11 ms·

Six Dr Seuss books pulled over racist imagery

30 points by etiam 6y ago

iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
I was thinking the other day about what books and movies I need to save for my kids before they are all censored. It's really sad that availability is limited by people's sensitivity, and now that so much is subscription based, it will only get worse.
- maxwell 6y ago
  Why I'm keeping/copying the DVDs and VHSs, creating archival SD cards and drives, and so on. How long until more Simpsons episodes get pulled? "We need to pass the torch, and let our children read our messy and sad history by its light. We have all the magic of the digital age to do that with." https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1312&_nkw=mulberry+st&_sacat=0 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m...
- coolspot 6y ago
  New neuralink update will fix these intrusive thoughts.
- headhuntermdk 6y ago
  Its called accountability
- mcphage 6y ago
  > what books and movies I need to save for my kids before they are all censored Are you keeping them because they're books and movies that mean something to you, or are you keeping them because they have objectionable content?
  - diggernet 6y ago
    How about because they are good stories, often with important messages, and any objectionable content is often a reflection of the times and not intended to be hurtful? > And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, features a “Chinese boy” with a rice bowl and chopsticks This is the level we've stooped to now? Should Chinese restaurants stop offering chopsticks?
    - eesmith 6y ago
      It's not only chopsticks. It's odd the article says "boy" when the original 1937 Seuss description was "Chinaman"[1], and the updated 1973 version was "Chinese man". Also updated was the removal of the character's pigtail and the yellow skin. It kept the slanted-eyes and pointed hat, which was part of the racist stereotype depiction of the era. See Seuss's war-time cartoons at https://apjjf.org/2017/16/Minear.html https://apjjf.org/2017/16/Minear.html for other examples of slanted eyes in how he portrayed Americans of Japanese descent as 5th columnists ready to blow up the West Coast. That was mentioned in the article; I link to it to provide context. Seuss made those edits in 1973 because he changed as a person. As he grew older, he worked to fight stereotypes and xenophobia. It appears the 1937 depiction was intended to be hurtful, in that it dehumanizes the character by reducing him to a stereotype. Seuss found it problematic enough to change it. How can you determine if the 1973 edit removed all of the intended sting? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinaman_(term)#Literary_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinaman_(term)#Literary_use points out that by 1937 "Chinaman" was a widely-used derogatory term, to the point that in 1929 Ronald Knox's "Ten Commandments" of Detective Fiction included 'No Chinaman must figure in the story. (Note: This is a reference to common use of heavily stereotyped Asian characters in detective fiction of the time)', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Knox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Knox .
    - Brian_K_White 6y ago
      Why does intention matter? A 6 year old kid born 60 years after something was written does not know anything about any supposed intention. They only know what the material itself says. If the material does not stand on it's own, then it serves no valid purpose to artficialy prop it up. It's not censorship to remove something from being actively fed to children. It's still allowed to exist as historical artifacts. No one arrests you for posessing a copy. You are not Jesus's persecuted followers hiding from the Romans.
  - IAmWorried 6y ago
    Your definition of objectionable isn't my definition of objectionable. There was once a time when having a thick skin was lauded. Now, it seems we are in a race to pander to the most thin skinned people around.
    - mcphage 6y ago
      > Your definition of objectionable isn't my definition of objectionable It's not, I'm just wondering the rationale. For my part: I'm not going to get rid of my copies of those 3 Seuss books I love—but nor am I going to grab copies of the other 3 just because they're no longer being printed. Edit: ha! I even called it "banned", when it's anything but. Removed!
      - IAmWorried 6y ago
        Fair enough. I can tell you that I read Scrambled Eggs Super and Mulberry Street when I was a kid, and I don't have any plans to pick up the other banned ones - but my natural gut reaction to any instances like this is disgust, because I find that generally the things being banned such as the Muppets would only offend someone who is looking for a reason to be offended.
- sigmaprimus 6y ago
  Which ever way You decide which to save is fine, as long as You don't use "Eeny,meeny,miny,moe" that method was canceled a decade ago.
- klipklop 6y ago
  This is exactly why I bought a copy of Tropic Thunder on blu ray. I suspect that one day this movie will not be on streaming services.
loukrazy 6y ago
I feel like the more sane way to do this is to add disclaimers / explanations at the beginning ala Disney Plus or others
- thatswrong0 6y ago
  I would prefer this as well, as the books could then serve as an educational tool. But at least it doesn't seem like Seuss enterprises is doing this to necessarily bury / hide these depictions. Here's an excerpt from the Seuss website: "While the vast majority of the works he produced are positive and inspiring, Ted Geisel also drew a handful of early images, which are disturbing. These racially stereotypical drawings were hurtful then and are still hurtful today. However, Ted’s cartoons and books also reflect his evolution. Later works, such as The Sneetches or Horton Hears a Who!, emphasize inclusion and acceptance. Ted would later edit some of his inappropriate images, depicting his characters in a more respectful manner." https://www.drseussart.com/dr-seuss-use-of-racist-images https://www.drseussart.com/dr-seuss-use-of-racist-images
- mcphage 6y ago
  Or if it's a page or two in the entire book—hire someone to redraw those pages without the offensive content.
mcphage 6y ago
I have a lot of complicated feelings about this—3 of the 6 books are ones that I love, and have happily read to my children. On the other ... not really a surprise. Racist caricatures abound in older books written for children, and I'm glad that we are now more respectful in how we treat people from other cultures.
IAmWorried 6y ago
The thing I hate is headlines like this WaPo headline: "If curtailing racist imagery in Dr. Seuss is ‘cancel culture,’ what, exactly, is your culture?" Let's get over the clickbaity title and look at their actual argument. They think that it is worth cancelling these things because of "racist imagery." But who are they to decide what is and isn't racist? The goalposts literally shift on this every day. I grew up saying "I don't see color", and now this isn't even OK to say anymore. Are we really going to let a bunch of totalitarian journalists anoint themselves as the ministry of truth? Does anyone seriously want to live in a world where journalists have the power to decide the definition of racism and immediately convict those who don't meet the new criteria? I don't really see a way out of this for now, because it appears that Twitter and journalists have the CEOs of America by the balls. I think we are pretty much going to see a major economic civil war in this country, with mass quittings and firings, before people actually come to their senses.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > They think that it is worth cancelling these things because of "racist imagery." But who are they to decide what is and isn't racist? The people who made the decision about problematic content here were Seuss Enterprises, LLC, the owners of the content. > I grew up saying "I don't see color", and now this isn't even OK to say anymore. Um, it was never okay to say: this has been mocked in popular culture for decades as a signal of privilege and avoidance of real racial issues.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Then, if you legitimately want to say that you treat people as individuals, not as members of a "color" or "ethnicity", what do you say?
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      In general, the correct answer to “if you really want to say ‘X’, what do you say” is ‘X’. Of course, if you really see people as individuals, you probably won’t deny that racial and ethnic identity and experiences tied to both that and ascribed race/ethnicity (which often, but not always, correspond to identity) are often, especially for people in racial and/or ethnic groups that have been marginalized (no matter how much that might not have been by you), an important part of who they are and what you need to understand to understand them. Viewing people in the context of a counterfactual idealized world isn't seeing them as individuals, but as figurines in your personal fantasy diorama.
ilyaeck 6y ago
Curious: why was this post flagged?
- headhuntermdk 6y ago
  Good question.. you would think that this is a discussion worth having
gremlinsinc 6y ago
Wouldn't it be better for race-relations as a nation to keep the books, but move them into some sort of lesson plan around why these books are not good, pick apart what's wrong with them and use that as a teaching about how those who came before us weren't as tolerant and maybe we can learn to be better?

