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Dr. Seuss's complicated history as a political cartoonist

2 points by colinprince 6y ago

adolph 6y ago
This CBC article makes a claim on a single cartoon. "Even Dr. Seuss — liberal and good on anti-black sentiment, good on antisemitism — even this guy was totally blind about the Asian side of the picture," he said. NPR claims "Dr. Seuss Books Can Be Racist, But Students Keep Reading Them" But some of Seuss' classics have been criticized for the way they portray people of color. In And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, for example, a character described as Chinese has two lines for eyes, carries chopsticks and a bowl of rice, and wears traditional Japanese-style shoes. In If I Ran the Zoo, two men said to be from Africa are shown shirtless, shoeless and wearing grass skirts as they carry an exotic animal. Outside of his books, the author's personal legacy has come into question, too — Seuss wrote an entire minstrel show in college and performed as the main character in full blackface. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/26/695966537/classic-books-are-full-of-problems-why-cant-we-put-them-down https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/26/695966537... Paper cited by NPR is: "The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, AntiBlackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss's Children's Books" To date, there have been several book-length studies of Dr. Seuss, including Ruth K. MacDonald’s Dr. Seuss, Judith and Neil Morgan’s Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel, Richard H. Minear’s Dr. Seuss Goes to War, and Charles D. Cohen’s The Seuss, the Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss (11). These authors have made invaluable contributions to the literature by preserving and documenting Seuss’ extensive collection of published works, and their work is cited extensively in this paper. A limitation, however, is that none of the authors represent any of the marginalized groups represented in Seuss’ published works. These authors, who appear to be homogeneously White, have normalized, defended, minimized, and even erased examples of racism within their analyses of Seuss’ works. For instance, of the book If I Ran the Zoo—one of the most egregious in terms of depicting people of color through racist caricatures—Ruth K. MacDonald writes, “Occasional stereotypes of native peoples—potbellied, thick-lipped blacks from Africa, squinty-eyed Orientals—may offend some modern readers, but in general, the book delights readers of several ages at several levels." Horton Hears a Who! is one of Dr. Seuss' books widely cited as promoting tolerance. . . . Regardless of the intention of the book, the impact is that it reinforces themes of White supremacy, Orientalism, and White saviorism. It positions the Whos in a deficit-based framework as the dominant, paternalistic Horton enacts the White Savior Industrial Complex. https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&context=rdyl https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&c...

2 points by colinprince 6y ago

This CBC article makes a claim on a single cartoon. "Even Dr. Seuss — liberal and good on anti-black sentiment, good on antisemitism — even this guy was totally blind about the Asian side of the picture," he said. NPR claims "Dr. Seuss Books Can Be Racist, But Students Keep Reading Them" But some of Seuss' classics have been criticized for the way they portray people of color. In And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, for example, a character described as Chinese has two lines for eyes, carries chopsticks and a bowl of rice, and wears traditional Japanese-style shoes. In If I Ran the Zoo, two men said to be from Africa are shown shirtless, shoeless and wearing grass skirts as they carry an exotic animal. Outside of his books, the author's personal legacy has come into question, too — Seuss wrote an entire minstrel show in college and performed as the main character in full blackface. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/26/695966537/classic-books-are-full-of-problems-why-cant-we-put-them-down https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/26/695966537... Paper cited by NPR is: "The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, AntiBlackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss's Children's Books" To date, there have been several book-length studies of Dr. Seuss, including Ruth K. MacDonald’s Dr. Seuss, Judith and Neil Morgan’s Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel, Richard H. Minear’s Dr. Seuss Goes to War, and Charles D. Cohen’s The Seuss, the Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss (11). These authors have made invaluable contributions to the literature by preserving and documenting Seuss’ extensive collection of published works, and their work is cited extensively in this paper. A limitation, however, is that none of the authors represent any of the marginalized groups represented in Seuss’ published works. These authors, who appear to be homogeneously White, have normalized, defended, minimized, and even erased examples of racism within their analyses of Seuss’ works. For instance, of the book If I Ran the Zoo—one of the most egregious in terms of depicting people of color through racist caricatures—Ruth K. MacDonald writes, “Occasional stereotypes of native peoples—potbellied, thick-lipped blacks from Africa, squinty-eyed Orientals—may offend some modern readers, but in general, the book delights readers of several ages at several levels." Horton Hears a Who! is one of Dr. Seuss' books widely cited as promoting tolerance. . . . Regardless of the intention of the book, the impact is that it reinforces themes of White supremacy, Orientalism, and White saviorism. It positions the Whos in a deficit-based framework as the dominant, paternalistic Horton enacts the White Savior Industrial Complex. https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&context=rdyl https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&c...