Evolving Cultural Viewpoints

[Volkonski]

The Associated Press
@AP
Six Dr. Seuss books — including “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” and “If I Ran the Zoo” — will stop being published because of racist and insensitive imagery, the business that preserves and protects the author's legacy said.

https://t.co/FB2boW7ao0?amp=1

[tek]

I haz a sad.

daughter.tek went to school, grades 6-10, three blocks from that very Mulberry Street.

[pipistrelle]

I’m not sure this kind of cultural purging is a good idea. Can’t pretend racism hasn’t long been a prevailing attitude embedded in society and culture.

[neeneko]

Eh, I am actually ok with this kind of purge.

It isn't burning books, it is not removing them from library shelves or circulation, just stopping the production of new material for sale. Plenty of history to be remembered and accessed without creating more of it.

[neonzx]

This is disturbing to me. The books are for young-ins. Is there some way to preserve, modify them with context of current times?

[noblepa]

I’m not sure this kind of cultural purging is a good idea. Can’t pretend racism hasn’t long been a prevailing attitude embedded in society and culture.

I'm not sure that this isn't going overboard.

My wife is a retired children's librarian (kindergarten - second grade) and she is outraged by this.

I'm not sure exactly what "racist and insensitive imagery" they are talking about. I'll bet that young kids reading these books never make the connection.

I remember feeling the same way about the Disney movie "Song of the South". It was only as an adult, when Disney announced that they would no longer distribute the movie, that I looked back and thought "yeah, I can see the subtle racism". As a child, I just thought it was a fun movie, with one of the great movie songs of all time, "Zip a dee doo dah".

I remember about ten years ago, someone proposed printing an edition of "Huckleberry Finn", with the n-word edited out. I think that cooler heads prevailed and it was realized that the book is probably the least racist book ever written, despite the use of that word. Huck was absolutely sure that he was going to hell for helping Jim escape to the North, but he did it anyway, because it was the right thing to do. It was an indictment of the casual attitude toward slavery that many held. I don't think that anyone who has really read this book, and given it any thought, can believe that it is, in any way, supportive of slavery or racism.

When my wife and I lived in San Diego, we took a drive over to Coronado. As we were driving around, admiring the beautiful (and expensive) homes, we passed one house with fiberglass figures of Dr. Suess characters around the lawn. We thought it odd, but didn't think anything of it. Only years later, when it made the news that a couple of the figures had been stolen, did we realize that that was Ted Geisel's house.

[neonzx]

Can someone point me to the issue? Maybe I'm blind or deaf.

[Estiveo]

The Chinese boy eating with sticks is drawn as what is now seen as racist stereotyping, when the wagon becomes a sled, the people in it are drawn as stereotypical eskimo, which might be offensive to First Nations folk, and the rajah with rubies has the crescent moon of Islam on his palanquin, possibly offensive to muslims (although that one may be a stretch).

Beyond that? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[sugar magnolia]

The foundation that owns the books has simply decided to not print any more. They aren't recalling any existing copies, editing it in any way, or censoring anything. If it's ok for Bed Bath and Beyond to decide to simply stop stocking MyPillow, why isn't it ok for the publisher to stop publishing 6 (out of 60+) books? I'm thinking that the foundation dedicated to his legacy might know better than we do about what he would approve of.

[Volkonski]

Most of Dr. Seuss's books are meant for very young children. (Let us leave "The Seven Lady Godivas" for another discussion. )

That is the problem. The images that children see partly shape their worldview for better or worse. There is nothing overtly offensive in, say, "Dick, Jane and Sally" but by showing an exclusively white America it sends a message, intended or not, that white people are the norm and nonwhites are not.

We have gone a long way toward eliminating racist imagery in advertising and such but advertising is ephemeral. It disappears and is replaced. Popular children's books are not ephemeral.

A living author might be persuaded to make revisions. After complaints, Charles Dickens rewrote "Oliver Twist" to reduce the number of times that Fagin was referred to as a Jew or was described using 19th Century British Jewish stereotypes. Dr. Seuss is dead and can't revise his books.

I don't know what the best solution to this is.

A personal anecdote, in 1954 or 55 our family moved to Florida looking for work in the aftermath of the post-Korean War (1953-54) recession. My parents had friends there and my father had an uncle there. My brother and I only knew the totally white world of small town central Massachusetts. Knowing that going south he and I would see black people for the first time our mother bought us a copy of "Little Black Sambo" so we would get used to the fact that there were black people in the world.

Well, one day as we traveled south we did see a black lady. At which moment I said to my mother, " Look, its Little Black Sambo's mother". My world was small. I only knew of one black child so the first black lady I saw must be his mother. My mother apologized and the lady was nice about it. Probably helped that I was 3 or 4 years old and cute.

Might have gone better if any other book I then owned had a picture of a black character in it.

[p0rtia]

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.

[Mrich]

Here's a twitter thread where this is discussed:

[neonzx]

I'm still not seeing it. A Chinese boy using chop-sticks is cultural. It's not offensive, imho. When I go to a Chinese restaurant, I use chop-sticks (try to). "When in Rome..."

