Dr. Seuss Enterprises has decided no longer to publish six of the late author’s works. This is not because the average American’s reading comprehension has dropped to the point that the good doctor’s work is no longer intelligible, as one might have expected, but rather because the books “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.” Evidently the rhyme and colorful characters invented by Theodor Geisel were disguises for the promulgation of vicious bigotry.
Geisel was a political cartoonist before he became a children’s author, and according to many, his popular stories continued to be vehicles for political and sociological statements. But Dr. Seuss is no longer read in the social and political context of his time. The Sneetches may have promoted compassion, toleration, and unity in 1953, but the author failed to anticipate what the standards for decency would be seventy years later. Geisel published “And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street” in 1937. In the story “a character described as ‘a Chinaman’ has lines for eyes, wears a pointed hat, and carries chopsticks and a bowl of rice.” Modern audiences are too enlightened to tolerate the suggestion that Chinese people might eat rice with chopsticks. We understand what Geisel could not admit 84 years ago: that Chinese people can eat burritos too.
Since I am originally from Alabama and spent the first 34 years of my life in the Deep South, I must be an expert on bigotry and racial injustice, but even I cannot calculate the harm caused by Dr. Seuss and his pernicious influence. How many children reading his books have learned to hate those who are different from themselves? His books are practically a catechism for the Klan. I expect most Trump supporters had Dr. Seuss read to them in the nursery before learning to read Mein Kampf on their own. Dr. Seuss is a gateway drug for hatred. In hindsight, the January 6th attack on the Capitol was strangely reminiscent of chaotic scenes from The Cat in the Hat. Now we can probably guess where the insurgents learned their tactics.
This is an example of a swing and a miss. I am not defending any or all of the depictions in the Dr. Seuss books. I do not doubt some were poorly chosen and are representations authors and illustrators would not use today. But if we cancel, revise, withdraw, or delete history, we cannot learn from it. Politically correct revisions of classic literature are already in publication. But at what point does a revision become a different story? Reading is a conversation between the author and reader, and if the author only ever communicates, either in writing or illustration, what the reader already agrees with and approves, there is little that will challenge or stretch him. We are not learning if we live in an echo chamber. (This is one of the great dangers of social media, but that is a topic for another day.) Original versions of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Gone with the Wind are important in helping readers, especially young readers, understand historical and social context. And if Dr. Seuss included some uncharitable representations of ethnic groups in his stories, it is an opportunity for parents to have guided conversations with their young children and for older children to discover that such representations and viewpoints exist in the world.
Maybe some of the content in Dr. Seuss’s book was objectionable. I find the depiction of men, in general, husbands and fathers, in particular, and Christians, almost always, in popular media to be inaccurate, uncharitable, and objectionable. Not all men are aggressors, not all husbands and fathers are buffoons, and not all Christians are fools. But I’m not calling for that media to be withdrawn. Let it stand. Let my children see it, recognize it for what it is, and learn from it. They know what Chinese people are like, because they know people who are ethnically Chinese. They know what men and husbands and fathers are like, because they have good male role models in our social circle. And they know what Christians are like, because that is what they are. They don’t need publishers or politically correct nannies to save them from hurtful depictions. They don’t rely on Dr. Seuss or classic authors to define their perspective on people or the world. I pity the children who do. Shame on their parents. --JME
