On Defending Dr Seuss

Given the hype of the last week, I feel that perhaps I should begin my post with a disclaimer: "The views in this blog are the author's own." While that statement would not wholly exonerate me should someone decide to "cancel" me, perhaps it might halt just a few knee-jerk reactions to my words. We live in a world that is growing increasingly hysterical and decreasingly willing to investigate beyond click-bait headlines and social media memes (remember, a meme is merely a picture with words attached.) 

First and foremost: Dr Seuss is not being "cancelled." Six of his books will not be republished for the foreseeable future. Those books are the intellectual property of the current publisher and the estate of Theodore Giesel. We the people have the right to applaud or denounce that decision. We have the right to write hysterical Facebook posts and to tweet about it. And we have the right to preserve our childhood by searching for our childhood copies of these books -- or to pay the exorbitant prices currently being charged on eBay by people who read the initial news story and sought out their own copies so they could list them, knowing full well someone would panic and actually be willing to spend a day's or two's wages to obtain a copy. 

Second: All those cute Seussian poems making the rounds on Facebook? That's what they are: cute poems written in the style of Dr Seuss, bemoaning lost childhoods and fearful predictions of ongoing censorship. But here's the truth. The "snowflakes" aren't taking anything away from you. Not everyone you disagree with is a snowflake. The "evil, money-grabbing corporations" aren't taking anything away from you. There is still much of Dr Seuss's work left to buy and to own. Those corporations want your money, and they can't get it from you if they have nothing left for you to purchase.  

When I first saw the headline, my curiosity was duly piqued and I did what I was supposed to do: I clicked on the link. And read the story which took me all of two minutes to read, I mention the time because it seems apparent that those writing their clever poems, their tweets, and Facebook posts did not: Most of the books bemoaned as lost are not on the short list of books ceasing publication. When I myself read the list, I recognized only two of the titles: If I Ran the Zoo, and And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street. I don't think I ever read Zoo, and had read Mulberry Street maybe twenty years ago. As such I had little to no memory of the offending images. Scrambled Eggs Super!, On Beyond Zebra!, McElligot's Pool, and The Cat's Quizzer were all titles unfamiliar to me so I cannot say I experienced any sense of loss over their demise. A Wikipedia search made me curious about the wordplay of  Zebra -- but because of the wordplay which I so enjoy in Dr Seuss's other works. For the most part, it's the illustrations that are being challenged, not the text. 

I recognize people might feel that this is the beginning of the end, the slippery slope leading to the censorship of all our childhood favorites, the entering into the worlds of Fahrenheit 451 or 1984. Such fears are not illegitimate nor unwarranted. It is possible. Improbable, but not impossible. But the publishers stated from the beginning which titles they were removing, and why, and they did so rather succinctly. Tweeters and celebrities and politicians and talk show hosts stirred the pot, whether deliberately or not, and the inevitable knee-jerk reactions of a sadly too large segment of social media users did the rest: they reposted, retweeted, and made memes knowing full well the inherent inability of the masses to think before they post. They knew most people cannot spare two minutes reading a press release (although oddly enough they can spare the same two minutes reading rants about "cancel culture" - the current incarnation of "political correctness", "don't be so sensitive", and "can't you take a joke?") 

One need not experience racial prejudice or hatred firsthand to figure out the obvious: others have experienced it. It doesn't take a great deal of brain power, or heart, to recognize that if someone has been hurt, the one causing the hurt needs to stop what they are doing, whether they are the original perpetrator or not. Even if you don't understand why something is hurtful, whether to one, two, ten, a hundred, or a thousand individuals; it takes only a modicum of empathy to stop the hurt. To change the behavior, and then the attitudes, which caused that hurt, now that requires effort. But history shows that Theodore Geisel managed it, and changed his subsequent work to champion diversity and acceptance (those are the titles people are quoting from, not the offending works.)  

Is ceasing publication the proper response? I don't know. I think of one of my childhood favorites, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In the first, 1964, edition, the Oompa-Loompas were described and drawn as African pygmies. When the first film version was announced, the NAACP expressed concern over this. The author Roald sympathized, and subsequent editions changed both written and illustrated descriptions. Could the same be done with the offending Seuss books? It was the offending version I read as a child, and I didn't know at the time it was offending. That I think is part of the issue. As a child, I didn't know such description could be offending. That was simply what the Oompa-Loompas looked like. I was vaguely aware of something called slavery, and had been told it was wrong, but didn't see the Oompa-Loompas as slaves because that was not my idea of slavery, as I had been taught to that point. History is selective. 

I'm sure some would argue that changing the text and illustrations is itself censorship, or, if the expressions had existed in 1971, "political correctness" or "cancel culture". I would disagree. I would also disagree that succumbing to prevailing societal attitudes at any given time is indicative of racist attitudes. Insensitive attitudes and actions born of ignorance is not racism - it is insensitivity born of ignorance. But once sensitivity is gained, turning a blind eye through a willful continuation of that ignorance, that is a form of racism. 

I'd like to think most people are capable of that change.