Several years ago, I rented a condo here in Florida for a couple who lived up north. That couple came down for a visit and we were sitting around my kitchen table. The wife was asking about the tenant, "is she...?" (with an eye). She was asking if the tenant was black, in a coy way. I played stupid. My father was visiting too and at the table and spoke up "Neon doesn't see color."

Content of character.

// sidebar: that wife is the woman who told me Dr. Fauci was a "criminal" -- right-wing crazy lady. But she's old in her 80s.

[Estiveo]

It's not that the chinese boy was using chopsticks, it's that he was drawn with the coolie hat and pigtail.

[sugar magnolia]

I'm still not seeing it. A Chinese boy using chop-sticks is cultural. It's not offensive, imho. When I go to a Chinese restaurant, I use chop-sticks (try to). "When in Rome..."

Several years ago, I rented a condo here in Florida for a couple who lived up north. That couple came down for a visit and we were sitting around my kitchen table. The wife was asking about the tenant, "is she...?" (with an eye). She was asking if the tenant was black, in a coy way. I played stupid. My father was visiting too and at the table and spoke up "Neon doesn't see color."

Content of character.

// sidebar: that wife is the woman who told me Dr. Fauci was a "criminal" -- right-wing crazy lady. But she's old in her 80s.

That's the problem. We don't get to decide what is offensive, the people it affects do.

[neonzx]

FoxNews, so take as is.

[Volkonski]

It's not that the chinese boy was using chopsticks, it's that he was drawn with the coolie hat and pigtail.

Wearing the pigtail was not an ancient Chinese custom. It was forced on them by the Manchu who conquered China in the 17th Century.

Wearing the pigtail declined in that late 19th Century due to western influences and widespread dislike of the Qing Dynasty.

After the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 Sun Yat-sen, then Provisional President of the Republic of China, announced that men should cut their hair and stop wearing Manchu style clothing. Most Chinese men complied. Western fashion became common amongst prominent Chinese.

Sun Yat-sen in 1911-



So in the time that Dr. Seuss was working the pigtail was an outdated stereotype.

[Lani]

The Chinese boy is not dressed as a Chinese-American boy. And almost all the characters are white men, as are all of the politicians and police. I don't see any girls or women, and the only person of color is the Chinese-American boy.

[Suranis]

After looking at that youtube vid I really cant see what the issue is. But its up to the Publisher what they print, so whatever.

[raison de arizona]

New Study Published on Racism and Dr. Seuss

Research on Diversity in Youth Literature (RDYL) has published a new study on racism in Dr. Seuss books. In “The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, Anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss's Children's Books,” published in the February issue of RDYL, researchers Katie Ishizuka and Ramón Stephens looked at 50 books and more than 2,200 characters written by Theodor Geisel over 70 years "to evaluate the claims that his children’s books are anti-racist," according to the paper.
<snip>
What the authors found did not support Dr. Seuss’s most ardent supporters:

“In the fifty Dr. Seuss children’s books, 2,240 human characters are identified. Of the 2,240 characters, there are forty-five characters of color representing two percent of the total number of human characters. The eight books featuring characters of color include: ​The Cat’s Quizzer: Are YOU Smarter Than the Cat in the Hat?;Scrambled Eggs Super!; Oh, the Places You’ll Go!; On Beyond Zebra; Because a Little Bug Went Ka-choo; If I Ran the Zoo; And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street; ​and​ Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?

"Of the forty-five characters of color, forty-three are identified as having characteristics aligning with the definition of Orientalism. Within the Orientalist definition, fourteen people are identified by stereotypical East Asian characteristics and twenty-nine characters are wearing turbans. Characters aligned with Orientalism are sometimes attributed an ethno-racial identity, but are generally situated within a colorblind lens, often from an unspecified nationality, race, or ethnicity. Only two of the forty-five characters are identified in the text as “African” and both align with the theme of anti-Blackness.

“White supremacy is seen through the centering of Whiteness and White characters, who comprise 98% (2,195 characters) of all characters. Notably, every character of color is male. Males of color are only presented in subservient, exotified, or dehumanized roles. This also remains true in their relation to White characters. Most startling is the complete invisibility and absence of women and girls of color across Seuss' entire children’s book collection.”

When humans weren’t involved, the findings weren’t any more positive.

“In addition, some of Dr. Seuss' most iconic books feature animal or non-human characters that transmit Orientalist, anti-Black, and White supremacist messaging through allegories and symbolism. These books include ​The Cat in the Hat​; ​The Cat in the Hat Comes Back​; ​The Sneetches​; and ​Horton Hears a Who!”

https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=new-st ... d-dr-seuss

[MN-Skeptic]

It sounds like some of Dr. Seuss' children's books belong in the dustbin of history. And while they're at it, they can toss some of the 70 year old Christmas songs they're still playing on the radio. Any Christmas song sung by Gene Autry has reached its expiration date in my opinion. My goodness!... there are LOTS of newer children books to read instead of decades old insensitive ones. And LOTS of newer Christmas songs to play too!

[Foggy]

Geisel was born in 1904.

The world was what it was back then, and racism was a part of it. If I condemn him, do I have to condemn my own grandparents? They weren't bad people, but they had a lot of racist opinions.

However, I agree with MN-Skeptic. It's time to move forward with other children's books.

[noblepa]

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.

[neeneko]

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.

[FiveAcres]

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.