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Had you ever heard of these six books before today? Have you ever read them? How many were sold? We've been sanitising kids books for decades now. What versio
by DanBC 6y ago
Had you ever heard of these six books before today? Have you ever read them? How many were sold?
We've been sanitising kids books for decades now.
What version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory do you own? The original with actual African slaves and the colonialist rescue narrative, or the later version with Oompa Loompas and the colonialist rescue narrative? What version of Edward's Sneeze from the Thomas the Tank Engine series do you own? The one that uses the N word and has a black face joke, or the one that replaced the N word but kept the black face gag?
There are like a million kids books published each year. We're not going to miss the few that have lazy, racist, stereotypes.
- stolenmerch 6y agoYou just proved the point that things have gone too far. Instead of quietly editing out a drawing or word or two it now must be banned in every store, from ever platform, and even the word "Mulberry", for example, must be purged from theme parks. I wish there weren't old racist things it books too, but the weird censorship and book banning creeps me out.
- edflsafoiewq 6y ago> Had you ever heard of these six books before today? Have you ever read them? Yes, I own McElligot's Pool and I particularly remember borrowing On Beyond Zebra from the library for its imaginary alphabet. The offensive material in Pool appears to be the "Eskimo fish" (the word "Eskimo" apparently being derogatory), and in Zebra, somewhat obscurely, a "Nazzim of Bazzim" riding a camel called a "Spazzim". > We've been sanitising kids books for decades now. I don't really have a problem with that, but they aren't being sanitized are they? They're just not being sold at all.
- gxqoz 6y agoI bought a used version of an early edition of the original Where's Waldo on eBay. I later picked up a modern reprinting of all of them. My son and I were inspecting side-by-side and noticed some differences. Made the books more fun in a way (although if there had been something outrageously offensive in the original that would be a different matter).
- throwawayboise 6y agoI read most if not all of the Seuss books as a kid, and got them from the public library, which had copies of them all.
- acheron 6y agoHad you ever heard of these six books before today? Have you ever read them? Um, yes, of course. Have you not?
- DanBC 6y agoNo, because I'm not interested in not very good, sixty year old, books.
- aaron695 6y ago> lazy, racist, stereotypes. Exactly how is Roald Dahl, Dr Seuss or Wilbert Awdry lazy? Looking at newspaper archives, "as black as niggers" was a used term, interestingly often around WW1 but also coal trains, which is Thomas the Tank Engines premise. Mads Brügger's documentary "The Ambassador" has him getting Pygmy 'assistants', in a complex commentary of sorts. Dr Seuss changed the Chinaman in On Mulberry Street once already. The only laziness is people try to Just World these book burnings. How about we put them in the adult section of libraries, that would require effort to think about I guess. When will Facebook Marketplace ban this, will people reading them on Youtube be banned. How long before newspaper archives ban people searching on "as black as niggers". How long before they delete those articles.
- 1123581321 6y agoThe the typical answer to many of your questions is yes, and where the answers are no, the mission should be to preserve as the impact from selling them is apparently minimal.
- tim333 6y ago>The original with actual African slaves They weren't slaves in the original story - they were Africans but were offered payment to come work at his factory and went voluntarily.