Dr. Seuss Enterprises (the company that preserves and protects Theodor Geisel’s legacy) announced it would withdraw six titles from future publication due to racist and insensitive imagery. “These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” it said in a statement given March 2nd. (image above: the guilty culprits)

Dr. Seuss Enterprises made the announcement on March 2, 2021, the anniversary of Geisel’s birth in 1904. In 1998, the National Education Association designated his birthday as Read Across America Day, an annual event aimed at encouraging children and teens to read.”

Come over to My House (1966) was the Seuss book of my childhood. Good intentions drive good children’s literature. It takes all of a writer’s better faculties to negotiate what is appropriate for a child and what is not, and even then it takes honest feedback from other readers to help the process along during editing and subsequent revisions. Context, however, shapes itself and is something that evolves with the sign of the times and the people living it. People today are far more inclusive of difference and worldly in their views than those living during times of war. For whatever reason, American historians seem adamant to share with the world that Theodor ‘Dr. Seuss’ Geisel himself was vocally anti-Japanese during the war. He drew racist political cartoons during the 1920s through the 1940s, which would be disconcerting for all lovers of his books to know, but my goodness does it offer so much context for what is not being discussed about his drawings and why they are, unfortunately, racist.

The world has no shortage of great children’s authors and talented artists. Perhaps some even understand how and why stereotypes and ethnic caricatures do not belong in children’s literature. Dr. Seuss’ name and legacy would probably be best left to rest in good standing, lest the world find out (like I have) that he indeed believed in putting Japanese-American U.S. citizens in camps. He used the same pen name, for goodness sake.

I did not start this blog to besmirch or criticize decisions made by people who are no longer alive and can not make amends or had the forethought to absolve themselves from guilt (if any). What I would like to criticize are Dr. Seuss Enterprises who know better than to withhold facts/history, but like the way a dead man’s whimsical literature makes them money. Publish everything I say, put the truth out no matter what and let the world decide with their minds and wallets what survives and what gracefully cancels itself from demand. I think that was what irked me the most about hearing this story—it smacked of prevarication (skirting around the truth, being vague about the truth, or even delaying giving someone an answer, especially to avoid telling them the whole truth). Not an announcement that needed a transitional footnote in history. However, a significant question has arisen and heightened thanks to social-media; is this curation or cancellation? Once answered, perhaps the followup question would be to ask; whom or what does culture privilege above the other, the people or an enterprise?

For all the happiness Seuss’ books have given children around the world, personally I think the man behind the pseudonym was shameless, or at the very least, irresponsible to have continued drawing images intended for children that originated from racist propaganda. This is all me speaking for me of course, but allow me to speak for everyone when I say, super-zooper-flooper-do!

The fate of my family line was decided during the Battle of Rabaul in 1942. Great-grandfather had raised a newborn baby alone in a cave on the coast during the Asia–Pacific War. My mother’s mother. A lot of needless death and destruction in wartime, but you will not see any form of racist expressionism overcoming my better judgment, bleeding into and tainting my work. I have a strong constitution and moral obligation not to accept money for propaganda. Children don’t really care about all this, but parents should because, fun-fact, there are heaps of other children’s authors to choose from!

To be clear, I care more for people than I ever will for the books that shape them. If a book must be discontinued then so be it, but readers should be the ones driving that decision, either to longevity in our libraries or off store shelves. No one is perfect of course, but for Seuss Enterprises to continue to profit off of a public image that is somewhat of a sham, it’s kind of sad not to openly discuss the author’s history with his general readership and what amends were made. With healthy discourse we can all shape our societies together, or is discontinuation feasibly better on the whole? Unfortunately that conversation does not seem to be in the public’s control.

But fret not, for time changes all and always for the better. Here are some racist gags to offset my rhetoric; totally unrelated:

In other news; New Zealand did not get the memo https://www.writersfestival.co.nz/programmes/event/nu-te-ao-e-hika-all-ages/1389900/ and Mr. Potato Head goes gender neutral…because potato.