30 points by etiam 6y ago

I was thinking the other day about what books and movies I need to save for my kids before they are all censored. It's really sad that availability is limited by people's sensitivity, and now that so much is subscription based, it will only get worse.

maxwell 6y ago
Why I'm keeping/copying the DVDs and VHSs, creating archival SD cards and drives, and so on. How long until more Simpsons episodes get pulled? "We need to pass the torch, and let our children read our messy and sad history by its light. We have all the magic of the digital age to do that with." https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1312&_nkw=mulberry+st&_sacat=0 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m...
coolspot 6y ago
New neuralink update will fix these intrusive thoughts.
headhuntermdk 6y ago
Its called accountability
mcphage 6y ago
> what books and movies I need to save for my kids before they are all censored Are you keeping them because they're books and movies that mean something to you, or are you keeping them because they have objectionable content?
- diggernet 6y ago
  How about because they are good stories, often with important messages, and any objectionable content is often a reflection of the times and not intended to be hurtful? > And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, features a “Chinese boy” with a rice bowl and chopsticks This is the level we've stooped to now? Should Chinese restaurants stop offering chopsticks?
  - eesmith 6y ago
    It's not only chopsticks. It's odd the article says "boy" when the original 1937 Seuss description was "Chinaman"[1], and the updated 1973 version was "Chinese man". Also updated was the removal of the character's pigtail and the yellow skin. It kept the slanted-eyes and pointed hat, which was part of the racist stereotype depiction of the era. See Seuss's war-time cartoons at https://apjjf.org/2017/16/Minear.html https://apjjf.org/2017/16/Minear.html for other examples of slanted eyes in how he portrayed Americans of Japanese descent as 5th columnists ready to blow up the West Coast. That was mentioned in the article; I link to it to provide context. Seuss made those edits in 1973 because he changed as a person. As he grew older, he worked to fight stereotypes and xenophobia. It appears the 1937 depiction was intended to be hurtful, in that it dehumanizes the character by reducing him to a stereotype. Seuss found it problematic enough to change it. How can you determine if the 1973 edit removed all of the intended sting? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinaman_(term)#Literary_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinaman_(term)#Literary_use points out that by 1937 "Chinaman" was a widely-used derogatory term, to the point that in 1929 Ronald Knox's "Ten Commandments" of Detective Fiction included 'No Chinaman must figure in the story. (Note: This is a reference to common use of heavily stereotyped Asian characters in detective fiction of the time)', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Knox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Knox .
  - Brian_K_White 6y ago
    Why does intention matter? A 6 year old kid born 60 years after something was written does not know anything about any supposed intention. They only know what the material itself says. If the material does not stand on it's own, then it serves no valid purpose to artficialy prop it up. It's not censorship to remove something from being actively fed to children. It's still allowed to exist as historical artifacts. No one arrests you for posessing a copy. You are not Jesus's persecuted followers hiding from the Romans.
- IAmWorried 6y ago
  Your definition of objectionable isn't my definition of objectionable. There was once a time when having a thick skin was lauded. Now, it seems we are in a race to pander to the most thin skinned people around.
  - mcphage 6y ago
    > Your definition of objectionable isn't my definition of objectionable It's not, I'm just wondering the rationale. For my part: I'm not going to get rid of my copies of those 3 Seuss books I love—but nor am I going to grab copies of the other 3 just because they're no longer being printed. Edit: ha! I even called it "banned", when it's anything but. Removed!
    - IAmWorried 6y ago
      Fair enough. I can tell you that I read Scrambled Eggs Super and Mulberry Street when I was a kid, and I don't have any plans to pick up the other banned ones - but my natural gut reaction to any instances like this is disgust, because I find that generally the things being banned such as the Muppets would only offend someone who is looking for a reason to be offended.
sigmaprimus 6y ago
Which ever way You decide which to save is fine, as long as You don't use "Eeny,meeny,miny,moe" that method was canceled a decade ago.
klipklop 6y ago
This is exactly why I bought a copy of Tropic Thunder on blu ray. I suspect that one day this movie will not be on streaming services.

