LucyStoner said:

4 of these books were already essentially out of print.  I would wager Mulberry Street and If I Ran the Zoo were the only ones still selling.  
 

A lot of books go out of print.  
 

As leery as I would be of his entire body of work getting written off as racist, I don’t think letting books go out of print is the same thing as banning them. 
 

I also have 3 of those books and probably two copies of one of them. I can’t be the only one contemplating if I could sell them to pay some bills.  😉

you're not. Yesterday, I went to a local antique shop yesterday just to see if any booths had any of the books.  Found On Beyond Zebra for $15.  Sold it for $400 within an hour of listing it.  Ebay is now removing listings of it though so it is a crap shoot if yours would make it to sale.  Buy it Now and immediate payment is a good way to make sure it gets sold before they remove it.

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re what's your problem??!!

13 hours ago, ealp2009 said:

I don’t think you’re the problem. I think swiftly attributing bad motives to people is a problem and I think othering people is a problem and at the root of racism.    Scarcity breeds desire.    I think we need to give people the benefit of the doubt ,,,

Possible problems:

  • @Sneezyone , personally
  • One segment of society "attributing bad motives" to another segment
  • "Othering"... generally, with no regard to which segment of society has power over which "others"
  • Legacy of centuries of racism  where one segment HAS HAD power over the other

The Seuss estate assesses that it's the latter of these that is the problem.

Given a choice between centering the "intent" of one segment of society vs the "lived experience" of another, the Seuss estate has opted to focus on the latter.

YMMV.

 

 

re The Canon, babies and bathwater

28 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

...I think it's fine for Geisel's estate to pull these books. That's obviously not censorship in any way. However, some aspects of the cultural climate around this do bother me. There are MANY famous authors who indulged in racist stereotyping. I remember some of them being almost comically bad. Try Chesterton on just about any race. Or Shakespeare. Or if you want some easier reads... how about Jane Austen? Or Agatha Christie? 

All of these people were products of their times. It's not reasonable for us to expect them to conform to our current values. Yes, we should name the racism when we encounter it. And yes, children's books with racist stereotypes are particularly pernicious. But I dunno... some of the rhetoric around this stuff bothers me. 

I've struggled with babies and bathwater as well.

To your point about The Canon authors being products of their time, and the unreasonableness of applying current standards to babies-with-bathwater written in earlier times, I've actually learned, over the decades, to put on the same kind of reading glasses when reading Canon as I put on to read the Bible... and its depictions of women as property, slavery as normative, collective and intergenerational punishment as ethical, and vindictive torture of enemies as warranted.

I'm not about to throw THAT baby out with the bathwater-of-its-time. There are various strategies folks take to deal with Biblical bathwater -- some people gloss briskly over the bits about how soon is OK to rape women taken as captive, or the hurling of enemies' infants against the city walls; there are extensive apologetics to explain why the plain text of certain passages are actually the opposite of the "actual" meaning; many people simply focus on a kinder-simpler Greatest Hits approach that curates the parts that focus on compassion and love (or retribution or hell-and-brimfire-in-the-afterlife or whatever).  Many people, of course, entirely abandon the effort to read scriptures at all: it is vastly easier to walk away from sacred texts than to struggle with those "products of their time" bathwater elements.

Personally I do not: week after week as my Torah study goes through the whole in chronological order I read the bathwater right along with the glittery bits. I struggle with the bathwater, I name the bathwater, I voice my discomfort with the bathwater; sometimes I find a way to filter the bathwater into living water that nourishes me, sometimes I'm able to midrash the depths into underlyting clear water that nourishes me. Some weeks though I'm left with nothing to do with the bathwater but stare at it, disconsolate, there you are, again, still contanimating me, still leaving me feeling ill. No doubt this grows tiresome to others in my Torah study group with whom I've been cycling through the same passages for going on 20 years.

But there I am, committed to the effort and committed to the text, bathwater and all.

Same with Shakespeare.  Same with much (not all) of The Canon. I put on my Of Its Time reading glasses, OK I'm cracking this cover, I know going in there's gonna be bathwater but I'm hanging on for the sake of the baby... and I read from that vantage.

