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Wednesday, March 3, 2021

What Got Dr. Seuss Cancelled? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 


And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street... gets cancelled. Is that image racist?  No, although it is racial. There is a difference. There was a time when Chinese men did have braids and wore costumes like what Dr. Seuss depicted (watch some Bonanza before that gets cancelled). 

Asians still eat with sticks (and many non Asians do too when they eat Asian food). The image is at worse, dated. It is too bad this book is now no longer published. While they claim libraries won't purge it, I am pretty sure libraries will purge it. You soon will no longer be able to find the book at all (digitally or physically), unless you already have a copy or you happen to come across it in some garage sale. Even then, you will have to pay $100 for it (as opposed to 50¢). 

Similar controversy surrounded Little Black Sambo. While the initial story had nothing to do with Africa or Africans (the story was written about a little boy in south India), it is now virtually banned. Later editions did depict the characters in negative African stereotypes (and the restaurant chain Sambo's, which was actually a combination of its founder's names, did use images from the books as decorations in their locations). 

Talking about Little Black Sambo, I did very much enjoy the play Spinning Into Butter which addressed hyper political correctness and racism (the movie wasn't as good). 

Theodor Geissel did do racist stuff. Go look at his propaganda illustrations during WWII. While I understand some will wring their hands about insulting the Japanese (and I appreciate that most Japanese-Americans at the time were loyal to the USA, just like most German and Italian immigrants were), we might remember at the time Pearl Harbor had happened and the Japanese Imperial Troops were doing things like war crimes in Nanking and marching Americans on the Bataan Death March

If you want to see racism, go ask Chinese people today what they think about the Japanese?  There is still lot of anger over WWII in China even today (partially because the Chinese Communists see that channeling anger about the Japanese as a way of diverting attention and anger from their own atrocities to their own people). So when it comes to racism, YMMV.  

EBL: Gina Carano 🥊




Vox Popoli: Dr. Seuss Inc. Cancels Dr. Seuss






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