Dr. Seuss, Dr. Cornel West, and the person formerly known as Mr. Potato Head are much in the news this week. All have been canceled. As has been widely reported, the estate of Dr. Seuss, aka Theodore Geisel, has ceased publishing six of his less successful titles due to their racist images and other allusions to gender or ethnicity deemed offensive by the estate. Hasbro announced the dropping of “Mr.” as a nod to gender inclusivity. From now on you can have your Potato Head any old gender you want. Cornel West, self-described bluesman, revolutionary, public intellectual and esteemed Black scholar, has been denied tenure at Harvard.
How did I manage to hear/read all those racist Dr. Seuss books in the 1950s and not emerge filled with intractable and pernicious biases against Asians ("Chinamen") and other ethnic groups? Couldn't have anything to do with my family, I suppose. Or my experiences with actual human beings of color?
I wish I had copies of the books now being discontinued. I would love to reread them to discover if the time-bombs of hate and disdain the vicious "doctor" and his illustrator planted in my nascent awareness. Along with images from Uncle Ben's Rice, Aunt Jemima syrup, and TV shows like BEULAH and AMOS AND ANDY.
Of course, everyone is entitled to choose what to allow his/her children to see or read (up to a certain age). I only wish people were more concerned with giving their kids actual opportunities to learn first-hand about people from diverse backgrounds instead of "protecting" them from being exposed to "bad" speech, prejudice, and so on. Those views exist today, will continue to exist tomorrow, and won't be eradicated by keeping our kids and ourselves in little cocoons free of "microaggressions," and "hate speech." Science forbid a child with voracious reading habits ever gets a library card. Who knows what sort of taboo words and sentences s/he might be exposed to and what sort of monstrosity s/he'll become as a result?
How did I manage to hear/read all those racist Dr. Seuss books in the 1950s and not emerge filled with intractable and pernicious biases against Asians ("Chinamen") and other ethnic groups? Couldn't have anything to do with my family, I suppose. Or my experiences with actual human beings of color?
I wish I had copies of the books now being discontinued. I would love to reread them to discover if the time-bombs of hate and disdain the vicious "doctor" and his illustrator planted in my nascent awareness. Along with images from Uncle Ben's Rice, Aunt Jemima syrup, and TV shows like BEULAH and AMOS AND ANDY.
Of course, everyone is entitled to choose what to allow his/her children to see or read (up to a certain age). I only wish people were more concerned with giving their kids actual opportunities to learn first-hand about people from diverse backgrounds instead of "protecting" them from being exposed to "bad" speech, prejudice, and so on. Those views exist today, will continue to exist tomorrow, and won't be eradicated by keeping our kids and ourselves in little cocoons free of "microaggressions," and "hate speech." Science forbid a child with voracious reading habits ever gets a library card. Who knows what sort of taboo words and sentences s/he might be exposed to and what sort of monstrosity s/he'll become as a result?