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![Dr. Seuss’ image of a “Chinaman” to be removed from Dr. Seuss museum [video]](https://victorygirlsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/fullsizeoutput_4f7.jpeg)
The erasure of history continues.
Last week, Dr. Seuss’ hidden racist self was brought to light by a Crusader Librarian when she refused Melania Trump’s gift of to her school library. Liz Phipps Soeiro wrote a snarky letter to Mrs. Trump explaining how racist Dr. Seuss was, but forgot to mention that she has a Cat in the Hat costume in her closet. (So does that make her a closet racist? Come out of the closet Ms. Soeiro!).
Now, responding to more criticism, the Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum in his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts has agreed to remove a mural that depicts a “jarring racial stereotype” of a Chinese character from the book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. Theodor Seuss Geisel included an illustration of a Chinese man “with chopsticks, a pointed hat and slanted slit eyes.”
. @MikeCurato , @LisaYee1 , and I wont be attending the Oct. 14 Springfield, MA, Seuss Museum event as planned. Here is why: pic.twitter.com/TSvnHkFZAj
— Mo Willems' Pigeon (@The_Pigeon) October 5, 2017
Three children’s authors declined the invitation to the museum’s inaugural Children’s Literature Festival, which was set for Oct. 14 before being canceled. After the museum offered to take down the mural, the authors said they would attend, but the museum has not said if the festival is back on.
The museum now says it is focused on children so any of Dr. Seuss’ work that displays his political ideas will also be removed from view. Presenting questionable images without context or explanation is an undesirable way to teach children. However, removing from view things that may be offensive and making them taboo comes with its own set of problems. Perhaps they could have an “adult section” in the Amazing World of Dr. Seuss! It would receive an R, or at least PG-17 rating! Minors would not be allowed to enter without an adult!
The mayor of Springfield, Dominic Sarno, said he wants the mural to stay. Is he being insensitive?
The mayor said he received a call from Susan Brandt, president of licensing and marketing for the company on Friday afternoon.
“I told her next week it will be something else,” Sarno said of the controversy. “You have to put your foot down and draw a line in the sand.”
If there’s one thing that can be said about Dr. Seuss’ illustrations, it was never that they are beautiful depictions of anything. I’ve always found them to be quite ugly, and “jarring” actually is a good word to describe every one of them.
Perhaps some might see them as cute, but they do not present a soothing aesthetic in any way. They are colorful, excitable, display movement, and frenzy. They catch your attention, and for a children’s story they do their job. No one comes out looking handsome in a Dr. Seuss illustration, so to pull out one character as offensive, without putting it next to all the other characters who are illustrated, with nearly all the same exaggerated features, is overly sensitive.
Dr. Seuss’ other cartoons, that are political in nature, may seem like another story.
I can’t pretend to grasp the full context of all of these cartoons, but they are obviously filled with criticism for the US during a time of global crisis.
Dr. Seuss’s political leanings are well known—he was a liberal Democrat who opposed fascism in the 1940s and President Nixon in the 1970s.
The US was at war with Japan and Germany and as such those countries were represented with caricatures. There are cartoons which seem to indicate more criticism of the GOP, and those that show America as being only concerned with herself and not other children or innocents in the world.
Dr. Seuss also did advertisements for Flit – a mosquito repellant. These seem to be the kind of cartoons that have set off most of the criticism.
Of course, I haven’t reviewed the whole of Dr. Seuss’ work, but I have to wonder if those that criticize him have either. I don’t think he can be reduced to a one dimensional image and allow that to overshadow his life’s work. Put his more adult images in context for the children, but don’t hide them away. If anything, these cartoons show much more depth to who he was rather than simply representing him with one styled picture of a “Chinaman.” I don’t get the idea that he was racist, but instead that he was deeply concerned about tyranny and the dangerous advance of communism and fascism. Later in his life he expressed regret for some of the images, and drew cartoons that show his anti-racist sentiment.
As an iconic children’s author and an American, we owe his legacy much more attention than writing him off as a racist. We are losing our ability to think critically and understand humanity. This doesn’t lead to a better society. It leads exactly to a society of authoritarianism and inequality. As the mayor of Springfield said, put your foot down. Insist that the Left and everyone else tell the whole story.
Cloudbuster says: he was deeply concerned about tyranny and the dangerous advance of communism and fascism
Hmm. I don’t think so. I see him as a “liberal Democrat” in the same sense that Woody Guthrie and Dalton Trumbo were — virulently pro-war when siding with Communists against Fascists, but anti-war (and anti-America) when we were fighting Communists.
As an adult I can appreciate some of his apolitical stories, but in works like the Butter Battle Book and The Lorax he was clearly propagandizing his anti-war, anti-corporate and pro-environmentalist leanings to children in ways that encouraged them to emotionalistically embrace his positions at an age when they were too young to grasp the complexities of those subjects, and for that I don’t forgive him.
We see the legacy of that in many Boomers’ reflexively leftist positions on such issues. I believe Dr. Seuss, like Disney, and Sesame Street, had tremendous and not always positive influence.
Jenny North says: The more I see, I tend to agree with you. He was really pro-war in the cartoons I found. But I hadn’t put it into the context of who was fighting who, so this makes sense.
Tom Davis says: If the Chinese were left out, would they be complaining about lack of diversity. How would these critics say he should draw a cartoon of a Chinese such that it would be recognizable as such?
Jenny North says: I really don’t know. I guess that response alone would make me a racist. 🙁
richard40 says: I dont see anything particularly racist or insulting about the Chinaman image. The black image was a bit stereotypical, but pretty mild given the context of the times. And much of the rest of Dr Suess work was against racial bias. His image of Togo with Hitler was insulting, but those 2 were fascist enemies of the US at the time, and thus deserved to be insulted.
Jenny North says: I don’t see it either, and agree the images seem to be very stereotypical of the times.
Shawn sully says: Crusader, try lying martyr for media attention. Dr.Suess wasn’t racist he was depicting an Anglo Saxon and an Asian who became dictators. The Asian looks like the drawing, so did Hitler….but don’t protect Hitler protect Hideki Tojo from racism even though drawing an image of someone and their race isn’t racist. The whole country is gone to crap and I plan on moving to a different country asap. Saving up currently because everyone in this country is the retarded (from the Italian word ritard means slow but sjw wouldn’t know that). Republicans and democrats destroyed America while being controlled by big banks distracting us with stupid shit.
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