Evolving Cultural Viewpoints

[sugar magnolia]

AFAIK, no one has claimed that the Dr. Suess stories in question are, themselves, racist, just that some of the illustrations are.

This may sound sacrilegious, but there are plenty of illustrators out there who can emulate his style of drawing. A little judicious revision of the offending illustrations might eliminate the (I think, unintentional) racism.

This may sound sacrilegious, but it seems to me that it would be preferable to simply discarding the books altogether.

He was a political cartoonist. I doubt any of his illustrations were unintentional.

[Chilidog]

This is a process that has been going on since, I dare say, the dawn of communication. Content, like language itself, evolves. Moves to edit socially unacceptable text most often occur organically. Sometimes specific efforts are dumb, sometimes they are intentional. Overkill is inevitable; underkill is rampant. It's the price of a free society.

Take Mark Twain, and the use of the N word in Huck Finn. Twain is considered one of the greats, and his books were taught in US schools for decades. Then objections arose and the book was not taught or was historically framed. As with Confederate statues, the sage advice is not to destroy, but to frame and explain (and in the case of Confederate statues, to remove from government property). I read Huck Finn as an adult, and my stomach turned.

I am a big fan of the words of Dorothy L. Sayers, who used the N word in a book. I discovered that in reading essays about her, because by the time I read her in my twenties, the word had been removed in almost all editions. What they didn't remove from Sayers works is what by today's standards would easily be considered extensive racism. She stereotypes, sometimes brutally, sometimes lovingly, she mocks, she depends on social stereotypes. Note that I didn't notice this in my first read through (no stomach turning till I read her again in my forties); indeed what appealed to me about her was her soaring feminism. I can imagine a time in the future where Sayers will not be read much, because her racist material will become too objectionable and impossible to remove (nor do I think it should be, for that matter). Even now, I frame her material for myself, and remind myself that it was a different time (a hundred years ago).

The moral of the story is that some things can and will be changed; others cannot or won't be changed. And don't get me started on sexism in literature.

Agatha Christie, anyone

Even the toned down version of "And then there were none" is offensive.

[raison de arizona]

AFAIK, no one has claimed that the Dr. Suess stories in question are, themselves, racist, just that some of the illustrations are.

This may sound sacrilegious, but there are plenty of illustrators out there who can emulate his style of drawing. A little judicious revision of the offending illustrations might eliminate the (I think, unintentional) racism.

This may sound sacrilegious, but it seems to me that it would be preferable to simply discarding the books altogether.

He was a political cartoonist. I doubt any of his illustrations were unintentional.

I agree that the correct word isn't unintentional, he was a person of a different time, and those forms of racism were acceptable and commonplace then. His earlier political cartoons are pretty blatantly racist, but his later ones are the opposite.

Early advert, FLIT was a brand of insect spray.

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WW2.

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seuss_ww2.jpeg (39.35 KiB) Viewed 4013 times

Later.

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seuss_later.jpeg (46.24 KiB) Viewed 4013 times

[Chilidog]

And don't even get me started on Ernest Hemingway's "To Have and Have Not."

[Volkonski]

FLIT- Flies, Lice, Insects, Ticks. It was made by my former employer. Marketed under the slogan "Quick, Henry, the FLIT!" on a Dr. Seuss cartoon of various fantastic insects.

That sprayer was called a FLIT Gun.

Speaking of evolving viewpoints, FLIT would be illegal today.

[raison de arizona]

They’re coming for our gunz Dr. Seuss books!

[AndyinPA]

I saw a clip on the news tonight about faux noise. Apparently, they blamed the stopping of the publication of the Seuss books on the Democrats or the Biden Administration or something.

[Frater I*I]

I saw a clip on the news tonight about faux noise. Apparently, they blamed the stopping of the publication of the Seuss books on the Democrats or the Biden Administration or something.

Thanks Obama...ohhh wait that's sooooo 2012...

[Suranis]

Its a bit like Maximilian Kolbe, who Jews think should bit be venerated at all becasue he reportedly edited an Anti-Semetic publication in his youth, but at Auschwitz took the place of a Jewish man being sent to a starvation room to die.

And it wasn't a nice quick death by bullet either. When I said starvation I meant exactly that.

[HST's Ghost]

This may sound sacrilegious, but there are plenty of illustrators out there who can emulate his style of drawing. A little judicious revision of the offending illustrations might eliminate the (I think, unintentional) racism.

