Six Dr Seuss books pulled over racist imagery(scmp.com)
scmp.com
Six Dr Seuss books pulled over racist imagery
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3123822/six-dr-seuss-books-pulled-over-racist-imagery
33 comments
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.
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.m...
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.m...
New neuralink update will fix these intrusive thoughts.
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.
Its called accountability
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.
> 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?
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?
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?
> 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?
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.
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.
Why do you think its appropriate for you to tell me what I can read?
No one did.
Someone else decided what they wish to say.
Someone else decided what they wish to say.
"No one arrests you for possessing a copy"... YET
Who says what does or does not stand on its own? I am not seeing any negative stereotyping there, just colorful characters.
You might argue that I ought to be Chinese to have a say about it. And that'd be fair - let's ask Chinese people then! I'd be curious what they actually think. Personally, as a Jew, I wouldn't mind at all to see a "stereotypical" Orthodox depiction of a jew, with a yarmulke and all, as long as it's not negative. I fact, I might appreciate it as an artifact educating the audiences about my people's original culture.
> Who says what does or does not stand on its own?
Well, in this case, the copyright holder.
Well, in this case, the copyright holder.
It is not hard to find that Lisa Yee boycotted a festival at the Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum over this image. Quoting https://www.masslive.com/springfield/2021/03/and-to-think-th... :
> Its removal came after authors Mo Willems, Mike Curato and Lisa Yee co-signed a letter calling for its removal. They described the imagery as “a jarring racial stereotype of a Chinese man, who is depicted with chopsticks, a pointed hat, and slanted slit eyes. We find this caricature of ‘the Chinaman’ deeply hurtful, and have concerns about children’s exposure to it.”
The point is that this stereotypical description is negative.
> Its removal came after authors Mo Willems, Mike Curato and Lisa Yee co-signed a letter calling for its removal. They described the imagery as “a jarring racial stereotype of a Chinese man, who is depicted with chopsticks, a pointed hat, and slanted slit eyes. We find this caricature of ‘the Chinaman’ deeply hurtful, and have concerns about children’s exposure to it.”
The point is that this stereotypical description is negative.
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 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 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 .
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 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 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 .
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.
> 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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Wow. In my book, you are extremely racist. Treating people a certain way based on skin color just because you automatically assume that this means they have the same life experiences? Dude... What about people who are just trying to live their lives and have a good time? People who don't try to create division by making every little thing about race? I have been friends with many people over the years from many different nationalities and ethnicities, and I don't know a single one that would want me to treat them differently due to their race. I just try to be a good person to everyone.
I know I'm wasting air here, but honestly, I do think views like this are the problem. You may think you are helping, but this does nothing but divide people.
I know I'm wasting air here, but honestly, I do think views like this are the problem. You may think you are helping, but this does nothing but divide people.
I didn't read dragonwriter's comment that way. If someone is black, say, and has experienced some examples of blatant, overt racism, that affects who they are. If I want to interact with them as them, well, that's part of "them". I can't treat them like someone who has no race, who therefore had no such experiences. Ditto for any other race/ethnicity/national background.
I suspect that you think dragonwriter meant that I should assume "hmm, black person, therefore has been on the receiving end of racism". I didn't read it that way. I agree with you that it would be wrong to make such an assumption (or any assumption based on their race). But I think dragonwriter's point is different: Their race has shaped their lives in certain ways. Don't ignore that part of who they are.
I suspect that you think dragonwriter meant that I should assume "hmm, black person, therefore has been on the receiving end of racism". I didn't read it that way. I agree with you that it would be wrong to make such an assumption (or any assumption based on their race). But I think dragonwriter's point is different: Their race has shaped their lives in certain ways. Don't ignore that part of who they are.
If you think it isn't OK to treat people the same regardless of who they are, you must live in Portland. I seem to recall someone saying "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Must have been Trump, right?
I feel like the more sane way to do this is to add disclaimers / explanations at the beginning ala Disney Plus or others
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
"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
Or if it's a page or two in the entire book—hire someone to redraw those pages without the offensive content.
Curious: why was this post flagged?
Good question.. you would think that this is a discussion worth having
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.
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?