six books by dr. seuss, the company that preserves and protects the author’s legacy said Tuesday, due to his racist and insensitive portrayal of people of color.
dr. seuss enterprises said i would stop publishing and think i saw it on mulberry street, if i ran the zoo, mcelligot pool, beyond the zebra! super scrambled eggs! and the cat contest.
You are reading: What is racist about dr. seuss books
made his decision, he said, after listening to feedback from teachers, specialists and academics and working with a panel of experts to review the work of the famous children’s author.
theodor seuss geisel was born in 1904 and died in 1991. there are more than 600 million copies of his books in circulation, earning dr seuss enterprises about $33 million before taxes in 2020, up from 9 .5 million dollars in 2015, according to the company.
forbes included dr. Seuss as the second-highest-paid deceased celebrity of 2020, thanks in part to multimillion-dollar deals in film and television, but mostly due to sales of his books.
“Stop selling these books is just one part of our commitment and broader plan to ensure the dr seuss enterprises catalog represents and supports all communities and families,” the company said Tuesday.
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and to think i saw it on mulberry street has been criticized for including “a Chinaman with sticks”, who has two lines for eyes and can be seen holding chopsticks and a bowl.
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if i run the zoo shows two men, described as African, dressed in grass skirts and carrying exotic-looking animals.
dr seuss enterprises said that books “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”
although dr. Seuss remains a beloved figure in children’s literature, his legacy has come under increasing scrutiny from parents and educators.
Research has shown that children as young as three can develop racial biases, and those biases become fixed by age seven.
In 2019, a widely cited study by a University of California, San Diego scholar and founder of the Library for Mindful Children found that only 2% of the human characters in Dr. seuss are not white, and the vast majority are portrayed in a way that perpetuates racist stereotypes. the study also found a marked lack of women and girls in the books.
“downplaying, erasing, or failing to acknowledge seuss’s racial transgressions throughout his entire publishing career negates the very real historical impact they had on people of color and the way they continue to influence culture, education, and children’s views of people of color,” the authors wrote.
dr seuss enterprises said it decided to stop publishing all six books last year, but made its decision public on Tuesday, Read Across America Day, an event to promote reading for children and teens and coincided with the dr birthday seuss, march 2.
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the national association for education (nea), which coordinates reading day across the united states, has gone from using the day to celebrate dr. seuss to focus more on diverse books. the white house has also distanced the day of seuss.
in 2016, barack obama marked the “birthday of one of America’s most revered wordsmiths [who] used his incredible talent to instill in his most impressionable readers universal values that we all hold dear.”
“…he made the children see that reading is fun, and in the process, he emphasized respect for everyone; he pushed us to accept ourselves for who we are; he challenged preconceived notions and encouraged trying new things; and by example he taught us that we are limited by nothing but the range of our aspirations and the vibrancy of our imagination.”
Two years later, Donald Trump said that Americans should “remember the still vibrant words of Dr. Seuss: ‘You’ve got brains in your head.'” you have feet in your shoes. you can head in any direction you choose.’”
this year, however, joe biden omitted any reference to the author. the omission prompted grumbling on the political right, where concerns about so-called “cancel culture” abound.
A headline on the Fox News website, for example, read: “Biden erases Dr. Seuss from ‘Read Across America’ proclamation as progressives seek to cancel beloved author.”
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