On the whole Dr Seuss Thing

So this Tuesday Dr Seuss Enterprises stated that they would no longer be printing six of his books.

And the world seems to have lost its mind.

A tiny part of me gets it.  I grew up with Dr Seuss.  My kids are growing up with Dr Seuss.  I do not think he's a total hero - his books are super gendered and have little female representation.  But his books are good at teaching kids literacy in a fun way.  It is hard to envisage a world without Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat or Fox in Socks (my favourite).  And we don't need to.  Because none of these books made the list.  This is the out-of-print list:

And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street (1937)  
McElligot's Pool (1947)
If I Ran The Zoo (1950)
Scrambled Eggs Super (1953)
On Beyond Zebra (1955)
The Cat's Quizzer (1976)

While I've read some of the books on that list, none of them are books I'd consider 'Classic Seuss'.  Seriously, when did you last sit down and think 'Hmmm, I really need to buy McElligot's Pool for my kids.'*  Or 'Man I miss reading On Beyond Zebra, I wonder if it's at Whitcoulls?'  Sure, it's a shame the first kids book he got published no longer will be.  But this is small fish compared to the reasons not to.

The reasons for not continuing to print these books is because they contain racist imagery**.  That's it.  As quoted directly from the statement from Dr Seuss Enterprises:

'These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.
Ceasing sales of these books is only part of our commitment and our broader plan to ensure Dr. Seuss Enterprises’s catalog represents and supports all communities and families.'

Because at it stands, the magic of Seuss is for white kids.

Having a relationship with an author that not only excludes you but actively makes fun of your heritage is complicated.  It's easy to love Seuss if you're white.  Even easier if your male.  It's easy to shrug these few books off as 'whoopsies'.  It's a lot harder if you're not.  If you're not, his is just another racist voice in the crowd.  Even if you love some of his books, how do you feel comfortable reading books by  someone who creates racist imagery?  Especially in a world that already treats you differently.  The discontinuation of publishing these books is an effort to make the rest of Dr Seuss's catalogue more accessible to more people.  And while this cannot rectify the issues caused by them being published in the first place, it is at least an effort to acknowledge this issue.

One of his cartoons depicting Hirohito

And honestly, I think Dr Seuss would have applauded it.

Before he was spitting rhymes in kids books Geisel was a political cartoonist.  He drew over 400 cartoons for the New York Newspaper between 1941 and 1943 .  Many of these had racist content - particularly aimed at the Japanese.  He was a product of his times.  Pearl Harbour was bombed in December 1941.  I am not justifying his actions, but I understand that this was essentially his job.  Much of the US lived in fear of what their future held, and fear is a big driver of prejudice.

 
But at his heart, Theodor Seuss Geisel was a liberal and a moralist.  Many of his books convey liberal messages - The Sneetches is a critique of anti-Semitism.  The Butter Battle Book conveys the dangers (and futility) of the arms race.  And Horton Hears A Who! is about listening, and helping uplift the powerless.  Geisel passed away in 1991.  He never witnessed the LA riots of 1992.  He never saw the rise in Islamophobia following September 11.  And he never heard about the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis Police Officer in 2020.  If he had, I really don't think he would have backed the racist imagery a younger Seuss had drawn.

Because around the same time he was drawing these awful cartoons he was also drawing these:

He understood the dangers of prejudice.  He was concerned about how they were affecting things at home in the US.  And as he got older, his books became more inclusive.  Of the more than 50 books he published from 1954 onward - only one of those books made the list.  Geisel made an effort to change with the times.  His books addressed not just issues from earlier times, but climate change, political freedom, and the importance of creativity in an ordered world.

But I think the reason we value Seuss so highly is because of how successfully he has shared his love of words.  The Cat In The Hat was written as a response to the debate about early literacy in America.  He wrote it in an effort to rid the world of Dick and Jane and the terribly boring world they occupied.  And in doing so he introduced fun and colour and rhyme which helped to engage young readers.

So if you're one of those people who is upset about this I want you to really consider what it is you're upset about.  What have you lost?  Are you really upset that these books are no longer being published - that they will be harder to get?  I honestly think this is about fear.  Fear of a changing world.  Fear of a world that looks different to the world many of us grew up in.  And it's so important to remember that fear is a dangerous thing.   Fear was used by Hitler back in the 1930's to engage the masses.  Fear was used by Donald Trump in recent times to do the same thing.  Fear is the food of racism.  Fear is the starter of wars.  But fear also halts progress, it maintains the current hegemony.

If we want this world to be more accessible, if we want people to have equal opportunities we need to acknowledge the mistakes of our past.  We need to accept that while change is scary, it is necessary for us to move toward a more balanced world.  This is a small change.  Real change requires much more.  And in the famous words of Dr Seuss himself:

* And I seriously wouldn't.  Not just because of the racist imagery, but that book is super creepy.  I think that as a child it was the second most scary Dr Seuss book I ever read (the scariest was definitely What Was I Scared Of.  The third scariest was The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins).

** I do not need to repost those images here.  You can look them up for yourself if you want.