This may sound sacrilegious, but it seems to me that it would be preferable to simply discarding the books altogether.

Though this kinda touches on another element of 'we must defend and teach the classics'. The books were good, the guy was a good author, the illustrators were skilled artists. New, likely equally skilled authors and artists are entering the industry all the time, ready to make their own mark. I actually get a little concerned at the 'sorry, our culture is full' problem that clinging too hard to classics can represent. While some continuity to our past is important, I think revisiting and dropping the focus on problematic works opens up a lot of space for new cultural works to become classics.

This is an excellent point that I don't believe I have ever read before.

You have to put down something old, to pick up something new...What hubris to think that we have somehow reached the peak of social, cultural and mental development while there is still so much open road waiting to be constructed. The survival of the earth really depends on humanity picking up on new modes of thought and consciousness.

[Whatever4]

A friend of mine writes a blog about children’s books, mostly from a Jewish angle. Her take on Dr. Seuss.

No, children should not read books with grotesque racist caricatures. Here I call attention to specific problems in an article that broadly attacks Dr. Seuss for his racism, and specifically lacks context concerning his antifascism and defense of Europe’s Jews. Most authors find that much of their work quickly goes out of print. The early works by Dr. Seuss with offensive images might well have taken that route. Instead, by announcing their decision, Dr. Seuss Enterprises was able to prove they had taken a stand against racism. Now the books are virtually inaccessible to scholars, librarians, or anyone else who would like to study and analyze them, because they cost hundreds of dollars on the secondary market. Readers might not be aware that, for one example, the original edition of Mary Poppins had a chapter called “Bad Tuesday” full of abhorrent racist terms. It has been removed from later editions of the book, with a note indicating that the book has been edited. This might have been a possibility with early Dr. Seuss books. Dr. Seuss’s legacy as someone who truly revolutionized teaching reading to children has not changed. Kids still read The Cat in the Hat, Yertle the Turtle, and the Horton books, while McElligot’s Pool has long faded from view. Nonetheless, it is important to have access to these books in order to assess Dr. Seuss’s full legacy: good, bad, and indifferent.

https://imaginaryelevators.blog/2021/03 ... kHfhrS8YD4

[raison de arizona]

I have an odd “knowledge by osmosis” on Fox News topic of the day: Dr. Seuss. I was an advisor on a fascinating thesis about his history & his books. And as usual, the GQP is full of it.

Dr. S, or Ted Geisel, was a man who, unlike members of GQP, evolved. He despised some of his early work before he became a children’s book author, but was just a cartoonist. His early stuff was littered with racist images of black, chinese & Japanese people. The black characters were the worst, made to look like monkeys in images a Klansmen would applaud.

Geisel apologized for his early work’s depiction of minorities. In his earliest books, he had not completely emerged from the mindset that led to his racially offensive cartoons. You will see the similarities between the cartoon above and this image from “If I Ran The Zoo”...

...then you have “And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street.” That one Geisel started “canceling” (in GQP parlance) on his own because he grew. In the original, on the left, you had the “Chinaman.” Geisel changed the image somewhat in 1970, and revised name to “a Chinese Man”...

...but this portrayal just two steps away from 1940s racist imagery of Chinese Americans still continued to create problems. The business Dr. Seuss Enterprises sponsored a mural at a museum in 2017, and invited a group of artists to attend an event including a number of Chinese Americans. But they refused to go because the “Chinese Man” image had become part of the mural. In Nashville, the library put together a session on how to deal with racist images in dr. Seuss books when reading to your kids. (Didn’t say don’t show them, but how to use them as a teaching moment. But this is not what a business involved in children’s books, toys and products wants to be: “ let’s use your Fischer price toys to teach you about genocide, Johnny!”

Worse, parents were reading these books and flipping to a page without knowing it was there, exposing small children to an ugly image. Below is the image @GOPLeader is defending as something children should be shown. Every year, African American little kids are on mom or dads lap, a page is flipped & “here is someone just like you!” appears...

