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Dr. Seuss Is The Latest Victim of Cancel Culture
This year’s Read Across America Day left out Dr. Seuss, its most famous author. The event’s date is also the celebrated author’s birthday, March 2. President Joe Biden followed presidential tradition by proclaiming Tuesday “Read Across America Day,” but for the first time, the sitting US president did not mention Dr. Seuss in his message.
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While the White House did not issue an explanation for the snub, many progressives reportedly sought the removal of Dr. Seuss from the limelight. Loudoun County Public Schools, one of Virginia's largest districts, advised against including Dr. Seuss from the school's “Read Across America Day” celebration. The school cited alleged racial “undertones” in his children's books.
Alleged Racist Undertones
Over the years, Read Across America Day served as the unofficial National Dr. Seuss Day. Apart from the author’s birthday, many of his popular books served as the featured material in events across the country. However, recent allegations painted the beloved author in a different light. Over the last few years, Dr. Seuss received criticism for racial undertones in his books. In addition, the author himself shared concerning personal opinions. While Cat in the Hat and his other works became standard reading for children, many groups now tell schools to avoid reading Dr. Seuss's books during Read Across America Day.
Dr Seuss Books Featured Only 2% Minorities
In 2019, Learning for Justice published an article that explored the many stereotyped characters in Dr. Seuss's books. In a survey of 50 works, researchers concluded that only 2% of all the Seuss characters are minorities. In addition, the study alleges that the majority of the depictions featured harmful racial stereotypes and tropes.
For example, in the book “And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street,” a Chinese character featured two lines for eyes, carries chopsticks and a bowl of rice, and wears traditional Japanese-style shoes. Meanwhile, in the book “If I Ran the Zoo,” Seuss depicted the two African men as shirtless, shoeless, and wearing grass skirts while they carry an exotic animal. In-person, Seuss once performed during college his own written show in full blackface.
Defending Dr. Seuss
The article author, Gabriel Smith, said that apologists tend to justify Seuss’s assumed bigotry. He said that Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel in real life) merely reflected the humor of his generation. Defenders also believe that Geisel’s multi-decade career as Dr. Seuss more than made up for his earlier attitude.
More importantly, Smith did not advocate the takedown of Seuss’ books. Rather, he suggested people use the books as a conversation starter about racism and bigotry. “You don’t have to burn your favorite Thing One shirt or get rid of all of your Dr. Seuss books or cut Green Eggs and Ham from your diet (unless you just really want to). However, we all need to be willing to explore the things that shape the young minds of our students—and be willing to change our own minds when presented with new truths, even if they might not always be comfortable to process,” he wrote.
Did You Grow Up on Dr. Seuss?
Loudoun County Schools issued an announcement earlier this week. As schools across the country prepared “to celebrate ‘Read Across America Day’ in partial recognition of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, it is important for us to be cognizant of research that may challenge our practice in this regard.” The school advised that “as we become more culturally responsive and racially conscious,” research shows the presence of “radical undertones” in the works of Dr. Seuss.
Watch the Fox Business video reporting that a school district cancels Dr. Seuss celebration due to ‘racial undertones':
Loading ...Are you a Dr Seuss fan? Do you agree with new discoveries that his works have racial undertones? Will you advocate his removal from libraries? Let us know what you think about the once-beloved children’s author. Share your comments below.
6 Comments
do you not have anything to do but pick on children books , you must not have anything to do what a small world you live in
Seems they will grab at anything. This is absolutely insane!!
Pretty soon they will start canceling everything you eat. These crazy nut jobs need to try and be happier people,
instead of always playing the race ♠️!
One has to wonder when will these big corporation’s realize that they are playing into a trap and society will only cancel them in there profits!
Yes this is insane. Next they will remove nursery rhymes like Humpty Dumpty Sat on The Wall because all the Kings horses and all the Kings men didn’t have a black guy in it. These authors wrote in the good old days that didn’t have crazy groups nit picking. They weren’t racists. Racism didn’t exist when these were written. Racism didn’t exist even in my high school days or raising my own son. Like everything else, these groups will stop at nothing to change our history. And the cowards that are cowtowing to them and taking things down, removing this removing that, changing advertisements like Quaker Oats pancake mix, etc should be telling them this is past history and it is remaining as such. You can’t change the past, accept what is our American history or go live somewhere else. Stopped them in their tracks. But see what is happening now, by not standing our ground. There is nothing they will not find fault with. And want everything changed. US deserves what it is getting by not standing up to these troublemaker groups in the beginning of all this. AMEN
Nonsensical and utter progressive ideology the far left have against authors as Geisel , should never have the power to decide what we should or not read. The socialist progressive’s need to stop their ‘ Canceling people’s thoughts’’ of what should think or Read !!
Two books out of the many well written and imagination provoking stories might be see as racial. We just assume all the books are bad now and purge them all? Most have a good moral. I have not read these bad stories, was the stories bad or just or the illustrations. When were they done, so long ago that culture has improved a lot, but do we let the books illustrations improve?
All humans are born into sin, they are taught to improve themselves to become better. Do we not allow people to improve themselves and learn not only from their mistakes, but from the mistakes of the past? Let all of us allow people to improve ourselves, he died in 1991, his days this was what people knew. A lot has changed since then, and is still changing by the way.
Stop “cancel culture”, or the sins of the past could be repeated. It is time to learn from our and societies mistakes to move forward and make the world a better place to live and grow.