Is Dr. Seuss worse than Hitler? I didn’t think so, before, but I’ve been hearing things lately that have caused me to doubt myself. Obviously, he wasn’t blatant about it. He didn’t write To Think that I Signed a Petition to Keep You from Buying a Home on Mulberry Street or Mr. Braun’s a Jew, are You?; but, there is some controversy over his illustrations. I read a lot of Seuss as a child and I couldn’t remember any racist illustrations; but, that’s because I wasn’t reading newspaper ads in the 1920’s (I would go straight to the sports section to see how Babe Ruth was hitting). I took a look at some of those ads and HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD IN HEAVEN!
I can imagine those drawings are like a punch in the gut to some people… just as it is a punch in the gut for me, a tribal member, to see a W. C. Fields shooting American Indians from a train with light music playing in the background or when I hear Diana Krall try to sing.
But, what about his children’s books? Well…
Pretty harsh, eh? Like having dinner in a Chinese restaurant with your grandfather who is pretty sure he is doing a spot-on impersonation of the waiter. (Tip: If this happens, do NOT eat the soup they bring you) “Chinese” in those drawings are reduced to a pig-tail, coolie-hat and eyes that look like a backslash on your computer keyboard. They have been reduced to symbols.
Those of us from earlier times see unintended racism in books and movies and we don’t call it “racism”. We refer to it as “hard to watch”… just like we refer to our wives after they hit us with a piece of asphalt in a parking lot for bringing our grandfather to a Chinese restaurant as “spirited”.
Everybody was a racist back then. It meant that you were part of a special club that included others that looked and sounded like you. You didn’t literally meet, in most cases, because some of your fellow club members were total dicks. I remember when my parents gave me a lecture on why there shouldn’t be interracial marriages. It was a well-reasoned and ridiculous argument that would’ve had a bigger impact if they weren’t an interracial couple themselves.
So, was Dr. Seuss a racist, or just “hard to watch”? Well, the internet is full of quotes from Dr. Seuss. The most racist of them is “From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere!” which, I’ve been told, is an indictment of Pancho Villa. Usually, when given several decades to make his racism known, a true racist does not keep his cards very close to his chest.
The theme of The Sneetches is the stupidity of racism, only with belly-stars instead of 
Those who hold the rights to the Dr. Seuss books have every right to hold them back until they figure out what to do with them. It might be as simple as erasing some of the offensive images or replacing them with characters from the television show Boston Legal. They also have the right to continue printing them… that’s what makes capitalism the second best economic system in the world. They have to decide if offending some non-whites is worth keeping the books intact. Personally, I think that, if Dr. Seuss were alive today, he’d be okay with removing the offending images. The philosophy behind his books was inclusion after all.
Will I still read Dr. Seuss to my two boys? No. But, that’s because they are in their twenties and it just makes them uncomfortable when I read them children’s books. It intrigues me, though, to see where we will go with this. Progress comes in fits and starts and sometimes the starts are way more interesting than the fits…
Potatoes and the Promise of More Potatoes 
Odd. Only now has “something about” Dr Suess been creeping into my consciousness. Why are you writing about him? What’s the drama and how did this get started? Briefly, my opinion is that Dr Suess, whatever he is or whatever he means, should be read, taught, published and printed as a reminder of who we are and how far we have to go. Removing or changing certain words from Mark Twain is an equally horrid idea. Do not erase or deny the past. Embrace it, learn from it, grow.
I have spoken.
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Recently, the folks with publishing rights to his works stated they wouldn’t be publishing six of his books until further notice due to racist imagery. Republican congressmen have been wailing about it along with Mr. Potatohead. So, I figured I’d do an editorial on it.
The grandfather in the Chinese restaurant? Mine. Excruciating!
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Well, if they own the rights, they own the rights. Thanks for the cultural update.
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Yeah, I’m getting whiffs…something about the gender of Mr. Potatohead…no wonder I refuse to get involved…
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I think your refusal to get involved will add years to your life…
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I didn’t think they would stop publishing those books. I don’t like the idea of hiding history. The Sneetches is one of my favorite children’s stories. I still have my copy from when I was a kid. If my kids loved Seuss we would just have some talks about the imagery but I wouldn’t keep the books away from them.
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That’s what I did with my kids. Yeah, I understand the problems with sugarcoating history, definitely…
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I’m very torn about this issue. While I always adored Seuss, I did my research and frankly was shocked at the blatant racism. I can’t imagine black and Asian parents are comfortable sharing those images with their children and we shouldn’t be either. I think his estate was correct in pulling them. It’s not erasing history, it’s correcting the mistakes of the past.
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I was unsure whether to publish this one because people have such strong and varied opinions on it. But, I wrote it and so it had to go somewhere…
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I miss the days you could post a personal opinion and not have to wear body armor. Good times.
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I knew that, even among my readers, there would be differences of opinion on this one.
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I love Seuss and loved reading him to my kids. I agree with your supposition that if Seuss was alive today, he’d agree to removing/replacing all offensive images. That first graphic is a doozy though. Excellent post.
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I’m glad someone agrees with that. The picture is from an ad campaign for a bug spray called “Flit”…
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Oh my. I laughed at so many of your points, Charliecot. Yours is my favorite commentary on the silliness so far.
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I’m flattered, Chelsea. I need to build up some goodwill because I’ve got some really awful pieces coming… poorly-written, meandering, dull, ponderous… one of them even kills anyone who watches it in seven days! But, if I told everyone which one that was, they wouldn’t read it…
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Clever. Good thing I’m so busy I catch one in every thirty these days.
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The very first book I got out from the library when I was six was McElligot’s Pool. I don’t remember much about it but the cover. I went to Amazon to see if I could find a copy to see what was so objectionable about it, but it was selling for $348!
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It was one of my favorites as a child and a parent. I think one or two of the illustrations has an obviously racist depiction in it. I think it would take about two minutes to replace them with something else Seuss drew…
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