Last week, 6 Dr. Seuss classics were removed from production after backlash over purportedly racist illustrations.
According to the Associated Press, Dr. Seuss Enterprises removed the books after more than a year of deliberation with “teachers, academics, and experts” in order to maintain their “commitment” and “broader plan” to ensure that their “catalog represents and supports all communities and families.” Among the books slated for permanent removal are Seuss classics And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street and If I Ran The Zoo. While this may appear to be a harmless business decision on the surface, it assuredly is not.
These books are not a dangerous threat.
You would be hard pressed to find anyone who became inspired into racism by a Dr. Seuss book. These artistic literary classics have been a mainstay of children’s literature for nearly 100 years, even being the inspiration for Read Across America Day, which was founded by the National Education Association in 1998.
Read Across America Day is designed to fall on or around March 2nd, Dr. Seuss’s birthday, and the NEA even had a longstanding contract with Dr. Seuss Enterprises until 2019. In fact, former President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama were reading Dr. Seuss to children and singing the author praises as recently as 2016. Now, President Biden won’t even mention the name of the author who inspired the event he’s addressing.
Up until recently, Dr. Seuss was a beloved children’s author, his work was considered a cornerstone of the American childhood. So what changed?
We changed. Our culture changed. In our pursuit of ideological purity and morality, we have become a people and culture completely obsessed with race. A culture that has no qualms about removing anything, or anyone, that cuts against that ideological purity. In our fervor, we have ironically decided that the best way to move past our differences is to place those differences at the center of everything we do, think, and say.
The axe of cancelation came for Dr. Seuss after a 2019 report from The Conscious Kid’s Library and the University of California titled, “The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, Anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss’s Children’s Books.” In just 3 short years, our wave of critical theory and race-based academics reduced a literary titan to nothing more than an anti-black white supremacist infecting the minds of 4 year old children nationwide and driving them into the arms of white supremacy.
According to USA Today, the study found that “[o]f the 2,240 (identified) human characters, there are forty-five characters of color representing 2% of the total number of human characters. Of that forty-five, 43 have Orientalist depictions, and two align with the theme of anti-Blackness.” The authors of the study, Katie Ishizuka and Ramón Stephens, wrote that “[m]ost startling is the complete invisibility and absence of women and girls of color across Seuss’ entire children’s book collection.” Unfortunately for Dr. Seuss, he was unaware that as he wrote If I Ran the Zoo in 1950, it would not live up to our ideas of proper representation in 2021.
Some may respond that this is just a manifestation of Americans becoming awakened to the world around them, becoming woke, if you will. But is that truly the case? Or, has our culture established an ever-shifting standard, a standard that we can never truly live up to, but only pursue through self-education and “doing the work?” To those who agree with the former, I ask a simple question. Can you confidently say that in 5 years, your actions today will be bulletproof against the accusations of tomorrow’s judges?
In an attempt to appease these standards, eBay announced that they will be removing listings of Seuss’ discontinued work, especially now that hard copies are going for over $300. According to Newsweek, eBay declared they are “sweeping the marketplace” for anything that violates their “offensive materials policy.” The e-commerce giant’s automated message to sellers states “Listings that promote or glorify hatred, violence, or discrimination aren’t allowed,” which apparently now includes The Cat’s Quizzer. As eBay now forcibly prevents sellers from engaging in the free commerce of beloved children’s books, it should be noted that copies of Mein Kampf and The Anarchist Arsenal are still available for consumption on the platform.
Make no mistake, we are living in increasingly authoritarian times. We stand on the shoulders of giants that could never live up to modern standards, and rather than appreciate the good while rightly criticizing the bad, we chop off their heads. As long as this culture persists, we will see no end to the cancelations, and we will all find ourselves on the chopping block in due time. Even if you are on the “right” side of cancel culture, it will only take one slip to find yourself eternally condemned.
They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Where does the road paved with censorship and social death lead?