 

But.

20 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

It bothered me more to be forced to read a ‘cannon’ that didn’t reflect my family’s perspective at all. I did it because I was forced to and promptly discarded most of it as garbage devoid of 3D authenticity, keeping only the catch phrases and references necessary to communicate that I’d done the deed. It’s all cute and nostalgic to people who use these works as a proxy for lived experience and deeper human interaction/understanding. I don’t expect the works to conform. I expect their proponents to find a new way to communicate an old message.

One of my first substantive interactions with Sneezy, many long years ago, was around a discussion of Huck Finn.

Huck Finn is among a rather short list of books that I can honestly say Rocked My World.  It was also the FIRST book that Rocked My World. The seismic message that I extracted from Huck Finn was a profoundly countercultural antiestablishment clarion call, something like

Quote

Everything you've been taught might be wrong. What you've learned from everyone you trust -- what you've been taught in school, what you've read in books, what you've learned at the knee your exasperated loving aunt, what you've heard preached in church -- all of it: might be wrong. 

There is nothing to be done, but to open your own eyes and pay your own attention and work things out for yourself.

I stared at my mother in wonder. I was a good student, yet I began listening to my teachers very differently after that. Although I was very much a people-pleaser as a child, still, I engaged with authority figures differently, even if mostly inside my own head.  I read books (including sacred texts!) differently. Everything you are taught might be wrong; there is no choice but to pay your own attention and work things out on your own.

Literally I became a different person in response to this insight.

And so when I had kids of my own I went through Huck Finn with them, each of them in turn, slowly. So I've now run through Huck Finn three times as an adult, and (work things out on your own) IMNSHO: in its totality, this is a profoundly anti-racist book.

 

And YET, THAT BATHWATER.

For ME, the content of slavery and racism was the vehicle for that world-rocking antiestablishment message. For ME the antiestablishment message -- which was profoundly opposed to racism -- was what the book was ultimately "about."

Whereas as Sneezy described her (forced) encounter with the book, for HER the encounter with the language and the set-up tropes precluded any possibility of her extracting authenticity from the rest of the story.

** In much the same way as I am unable, every year, to "put aside" the question of Dinah's agency, in ponderously considering the discussions between her brothers and father and their respective ethical and strategic wisdom. **

After a couple of rounds of debate, Sneezy and I hit a point of diminishing returns and laid Huck Finn to rest. That was years ago, and I still return to it.

 

Because I absolutely do hear and respect and accept why it's not merely painful, but untenable for her.  And -- yet, still, and having read it carefully three times as an adult -- I also, believe it's the best depiction of a character slowly and painfully working out an unlooked-for recognition that the only bedrock under my world is my own paying-of-close-attention.  No one else, however authoritative or smart or loving or well meaning, can do it for me.

For me racism was merely the VEHICLE for this insight; for her it was undrinkable bathwater.

And -- years later -- here's where I come out.

  • I am very glad Huck Finn is still in print, bathwater notwithstanding.  Because there's also a baby.
  • I am glad I had my own kids read it, grateful for the discussions we had about it. (I do not miss the irony, in having your mother lead you toward a message that you're on your own in working out your own worldview; everything even your mother tells you might be wrong.)
  • I continue to have grave doubts that the putative reason for removing Huck Finn from school library shelves is genuine.  (This leads to a larger, offshoot and OT issue around how white people have weaponized The N Word to effectively reduce racism down to a tiny almost-invisible dot.)
  • And nonetheless: I agree with Sneezy that Huck Finn has no place on mandatory school reading lists.  Because the bathwater is so filthy that some students are made ill.

 

 

 

ETA LOL I see as I've been typing this tome up that Sneezy independently raised Huck Finn.

FWIW: The vantage point for what **I** extracted as an earth-shattering slow dawning is Tom's. The book-loving adventure-seeking white boy, who in Tom Sawyer was just a kid, and who comes of age in Huck. And there's a lot of Twain, in Tom.  I read Huck as a narrative of how *Twain* came to his antiestablishmentarianism.