loukrazy 6y ago

I feel like the more sane way to do this is to add disclaimers / explanations at the beginning ala Disney Plus or others

thatswrong0 6y ago
I would prefer this as well, as the books could then serve as an educational tool. But at least it doesn't seem like Seuss enterprises is doing this to necessarily bury / hide these depictions. Here's an excerpt from the Seuss website: "While the vast majority of the works he produced are positive and inspiring, Ted Geisel also drew a handful of early images, which are disturbing. These racially stereotypical drawings were hurtful then and are still hurtful today. However, Ted’s cartoons and books also reflect his evolution. Later works, such as The Sneetches or Horton Hears a Who!, emphasize inclusion and acceptance. Ted would later edit some of his inappropriate images, depicting his characters in a more respectful manner." https://www.drseussart.com/dr-seuss-use-of-racist-images https://www.drseussart.com/dr-seuss-use-of-racist-images
mcphage 6y ago
Or if it's a page or two in the entire book—hire someone to redraw those pages without the offensive content.

mcphage 6y ago

I have a lot of complicated feelings about this—3 of the 6 books are ones that I love, and have happily read to my children. On the other ... not really a surprise. Racist caricatures abound in older books written for children, and I'm glad that we are now more respectful in how we treat people from other cultures.

IAmWorried 6y ago

The thing I hate is headlines like this WaPo headline: "If curtailing racist imagery in Dr. Seuss is ‘cancel culture,’ what, exactly, is your culture?" Let's get over the clickbaity title and look at their actual argument. They think that it is worth cancelling these things because of "racist imagery." But who are they to decide what is and isn't racist? The goalposts literally shift on this every day. I grew up saying "I don't see color", and now this isn't even OK to say anymore. Are we really going to let a bunch of totalitarian journalists anoint themselves as the ministry of truth? Does anyone seriously want to live in a world where journalists have the power to decide the definition of racism and immediately convict those who don't meet the new criteria? I don't really see a way out of this for now, because it appears that Twitter and journalists have the CEOs of America by the balls. I think we are pretty much going to see a major economic civil war in this country, with mass quittings and firings, before people actually come to their senses.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> They think that it is worth cancelling these things because of "racist imagery." But who are they to decide what is and isn't racist? The people who made the decision about problematic content here were Seuss Enterprises, LLC, the owners of the content. > I grew up saying "I don't see color", and now this isn't even OK to say anymore. Um, it was never okay to say: this has been mocked in popular culture for decades as a signal of privilege and avoidance of real racial issues.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Then, if you legitimately want to say that you treat people as individuals, not as members of a "color" or "ethnicity", what do you say?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    In general, the correct answer to “if you really want to say ‘X’, what do you say” is ‘X’. Of course, if you really see people as individuals, you probably won’t deny that racial and ethnic identity and experiences tied to both that and ascribed race/ethnicity (which often, but not always, correspond to identity) are often, especially for people in racial and/or ethnic groups that have been marginalized (no matter how much that might not have been by you), an important part of who they are and what you need to understand to understand them. Viewing people in the context of a counterfactual idealized world isn't seeing them as individuals, but as figurines in your personal fantasy diorama.

ilyaeck 6y ago

Curious: why was this post flagged?

headhuntermdk 6y ago
Good question.. you would think that this is a discussion worth having

gremlinsinc 6y ago

Wouldn't it be better for race-relations as a nation to keep the books, but move them into some sort of lesson plan around why these books are not good, pick apart what's wrong with them and use that as a teaching about how those who came before us weren't as tolerant and maybe we can learn to be better?