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Having fed the beast of censorship, the Puritanical left is on the march for what other “problematic” cultural material they can get rid of.
Nothing is safe and nothing is sacred. Even if you think that getting Dr. Seuss Enterprises to self-censor six books out of publication because of “racist imagery” is okay because “it’s only six books” or whatever justification you want to use, how do you explain eBay then removing those books out of the third-party resale market? That is outright censorship. Not only will the publisher not publish, the seller not sell, but now YOU cannot sell it because the censors say so. Welcome to the new era of “samizdat,” where literature that is being deemed culturally “subversive” will only be allowed to be passed around in dark alleys.
Samizdat, (from Russian sam, “self,” and izdatelstvo, “publishing”), literature secretly written, copied, and circulated in the former Soviet Union and usually critical of practices of the Soviet government.”
Samizdat began appearing following Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, largely as a revolt against official restrictions on the freedom of expression of major dissident Soviet authors. After the ouster of Nikita S. Khrushchev in 1964, samizdat publications expanded their focus beyond freedom of expression to a critique of many aspects of official Soviet policies and activities, including ideologies, culture, law, economic policy, historiography, and treatment of religions and ethnic minorities. Because of the government’s strict monopoly on presses, photocopiers, and other such devices, samizdat publications typically took the form of carbon copies of typewritten sheets and were passed by hand from reader to reader.”
Now, you won’t be dragged out of bed in the middle of the night for owning a copy of “If I Ran The Zoo,” but these books have now gained a cachet that they never would have without the attempt to cancel them. And I do say “attempt” because the value of these books has now skyrocketed, even if they can’t be sold.
The left is now on the hunt for what will be cancelled and censored out of the marketplace next. Fortunately, they send up a lot of signals about what they would love to erase. If you thought the rest of the Dr. Seuss books were safe, think again. Not even ringing endorsements from Barack Obama will protect Dr. Seuss.
Apparently “The Sneetches” is not anti-racist enough, and so it needs to be “re-evaluated.”
In light of this new information, you may wonder about Dr. Seuss books featuring non-human characters. At Teaching Tolerance, we’ve even featured anti-racist activities built around the Dr. Seuss book The Sneetches. But when we re-evaluated, we found that the story is actually not as “anti-racist” as we once thought. And it has some pretty intricate layers you and your students might consider, too.”
The solution to the story’s conflict is that the Plain-Belly Sneetches and Star-Bellied Sneetches simply get confused as to who is oppressed. As a result, they accept one another. This message of “acceptance” does not acknowledge structural power imbalances. It doesn’t address the idea that historical narratives impact present-day power structures. And instead of encouraging young readers to recognize and take action against injustice, the story promotes a race-neutral approach.”
Wow. God forbid that we be “race-neutral” when it comes to dealing with people. Only intellectuals would dream this crap up – or the new woke censors.
Apparently the main lesson a lot of people took from the book: there's a shit ton of money in operating an identity machine pic.twitter.com/qtM56tL48C
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 2, 2021
“But it was only supposed to be six books!” Nope. Like the Sith, the left only deals in absolutes. If you don’t agree with their “anti-racism,” then you are a “racist.”
What else is up on the cancellation chopping block? If LeVar Burton has his way, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
During an interview with Joshua Jackson on MSNBC on Saturday, Burton pointed to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
“Talk about how you’ve seen this evolve over time. I’m sure there are books that maybe you’ve read or seen that were, you know, popular or bestsellers that in retrospect, you might look back at and go, ‘That didn’t age very well,'” Jackson asked.”
“Well, I mean, there are plenty, such as Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn,” Burton replied.”
Well, if Mr. Reading Rainbow is joining in the party by identifying “books that didn’t age well,” how much longer will it be before the censors try to ban Huck Finn again? After all, the book has a long history of people trying to get rid of it. But with former free speech champions like the press and the ACLU now joining in the chorus of the mobs, all I can tell you is to buy a hardcopy now. Not a digital copy, which can be erased with a simple click by an IT guy at Amazon on the orders of the woke censors. Get a physical copy of everything that you want to preserve, if you can.
After all, the Muppet Show already comes with a warning label, so how much longer will it be before actual editing of “problematic images” begins, or cartoons are erased wholesale, as if they never existed? It’s coming.
Bugs Bunny is *spins wheel* transphobic and *roles dice* a colonialist pic.twitter.com/GUro83ZDaf
— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) March 6, 2021
First, the Looney Tunes characters are obviously not designed as role models.
They behave in the most insane, stupid, obsessive & reprehensible manner.
Their flawed nature is why it's morally acceptable and so regressively funny to see them fail miserably over & over. pic.twitter.com/mrnaWhPjv0
— Tim Soret (@timsoret) March 7, 2021
Your childhood memories of Dr. Seuss and Looney Tunes must now be sanitized by the censors and the wrongthink removed for future generations. Again, buy hard copies now, because while there is plenty of mockery against this now, just wait until six Looney Tunes cartoons that the left deems “problematic” are permanently memory-holed and we are told, “But it’s only six cartoons! Looney Tunes isn’t cancelled! You can still watch all the other ones!”
When you feed the beast of censorship, it will not stop coming. After all, you fed it. It’s going to keep coming back for more.
Featured image: original 1884 illustration of Huckleberry Finn by E.W. Kemble, within the public domain
John C. says: The eBay ban did not last long; the evening of the day it was announced, I checked eBay, and there were over 1700 listings for “And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street” alone. I checked again a few minutes ago, and there were dramatically fewer listings (I suspect an awful lot of them were sold in the rush once the listings were again allowed), but there are still listings for all 6 titles. I guess eBay decided the virtue signaling was not worth the horrible optics.
As for “Huckleberry Finn,” there are a buncha people who can tell you exACTly how many times the “n-word” appears in the book, but can not tell you that the book is the most scathing indictment of slavery and racism in American literature. I believe there is a saying about forests and trees…
George V says: From the excerpt about the Dr. Seuss book “The Sneetches”: “This message of “acceptance” does not acknowledge structural power imbalances. It doesn’t address the idea that historical narratives impact present-day power structures.”
This sounds to me like an attempt to normalize a societal “scab picking”, keeping the wound open so it never heals. It seems much like the historical animosity in the Balkans that led up to the wars in Kosovo and Bosnia in the 1990’s.
Gretz says: That’s the point of all of the “Social Justice” junk, and has been since the Marxists have been pushing grievances here in the 50’s, under the promise that with some form of socialism, it would be impossible. (China and Russia are clear demonstrations that it’s not the case, but our feckless media wouldn’t disrupt the narrative to save their own necks.)
It’s designed to sow animosity and gum up the works. What it is expressly designed to NOT do is resolve the problem. Outrage after outrage, a madness more destructive than the tulip bubble.
Race, labor, criminal law, welfare, drugs, feminism, environmentalism, on every front it’s designed to take away the advantages of a republic and a free market. It was Antonio Gramsci’s quest to make us hate our birthright.
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