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FWIW, I do think the Canon, as taught in schools, is changing. I went to the (virtual) Agnes Scott scholars weekend-these are the applicants that have already received merit aid from the school, and are candidates for the top scholarships. They did trivia questions about the incoming class of 2025, and one was on the books that the students had written their essays on as the most impactful/influential during their high school years. The top two were "The hate U give" and "Beloved". Both are works that I cannot imagine being studied in high school when I attended. Huck Finn was about as close as we got to books that made any attempt at showing the Black experience, and, of course, did so from a White POV. It's quite a contrast, and a very welcome one. 

 

I suspect one reason why Dr. Seuss has stayed so popular is that his birthday falls at the time of year when it really starts to drag, so a special day of wearing paper Cat in the Hat hats and cooking Green Eggs and Ham gives novelty to that dreary time of year. If he'd been born, say, December 15, it's likely that his influence would be much less. I know that my school did a lot for Dr. Seuss's birthday, and mostly it was an excuse to have a party. Certainly a lot of 5th and 6th grade classes participated, and I doubt most of those kids had read a Dr. Seuss book, other than on his birthday, since they were about 7. 

 

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On 3/3/2021 at 11:38 AM, City Mouse said:

I like most Dr. Seuss books, but I was uncomfortable the last time I read Mulberry Street to a class and realized that it did have Inappropriate illustrations. At that point, I stopped reading that one in a school setting. 

Side topic. I own this book and it’s a family favorite. I pulled it out just now bc I’m not seeing racism in it. The whole book is cartoon, but I’m not seeing anything like Africans as monkeys in it. It looks.. culturally diverse to me?  I’m not reading it and hearing subservient or derogatory.  Some people ARE culturally different and do dress differently - is that racist to show that?  I’m not being at all snarky. Genuinely trying to figure it out on this particular book. 

21 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Apparently some people think that allowing the company that owns the rights to a book to decide not to continue publishing it is actually more offensive than depicting Black people as monkeys.

If the decision comes from the estate, then I don’t care.

As for books in general - I’m a fan of reading them with PSAs. 

I was just telling Scarlet that one of our house favs is Honeybunny Funnybunny but it’s a horrible book about sibling abuse. Really. PJ Funnybunny would get a spanking in my house and I rarely spank. So when I read the story I narrate with PSAs. “Gasp of horror! Can you believe what he did?! Yeah I BET amok and dad were upset with him! How rude and mean!”  And “oh see now. This is what happens in abusive relationships. That poor bunny starts to actually think she isn’t loved unless she is being mistreated! How awful and sad. Mom and dad should have a good talking to PJ about how big boy bunnies are supposed to treat people, especially girls and family better. And to Honeybunny about how she is right to feel hurt and angry when treated I lovingly by someone who is supposed to care about her.”

My kids LOVE that book even with my PSAs. LOL

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3 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

I suspect one reason why Dr. Seuss has stayed so popular is that his birthday falls at the time of year when it really starts to drag, so a special day of wearing paper Cat in the Hat hats and cooking Green Eggs and Ham gives novelty to that dreary time of year. If he'd been born, say, December 15, it's likely that his influence would be much less. I know that my school did a lot for Dr. Seuss's birthday, and mostly it was an excuse to have a party. Certainly a lot of 5th and 6th grade classes participated, and I doubt most of those kids had read a Dr. Seuss book, other than on his birthday, since they were about 7. 

Really? Cause I genuinely really like Dr. Seuss books, lol. Maybe not for 5th and 6th graders, but I love them as little kid books. 

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22 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

I suspect one reason why Dr. Seuss has stayed so popular is that his birthday falls at the time of year when it really starts to drag, so a special day of wearing paper Cat in the Hat hats and cooking Green Eggs and Ham gives novelty to that dreary time of year. If he'd been born, say, December 15, it's likely that his influence would be much less. I know that my school did a lot for Dr. Seuss's birthday, and mostly it was an excuse to have a party. Certainly a lot of 5th and 6th grade classes participated, and I doubt most of those kids had read a Dr. Seuss book, other than on his birthday, since they were about 7. 

