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Dr. Seuss Enterprises has caved to the woke scolds. Today, on Theodor Seuss Geisel’s birthday, the foundation canceled six of his books.
“The company that publishes Dr. Seuss’ children’s books said it will stop selling six of his titles because they contain racist and insensitive images.
Dr. Seuss Enterprises — the firm charged with preserving and protecting the beloved author’s legacy — said it scrapped the books because they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”
Well, isn’t that just a fine how do you do? Supposedly several woke scolds finally got hold of the fine people at Dr. Seuss Enterprises and badgered them until they caved. And cave they did by canceling the following books:
“If I Ran The Zoo
And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street
McElligot’s Pool”
On Beyond Zebra!
Scrambled Eggs Super!
The Cat’s Quizzer.”
A couple of years ago, it was big news when a shrewish librarian made herself known for rudely returning First Lady Melania Trump’s gift of Dr. Seuss books. Since then there’ve been multiple articles and opinions written about Dr. Seuss. All of whom claim that, had they known he was so racist, they’d never have read nor introduced his books to their children!
Here’s the thing, they are looking at Dr. Seuss solely from the lens of assuming EVERYTHING he wrote and drew is racist.
Did Theodor Seuss Geissel create anti-Japanese cartoons? Why yes, yes he did. Guess what? He wasn’t the only cartoonist out there who did so. Gee, I wonder what was happening at the time of the creations of those cartoons. OH! I know! World War II. A time when this country was at war with Japan! But the scolds today don’t care about putting things into context.
Evidently the use of monkeys in talking about building a zoo is a slam against Africans.
Seuss was also racist because 99% of his characters in his books were white. Does Seuss need to rise from the grave and redraft his books to be more diverse? That’s the magical thinking of these cancellation shrews.
Showing a drawing of a Chinaman eating with sticks is racist. Hellooooo cancel culture! I’ve a question: Where did chopsticks come from?
Showing an Arab Chieftan on a camel when talking about bringing camels into the zoo is…racist.
By the way, what ever you do, do NOT draw any Asians with eyes that slant. You will be immediately branded a racist upon doing so!
This is their argument for cancelling Dr. Seuss:
“Responding to the idea that Geisel was simply a product of his time, they disagree. “[N]ot all White people ‘of his time’ engaged in overt racism or used their platforms to disseminate racist narratives and images nationally and globally, as he did,” they argue. “There are White people throughout history, and of his generation, who actively resisted racism and risked their lives and careers to stand up against it.”
What an utterly absurd reason for cancelling Dr. Seuss! Except that Dr. Seuss isn’t the only victim of this kind of cancellation. Aunt Jemima is no longer, Hasbro absurdly tried to cancel Mr. Potato Head, The Muppets movies now have idiotic disclaimers on them as do a variety of classic Disney movies, books such as To Kill A Mockingbird are being banned, Coke has decided to be less white, and Shakespeare is too white and too male.
The ditch Dr. Seuss because racism gained steam once President Trump was elected. Prior to that, Seuss was mostly ok. Why? Because Obama liked Dr. Seuss.
But now, Dr. Seuss Enterprises caved to the whims of a few and have canceled six of his books. But that won’t be the end of it. You see, those Sneetches? They are more racist than you think!
“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.”
What tortured reasoning that is! The entire premise of The Sneetches went sailing over their heads because they were so busy looking for racism in every syllable!
The best anti-racism allegory for children ever written. pic.twitter.com/ooVJnMFOap
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 2, 2021
The emotional instability of a few is not a reason for our entire society to overthrow a culture that values freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and individual responsibility. Anyone who surrenders to our cultural authoritarians is a damned coward.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 2, 2021
Those who look for racism under every rock and in every book don’t realize that they are busy deciding who does and who doesn’t get stars upon thars. They are that which they have declared is wrong. They are the Grinches in this cancellation story.
Welcome Instapundit Readers!
Feature Photo Credit: The Grinch by p3ds3 via Pixabay, cropped and modified
GWB says: it will stop selling six of his titles
You know what this means? They can no longer exercise control over the IP. Anyone that wants can now take their copy of those 6 titles and print and sell it (keeping the author’s name on it). It’s what happened to Disney’s Song Of The South. This makes me happy because they should have gone off copyright within a short time from when he passed away, but the newer rules allowed them to contrive a company that could lock them up for all of eternity. But, you publicly state you won’t ever publish them again? You revoke your control over them.
May a thousand Mulberry Streets bloom!
(Oh yes, and they’re moronic woke idiots, too! But Nina already said that.)
(OK, rant…. These people should be crated up and sent to the Third World to live, as they don’t deserve to live in the Western Civilization that our forebears built. They should all be rounded up and shipped off to someplace they admire – like Congo or Saudi Arabia or China. We give ourselves more elbow room to invite Americans born elsewhere, and the stupidity level gets much quieter in our lives. /rant)
[…] Dr. Seuss Enterprises Cancels Dr. Seuss […]
DrSamHerman says: Did the copyrights pass into the public domain? I should not wonder if they did. Geisel was around for a long, long time.
My late wife and I bought each series of Dr. Seuss for our children over the years for my grandchildren. I can honestly say my kids and grandchildren don’t have any racist thoughts at all.
PC gone completely amuck.
IdahoGal says: Well, at least we know who the real racists are now. The WokeScolds screaming about things they know nothing about.
Daniel Schwartz says: Among other things, the Cancellers and the Erasers are doing away with thousands of years of human progress.
Freedom of speech is not a given. We fought hard for it, many died for it, and it can go away quite easily. We learned the hard way that it is far, far better to protect speech — all speech — than to let ideas be censored.
The Cancellers also do not understand that they need opposing ideas. If their own ideas do not have to defend themselves against competing ideas, they will be weak and will not survive.
Thinking is hard. Accepting opposing ideas is hard. It is also vitally important, which is why we did it for so long… until we started surrendering to those who will fight for the right not to think.
The kindergartners have demanded their right to run the university… and we have let them. The results should have been predictable.
We have been down this road before. The Library at Alexandria, the greatest the world had ever seen, was shut down because of its large collections of pagan documents. The Library itself was thus devalued, made to seem unimportant, making it ripe for being burned to the ground a few centuries later. How much irreplaceable knowledge, how much beauty, was irretrievably lost?
Dr. Seuss is not high literature, perhaps. But he taught more anti-racism to more children, in a form they could understand, than any of the Cancellers trying to destroy him.
This is sad. That Dr. Seuss Enterprises has joined the Cancellers just makes it sadder.
Rick Caird says: The left is insane. While it would be the punishment of communism, these people should be locked up lest they the rest of America.
At the time, we find Arizona claiming white babies (and white ones only) are racist at 3 months and need the spoken to about this. When did “The Scream” turn into “The Screech?
Quote from another poster: “it will stop selling six of his titles. You know what this means? They can no longer exercise control over the IP.
You are perhaps confusing copyrights with trademarks. With a trademark, you must use it or lose it. Not so with copyright. It gives the holder the right to never publish or to stop publishing something without altering in the slightest the right to stop someone else from publishing it.
GWB says: Nope. Check out Song Of The South.
Sam L. says: One more time, with…FEELING: The STUPID is STRONG in these ones!
Steve S says: I can hardly wait for Dr. Seuss Enterprises to realize that The Grinch Who Stole Christmas advocates Christianity, and cancels that one.
Oh wait – that one’s still a money-maker. Never mind.
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