...that experience - African Americans parents being forced to try and get past an image that could devastate their child, Chinese American parents having to explain to their children why someone like them is shown running with slits for eyes and carrying chopsticks etc. lots of those parents, upset with what they had inadvertently exposed their children to, wrote & called both Random House and Seuss Enterprises to complain. Of course, that was offset by calls from @GOPLeader and the GQP laughing and cheering and asking for more racist images, maybe on the cover. This is the party of Kung Flu, remember. Racism is their thing

Back to real world. The first person who would be cheering this decision to stop licensing these books is Dr Seuss himself. He showed his ability to evolve, to recognize harmful imagery built on racist stereotypes. He was both a product of his times and - as he grew - someone who was able to see where times were going. Able to see that ridiculing people for their race was horrific. That these images had greater chance of hurting childrens sense of self worth — and inspiring young GQPrs to laugh about racial stereotypes and save it up as something to tease Chinese Americans/African Americans with. Think about it this way, Kevin and other GQPrs. What if children’s books portrayed their white characters like this?

...would you enjoy having to explain to little Adolph why all whites people in his picture book are shown to be drunken, violent, racist slobs? Or perhaps would you say, “this is inappropriate for a children’s book. My child shouldn’t have to face this. This makes all whites look like they are all @GOPLeader. And no one wants to be that!”

So, no, self centered, whiny, racist scumbags in the GQP. The decision by a business to respond to minority parents who didn’t want their little children exposed to racist imagery is not “cancel culture” it’s human decency. It’s smart business. It’s acting to reflect Geisel’s evolution & values. It’s all the GQP isn’t. Theres a reason he grew from racist newspaper cartoons to his many books about inclusion, mutual respect & love. And those works will be celebrated forever.
End

https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/stat ... 72518?s=20

[DejaMoo]

This may sound sacrilegious, but there are plenty of illustrators out there who can emulate his style of drawing. A little judicious revision of the offending illustrations might eliminate the (I think, unintentional) racism.

This may sound sacrilegious, but it seems to me that it would be preferable to simply discarding the books altogether.

Bowdlerize: to remove elements considered offensive (from a literary work or other work of art).

Bowdlerization is similar to censorship, but more narrowly defined. Censorship is often official, often politically motivated, and often applied to nonartistic texts, while bowdlerization is usually done by a private individual or group seeking to make a work of art more morally acceptable. Also, censorship often involves outright removal of parts of texts, while bowdlerization often involves cleaning things up but not removing them. The word tends to have negative connotations. Bowdlerizers typically use other terms to describe what they do.
https://grammarist.com/words/bowdlerize/

As a child who was (and still is) a voracious reader, I deeply resented anyone else making decisions as to what I could or should not read. Reading is learning. Read it, discuss it, talk about how things used to be versus how they are now.

A few years ago the American Library Association renamed the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award to the Children's Literature Legacy Award. Per the ALA, "The decision was made in consideration of the fact that Wilder's legacy, as represented by her body of work, includes expressions of stereotypical attitudes inconsistent with ALSC's core values of inclusiveness, integrity and respect, and responsiveness."

This prompted a flurry of objections by fans of the Little House books, who mostly said even as children they had understood the context in which the hurtful incidents and attitudes took place.

The Anne of Green Gables series also has numerous objectionable or disturbing incidents in it, most notably the repeated references to farmers hanging dogs. Nowadays, that's pretty damned disturbing for a child to read; a hundred years ago, it was understood that farmers had to deal with predatory loose dogs.

Owls in the Family, a children's book by Farley Mowat, was one of my favorite reads as a child. After finally locating a copy, I re-read it recently and was appalled. The boys acquire their first owl by taking it as a fledgling from a nest, the second owl is "rescued" from a group of children who'd put it in a barrel and were throwing rocks at it. In a later chapter, after the boy's father is annoyed by crows harassing one of the owls, he takes his gun and starts indiscriminately killing the crows, to "teach them a lesson". The thing is, as a child these parts of the book had no impact on me, the proof being that I couldn't even remember them. What I got out of the book as a child was the novelty of having owls as pets, and the humor from the various stunts the kids and the owls got into.

People are so incredibly short-sighted. Most have no sense of history, no grasp of how things change over time and thus have to be understood in the context of their time. That requires understanding, insight, and some effort. It's just so much simpler to apply contemporary viewpoints and denounce anything that doesn't measure up to one's current standards. And most of those guilty of doing this don't believe anything they say or do will ever be subject to the same scrutiny.

Being this is children's literature, there is no one simple solution. Personally, I'd prefer to keep the books intact, only permitting the author to make changes. And maybe even issue bowdlerized versions for those buyers who'd prefer them. The now-defunct Whitman Publishing Company specialized in publishing bowdlerized versions of children's classics, and it was very successful.

[neeneko]

Bowdlerize: to remove elements considered offensive (from a literary work or other work of art).