 

That seems like a stretch.  He is popular because his illustrations are fun and imaginative in a way that kids in his target age range love. Also, the word are easy to remember and a great source for early readers.  I've never celebrated Seuss' b-day but I do have fond memories of just flipping through the pages enjoying the visuals. The Lorax stands out as a book I loved looking at more than reading.

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2 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

There aren’t enough ‘wise’ teachers on Earth to give it appropriate context. Most of it is offered up without any literary counterpoint, only the ill-informed opinions of ‘peers’ for discussion, with those on the receiving end of biases having to inform those who are ignorant or swallow their BS whole. Unless/until Native Son is read alongside other similarly difficult high school works, it’s all lip service.

ETA: Let’s take the perennial favorite Huck Finn. How many teachers require students to critically analyze the story from Jim’s perspective? How many encourage kids to think about the perspective that doesn’t exist b/c Twain wasn’t privy to it? How many critically consider the language/cant for authenticity? Is Jim stupid or shrewd? How did he really feel caring for/saving and also relying on this clueless little white boy? These aren’t the questions being asked when these books are read.

You can’t credibly talk about works as academically valuable without working through these issues. In my experience, which is not any different from what DD is experiencing, shallow analysis is the norm b/c the very people ‘teaching’ these works haven’t ever wrestled with these issues themselves.

And that's why I, as parent, read these books with my kids and discuss them to the best of my ability.

(As for writing from Jim's point of view, I've seen many similar teacher ideas get attacked as racist, so that may be why we don't see much of that in school.  I do agree it would be a useful exercise if done with the right attitude.)

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9 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

One of the things that happens when the bulk of reading you grew up with books that have people who do not look like you is you start finding ways to identify. Pride and Prejudice is one such.

The starting sentence of Pride and Prejudice is half jokingly even now said describes all men of my country of origin, Mrs. Bennet is called Mrs. Besharam (Shameless in Hindi) because her desperation to marry off her daughters is very cultural. But the most identifiable for many girls of my generation was Elizabeth Bennet, Lizzie. I call her my Lizzie, she was who I aspired to be because she was outspoken in a world where women were expected to confirm, had rigid gender roles.Had opinions even when she was young and was not shy about it. She did not let her lowly birth stand in the way of proclaiming herself as an equal in a society where birth order played an important part. In a caste based, gender role oriented society I grew up in Lizzy was my heroine. She still is, the singular person in all of literature who wholly exemplified and still does all I want to be even though I have read hundreds of books about people who look like me. Jane Austen through Lizzie showed me something different, something better though she lived in a country and time other than my own.

Not to cheapen the rest of your post, but have you watched Bride and Prejudice?  (Indian movie.)  My kids found it hilarious.

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13 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

for me personally, I lean towards as much art being available as possible for as many people.  From all places, from all time periods, including (but not limited to) the now. Including work marred (as work from 2021 will be, at some future time) by authors sharing prejudices common to their times).

But does that mean an author who no longer wants those books associated with them, or the ideas in them associated with them, should keep printing them when they don't want to? 

If you had put something out into the world and later regretted it, wouldn't you want to be able to stop publishing it? 

This isn't about others saying it shouldn't be published, it is the people who own the rights, who don't want to publish it. Shouldn't that be an understandable position?

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Legally , whoever owns the rights does, in fact, have the right to publish something or to lock it up and never publish it. That's what "owning the rights" means.

And usually, it *isn't* the author who owns the rights - it's the publisher. There are many books which are not in print, not because the author doesn't want them in print, but because the publisher does not care to print them. There are so many sequels that aren't even written for that very reason.

Until Seuss' work enters the public domain, his estate has the rights to choose not to publish it.

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1 minute ago, Tanaqui said:

Legally , whoever owns the rights does, in fact, have the right to publish something or to lock it up and never publish it. That's what "owning the rights" means.

And usually, it *isn't* the author who owns the rights - it's the publisher. There are many books which are not in print, not because the author doesn't want them in print, but because the publisher does not care to print them. There are so many sequels that aren't even written for that very reason.

Until Seuss' work enters the public domain, his estate has the rights to choose not to publish it.

truth, one of mine (at least) is out of print and the publisher is not reprinting it in that format anymore. (they have reprinted it as part of compilations, but not on its own)

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