I have always seen bowdlerization as the worst of both worlds. I would much rather new authors and artists create either original work or retell earlier stories. You get so much more clear contitunity with the past by making something new and pointing back to what inspired it, with the added bonus that some new author/artist gets the personal credit they deserve for their creation.

Altering someone else's work and releasing it in a way that makes it appear to be the original is just... ugh. With, of course, room for artists and authors to revisit and revise their own creations.

[raison de arizona]

Great point being made here, punishing the publisher for dropping future publication of six books by pushing them into the top sellers list for their other books is, uh? It doesn't make sense? But you guys do you, I'm just happy to see you buying books at all!

[neeneko]

Ok, so this decision I am a lot less comfortable with. I have zero issue with the estate or publisher deciding to no longer produce new copies, but I think things start to get a lot tricker when private entities with overwhelming market control make such a decision.

Dr. Seuss Books Deemed Offensive Will Be Delisted From eBay

[raison de arizona]

Ok, so this decision I am a lot less comfortable with. I have zero issue with the estate or publisher deciding to no longer produce new copies, but I think things start to get a lot tricker when private entities with overwhelming market control make such a decision.

Dr. Seuss Books Deemed Offensive Will Be Delisted From eBay

Why? They're a private company, they can sell what they want. There are plenty of things you can't buy on eBay. They have a pretty clear policy about what they won't sell in this area. I'm sure the books will be available on specialty book dealer sites for those who wish to hunt them out. And they'll become more rare and valuable as time marches on.

[Lani]

Ebay does a lot of stupid shit. But if you have something to sell, it's a good place to do it.

I'm fine with the trust no longer publishing some of the books. I loved Seuss when I was little and decades later read them to my son, who also loved them. We would talk in Seuss sometimes. Like putting on his shoes.

[Junior] has two shoes, both are blue and both are new.
One for the left foot, one for the right.
Not too loose and not too tight.

We drove people crazy with Seuss-speak!

But on the other hand, when I was little (A person's a person no matter how small - Seuss), I wanted books about exciting, brave, smart girls. Very rare Anyone else read the Cherry Ames, RN series? I enjoyed them, but why didn't she become a doctor? Because women would marry and raise children after taking a place in medical school away from a man.

The Seuss books are from another era, and most of them exclude altogether or stereotype women, girls, and POC in general. I will still love some of them, especially The Lorax and Horton Hears a Who, and occasionally Seuss-speak.

[sugar magnolia]

My kids read and loved Seuss, but the best of the best for us was Shel Silverstein. The kids are grown now and still quote from his poetry occasionally.

[AndyinPA]

Lani,

I read Cherry Ames. It made me decide to become a nurse, but I backed out once I was accepted into a nursing school. I loved the books, but I'm glad I decided before I started down that path that it really wasn't what I wanted to be.

[Lani]

Wow. I never knew anyone else who read the Cherry Ames books.

Re Seuss, I forgot the furor about The Lorax. Like indoctrinating kids with rotten commie ideas about environmentalism and climate change. "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." Now the rightwing is praising him... for the wrong reasons.

It was Dr. Seuss's personal favorite of his books. He was able to create a story addressing industrial/economic and environmental issues without it being dull: "The Lorax came out of me being angry. In The Lorax I was out to attack what I think are evil things and let the chips fall where they might."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lorax#Plot

[FiveAcres]

I read Cherry Ames. It made me decide to become a nurse, but I backed out once I was accepted into a nursing school. I loved the books, but I'm glad I decided before I started down that path that it really wasn't what I wanted to be.

Sue Barton fan here, but never had any desire to be a nurse, or any other sort of medical professional.

[Volkonski]

Not to overlook Seuss's "The Sneetches and Other Stories".

[Volkonski]

Jake Tapper
@jaketapper
One of the weirdest parts of this culture war is that the self-styled “warriors” aren’t willing to stand by the empirically racist images they’re supposedly defending. Green Eggs and Ham is not one of the books the
@DrSeuss
Foundation has decided to stop publishing.
Quote Tweet
Kevin McCarthy
@GOPLeader
· 14h
I still like Dr. Seuss, so I decided to read Green Eggs and Ham.

RT if you still like him too!

[Chilidog]

When my son was little, someone gave us a small comforter style blanket with a scene from Winnie the Pooh printed on it.

Christopher Robin was shown as a little boy with short hair and wearing short pants.

I found it rather amusing how they had totally changed the depiction from the original illustrations.